Jennings, MD, Rubio: Goals Worth the Wait! CHS 3, Root 3, points shared

Welcome to Cannon Crew, a weekly podcast discussing the Charleston Battery. Your host, Granite, will be joined by other defenders of the fleet from the.

Black and yellow supporters section, and together.

Welcome to the Canon Crew podcast. I am Granite and I'm joined by Patrick. What say you, Patrick?

What's going on, everyone? Not much, just long, long day and boy, what a game to miss.

You missed it. Well, it's all right. Are you going to throw up any gang signals or something that show fireworks or bubbles or.

I think I'm just good to go.

There you go. Okay, very good, very good. Just do what you need to do. Ryan. What's up, Marvel, man?

Hey, doing good.

How are you guys doing?

Doing all right. Busy week. Did my first match of refereeing. First two matches refereeing last night. Let me tell you what the. See Charleston Reckley U10 girls beasts, beast. Every time there's almost like slide tackles. Every once in a while, one look at me and go like, ref, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'd look at. I. I don't either. What do you have, what do you have to do?

Get like 500 games in at U10 and then you get up to U11.

A thousand. And then. And then you guys start missing calls. I mean like blatantly missing them. According to the parents in sideline. I'm just kidding. Parents are wonderful. They generally are. Anyways, so it's a lot of fun. It is actually a lot of fun. So if anybody wants to donate some time or. Well, as much as they pay you, maybe as a young person, it's a little bit of money. But is a person my age and stature of all five, four, whatever I am five, six, seven. It's a. It's a lot of fun. It's a way to give back to your kids.

You think they just want you get.

To see the grassroots.

They want you on the same eye level as the girls just to make sure you're seeing the game correctly.

That's exact. I have to really exert my authority because all of a sudden these girls look at me. I9 like, who are you? Where's your orange vest, dude? Just kidding. Well, anyways, I shouldn't have said that. That was after what I just said before we went on camera. So anyways, Ryan, you've been kicking the ball around a little bit.

Yeah, we. My club team just had our first big game of the season against Tormenta FC in their 09 Academy team team. We won three to two we got a few things to work on. But it was. It was really good to see the boys actually in the opening five minutes. You know, we did one training session with this. You know, I just gave him a pad pattern to do in the opening five minutes. I see the boys do the pass pattern drill and we end up scoring from it. So it was. That was a really good feel good moment as a coach.

Nice. Nice and fresh in your mind. Maybe. I don't know.

You know. So you don't have the same thing either. Like they just not really do.

It's just like, oh, it's nice. It's not. That's good that they recognize like I'm in a situation and we just practice this and this is what I should do.

Exactly.

Patrick, how was your wedding? Not yours, but whoever you visited up in the great city of. Where'd you go, star?

The Queen City.

The Queen City. S. Yeah, it was good.

One of my good friends Jeff. Shout out. Jeff and Haley got married and what's up? It was awesome. Fun little trip up and lot of travel for weekend getaway with a three month old baby. But if you don't do it now, when are you going to do it? You know, start doing it, figure it out.

Exactly. How'd it go? How was the ride? I remember those days. Sometimes they can be testy. Some days they just big.

The great thing about our baby is the ride up. Iffy did pretty well. We had some hiccups the ride back. She is awesome. Once she's out on a weekend and she's out and about, she knocks herself out. So the ride back she slept and we didn't stop. We held our pee breaks. We gassed up before we left and we made it home on a straight shot. So it was awesome. On the way home.

Very good. Yeah. Sometimes it seemed like when our kids, even now today and myself more so whatever is as soon as you get them out of that rhythm of the week and then you're on the weekend, you kind of mess up, you know, their sleep and wake schedule and stuff like that. At least that's what we think. They should have a schedule. It always seems to be a little hectic sometimes.

But yeah, it's like that circadian rhythm, but I guess it turns into cicada rhythm where they just sleep all the time.

What's up with Ryan? He disappears.

The wife was. I had to make sure, you know, the baby was getting a bit okay. The wife brings me a drink. Everything's all good.

Let's show it on the Camera. I mean, people gotta see.

Yeah, I don't believe you. You're sitting there doing nothing. Okay, so let's talk about one. One big thing, because this world is shit these days. I don't think it's shit, but it's. We, we all think it is one thing. Celebrated Saturday night was Hispanic Heritage Night at the Battery. Fantastic warm up top. I think it was the local artist that designed that and won some kind of contest. Yeah, it's fantastic. And I just want to say I appreciate everybody, no matter what color, race, creed comes out. I don't say any creed because some of them are a little outlandish. But come out there and we all gathered around and enjoyed this beautiful game that transcends politics, should. Should at least and everything. I appreciate that. And I appreciate everybody shows up.

