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Transcript

Best of the Bus: Soccer Clubs Are Selling Kids? Walker Zimmerman & CJ Sapong Talk MLS, Ted Lasso, and Nashville SC · Bussin' With The Boys

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate you guys coming on.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This is my first time honestly talking with soccer players,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and you guys will have to teach me as we go.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I got to know a little bit about you guys,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: But like I've watched Ted Lasso and that's about.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: It, you know what I mean.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: It's a good start.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Did you guys watch Ted Lasso? How how? How much
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: does this?
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Now? Obviously all the writing evolved, but as far as
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: like the uh, the life around the locker room and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: everything like that, Like, how does that relate to you guys?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Is there similarities?
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: I think they pick up on like the really small
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: things that actually do happen and then blow them up
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: to like make it a real storyline. So it's like
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: even guys getting like rookie haircuts or like doing little
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: the types of pranks and the types of jokes they
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: make are pretty similar to what goes on.
• 0:47
  Speaker 5: But yeah, I think the the inside of like the
• 0:50
  Speaker 5: different cultures is really on point because you got different
• 0:55
  Speaker 5: walks of life in the locker room, and like the
• 0:58
  Speaker 5: cultural diffusion is in te Lasso, they really hit the
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: nail on the head.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, When like as far as the the way Ted
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Lasso as a coach seems not I was not disconnected,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: but I guess removed from the coaching side of things
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: to where it seems a lot more player ownership than
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: it would be in like a football opera room.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Like in football, you know you're sitting up there.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: It seems like when you're coaching soccer as a soccer team,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you're kind of like asking your guys, like what's the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: best route to go? Or the soccer guys kind of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: know a little bit more about what to do than
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: like what not saying football guys don't know what to do,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: but you're really leaning on your coaching and what plans
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: are going to make, what adjustments they're gonna make. Like
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: is that is that.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I would say, is that a topic?
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Let's go?
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: You know the thing about soccer like once you get
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: on the field, players have to navigate you know, the
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: game and the adversity and and for the most part,
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: our team I think does very well at managing that.
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: But I would say last so that's maybe exaggerated because
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: a lot of coaches want to have, you know, complete
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: control over what they're trying to do, and you gotta
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: be careful. If you veer too off, too far off
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: like the path that coaches trying to set, then you
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: know it might be tough for you to to stay
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: in the lineup and to perform, you know, to the
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: exact specifications of what the coach wants.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: You know, it's different for every coach too, Like some
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: coaches want to have like it's more of a dictatorship
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: and it's like they have their way, they have the
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: way that their ship wants to sail, and that's it
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: and there's no communication with players. Then you have other
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: coaches who may be like completely player driven to where
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: like they don't want as much responsibility, but the players
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: have a little bit more. So then there's there's a
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: fun balance you gotta find.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Are there guys like like what's his name, Jamie Tart?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Are there dudes like the Jamie Tart like?
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: And I know those are like like as an athlete,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: you know those that role in the show is a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: little exaggerated.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: But is that does that happen in soccer?
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Because I see I can see soccer being a little
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: similar to like basketball in the way that like one
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: player can kind of like be a stud and maybe
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: you guys can correct me if I'm wrong on that. Again,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I'm very new in.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: The soccer world. I don't even play feat.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, they definitely get that stereotype from but.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: They, yeah, they give the stereotype that he can like
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: we're gonna let him do whatever he wants, Like I
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: know when football, like, there's not a dude.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Who can just completely act like that.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Like maybe the only example that might be close that
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: we would have had in recent years is probably like
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: when ab was on The Raiders, right when he goes
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in and he's like got camera guys around him, he's
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: doing his own thing. He kind of doesn't give a shit,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Like I've heard stories about all that stuff. But is
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: there is there characters like that in the soccer world.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: I think so, I'm trying to think of MLS guys,
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: though I don't know if there's like that many. I
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: think the difference is like in MLS you don't have
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: like the superstars of the world, whereas like NFL is
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: like the best league in the world for the sport.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: So I don't think you can have guys in MLS
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: who can have like that big like Jamie Tart type
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: egos because because they haven't really made it to the
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: very top of their sport. So yes, you'll have like
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: the arrogant players, but it's not it's not gonna be
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: like Jamie turt Okay.
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean in Europe, I'm sure every team has
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: a guy like that. But in this country, this league
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: a league that's really been built by like domestic players anyway. Yeah,
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: grinders like guys that are willing to go. It's gonna
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: be hard for for somebody to come from outside the
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: league onto a team, have an ego and then and
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: still succeed, you know. Yeah, a lot of guys will
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: come and maybe the first couple, you know, kicks, they're like,
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: oh this is easy, like I'm about.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: To run shit over here.
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: But after a while, like just the culture of soccer,
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: guys start getting against you. And then once coaches see that,
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: you could be out of the mix pretty quick.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Damn Okay, I got you. Where's the where's the MLS
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: compared to like getting to is Europe the biggest league
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: this out?
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Now?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I am like, there's probably soccer fans, god damn people listening, like.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: God damn it.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: This is how you learn though.
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's so many leagues in Europe, Yeah, Italy, Spain, England.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Those are all leagues, their own leagues.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: And then they got divisions within the leagues. Yeah, you
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: got like the Bundesliga one, two, three.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: So where's where's the MLS. Where's the MLS?
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: Well if yeah, if you ask MLS, they'll say, like, uh, probably,
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: I don't know, man, it's the number one league here
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: and I know MLS the goal is to be like
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: a top they.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: Woant league, they would be a top five league. But
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: I think they said twenty twenty four was like their
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: whole campaign like maybe five ten years ago. Yeah, I
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: would say we're we're definitely probably a top ten league
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: at this point. You gotta think EPL. So it's Spain, Italy, Germany.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: I mean you can argue some maybe a South American
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: or Argentinian. But the problem is like some of these
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: leagues have such good top teams, like the top four
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: or five teams are like better than MLS teams would be,
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: but then their lower half are trash. But it's like,
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: you know, is that league really better if they have
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: four or five teams that are probably better than MLS teams,
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: but their lower half is not. It's hard to say,
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: but is that? I mean, the quality has improved.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: When did you come in the league twenty eleven?
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so, I mean like since twenty eleven I came
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: twenty thirteen, it's night and day different. Like the quality,
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: the types of players they're bringing in, it's it's gotten
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: a lot better.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: How do you think they get to where they they
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: they reach the spots to where they're a top five league.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: Keep paying, keep paying players?
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Is that pretty much what it is. It's just all
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: the money.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: It's got to be the commitment from from ownerships in
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: the league to keep increasing salary cap, keep increasing the
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: money that they're spending, because that's going to attract other
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: bigger players. And they're doing it. But you know, if
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: they want the rapid growth that they're talking about, then
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: dish out.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess to generate the revenue, you kind
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: of just need the popularity of the sport to grow.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like like America is doing a good
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: job of growing the sport of the popularity in the sport.
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, from again, from when we started till now, I mean,
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: social media has definitely helped a lot too. MLS importing
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: players from different countries, very popular players, the.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Quality on the field is elevating.
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: So it's getting to the point where now like a
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: typical fan who's used to watching you know, football, where
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: there's big hits, touchdowns, basketball slam dunks, like, there's crunching tackles,
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: there's like close shots like almost the goal scoring opportunities.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: So it's a lot more exciting.
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: That's what the league needs to continue to propel itself forward.
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: It's a good time for us to be in the league.