Yeah, I mean, it looked like it was blast, right? You had fireworks. You had. You had a lot of seeing like high highlight videos of like, people drumming, having a great time. Even on the warmups, everyone was hanging out. I don't, I don't usually see that when I'm in the stadium. Them like laughing, bouncing around during warmups. But, like, it looked like they were. Everyone was kind of feeling it from the stands to the pitch.

Yeah, there was a lot of energy. I. The. They had a season ticket holder event. So I encourage you, if you think you might want to be a season ticket holder, contact Tanner from the Battery. He'll set you right up. It doesn't mean you have to be in the really expensive seats. I'm a season ticket holder down in the sporter section because that's where all the fun cool kids hang out. And they're relatively inexpensive and you get to push them forward and all sorts of fun stuff. Patrick has now got the young child and wife with him. They tow him around and so he selected a little more cozier accommodation and he has a seat he gets to sit in. So there's all sorts of things for all sorts of people. Oh, let's talk about the fun stuff.

Hold on, hold on.

Talk about the three.

Three. You move on.

Oh, backing up. You.

You forget to mention the best part of this yellow lot. Parking pass. Get one.

Yes.

But how can you get one?

Well, when you get season tickets, season.

Ticket, there's only one way you can get. There's only one way you can get the yellow lot. You can't just get it.

You just can't get it. Well, well, unless you really, really. And they kick all.

But you have to make a phone call to the battery. And specify that you want to pay for yellow park parking lot because if you go and purchase your season tickets online, they will only show blue lot that can be purchased.

Well, I will say this. I am being. I am catching all sorts of pressure from a young Bobby Bees to be back in the blue lot.

The blue lot's fun.

It's fun. Well, as a.

When I was there before, it rained like five or six times, like knee deep in water. So we said let's go up to the paved lot and then it hasn't rained since.

Perspective of young family, newborn and a wife and figuring all that out. Yellow lot's a great spot to pop in and out if you need to. Hell, when we started going with I think Palmer was 2, 3 weeks old, maybe even a week old. It's just nice being. Having that extra pressure taken off of. We can pop out of the stadium and it's not a long walk. It's like two minutes back to the car. Easy in and out. It's awesome. It's usually where if people don't know, it's where the cop sits. And you can go left, left into the blue or drive another 100 yards and you're into the yellow. So it's right behind the stadium.

After you get. After you get interrogated by the 15 people with their parking.

I think it's just people are. They're overly friendly. They just want to say hi.

Yeah, that's it. Really?

Yeah, yeah. No, they are right there. Yeah. Well, they all want to stop talk to you. Their little guns don't work most times, so I don't think they scan anybody. They do it like three times. And although I'm just joking, for anybody's listening of any importance, they ensure security is top notch.

And a fun fact, you can share your yellow pass. So say this weekend I was out of town. Brad asked if anyone had a spare parking pass. I did. And sounds like you got a couple more people to come enjoy the fun.

Sure did a Navy veteran. So shout out for Patrick supporting those people that used to wear a uniform, but we can't anymore. Not because of our rotundness, but because of our age. But waste yellow lot. Yellow lot is not as loud and rambunctious as the blue lot. So people, it seems like the kids that are that younger that like to kick the ball around act crazy. The blue lot's place to go, that's where the regiment is. That's where Ibarra is. And they had a DJ out there this weekend and it's a Lot of fun, a lot of noise, a lot of energy.

I feel like Ryan ruin ruined it by having a kid because he used to bring the grill. We used to have a little cookout.

Yeah.

Hang out.

Well, I haven't done it since I had insides. Yeah.

I see this guy coming in as we're walking into the stadium. Most times he's. He's trying to make it.

I'm just trying to make it.

So relative to when usually Ryan makes it there. He made it here early. We were fussing each other on what's that, dude, just get your ass here. But we made it happen. We. I think we had two very good pre match and halftime talks. And then I tried to go somewhere else and I looked at. Ryan was gone because he had to get the beat feet back home.

Well, I asked Nikki where you went, and she goes, I have no clue. He just vanished. I think he went to go cry.

I did want to do that, but I was on the move. Other places you got to be moving.

You got to.

Yeah.

And the wives cannot be asked. But tracking us down, it's just impossible.

You're not getting tracked by your. By your significant other. It's going to be impossible to walk you.

She's got it. Well, she's given up on tracking me. Well, she'll know eventually. I'll come back to the beer line. Kind of like that puppy that, you know. You know, eventually I'm gonna go, oh, I'm thirsty.

When. When I have the baby in arms, it's like the blind. The horse blinders are on. She can only see what's in front of her. Enjoy her time. And I can just walk around and. And figure it out for a minute. And kudos to her. She's the best she takes. She does it all. All day long. So why not.

This your chance? Is that it? Are we done talking about our wives and our families?

Never. Yeah, tell me about this game. Well, I want to hear it from not just the islands.

You're. You're up there, Morgan. So first I want to have a general discussion. Patrick, you remember a player the team had called? His name was Abamiang, and he was in somebody's favor and then he wasn't, and there's repercussions. So when you see players that are pretty good, also they're not getting the playing time, but they're still giving results. What's going on? I don't want to name anybody. What's going on?

Give me a little insight as a coach. So sometimes you just got to Put your foot down. If you're a good coach, you put your foot down because there's a hierarchy. And yes, good players can contribute, but good players don't. Just cuz you're good doesn't mean you get to slack off. You got to this point not solely on talent. You get to these levels because you do put in work. It may be a level of work, but the work has to be there. And you're also running a club, so people see that. And you can create a cancer in the locker room if you have people slacking because they think they're the best. And everyone else can look at that and be like, well, he's not trying and he's our leader and he's our best player. Why should we? So you kind of need it. I mean, if it's someone on the battery that you're spotting to, it's imperative these players work their ass off. Because I don't think anyone should be settled with USL Championship as their end game. Everyone should always try and hit the next level, Go to an another spot like the Nick Marcanix of the world, Go overseas, try and get into a second division in Spain that go into first division, you know, work for it. You, you want to be hungry, you want to play, you want to be the best that you can ever be. You're not going to do that by slacking your ass off and not really putting in the effort. And coaches see that, and coaches, people see that.

What if it's not slacking and you're still producing results? At what point do you go, hey, I still gotta get three points.

And that's all on the coach, right? The coach is the main guy who takes that responsibility. Because if he's bold enough to do that and you come away with a loss, then you're having fans at your throat. But you may have ownership that is rocking your back and saying, hey, no, I support you. This guy's not doing what you say. I hired you as a coach for a reason. If this player's not doing it, we will ship him. Maybe now's not the time, but yeah, I think that's ownership backing a coach and a coach having a firm belief that gets the rest of his players to buy into him. You don't start just having little cracks in your system and letting it slide.

Ryan, you've been silent.

I've been trying to think about this the whole time. Because I'm looking at it as like if you look at, from a youth perspective, right? Why? Why would I do that? To one of my players or why would, you know, another coach from a team be doing that to one of his players? Where I know, you know, that typical player may be one of his best from seasons before. And, you know, that's. That's a very hard thing to kind of wrap around because there's so many different factors. You know, you have off the field issues on the field, connection with the teammates, locker room drama, if there is any. So. But for a cop for, for anyone to go through that, though, and the coach to still feel like he has to play you and put you out of position, I feel like it starts to become. It becomes relevant to the fans and we start to notice.

So August 9th, we play loose City. We lose, we get shellac for one.

Land Face Land is the ground.

We recover back against Pittsburgh, we do all right. Then we go against Loudon and we do it with schlacking, right? This time we're on the good end of the stick. Then all of a sudden we go to Rhode island, we lose Indy. We struggled. We struggled and we drew to 11th place team from the West Coast. And the. All those matches I'm talking about, there is one particular player that seemed to his playing time was either gone or has been deeply diminished. And I understand what you're saying, Patrick. Is it different? Is your analysis different no matter what level you are? If you're English Premier League, do you put Saul on the bench? Because he's got a little attitude to an extent, you. And is it different?

You can.

Well, first off, I had an attitude.

But you can, you have a human emulate element in life, right? So things happen in people's lives. And I'm, I'm not sure where you're going with this, but people can grieve or understand or know what people are going through because there's all walks of life, all things that happen. And that doesn't mean that, hey, we're not going to get back to a good place on this playing field. But maybe you just need a break. Excuse me? Maybe you need some time. Maybe we need to take a different approach. But I can. And this is where you have good, really good coaches that deal with players where they can look at situations and say, hey, I know you want to play. I can't play you because I don't think your head's there yet. I need you to take time. And maybe that is the case. But it's the reason you have really good coaches. And like I said, I think ownership would stand behind a really good coach. Because they trust their coach first and that's what they go off of that. That would be my 2 cents on it. I'm not sure which player you're talking about. I assume it's your favorite player on earth.

It's not. It's not Nate Descent. Oh, my favorite player on earth? No, it's not Jacques. He's still going at it.

He's gonna have a retirement plan and he's still playing.

He might be able to. He might be over here with us for too long. Yeah. It's just interesting because I think about the decision coaches have to make and this is a, you know, when you have to make a decision based off somebody's attitude or something in the locker room that isn't meshing and the player is an outstanding player and you go, you know what? You're not starting, you're sitting on the bench. It's easy to do it, you know, youth level because you just not really anything to lose from it other than a loss. But when you start talking professional levels, then all of a sudden you're a different story.

Let me add this. And especially we have playoffs locked up. So it's not like as a coach, you're making a dire decision. If we were. If we're on the cusp and fighting to make playoffs, I think your conversation may be different because this is a level where it's make or break and maybe you don't have a job and maybe you don't get another job, maybe you go down to college ranks, maybe you go down to coaching, who knows, somewhere. But I mean, at this level, if any other team that's fighting for a playoff spot, I could see them utilizing any great player, regardless of anything that's happening. Because this is results driven. You need to make the playoffs, you need to have that push. And I think everyone as a fan can kind of understand that.