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: You know, we've been able to see it grow. And
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: I think me and Walker are similar and we're guys
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: that like to just grind it out in battle. So
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: it's it's Chevy's It's really cool. Yeah, So it's cool
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: to be a part of that. It's interesting to see
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: how far it goes. But I mean, shit, stuff like this,
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: you know, helping you understand a little bit more, getting
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: it out to more people. I think it'll it'll just
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: organically continue to grow.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Just to give perspective, like when I was growing up,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: or like my high school didn't even have like a
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: soccer team until I was like a senior in high school.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: And you guys know the whole stereotype two like football
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: players growing up Missouri. Okay, yeah, Missouri, and like you know,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: growing up the whole stereotype of like, oh, why would
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: you play soccer when you can play football type of thing,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And I don't feel like I got rid of that
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: myself until I was probably like in college and realize, like, damn,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: at the time, it seemed like closet soccer fans, right
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: because they would have the jersey. Some of my teammates
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: would just be all about it when the World Cup
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and stuff will come on. I beg, how are you
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: so into soccer? Like, bro, you're not into soccer? And
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: it just seemed like it was huge to some of
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: these guys. I'm like, where do they even grow up
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: or learn that soccer is like, you know, soccer is life.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: And now I feel like now, I fact where we're
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: at now, And like in twenty twenty one, especially with
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: like shows like ted Lasso coming out, and I feel
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: like just the notoriety you guys get a little more,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: how much more it's publicized. I feel like it's trending
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the right direction because again, coming from my ignorance self
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: growing up in Missouri is just like, oh damn, I
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: didn't even know this was like extremely popular like.
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: This, and then the I mean World Cup twenty twenty
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: six is going to be massive when it comes to
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: the US. I think that's gonna be like a huge
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: turning point where everything so far in MLS is kind
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: of building to twenty twenty six, like when the World
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: Cup comes to the United States, and then I think
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: you're going to see an explosion of like even more interest,
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: even more publicity. Even you look at like Nashville, you know,
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: becoming a franchise, becoming a club, getting the soccer specific
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: stadium will be thirty thousand, which is gonna be perfect.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: You know, it's gonna be Homeie, the biggest soccer specific
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: stadium in the country. And you know our fans, Yes,
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: it's great, it's awesome having you know, twenty twenty five
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: thousand fans at Nissan Stadium. But you know, then you
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: have fifty thousand empty seats, Like when you pack all
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: those people into one place, I think we're gonna have
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: a pretty cool environment. So you're seeing a lot more
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: of those kinds of environments where you know, they're getting
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: specific stadiums and they're selling them out, and so that's
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: what's just gonna keep growing after the World Cup, I think, how.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Do you guys feel about that?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Like Nashville, like the expansion team coming to Nashville, because
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you guys got did you guys get traded here? Did
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: you kind of move with the team?
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Well?
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: Traded?
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you you got traded.
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: I signed as a free agent, so I guess yeah.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: For me at the time, I just wanted a team.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: You know, I wanted a team that would fit my
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: playing style, but also I got a fan so wanted
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: them to be comfortable. And you know, kind of like
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: what Walker's talking about with it being a new franchise,
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: new organization, they're building the right way, you know, and
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: it's cool to be a part of something that's getting
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: built where the the team itself, we're a very cohesive group.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: I'm very excited about that.
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: There's definitely an opportunity for Nashville to become a bit
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: of a dynasty in MLS. It just takes a little time.
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: And you know, we're pushing for the playoffs right now.
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: We're in playoffs. We're trying to get some some silverware. Yeah,
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: that's the number one way you can really propel your
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: franchise to where you wanted to get to. But yeah,
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: I love Nashville. It's different. I was in Chicago before.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: It's not as big of a city, but especially from Chicago,
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: Chicago's a great city. Shout out to Chicago, but Nashville definitely.
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: I like it. Good for family and like I said,
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: when the experience for us as players, when the experience
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: on the field in the locker room is top notch,
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: it makes it a little easier to you know, get
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: up every day and do it.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, you feel the same way. Yeah, for sure,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: you like Nashville.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: It's been It's been a great fit. And I think
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: when you look at kind of your life in the
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: transitions that come along, like the timing of Nashville for
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: me and getting traded, it was like an absolute bomb
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: dropped on me and my wife. We were out in La.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, you caper.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: Secure like with where we were, thought we were gonna
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: be there for a long time. Random call one night
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: out of the blue and you're traded in Nashville and
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: we were just like what, Like we thought I was
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: gonna be there for a long time. So thankfully was Nashville.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: We got here, fell in love with the city, even
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: amidst COVID, like not being able to do a lot
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: of stuff, like when was it?
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: When did you get to So I got the call.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: On like basically mid February, So it's like pretty late
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: in terms of trades because it were like in the
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: middle of preseason at that point and we were preparing
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: in La for you know, the first match in ten
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: days I think it was, and then I got traded.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Call was on a Monday night, got the Nashville on
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: a Wednesday night. I was under contract on a house Saturday,
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: was with the team Saturday afternoon in Tampa for preseason,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: like the second half of preseason. It was insane, and
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: then we got back. We closed on our house the
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: day that everything shut down in Nashville. It's like March
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: sixteenth or something of that. Yeah, so it was a
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: crazy experience. But now especially you know, everything's opened up again.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: We're love our neighbors, Love our neighborhood. We're Green Hills.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: I mean it's sweet. I love how convenient it is too.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Right city, yeahwhere twenty minutes every.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: Single place, and whereas La it's like we couldn't even
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: drive to a stadium on a weekday game. So you
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: have to take the metro.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Were you pretty pissed off when you got traded?
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: I was, honestly, I was like I felt every emotion
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: within like a two day span. It was like anger, frustration, sadness, confusion,
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: Like I mean, me and my wife are just like
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: bawling leaving the apartment. I'm like, it was just I
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: didn't even know what was going on.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: It's hard.
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: It's hard for MLS players too, because when we get traded,
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: like we have to take control of so many of
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: the logistics, Like I've heard so like yeah, I've heard
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: from like NFL players, NBA players, like when they get traded,
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: like everything is sorted. You get to your maybe you
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: get to the hotel, everything's already set up.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: You're just worrying about playing.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: Whereas like we you got to figure out the moving,
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: Like yeah, a lot of the expenses get taken care of,
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: but you really have to like take control of that
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: and you explaining that. I'm like, I'm just imagining like
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: right before season starting to you know, not only like
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: are the colors of your jersey changing, but you got
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: to go get a whole nother house and.
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: Then mainly you're like leaving like Sally basically got to
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: take care of the whole move and stuff because I
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: go straight into preseason. So it's like now I'm in
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: Florida for two weeks. She's still she has to do
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: all this stuff and like she's had to do a
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: lot of that. Yeah, you know, it's just like I
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: can't imagine.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Was that kind of the first big thing, pivotal thing
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: that happened in your career.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I had gotten traded from Dallas to LA, but that
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: was more of like a mutual thing, kind of knew
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: it was coming off season, sweet time to kind of
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: prep it. Then. Yeah, I mean that was really the first.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: That's the first like big surprise that was just like
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: where you.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Just see the teeth of the business. Yeah yeah, like damn,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I'm just just a shoe on a shelf.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: Dude going the next day, and like the whole team
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: like obviously they're all surprised too, and you're just like
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: never really seeing them again. Rights, like hey, it was real,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: Like I'll see you guys next year. And then it's
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: like with COVID, we didn't end up playing LA, right,
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: so like I hadn't even seen that team in like
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: two years.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Bro, You'll like dad, people up and you'll be like,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: you know, you'll just kind of say the comfortable thing too,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: like as players like well, yeah, like we'll stay in
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: touch man, or you know, we'll get up in the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: off season. Yeah, And honestly, like you might not see
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: those dudes in La ever again.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: I was. I was in Dallas. I went to the
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: movies with Kyle Becker, who wouldn't see a movie on
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: like a Wednesday night. Thursday morning, he comes in, he
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: gets called in the coach's office. Everyone's already out training,
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: so I hadn't seen him yet come in that morning
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: and he left because he got traded that morning. And
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: I haven't seen him since. We went to the movies
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: and I show up at training and he's gone, like
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: he leaves. I haven't seen him since. It's crazy. I
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: was like six years ago, seven years ago. The business
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: is great. I mean, hell, at the end of the day,
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: they're playing fantasy just like us. Yeah, someone gets hurt
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: on our our fantasy rosters.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: You're you know you're dropping the route.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: I had to let Derrick Henry go.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Dude, And I already put my claim in for McNichols,
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: as I think it was the right moves, I think.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, I they got they got Adrian Peterson coming,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: but uh n McNichols will still mcnick Are you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: are you in a Are you in a PPR league
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: half PPR half PPR? Yeah, yeah, that's the reason four Lakes.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: But I mean, if you're in some kind of PPR league,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: like McNichols is never a bad play because he gets
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: all the third down stuff, like.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: They one a third down back.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I need the I need I think that you know
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: that could shift a little bit toward ap depend. I mean,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, the dude's thirty seven.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: He can't be the Workhords. I need to cancel Nicholas.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I put like thirty one Waiverbucks on this guy. Really, yeah,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: because I mean, thankfully my team's kind of stacked in
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: this league, so I don't I don't really need him,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: but I want him if he's gonna be the guy
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: he could though it could be somebody you get and
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: you see for a couple of weeks because he should.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Get a good He's thinking, I'm going to my light
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: up in my head.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, well do I play gasking over like
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: an ape or I don't know.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I mean AP, I just don't think he'll be ap
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: coming right out of the gate.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah you know what I mean, you know, you never know.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I hope he is. I'm like, I'm talking business with
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: my man right now.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: I want the boys to win. I need I need
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: Michael Thomas coming back. I've just had him sitting on
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: the bench for yeah, all season. He's gonna be out
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: in at least another week, but then maybe week ten.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I got Montgomery, bro, who I'm waiting on him to
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: return from Chicago. I've been waiting on him to come back, dude.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Just extra.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: It actually makes it so fun now, like thinking about
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: like if we were to play him fantasy, like the
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: fact that you get to like play with all your boys,
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: like you can draft your friends like that's or like.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Just bro, it's so funny. So because I had heard
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: I drop.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: Them and like send them a screenshot like all right, bro, bro,
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: hey you Like I remember when I was playing at Washington,
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: I'd go up to Jordan Reed because I'd have Jordan
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: Reied on my fantasy team as a tight end.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I go up to j Reid like in the middle
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of the game, like, hey man, I'm gonna need a
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: little bit more.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna need a little bit more.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Or when he's hurt, yeah, yeah, when he was hurt
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: of it, Hey, I gotta yeah, I gotta make some
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: decisions now. We need you, we want you on the team.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: But when I heard about Derek last night, like immediately
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: went to our group chat. I said, Hey, Derek's on
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the block, I said, I said, he's only got me
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: twenty two points these last couple of weeks, so you know,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I'll take I'm looking for a top ten running back
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and a top ten wide receiver. Gotta uh got a
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: request trade for Austin Eckler and Mike Williams, and he
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: wanted Derrick Henry and AJ Green and immediately hit it.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Except of the trade's going through.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: But right now it's getting vito because everybody's finding out
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: about Derek now, and uh, you know, they think it's
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: slimy in me, But I'm like, yo, shame on you
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: for thinking I'm a high integrity player in this business.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Like we gotta make moves, you know.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: You know, talking to Derek, like, yeah, man, let me
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: know if you need anything, get on the phone, Like, hey, man,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Derek's on the block.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Send him packing. Oh man, what else we got?
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Hey, Alice, can you make sure and let Peggy know
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that we won't do Mercedes Bonteraire biscuits. I'm like fired
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: up Bontaire biscuits.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Bro.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: It's a good day to be a biscuit man because
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: we're winning right now. I'm actually I'm four and four
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: right now. But our league is built around four and four.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: We got a lot of teams in the middle. We
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: got one team that's seven and one, the rest are
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: like four and four, and then you have a couple
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that are like two win teams are one win team.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: So I'm gonna go to five and three in two leagues.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna go to hopefully six and two and one.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: That's the That's the Nashville League that right now the
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: projections is within a point. That's the one where Boswell
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: is hurt and it's Mahomes Butker the other one. I'm
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: gonna go to six and two. If Mahomes and Butker
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: put up, You're said, nice, I'm in a really good spot.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: Henry will hurt in this nationale league. I have some depth,
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: but like that means Gaskin's the every day starter, and
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: I don't know if that's what I need, because Josh
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: Jacob's like he's he's always questionable, right, Like, yeah, Jones
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: are running backs, you know, like you're you're basically I
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: don't even if I want to play him as a
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: questionable tag. If Julio Jones is questionable, I'm not playing him.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, I love it, I love Julio, but how many.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: I love seeing the GM come out of him?
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: Did?
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: I mean?
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: How many hours a day would you say you're spending
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: on your Not a lot?
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Not a lot?
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, Sunday Sunday. I am like this, Yeah,
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: just fashion all the time, going from team to team.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: I'm not even looking at the TV, like the red
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: zone can be on and it's just this and it's
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: in the charger because it lasts like twenty minutes.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah it is.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: It's so funny how different you watch the game like
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: just man, Like yesterday, I was telling Taylor like I
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: was playing the dudeho I was playing against had Aj
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Brown and obviously I want to Tians win every game,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: But when he was going on that long run, I'm like,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: just fucking push that motherfucker out of bounds, dude, like
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: you want him to like, all right, now, give Derek
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the ball. The good thing about Derek gun Down is
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I also have Jonathan Taylor and he's been playing well recently,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you know, or the Titans fans listening, like again, it's
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: just business. It's just been like it is. It's just
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: like it's just the name of the game. Everybody else
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: knows it. Titans fans probably have Jonathan Taylor on their
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: team anyway.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: There's no loyalties to to actual teams when you're in
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: fantasy football, right the Biscuits, Yeah, what are your team's names?
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: So my Dallas League team name is Coy Daddy Boys.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: Daddy Boy was basically a rookie when I was there
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: and took him on my wing and just kind.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Of yeah, beating him this week, hold the pocket home
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: up pocket him this week.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: So taking care of that. Next league injected into my veins?
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, uh, I got oh?
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Is another name? Nashville League is milk Me.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: That's great. The milk meant Wow, Well.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Where do we go from here? We're all a little tight,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: like has our water back there?
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: That's crazy, bro.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been nuts, man, it's been nuts that we've
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: how many podcasts since mid twenty nineteen, since like June
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen. We do like one a week. Taylor
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and I when we first hit it, the bus was
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: sitting on this gravel parking lot. Everybody sard the story.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: That's like listening. He was like, all right, we gotta
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: hit the story again. And uh we backlogged like probably
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: five to eight episodes. We ran them, and we were
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: only gonna do the podcast for the summer, like we're
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: just gonna like because again we're like the first pods
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: where active players are sitting here and you're kind of
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: letting it fly like the way we do. Like we're
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: obviously super nervous and had anxiety about it, but we're like,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: all right, we'll do this in the summer and then
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: when it's football, like we'll just play football. We won't
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: do the pod because you know, you don't want like
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the distractions like all that stuff. Yeah, you guys don't
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: want to talking about And I remember getting on the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: phone with McAfee, Pat McAfee, who does the Pat McAfee show,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and what's up.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm just saying they he brought us. Do you
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: know who pet is?
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: No?
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: See, you're like, damn Will, Will's over here flex and
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Will's over her name drop. Uh well, you know he's
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: got But he was like, if you're gonna do it,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: be consistent, Like, if you're gonna do one a week,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: try to get as many as you can to be
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: consistent all your loan because the name of the game
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: is like being consistent about it. And since that conversation
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: with him, Taylor and I was like, yo, we need
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to start getting start getting pods in the live to
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: last throughout the season. And so that first year, I
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: remember one week we did like twelve pods in one week,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Like say, you guys would come on, then we'd have
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: somebody else coming after.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: We would do like three.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: We would do like three in a day, bro, And
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you know how it is like you can only say
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: so many joke, there's only so much humor in jokes
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: on your mind in the day. Toward by the third one,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: you're kind of just like, what are we laughing about?