Ryan, have you ever faced that in your collegiate career where somebody might have something that is counter to what the coach is trying to get across in the culture of the club and they spend some time watching from the sidelines.

Usually when that happens, the player is going to be shipped out soon. You know, the college is. The college is different than, than. Than professional and aspects of the options that players have nowadays, you know, across the different levels, because you're looking at, you have five different levels you could choose from between one division, 1, 2, 3, NAIA and JUCO. Right. So it's hard to say it on that one because professionally you do have different ranks as well. But it's Much, much, much more difficult to do to move and stuff like that, right. With the agents and all that stuff. Personally, I don't know myself, but it. You, you kept bringing up attitude and everything and then I. Then Pat just mentioned, right, Playoffs are already secured. So why again, why wouldn't you want your players, right? Why wouldn't you rotate your players around? And even if your players tend to get out of position, you're rotating players out of their normal positions to give them rest, regardless who you're filling them in for the time being for that game. Right?

Well, the reason why I say attitude, because if it is performance, I understand that. Because you can say, hey, if you're not putting into work, then you're probably not performing well either. So performance is easier on the bench. I don't need. So the only other thing I could, you know the scenario I was thinking of, what if it's not performance? What if that player is performing at a very high level? Does that make your decision a little tougher? I think it does. That's where I bring up a bombing. Because what the incident I would talk about there, think about there is when he was late to the Shitspur match at home and Arteta just said, hey, he sat on the bench the whole time and it was a huge, huge decision. I remember at the time everybody was going nuts about it. We ended up winning. But it was, it takes cojones as a young coach to make those decisions.

And that's a little different, different situation because he is the captain of a team. But you also like a new, a newer head coach coming in. You want to hold your standards and hey, that used to slide here doesn't slide anymore. Like, I don't care if you're the captain or your third string, you're going to be held to the same standard. And I, I respect that and I think you respect that. And we can see kind of what the process has led from that team going forward to kind of a joke, to fighting for trophies again and having a real belief that things are attainable and not just aiming for a top four finish.

Yeah, it's. It's hard to. Decisions you have to make at the top. And I think one of you two mentioned said if you have the backing of the ownership that makes your job that much. I don't say easier. It gives you a little more freedom.

It literally gives you that relief to breathe for a second. But then you still have to get to work because the moment, that result that needs to come across doesn't you're gone. And that's. That's the soccer world right now.

That.

That is literally the soccer world right now.

Okay, I just want to have a discussion because we haven't had that before. And just from the coaching side and maybe from the ownership side, because I don't. You know, this level of attendance isn't necessarily based off how well we're playing. I don't think. I think it's more just. There's something to go watch on Saturday night. Sometimes for us, it's different. We're there no matter what. But it. I think when teams dip in, I.

Think it's definitely going to continue to change and continue to. You get six games left, right?

Yep.

So six games before playoffs. We're already in. Is home field already secured? Home fields are secured, right? Or no.

I don't know. We. If we'd won Saturday night, we're supposed to, but then there's a whole. I mean, it's mathematics.

I mean, like, we're four games ahead of third place right now.

How. How important is home. Home field advantage?

First game's pretty important. That's. That's all we really need because, I mean, as we saw last year, literally all the top seeds lost and we were hosting again, another Eastern final.

Yeah.

So.

Okay.

I think. Let me. I just want to add 2 cents. I think home field is more. More important for the fans of Charleston to show up and make the atmosphere, because I think it's kind of becoming that you see these games on TV and it's kind of becoming a joke that it's family. And then we see these fields and yes, Louisville's a one off, but you see everywhere else and they're packing it out and it's fans watching. They're not just walking around hanging out. And it's just like kids kind of running back and forth. Like, I think this home field would be a huge make or break to look at the fans and the fans on the side that the camera shows that it's typically just families and people going because it's a Saturday. Will they show up? Will they be buying gear? Will they wear the gear? Will they cheer for an actual playoff game because they know what the situation is instead of just another random Saturday night to go take my kids to do something. The culture has to change here. It has to change for the better, and it has to move forward in order this to keep a soccer town, a soccer town in a powerhouse soccer team that currently is in the USL Championship. If you want to move through the ranks of the tier system that's coming. You need to have the culture behind it. You can't just do it solely based off of a coach and 11 guys on the field.