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And uh so, yeah, we did that, and then once
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: we got into the off season, we were able to
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: do a lot in the off season. Then COVID then
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: COVID hit, so then we did started to do zoom.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's been wild. And then it's it's a
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: weird thing because Taylor towards ACL last year and I
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: was on the Titans as well, and two guys couldn't
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: be on the bus at the same time, Like you
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: couldn't have two players. You couldn't be seen outside the
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: facility with a teammate because they had all those COVID regulations,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you guys know what I mean, Like we couldn't give
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: a guy right home, like if you were a Tier
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: one in the building, you couldn't be with him after
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the facility. So Taylor was the only one that could
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: do the podcast. And honestly, like as far as speaking
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: from busting with the boys and so it was almost
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: like a blessing that he was able to do some
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: pods until I was able to start doing them again.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: But we just like kept it rolling.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: Dude, that's crazy.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: You guys thought about doing a pod.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I've thought about it before.
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: I just don't know that I have the ability to
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: stay consistent, you know. Yeah, especially with a fan you'll
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: be hearing kids screaming in the background. If I could
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: get like a spot that's off site, yeah, yeah, Like
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: I would definitely look forward to coming here and just
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: like shooting the shit.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: But it's a commitment, bro, it really is.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: That's something like you you definitely sleep on.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I slept on like coming into Like you think you're
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: just gonna do a show like talk on Mike's How
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: hard could it be? Like let's take our conversations in
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the locker room and just have them on the show.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: And then like when you're first starting, I remember Tailoring
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and I had to redo our first episode like so
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: much because we're like, yo, what are we doing? Like
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: what are we talking about? Like we're forcing our conversations.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: And then it's really hit or miss. I did a
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: couple in LA they have me do a couple of
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: different pods and it's like pretty hit or missed with
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: like guests too, yes, and if like if it's not
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: flowing pretty well, you're kind of stressing yourself and you're like, okay,
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: let me just go to the next question and like.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then it becomes at that point it's like yeah, exactly,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: it's no good.
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: And then you still have to put it out there
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: because you're like, right, be consistent with it.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and then you're putting out stuff to where it
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: does it seems like scripted are like, now we're actually
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: sitting in an interview and you kind of just feel weird,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: like we hit a block and I was like real
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: anxious about like, oh man, what was my next question?
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Instead of just being like where do we go from here?
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Exactly?
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: How about ted Lasso? It's perfect right here, This is great. Yeah,
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: it's probably.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: He's got pad light for all of us too, though.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: That's nice.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys can pour that a light best best
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: shrank man.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: It's the adult version of the other stole in the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: store that we don't talk about, not like that, but
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it's like, instead of saying the other, instead of saying
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the competitor, the idylight competitor, we just use Revitalight, which
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: is like the adult version of the kid stuff you've
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: seen in the grocery store. You know what I mean.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Do we have a revitalight ad? Well, there you go,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: revital Light, no free shoutouts. Oh yeah, way to put
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: us back on track.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I'll start. Yeah.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: Youth academies when it comes to soccer in this country,
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: I mean anywhere, honestly, that's how teams develop their talent,
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: and you know the game, that's where a lot of
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: the profit comes from you develop players from a young age.
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: They get to an age where they're becoming successful or
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: have a lot of potential, you sell them to another
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: team Rinse Jesus.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah that sounds kind of wild.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you get to where, oh they have potential,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: sell them.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Like.
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: Eleven twelve, you have twelve year olds getting paid by academies.
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: You know, they're doing their schooling on site. They are
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: getting paid everything four everything is getting paid for.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: On site.
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: You know, they're getting the best of the best in
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: terms of coaching, training, stuff like that. Uh, and are
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: in this country. The academy system is definitely developing to
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: another level. The MLS has already had quite a few
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: players get sold overseas, and I mean the return on
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: investment there is outrageous for them.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: So uh, I'll let walker you can follow up on
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: that one.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: But you get sold overseas, the profits are.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: Actually yeah, it's the business.
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: No, no, that's true. So it's like it's basically ten
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: years old, maybe ten twelve years old, the modern academy system,
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: because it was completely differenthen we were growing up playing
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: you soccer. Now you have MLS teams that have their
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: own academies right now, I'm you know, hoping with the
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: U seventeen academy team coach them on the side, So
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: I'm hopeful that you know, we sell them, maybe a
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: little bit that comes back, but I don't know exactly
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: how it works, but maybe put that plug in now
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: rights bro.
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, honestly though that that happens a lot though, Like
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: if a MLS team's academy develops the player and they
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: sell him, if that player gets sold again, they can
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: get kicked back from that next sale too, so.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: It's like an NFT.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I can come back to the coaches, which honestly,
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: they should put something in their contract, like for every
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: kid that get sold to Europe because.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: They're the ones that actually developed.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they're the one doing all the coaching. So something
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: to think about. Did you guys get sold? No, Like
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: I said that, the system was different for us.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: We're talking about selling kids, we're talking about developing, talking
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: about developing kids and.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is great. Yeah, so the system probably ten
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: twelve years old, so I was kind of borderlined my
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: age group of it was the first year kids were
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: starting to go to academy, Like at you seventeen, I
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: stayed on the team that I was with, like my
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: club team, and then ended up I was already committed
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: to college. I was like, I don't need to go
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: now to this new academy system, and because I was
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: already committed. But basically all the years after kind of
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: my age group nineteen ninety three's, you started seeing the
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: top talents go to these academy teams. And then now
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: it's like MLS academy teams. So you have Atlanta United,
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: for example, you have Atlanta United two, which a lot
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: of their academy kids can then go play for at
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: Lanta United two. Same thing, Sporting KC, Red Bulls, DC, Philly,
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: now Nashville, like all the teams basically have academy teams
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: starting at you thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, whatever it is.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And then at some point, if they're like developed really
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: well in those age groups, like they get to where
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: they're going, they could sell them early.
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: You can either sell them, but majority of the time
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: you're probably signing them to a homegrown contract. And so
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: that means the incentive this see we can get We're
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: gonna get real wacky because they know a lot about
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: MLS rules. If we go down this road.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: So I think I think it's interesting.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: So if you see, like, say, you guys are beasts, right,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: and I'm like head of the academy or this team,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know, these two are savages at
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: what's the youngest age?
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: Sixteen? Usually fifteen sixteen would be.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Fifteen sixteen would be the youngest to get into an.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: Academy, would be the youngest to get where you sign
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: a homegrown contract.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, but if you would do a homegrown if you
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: realize like, hey, these dudes are going to be monsters,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: like get them under contract now for cheap, and then
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: we got them locked and the perk of the home
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and then the kid doesn't kind of you know, the
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: kid and the family doesn't know because they're finally like, oh,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: we're going to finally start saying.
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: A little bit of So now you have the mechanisms
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: of how less words. So now it's like you look
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: at the salary cat. So the incentives for MLS teams
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: is if you sign a homegrown player, their contract doesn't
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: count against the salary cat. So it's the incentive to
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: then have a roster player that you aren't actually hitting
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: against the cat so to pay him but doesn't count.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so how would the team ben How would the
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: other team benefit from from getting Why wouldn't the homegrown
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: team just keep the kid?
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: They would like, if you sign a homegrown contract, then
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: you're staying with the academy team, like they get your
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: first rights. Okay, So if there's a Nashville kid, he's
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: a baller, they signed a homegrown deal, he has to
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: stay with Nashville. He couldn't even sign with another MLS
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: team because Nashville owns the rights of all academy kids. Okay,
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: so you can't like have a Nashville player be like,
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: oh I can go pro. I'm gonna go play for
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: LAFC and then just leave. It's like no, he is
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: owned by Nashville, so they have the first rights to
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: sign him and basically make money.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: What if like another league, like what a europe league want.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: To sign him, then they could leave, but Nashville would
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: have rights to get a percentage of the transfer feet and.
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: All that and MLS and then on top of that,
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: just take MLS a single entity. Right, So MLS owns
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: basically well, MLS pays all the contracts. So when there's
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: a transfer I'm not sure what the rule is now,
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: but just in the last CBA, MLS gets two thirds
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: of the transfer fee and the team gets one third.
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: In Europe, if you get transferred, the player gets ten
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: percent of the transfer fee.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Here, Na, you get nothing.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: So do you wish there was some like the rules
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: applied that are over in Europe over here in the US.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, are there some rules you guys look
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: at it like damn that you know in that league?
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: There's quite a few.
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: Honestly, It's just all we want to see is for
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: a kid that is going to essentially forego their whole
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: upbringing to put the effort into soccer. Perhaps they're trying to,
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: you know, feed the fam. I think every dollar counts,
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: and if a kid is able to play their way
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: to a position of having potential to succeed outside of
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: MLS and gets transferred, they should get.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: A little bit of that. Oh yeah.
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: And then when you're looking at the fact that MLS
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: is getting two thirds of the fee and then the
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: teams are only getting one third, that starts messing with
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: the fee they're willing to accept. So imagine paying a
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: kid sixty thousand and a team wants to pay two
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: million for him, but now everybody's like, well, my two
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: thirds is only this much. Ah, we want three million,
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: you know. So that's where it can get real, real messy.
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: But ultimately, at the end of the day, these players
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: are in this country, are getting an opportunity to maximize
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: their potential overseas, which helps our country develop soccer.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: And as we're seeing with the men's national team, we're.
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: Starting to have more and more younger talent develop their
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: way into that squad and by twenty twenty six we're
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: looking pretty good. And you know, we'll see when that
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: time comes around, it'll be easier to kind of measure
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: where we've gone, you know, from the start of these
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: homegrown wheelings and dealings.
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that's great, covered it all?
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Is It kind of like like, would you say, kids
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: grow up playing soccer in America, they're wanting to play
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: in the MLS or are you trying to go over
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: to Europe.
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: When I was growing up, it was wanting to go
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: to Europe. But I think now MLS is definitely a
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: good destination. I think the the stigma is like you
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: can't be the best unless you go to Europe. But
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure that that's true anymore.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: Honestly, Yeah, narratives probably shifting a little bit. Like I
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: think if you're a kid and you're always dreaming, like
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: I want to play in the World Cup or I
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: want to play in Champions League, if that's still like
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: the dream and it's true, like then yeah, you're gonna
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: want to go to Europe. But like, at the same time,
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: you know, the quality of NMLS has gotten so much
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: better that it's gonna be pretty hard for most kids,
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: even if they're gonna become professionals, to just go straight over,
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: Like they have to be really really talented players to
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: succeed right away in Europe. So I could see a
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: lot of especially when you'll get homegrowns, like guys getting
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: a chance to join a great league in MLS, get
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: a lot of minutes under their belt in a professional
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: environment and then make the jump, because I think it
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: is a pretty big jump if you're going from just
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: you know, fifteen sixteen year old going overseas. It could
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: be a little bit just because the competition is and
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: then the other factors like okay, now you're just moving
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: away from home, like you're still young kid, like you
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: don't know how that's gonna affect different kids. Yeah, in
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: certain ways. So there are obviously success stories of kids
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: who do it, but it's pretty rare.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, are there many? Are there many like Americans that
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: are over in Europe right now?
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot of young guys. So within our
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: national team we probably probably have of the last couple
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: of qualifiers, say we have twenty five people on the roster,
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: probably twelve thirteen are guys who are playing in top
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: good leagues overseas. It's probably pretty split in terms of
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: the roster. Gotta be a little bit more European than MLS.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Now when it's worlds, like when you do the big
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: the international, the world tournament or whatever, do you got
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: to play for the country in which you like grew
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: up in a kind of like the Olympics.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: Well you can have. It's just what I mean, you
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: can have different passports, don't player asking questions?
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, it's because again you have some guys will
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: have a grandmother that is from a certain country, like
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: what you'll see a lot for like a Spain, Italy,
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: England teams that are always high in terms of global rankings,
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: it might be harder to get on that roster.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: But hey, my grandmother is Jamaican.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Ohso let's try and manipulate here kind of.
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: So then even though I grew up in England, my
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: grandmothers told make in and I want to play on
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: the world stage. So I'm just gonna get Jamaican passport
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: and I'll play for Jamaica. You see like that, that
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: kind of stuff happens a lot. I mean, even with
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: the US, you have guys that grow up on base
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: in Germany and spent maybe a year in this country
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: in their whole life, but they're most likely not gonna,
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: you know, make the German national team.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: So then it's like, oh, well, I'll play for the US.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of the white dudes in America
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: like German. Anyway, it's like, hey, I'm German for the
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: German team. I can say that because yeah, I got
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: some German you know what.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: I mean too, you're blonde.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, might have German. Zimmerman's a German name. I don't
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: know how far back. All I know is I do
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: not qualify for a past So that's that's also a
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: little frustrating. You know, sometimes you if you don't have passports,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: it's harder for you to go over and play in Europe,
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: so based on their work visas and things like that,
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: So it's easier if you have So I'm like, man,
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: maybe we should go have our next kid over in
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: Europe and then give him the opportunity if he wants
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: it to be able to have more flexibility in the Yeah,
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: that career.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: But yeah, how does how does college fit into everything?
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: You say you went to college? Did you go to
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: college too? You went that route?
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah? So how does James Madison jamu?
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, let's go went to a Halloween party
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: there once. So do you guys get down though?
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: You had a great time?
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Jamu. It's a it's a fun little party school.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: Great school.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: But yeah, how does college fit in all this? And
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: let's just say, how did college fit into it when
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: you guys were coming up? And how does college kind
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: of fitting into it now?
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: So when again, when I was coming up, academies weren't
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: that big of a thing, whereas today you're most like,
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: like the sixteen seventeen year olds that are in an academy,
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: they have chances to go to college, but there's usually
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: somebody above telling them that you want to do that.
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: Just stay here, You're gonna get everything you need. You
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: can develop. Whereas for me, I think that was the
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: best thing that I could have done. Let's go to
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: college because kind of what Walker was saying, for these
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: young kids to like go up through these systems and
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: then all of a sudden be on their own having
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: to manage themselves as a professional. Like the daily things,
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: not having your mom, you know, cook and clean for you.
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: Those are things that I learned in college and like sometimes,
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: you know, I've really had to rough it, like learning budgeting,
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: like forty dollars a week, like am I gonna get somewhere?
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Or am I gonna get a beer?
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: Like?
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: Those are the experiences in college that I really really enjoyed,
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: and I think, looking back, I'm very thankful to have
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: had that experience. I think the kids that are coming
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: up these days, college isn't always the number one, you know,
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: for them, If they can sign a homegrown deal at
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: sixteen seventeen, they would rather do that.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: Got you, got you?
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's what some of the problem is
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: is like some kids, yeah, they're probably talented enough to
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: become professionals, but the problem is like the top one
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: percent should probably go academy and try and maybe FuGO
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: College if they like really have the potential to make it,
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: because it's gonna be better training, it's going to be
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: better for their development as a pro athlete or a
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: future pro athlete, because the you know, with the academy system,
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: like that's the goal is to develop guys who are
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: going to probably not even go to college, but guys
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: who go straight from the academy in the first team.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: The problem is when you start signing a bunch of
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: homegrown guys and some of them aren't necessarily that good.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Now they're risking their college education to go pro for
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: a minimum contract on seventy thousand bucks. Yeah, and they're
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: gonna get cut after two years and now they're like,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: oh gosh, I gotta find a college. But now that
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: you can't play college because you're already been in a
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: pro like. So, I think it really depends on if
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: you're the absolute like cream of the cross. Yeah, I
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: think you got to develop academy pro. But for the
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: guys that you know, maybe they'll make it one day,
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: it's like it's a big risk if you're trying to
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: sign a small deal to become a pro and you
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: forego college. So college soccer, I think the quality overall
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: is probably dropping a little bit because you're losing some
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: of the.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Very top talent to the academy.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: Stuff to the academies, but it is still relevant in
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: the sense of, like, you know, even Nashville, for example,
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: we got some great draft picks that are really big contributors.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: So two years ago we drafted Alisair Johnston. He's become
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: a mainstay on the Canadian national team, been a starter
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: for US for two years. Jack Mayer from Indiana played
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: you know, two years of college and didn't play a
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: lot last year, but now he's played like twenty games
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: this year. So it's like you can still find talent
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: in college that can contribute to you, you know, whether
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: they graduated early or leave college early. But it's just
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: I'm scared for the guys that are chasing this dream
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: of being a pro athlete and they choose to you know,
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: they're a little by disillusion with their capabilities and they
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: become kind of washed up, lost in the system a
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: little bit.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: You feel like the disillusion comes from, like you were saying,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: that people telling them they're better than they might be
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: their parents or maybe coaches or trainers that maybe aren't
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: necessarily with the team, but they're trying to make their
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: money as well, saying hey, you need to come.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, or like imagine being sixteen and you're like,
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, I can make like a real salary
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: I can get I can get money for my family
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: or like you know, myself.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: It seems like sixteen or seventy thousands kind of.