100%. Absolutely agree with every word of that. And now you have seen. I've seen a growth since I've moved down here and for the Battery itself as a team. And that solely comes from the last two years of just hosting a first round playoff game. You see that the. I mean hosting the final was a huge drum up. A lot of. A lot of people didn't follow the Battery through that playoff season because the season prior we were in dead last. Not a lot of the fans knew about the turnaround points. Then they started getting involved. They see us in the final. Then last year is when we have a huge following. We make the playoffs again. The playoffs made a huge gathering again last year and this year. You keep seeing each year how the stadium is changing. That is a huge indicator in what the Battery is able to see. And that all comes from playoffs because the playoffs just ended. We need to now change our stadium to hold for next year's playoffs because that's where the assumption immediately goes to. And the Battery are doing so and continuously growing. But can they. Can they keep intact their system and their players like everything together if that makes sense. Like their mission, their idea, everything together still and, and have that goal for. For Charleston because if they, if they do, this city has to get behind it. Because if this city doesn't get behind it, we miss out on that promotion. If it comes to the new Division 1 league, possibly looking at the Battery and saying you're potentially being promoted based off of your previous years of service in your league. Other hand were not because of the potential fans who was going to be coming to the games. Right.

I think. I think that's a whole, whole conversation we should probably have in the post future of what comes with these kind of response. It is a responsibility, but a responsibility is going up. What comes with it, the sponsorships, the ownership shares that people are going to want to buy into a team that's doing that. I mean we're seeing. We'll get into it at a different point. I know we will. So many people but we see so much with like a lot of light is on the USL Championship and we see a lot of famous people entering ownership. The Battery are not going to shy away from that in the future. And I think it's something we should deep dive in the next couple weeks because it's a serious conversation. But we had to talk about this game at some point, right?

Yeah, just. I'm just gonna say we said the word twice and that's culture. It's culture in the locker room. There's club culture, there's fan culture, and all those gotta, gotta match up. And I feel like not patting ourselves on the back, but hopefully we're adding to that fan culture and we'll get more than like two subscribers next time. I'm just kidding. We have worth the net. But anyways, it's that fan culture and you see it out.

Shout out Germany.

And Putin in Russia. There's so many in Russia. Well, anyways, so, yeah, let's talk about the match. And I want to start off. I don't know if you saw this. Patrick Ryan and I were there, just kind of gobsmacked. I would just want to go through. I just want to talk about moments, not necessarily chronologically, but the PK that was called on Emilio, who was playing, I, I thought he was playing out the position. I was talking to somebody earlier this week and said, ah, he has the same profile as the person he was playing for. I. He knows more than I do, I guess. But the penalty down there, it looked like Emilio just kind of panicked a little bit and kind of turns toward the box and then Greg Luganis come flying in and did this fantastic dive and snookered the referee. Did you get to see a chance to see that? Patrick did.

And I didn't have the luxury of just. I mean, I guess I could have rewounded a few times, but first glance, I mean, you look at it live and it was like, why the hell is he going to ground like that?

That's.

That's more of a defender move, right? You turn, you're off foot and you just make a dive because you struggle with understanding. Like, I, I'm taught I can't let anyone behind me. He's a midfielder, he's an attacking midfielder. I know he works his tail off, but that's a mistake. He shouldn't be lunging in on something.

I agree. And he should. Well, first off, when he received the ball, how he ended up with the ball, he shouldn't ever turn towards the goal. I mean, that's kind of basic stuff there.

It's that attacking players mindset of like, I can get out of whatever, I.

Gotta keep the defender, boot the out of it. End up hitting the beer truck behind the back thing. Right? If that was Graham Smith, that thing would have been gone. But he was like, oh, I got It. I'm gonna keep it in play. And then all of a sudden, things turned south on him. Like I said. I went back and rewound and watched and watched. I'm not even convinced even touched him. But he. The guy drug his left foot, he toes the ball like he's in third grade. And the ball's not out, but it is so far in front of him, probably five, six, seven, eight, nine feet from. There's no way he's gonna recover it. No way. And so even if there was a foul, the foul happened after the ball was launched, almost out of bound. And I mean, I guess a foul is a foul, but I don't think. I don't think it was a foul, but ended up Emilio getting on the wrong side of it. You tell he was upset not at the referee, but himself. Yeah, but I think it was a really, really, really soft call by the referee, which. Hey, if you're a referee, I'm going to stand here. If you're a referee and you're wrestling with players in the. After a goal is scored, trying to get a ball, Wrestle a ball away from a player and you end up trying to wrestle away from two players from opposing teams. Have some dignity. Step back. That's way below you. You might as well wear a hat. You know how I feel about referees wear hats. Because it just showed me the guy just doesn't know what he's doing. He's. He shouldn't even be at that level if he's back in there trying to wrestle the ball away from a player. That's. You don't. You don't need to touch it. The only time he touches is right before kickoff and hands it to a player to put down the spot. And that's it every other time. There's no reason for that, for any official to be touching the ball. But anyways, I'll stop my rant about that really, really soft call because it come at a really, really bad time for us. Right before half, I think we were in a stoppage time, but you got it, Ron. What's your thought?