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: Like that's like the minimum all right in the league.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: So it's like they're pretty much unless again, unless they're like,
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: you know, really really top.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: You're thinking, yeah, I can make seventy thousand as a
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: sixteen seventeen You're going to like.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: And live that pro life not have to do school.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: You're gonna that's like super tempting.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: The problem is.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: It's not thinking ahead.
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, not thinking ahead, and there's not enough resources available
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: to them that project their whether even if we're just
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: looking at career right, yeah, are they being spoken to
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: about Okay, let's just say you play for fifteen years,
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: like you should be saving this much every year. You know,
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: these kids are right on stock X, ice box and
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: fts now you know, like which, hey whatever, like at
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: some level there has to be a little bit of
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: a risk, and you know you're in a position where
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: you can take that kind of risk. But ultimately, like
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: he's saying, sixteen years old, you sign a homegrown deal.
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: You basically some guys they'll just train, right, they don't
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: play in games. They're just training every day every day,
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: two seasons, three seasons, never playing a game, and then boom,
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: you're cut. You haven't gone to college, you have no degree.
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: You haven't even thought about what you would do besides
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: soccer because you always thought that soccer was the only
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: thing that was.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: You're not like going to like a routine day throughout
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: a routine day of like class or balancing this to
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: go back to literally just training, thinking you're gonna do something,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: and then.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: You're then you're done, and you're like, that wouldn't what
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: was I thinking? What am I gonna do now? You know?
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: And and again a lot of the teams they're not
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: sitting there like yeah, you know, you're not with us anymore,
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: but here's some resources for you, like hope everything, nah, peace,
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: thanks for your time.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: You ain't lying.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: You're not lying, bro, you.
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: Know, like that's wild whose fault? Is that you know,
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: I don't even know.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like how do you even how do you
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: even try? And like is that like a is that
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: a big thing that happens, Like there's a lot of
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: kids dud.
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: There's plenty of cases of guys who probably should have
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: gone to college and then either played a couple of
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: years and then they probably got cut from the MLS
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: team and they're like, well, I don't know what else
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: to do. I'm gonna drop down to the us L,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: which is like the league below MLS. Now they're probably
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: making closer like I don't know, twenty.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: Five, twenty five, thirty, like something that's on my side.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, having to juggle two different things to
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: get by.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: But you're kind of like in the minors of baseball at.
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: That, yeah, exactly. Then they just become and then there's
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: always like the glimmer of hope that they hold on
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: to of like making it back up. And it's just
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: so rare to have guys who drop from m less
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: you sell and then get back up, very rare.
• 46:21
  Speaker 7: So shit, Yeah, onege to go pro.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah you can. You can go pro at any time
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: from college, so you could be a freshman and be
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: like be a freshman, play a freshman season, and you're out.
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: So did you go?
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: I went? I went?
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: All well, I left after three and a half years,
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: but I played fourth seasons right college. I had an
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: opportunity to maybe go pro after my junior year, but
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: I was still like, well, hey, I still want to
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: get this degree. You know I put in all this
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: time and effort. Yeah I still ended up not getting it.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: But you didn't get your degree.
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: No, but you got three and a half.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Years, but I three and a half years. I have two.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Uh well, it always comes down and somebody's like, I
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: got two or three classes left, I'm gonna do them online.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: That's crazy.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: I fulfill my promise to my grandma back in.
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: The day, basically right like like if you get it
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: from like s n H, U would get it.
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: Because my major switched to a different major in my
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: last year, so Keynesiology switched to sports management. If I
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: was to go to another school, I would have had
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: to like redo like two years worth of credit, which
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: is just awful. But I mean we'll see, you know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: maybe I'll go back and get that piece of paper
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: that's definitely gonna get me a job.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: You know, that's definitely gonna get me a job. It's
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: gonna feel good.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: How long you've been playing.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Since on twenty eleven, so you're over You're like over
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: a decade.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, this is my eleventh season.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: What is like the average lifespan of a of a
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: soccer player? I got a foot. It's like two point
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: eight years playing in the NFL.
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: Damn, that's pretty bad. Yeah, I'd say around like ten
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: eleven years. It depends on the position you're playing to.
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: Goalkeepers can play for fifteen yeah, no, forwards, midfielders, defenders
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: to hold you that.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Three point two to three point five.
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: That's like, I mean, that's not like their playing career,
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: but that's like stinging or like staying MLS.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Right, Wow, congrats bro, thank you man, triple career lining that.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: I feel good.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Damn.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: How about you? Did you how long did you go
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: to college?
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Did you go out?
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: I left that to my sophomore year.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: Oh big dog?
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: Hey come on, you guys are both drafted in the first.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Round, right yeah, big dogs. So I mean it's a
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: little different than like NFL first round pick.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: Is that how many rounds? How many rounds are there
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: in MLS?
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: Basically two, and the third and fourth or like supplemental
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: draft pick, and like a lot of those picks probably
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: don't make the ross.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Wait wait wait, so there's only two rounds in the
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: MLS draft. Yeah, and then they're they're how many picks
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: per round?
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: How many?
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Eight?
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: Seven?
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Well? Fuck, you guys are big dogs?
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: What do you mean true? I mean, if you look
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: at it that way, relatively, it is.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like the NBA.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Dude, Yeah, yeah.
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: They had so.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: So the process of like the college stuff, there's like
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: a thing called Generation of Didas, right, Kobe. Uh, So
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: there was a thing called Generation Adidas. It's still going on,
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: and that's like an incentive for another MLS mechanism that
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: they use to help teams draft these players. But uh,
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: every year in college they usually pick like seven eight
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: guys that they identify as like freshmen to juniors who
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: can qualify for like a Generation Adidas basically salary or
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: pick whatever. And so the perk of that is if
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: you draft a player that's Generation Adidas, that MLS will
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: basically again it doesn't counter against the salary cap, so
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: it's incentive for the teams to draft those players.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: The generation you.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Just sound like you're just trying to have a reason
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: why you're dressing them.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: So when you're not is because you know they don't
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: have to.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're on your nine. Yeah, same, you're nine.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's my ninth year. We have this running joke
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: because I'm currently a free agent. I don't know if
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: I'll play the rest of the year, but I always
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: just hashtag like year nine, like I'm in your nine.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: The US national team? How do you make it?
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: Loker can tell you about. Well, you gotta be a
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: beast like Walker first of all, So.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: When does it happen?
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: When?
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: When does when does like worlds and all that stuff
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: happen to where the US national team, you know, I
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: guess shows themselves.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Is it like every four years?
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: World Cup?
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: What am I saying?
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Do you know what the World Cup is? I know
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: what the World Cup is. My brother is obsessed with FIFA. Bro,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: that dude loves soccer. Yeah, but he loves soccer, like
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: he gets some little jerseys and stuff like that, and
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: like he's all about it. But yeah, okay, world Cup
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: my fault. When does the World Cup happen every like
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: every four years?
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: So we got it coming up in twenty twenty two.
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: Right now we're in qualifying. So the big thing was
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: last cycle for the twenty eighteen World Cup, we didn't
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: qualify and that process this year looks like there's eight
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: teams and you play home and away against every team.
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: Top three will automatically qualify. The fourth wie wuld playoff
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: against another like regimeon.
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: That's the thing, the tricky part about it. So the
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: region conker calf is North America, which is Canada, the US,
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: Central America, which is any different countries, Yeah, Anima, so
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: Costa Rica.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: It is hard to understand, yeah, for sure.
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: So we have eight teams right now from that the
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: final round of qualifying. We've played six games so far
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: within that, so we have two more next week really
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: we play Mexico and Jamaica, so that'll be eight games in.
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: But right now we're in second in the table for
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: the qualifying process. But yeah, you have fourteen games because
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: you have seven home, seven away. We played six already.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: And you guys are sitting in second place. So right
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: now you're right now you're looking to qualify.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, looking to qualify. So two big games in a
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: week and a half and then we have basically three
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: at the end of January, early February, and then three
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: in March, and then it's done. If you're in the
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: top three, you're in.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: You feel good about it?
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel good about it. It's a real young team.
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: We have a lot of inexperienced in terms of like
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: World Cup qualifiers or even like you know, World Cup,
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: since they missed the last cycle.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Were you part of that? So I was on the
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: fame last cycle.
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: I'd gotten called into some camps, was on the bench
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: for some qualifiers but didn't play any. And then you've
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: got to play some of these the cycle. But some
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: of them are all some of them played in three
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: out of the six.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: All right, captain had the captain band.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Oh you're oh you got the captain band. You break it,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: you break down the huddle and everything like that, like speech, leave,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: sign the belief, sign up.
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: Whatever it takes will be lost one zero. So I
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: guess I don't know.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: It wasn't good enough.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: Dream of being like captain, yeah kind of like yeah, no,
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: it's for sure. Obviously, being a part of the national
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: team in general has been a dream come true. Being
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: the captain another dream come true. I think I told
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: this story like a little while ago on something some interview,
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: and I like vividly remember a time I was training
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: probably before it's probably I was in college in the
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: off season, just training to go back to college or
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: either before my first year in MLS, and I was
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: like working out with the y m C, a local
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: YMS back home Snubble, Georgia, Lawrenceville, Georgia, and I was
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: on like the bike. I was doing like little triathlon
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: type training for myself just to stay like really fit.
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: So I was on the last thing. I was on
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: the bike, and I was like basically just doing some
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: positive self talk, you know, like like grind. I'm like,
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: I don't even want to just be a part of
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: the national team or the U twenty national team. I
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: want to be on the full national team. I was like,
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: I don't want to be on the full national I
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: want to be the captain of the full national team.
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: And remember like that moment of saying, like that is
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: that's the standard that I want to set for myself.
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: It's like not just being there or being a part
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: of it, but like being a key player, being a captain.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: And so like when I was the captain of that game,
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: it was. It really was like full circle. I went
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: right back to that place and was like, man, all
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: of the hard work, all of that suffering, Like that's
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: how you get to accomplish these kinds of dreams. And
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: so again we lost the game, which was a bummer,
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: but I got to keep the band and gonna have.
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: That that's visualization right there. Yeah, all the youth speaking.
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: Man, So gonna have that band up in the room
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: in the house. Uh yeah, the man cave one day,
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: and that'll be a good beginning. No, I did.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: I love that, bro, because it is it always feels
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: corny to talk about because it's really just like you
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: and yourself and you're just coming up with all this ship.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: But no, that's that's dope. That's cool that it kind
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: of came full circle. Yeah, it's definitely. You know, it's
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: not corny. You feel that way. You're sitting in front
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: of a couple of dudes.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: You're like, oh, this is like vulnerability. I know, vulnerability.
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: I like it, like vitalized by the way.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, how do you balance MLS play with international play?
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: That's yeah, it's it's difficult. I would say, normally, if
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: it's not World Cup qualifying if it's just a friendly,
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: it's I don't really think twice about it, Like you
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: just come back from the camp. You're with all of
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: one team, but you're excited to be back with your
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: club team and vice versa. These qualifiers, though, have been
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: different for me, like mentally, like the first window, we
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: had three games, two on the road, when was it
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: at home, and I remember I didn't even play a minute.
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: I came back to the team and I was exhausted
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: in Nashville, like mentally, I think you're so the importance
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: of the games and like the responsibility that you feel
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: of having to get results, like it does weigh on
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: you a little bit and you don't realize it until
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: like you finally get back and you're out of it,
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: and then it's like you finally breathe and you're like whoa.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm exhausted. Like mentally, that was a lot,
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: and so I felt that. And then the second time around,
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: obviously played, so then you're like physically tired. I know,
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: at least in our case Nashville, we got five days
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: off during the international break, But like if you were
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: on an international break, like with the national team, you
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: didn't get any of the days off, so like everyone
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: was at the beach like in New York, like in Miami, and it's.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Just like we enjoyed those five days.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that'shtos man.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: You're looking on Instagram. All your boys are just like
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: all over the country, like just freaking lounging. Marguerite's in
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: hand poolside, and and you're like just on a bus
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: to training, you know, like a day. So that's that's
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: where like you don't get that mental kind of tune
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: up that after long unless season, like you need a
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: couple of breaks here and there to just like really
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: like it was probably great for everyone to get ready
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: for like the last final push before playoffs. Yeah, whereas
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: if you're involved with the national team, don't get that.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: But never traded for the world, Yeah, you wouldn't want
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: to be anywhere else.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: What do you guys cling to talking about?
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: When you were talking about the lesson that he was
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: given with the vulnerability and stuff like that, what do
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: you guys cling to mentally, Because obviously athletes were training
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: all the time physically, but what do you guys cling
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: to mentally to help kind of keep you from whether
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: you're in a tough mental spot or like overcoming something
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: or just anything in general being a professional soccer player.
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: Mister Namasta, Oh yeah, bro sure me.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: Meditation, meditation and yoga.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: Yoga obviously also for the mind, but just physical keeping
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: the body elastic. Obviously playing for eleven years, like I
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: got to do everything can to, you know, keep giving
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: me an edge over these these younger cats coming in. Yeah,
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: but the biggest thing is the meditation, and I think
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: that comes in many different forms. It comes, you know,
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: when you're training and you need that extra push, you know,
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: to get the most out of your workout. The ability
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: to do that on a consistent basis is not easy.
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: It's something that has to be practiced, and I think
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: you see with professional athletes, they're usually guys that mentally
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: are strong. But I think if we can move to
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: vulnerability in that space, then you know, you're one going
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: to make sure that you're in the right mindset because
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: we all know it doesn't last forever. You know. I've
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: definitely heard of guys after soccer or any sport definitely
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: struggle with you know, whether it's not you know, having
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: value to the world or you know, not having something
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: to take their mind off of, you know, the dark,
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: the deep dark shit that we all have in our
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: heads because we're human. So for me at meditation, just
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: kind of increasing my own self awareness, taking moments to
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: just breathe, you know, and be in silence has definitely
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: helped me a lot.
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: That's good man. I think, you know, for me, a
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: lot of it comes I think from a big faith background.