You gotta agree, he put himself in danger on that. Right. Like he did. He made the mistake of making the. He gave the ref the decision.

Yeah, exactly. And I often say that. I said, don't make it easy, you know, don't do something. I have to make a call. And I. And I can see where that referee went. I have to make a call on this. But he's got to be tougher. I'm not a professional referee. He is. He's got to be better than me. It was soft, like his hands wrestling the ball. Anyways, Ryan, what's your thoughts?

Here's my take on it. And it's different than what you both said, the different perspectives. What a cause it did in that whole sequence. It's over with, right? It's done. My reaction is on our goalie and how he responds to his player giving up the pen and then how he's getting himself ready for the pen. And I just don't see. Again, I don't see any type of urgency, fire, passion. Like, I just don't see it. I just see lackluster right now, and I want to challenge him, and I want him to be our starter. We continue to put him in the starting role for what? He must be great in training. But again and again, you guys keep telling me, why do I never choose us to have a clean sheet? This is exactly why. I don't care if it was just a fricking pen. He can save a pen. We not see Christian Gardner save a pen, win us 2 to 0, save the pen right before halftime. We immediately went down the field and scored right before halftime on our home field. It's. It's doable.

We haven't seen Luis score save a pen, have we?

I'm not sure if Luis has saved a pen.

I don't remember.

I don't remember one.

I think Christian has. Christian has either one or two pen saves already on the season, and he has maybe a four, a fifth, a six, a fifth. A fifth is being generous of the playing time that Zoo has. And I just want to. I just want to see if there's change, because if we go into playoffs, I tell you what, we go to playoffs, how we are right now, I'll never call us getting a clean sheet in the playoffs. And I'm honestly worried about us in the playoffs because it only takes an opening sequence against any team that we had against Louisville. We're done. Our heads as a team will be immediately down because of our backline and our goalies. The heads are immediately down. There is no confidence coming from back there. You look at Leland and he is trying to get something fired up, and he looks like he's lost for words because he doesn't feel supported back there. There's no keeper back there supporting him and enraging that back arm.

How do we change this? Because, I mean, we've spoke about this, that the moment a free kick's given up, the moment a goal goes in, you have 11 pouty boys out there, heads hung low. Woe is me. We're never going to get it back. This game's all, it's all lost. It's over. Coach was talking about this. He didn't do his job. No one steps up and take accountability on this damn team. And this is like, this isn't a team where I look forward to like, yes. Oh my God. I can't wait. We got this guy in a multi year. We have so many guys on multi year contracts. I wish people are on one year contracts because at least they'd have to fight their ass off and motivate and do something to motivate their teammates and keep everyone in high praises. Let's go. It's fine. It's one. Like you said, Ryan, it's one mistake. You, you tried to challenge the ball. You missed. I got the pen. Don't worry about it. I'm going to save this. We don't see any of that across the board. This is the worst time to have that. We're, we're there. Playoffs are less than a month away.

Yeah. This is our, this is our story, right? 65% possession total shots. 23 them 11 shots on target, 10 them four. And it's important. Four shots on target. Three of them went in. Big chance is five. They had three. I mean it just. These numbers are lopsided in our direction until you get down to saves and then back. I think their keeper had six. We had one. And we talked about this last, we.

Talked about the last couple matches. Is it how other keepers continue to outperform our keepers in every single game? Is it the fact that we may be shooting the ball right at the other team's keeper or the other team's keeper just has a game of their life because it feels like they always have the game of their life saving everything.

Well, it worked this time. They shouted at them and it went in.

Yeah.

And then they immediately go down our field. One shot, one goal. It's like, what are we doing?

Yeah, they had, they had four shots on target and well, I guess I don't know if the pk.

I mean it is dude. One save, Four shots on target. One save. I'll tell you, I get one is a pin. I get it.

But mate, from what I watched of highlights, I just don't understand why we don't just do quick crosses. Because it looked like they were lost and couldn't mark anyone.

Well, I wanted to talk about the shitty part of our match. I want to talk about first because then we're going to talk heavily and I know this is going to go longer than we normally do heavily about the great stuff that happened. Because usually we're talking about now, you know, we're not scoring goals sometimes. This time we're scrolling. But back to Luis. He's got to do better. He's got to do better. He's got to do better. I don't, I don't know what it is. If not, then coach got to make a big decision to put Christian. At least Christian had the better chance of saving that PK and we would have won it. 3, 2. The other thing I was going to say is that my boy Nate, he was having, he had a good match, but he had a rough match. He got an assist, but he also was kind of on the losing end of two of their goals. But all I got to say is I'm trying to find my, my match. Notes the person leading all the. The stats for, for Oakland roots with a guy named Wilson. And Wilson ends up getting a brace. So it seemed like we should just double teamed him. I don't know, tripped him, broke his leg. I don't know. Just stay on him, man. Mark him. You know, he's the guy that's going to be dangerous.