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: So I think when I think about that and impact
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: has had on my life and my career, it's like
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: wanting to be the best version of yourself and utilize
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: those gifts that you've been blessed with, like on and
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: off the field. And so I think that kind of
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: framework is a big part of like, you know, doing
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: every rep in the gym, doing every rep outside on
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: the field, like not cutting corners, because one, like you
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: want to be responsible with what you've been given, but
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: then two you want to be like, you know, encouraging
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: for your teammates to get the best out of them
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: as well. And so I think we have a really
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: good group in that regard of like guys are trying
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: not to cut corners. For the most part. You always
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: have a you know, a couple of cases here and there.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: You gotta get on a little bit, but it's it's good.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: It's a really good group. And I think that's kind
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: of what has been a key to our success is
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: you got guys who take it seriously, like on an
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: individual level to do their work. But then you also
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: have the guys CJ included, who will like hold guys
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: accountable to you know, even you know, for example, the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: other game, like we started out in Cincinnati, were playing
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: the team it's one of the bottom teams in the league,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: and we go down, you know, to zero, and guys
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: are kind of yelling each other in the pitch and
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: CJ's like, what, I just positive vibes, you know, each
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: other like a team here. I've done like two goals
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: or however many goals you had later and we went
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: six to three. And it's just like you need guys
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: who can understand situations and find the right balance of
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: like you know, feeling good pulls of the team, when's
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: the right time to push, when's the right time to
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: bring them together. And so I think, you know, we
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: we do a really good job of that.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's really good, especially like when you're talking
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: about awareness everything else, because guys identify with what they
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: do so much, and especially like you know, if guys
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: retire or they get cut when they're not ready to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: be cut, they're so you know, wrapped up, and oh
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: what do you know? What do I do?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: Now?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: I've been this my whole life. I'm letting my family down,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: I'm letting people down around me, and they kind of
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: like lose their own.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: Self defined by stats man.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: That's what led me to meditation, honestly, because I've always
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: been a good teammate. Right that was placed on me,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: and like I always tried to fulfill that, but I
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: was giving aspects of myself to everybody else. And then
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: again like ultimately, if I didn't perform, I wasn't on
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: the stat sheet being a forward, like you want to score.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: So like the more games you're not on that score sheet,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: you're like, oh my gosh, Like I'm the lowest person
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: on this earth. It's crazy that how powerful the human
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: mind is, right, because I found myself in that position.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 5: I mean, my first three years in the league, I
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: had an Open Cup, which is a domestic tournament that
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: all American professional teams are able to participate in in
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: an MLS Cup, So you know that in the first
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: three years. Some guys play whole careers and don't get
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: that right. And yet I found myself the next season
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: like getting down on myself because I didn't score, you know,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: enough goals. And it was from that dark place for
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: me that I was. I literally just went in Google
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: and it was like how to deal with like depression.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: And it's interesting because meditation always shows up. I was
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: scrolling past it. Bro I'm like, meditation, what I means
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: to close my eyes and sit quietly for what you know,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: I want the quick fix, the instant gratification, which I
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: think that's our problem as people. You know, we don't
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: want the slow and steady route. But all I know
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: is I saw Hella Buddhas and people making little stances.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: The Noma stated is literally my elebration now, you know.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: And it's an opportunity for me to bring awareness into
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: the sport and also gratitude. You know, every time I
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: get a goal and I'm a stay to the fans,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: and you know, it's definitely uh, it allows me to
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: tap into a different different field for sure.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 7: Fuck with that, like the fact that soccer doesn't get
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 7: as much recognition here. You guys don't get as much
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 7: recognition here respect maybe as soccer players as you would
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 7: in other countries.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: I don't I like being able to just go get
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: some ice cream in my sweatpants, no shape up, you know,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: and not worry about it because other guys come from
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: other places, and then they're telling us like, wait, you
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: guys go out, like after you lose a game, Like yeah,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: why Like nah, like we can't do that, you know
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: in other countries. I remember Kaka, he's a famous soccer player.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: I don't know if you know. He's Brazilian soccer player,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: played in World Cups, won a World Cup. He was
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: talking about in Italy after he lost a game, he
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: went out with his fan to go get some dinner,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: and like he just happened to look outside and there's
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: fans outside literally burning his jersey and like yelling at him.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: Just out to dinner, you know. So I don't want
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: to know. I'm fine. I'm fine with it and the sport.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: I think eventually we'll get there, but by then I'll
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: probably be just chilling watching everybody else.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Shoot, you'll probably be be a mental leader for a
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: lot of guys. You never know, hopefully, you know, is
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: that something you want.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: To do with for sure. I'm already building towards that
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 5: doing my life coach. I'm getting my life coaching certification.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: I'm building a digital marketing representation company that focuses on
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 5: aligning endorsements with guys life goals. You know, I think
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: a lot of times, you know, hey, if you're getting paid, well,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: you'll smile for pretty much anything. But I just want
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: to get in there with the players, and like, again,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: let's project outward. What are your interests? Do you have
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: any financial interest? Do you want to start a business? Okay, boom,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: get all that understood. And then now when we're looking
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: for deals, uh, we're coming from that vantage point, right,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: We're gonna get you deals that are tied to you know,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: your life goals.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, there you go shout out shout out social sports. Sorry,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: go ahead.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we just say, like, since you're you guys are
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: one of the boys. Like, if it's a boy, you
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: shout them out, they get free shouts. But if it's
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: a brand, you just say no free shouts. You're not
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: trying to shout out the brand. But it's coming from him,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: so he can you can promote whatever you want to promote.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: Dude, what is it against social sports.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: Is there a website? Is there something that people can check.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: Out teamsocial sports dot com?
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: You got anything, I'm gonna go check it out. I
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: didn't look at that working.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go check it out.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: I haven't seen the website yet.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys coming on.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Now, you got it. One of you guys gotta be
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: somewhere too, right.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So I'm getting my my coaching license through US
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: Soccer because.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: You're trying to sell some kids.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: I don't know I would be associated with. But you know,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: if we can work out some kickback, get in the
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: contract the new way for coaching. So I have a
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: mandatory coaching call at two o'clock and uh, it's just
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: one of these things you gotta do. Yeah, allow me
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: to coach college and then hopefully work up and get
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: my a license. But I think college coaching is kind
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: of what I want to I'm doing so nice man.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate you guys coming on. I'm a fan.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: I need to get to a game. You guys are
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: about to be in the playoffs.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look at me out of time.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: That's all right, though. We show up for the playoffs.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: One home game left one regular season game, left one
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: home game, and then we should have a home playoff
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: game as well. So you got like for sure, for
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: sure one well strong chance strong that you got a
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: home playoff game to come to as well.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's where focus. We gotta get on board. Will
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: bringing the boys at the game, That's what I'm saying.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: We're bringing the boys.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: Sure. So our last regular season game is the seventh
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: next Sunday, and then we're thinking it will be the
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: twenty third of November, will be the the home playoff game.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: If we bring your families Thanksgiving week, dude.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: Dude, I'm hosting. It's also kind of why I have
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: to get back. I'm doing a friends giving right now
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: or a Name's giving. Got my neighbor's over there, and
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: I was like, I'm hosting Thanksgiving for the first time
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: for my family in Nashville. So my grandmother passed away
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: this summer. We always went to Birmingham, my whole mom's
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: side of the family. So this year new traditions German
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: household in Nashville. So I got a turkey right now
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: on the tragger that's being smoked.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Wo wow.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because I'm today is the names giving. It's the
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: trial for me.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: I was like, I was gonna say, what kind of ship.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: For a week. So I'm trying to think I haven't.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: Been at eighty degrees right now. We got a few weeks.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: I got a sweet tead of cast role that's in
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: the fridge squash cast role as well. Peanut butter pie
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: I made this morning, So like I got my things.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: Peanut butter pie. Yeah, hey, I need to check that out.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: I haven't never heard of that.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: I love peanut butter he's looking for an invite. I
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: might have to check that out.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: Man. Yeah, so I got I got a lot of
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: work in the kitchen this afternoon as well.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: But all right, I gotta love that.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: I gotta follow. And then also you post a picture
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: of that peanut butter pie, ye drop around your story
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: or something, so you know we can do that.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: We can exchange a little bit, you know what I mean.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: Get the recipe.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: I don't think the recipe is so easy.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: By the way, I don't give it. Don't give it away.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: Come on, now, it's a secret. This is a secret recipe.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: My family.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: So all right, well, I appreciate you guys.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 7: Man.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: This is a lot of fun sure this is a
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: lot of fun photo in front of the bus