Well, how do you guys talk about Luis and goal? Like so we not just consider every defender on the hot seat. Because yet, I mean, I saw the highlights and Sanchez is running forward. He's having a great offensive game. Defensively, probably our weakest damn link. But then you also have like, I just look at their goals. I'm like, how do we not have. We have big defenders. Make yourself big in the box and just do something like you want to have a new contract? Do you want to get noticed? Do you want to do stuff with your life? Like just perform in these generic scenarios that are every day, everything you see in practice, attack the ball. Like there's no player that steps up to attack the ball. They just go. And I mean Oakland roots is a great example because you watch it, theirs is way more obvious because we have guys with five yards of space. But you watch our team and we have guys defending, nobody just running because we're playing a linear thing. Yeah, maybe we should man mark a little more. Maybe coaching wise we should switch our defensive approach to a little more man and a little less zonal because the zonal seems to beat us every time.

So. So Nate, the first one, he was, he was way behind Wilson and he, he messed that one up. I mean, the second Goal. Not the pk. That was the first goal but the. The third goal. That ball, the cross through. It wouldn't even cross it. First off, the player gets the ball beats our guy. It goes through the six yard box, right? It goes through six yard box. Nobody comes out to get it. Nope. It just. Everybody just watched it fly through there. So.

But anyways, your urgency on that.

Yeah, there was no urgency on anybody.

Only person the freaking bull is coming across to the final third as a keeper. I did not. Shut up. Don't shut up. You don't. Yeah, because you're constantly talking to your players on the left or closest to the ball where who is stepping to the ball who has a guy running in behind them and then you're immediately talking to the guys on your far side, making sure they're either tucked in enough and they're aware of the guy on the other side of the touchline who's going to be ready for the switch. You're constantly talking and I don't hear anything. It's silent. That's why I want south end back so we can actually. So I can actually understand. Is Luis actually talking on the field or is he just absolutely silent? Like I think.

I don't think he is.

I mean, I don't think he is, but it, it's exactly what it shows.

We would hear it on our end.

We would hear.

And you don't hear it.

Even the first goal. Guys like we've seen this goal a hundred times this year. So have we not learned, hey, you know what? One of the sen defenders maybe drop back five more yards because we were playing Nate so damn far up. It's unfair to make him run his ass off. All we saw it with Segbers before his injury. Do it all the time. And then we're like, we have talking points of Segburs and it's like, no, he's working his ass off this game. He has no cover for his position while being asked to go play someone else's position. I think this is like the root of.

Yeah, Joey was the center back on. On the left there, right. Maybe he should have covered a little more because he was kind of drifting the middle almost ball watching. But.

Well, it's like Joey's stuck playing that three in the back, center, back role. That's where I feel like the last two weeks he has like solidified himself at. But we're playing a back four down a three and you can't be that centralized as a quarterback because then you mess up your back Right.

Yeah. You can't.

You can't. That's why both those goal play. Yeah.

A three center back role. If 70% of the time he's sitting in the center of the damn field. Like, it's hard to be like, oh, this exact moment I need to sprint out 10 yards because I need to help someone while my other center defender is barely marking the guy here in the middle of the box.

Yep.

So let's transition to the good stuff, the fun stuff, because we were scoring goals, usually we get, I think we're expected, like two goals per match or something like that at home. And we cranked out three, and all three of them were fantastic goals. Oh, by the way, another thing there. The keeper from the other team, what a Pratt. He was on the ground more time the whole match just whining about some injuries or whatever. So we'll talk about how much fun it was to watch Rubio put one past him. But the first goal, Jennings, who gave him the assist on that one.

MD 2.

62.

Huh?

62, Maryland. This guy just always.

MD that's right.

Nate did. Right. So we're talking about Nate pushing up. Right. So he's all the way up on. On the. On the goal line, basically with the ball, puts it up there, and it's a beautiful kind of looping header and big old meaty forehead of the. The best pirate we know. Mr. Jennings puts it in the back of the net. It's a fantastic header. It was fantastic. I wish we did that more and more and more, and we do it every once in a while, but it was. It was beautiful.

It's helpful when guys don't mark you.

Yeah. And. Or you're inside you.

So if you miss, you got one more guy to take a crack at.

Yeah. So, but that was. That was Nate pushing forward and, you know, then he gets cut out later on. Any other thoughts on that goal? Nope. Second goal. Okay. Who. Who scored the second one? Indeed. MD the doctor. It was a fantastic. I have been waiting all week. It was just. I was like, oh, that was beautiful. And they come from service from Blackstock on another one of our backs or, you know, the right back. So talk us through it, Ryan.

Well, I was actually over talking to one of our other coaches, Coach Chad, and sold the goal partially while I was getting my food, but I was not in the best angle. See who passed it to M.D. when M.D. took that strike, I immediately jumped about 5ft in the air and almost climbed. There was a little fence in front of me. I was immediately on top of the fence, just praying for it to go. And it just ripped the back of the net. I was just so ecstatic. It was.

It was fantastic. Incredible.

Absolutely. Is one of, if not top three battery goals of the season. Yes, I know. The other two go to one, David. Yes, those two. I know. Probably has that third one still, but maybe MD gets that third one.

Well, maybe we have different classes because of. As for a volley. That is fantastic. I mean, he was just. It looked like he was full speed and just bang, it was.

These guys, for all you listeners, they just give credit to the guy standing there with no one around him. Blackstock takes this thing off the touchline, the sideline.

He does. Yeah.

Sprinting full speed is. I challenge anyone to go out and do it. It's almost impossible to get that to the middle of the box yet alone. A hammer laser to the middle of the box.

And Blackstock's one of these new players that we have that has come in and has done nothing but work to get to where he is. Because where was he at the beginning of the season? Nowhere to be found, right? Nowhere to be found. He was on the bench. Right. Didn't get any.

And then he come on and he started to come on and I had my job.

Five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Well, guess what he's been doing the last three weeks. He's been freaking sergeant. I. I think he's our back line when he. When we go to playoffs. And I absolutely would be gutted if he wasn't because I think he is our most informed defender we currently have right now. And yes, Nate is right there with him. I think Nate's last game just kind of put a little damper on him. And it, again, it's not really Nate's fault. Right. He's getting out of position, but that's going to hurt him just a little bit. Right. Whereas Blackstock didn't really get caught up position too much compared to Nate. It's something. He's outside again. It's. It's situational because Oakland favored going down Nate's side rather than going the other way. That's just it.

We just so football score.

Yeah. We just have to figure out how to support our outside backs more with our center backs and get away. Get our center backs away from playing that central, very central. Almost a three in the back. Center back role and play that four in the back roll.

Get.

Get about five yards wider to support your outside backs and you can still support your inside. You just have to be quick and you're telling me that you're favoring the middle over the outside shows me that you're probably not the most conditioned to be out there right now. And I hope that's not the case for our center backs.

It needs, it needs to be a five back roll because once again, another outside back gets an assist first two goals. Outside back assist. Well, there's a thing there that's great and dandy, but if you're giving up goals, then you need support back. Don't take away the guys trading goals. That makes too much sense. Do something different. Add a third guy back there, help kind of navigate the situation so these guys don't have to turn around and just gas themselves out getting back every time they try to move forward or take away the cam role and make it more of a center mid roll. Because our CDM roles are kind of loose as it is. They drift kind of a little bit everywhere centrally, but still they're not sitting back in front of defense. They're pushing up. They're more of attacking mids themselves. So I, I would hate to see our outside backs being subbed off or losing position time because of defensive mistakes. That's a coaching error to me. Just add a defender back there.

Yeah, I, I agree. They, they need to stick with what they have. I, I think maybe Joey just still being a little bit young like you said, is maybe drifting to that center and not where to lean Leland to be standing strong and, and given that cover, maybe Joey's not necessarily giving it as much as Leland usually does. But hey, I still. We scored three goals. They scored three goals. Last goal was kind of fun to watch because right before that their keeper was laying on the ground wasting time. Had to stretch out his little calf, he hurt his finger and everything else. And we were just giving him hell from the supporter section. And then that ball comes in. Rubio just off his. It just powered it and deflected off his silly hands, his little, little Mickey Mouse hands and put it to the goal. And I thought that was a great shot.

The key burn, he can't stop it.

So that was kind of fun. Anything else we want to talk about.

I would say is go ahead. The Rubio goal was an MD goal and the MD goal is a Rubio goal.

Yes. I don't know how that makes sense, but it did.

Well, it doesn't because I think the Rubio goal is the genes goal. Maybe they all rotated.

No, Jenny's goal is because Rubio's.

Jenny's goal is.

I don't know.

I don't know. Anybody?

No. We talk about Rubio hitting with his head. The only time he scores with his head. And Jenny scored with his head.

Yeah, but MD scores that and Rubio only likes crosses into the box.

Yeah, Rubio likes to cross to the box. That's the cow goal.

Yeah, the. The only difference is MD's got a dribble.

It made sense. Ryan. You. You were picking it up.

Even more.

I guess Rubio should have just like two croifs and then it. We could say it's an MD goal.

Yes, exactly. Because there wasn't enough people laying the ground when it made the shot.

Call it one DB and then be out.

What else we got? Is that it? You would talk quickly, quickly, very quickly about our opposing team this Saturday. It's out in somewhere. Where is it?

West coast again. Somewhere.

New Mexico. New Mexico. And I. And I have. I think it is.

No, it's not.

El Paso.

I'm sorry. El Paso. The. The locomotives. I have it back here on my board, but the board's behind me.

Games on the West Coast.

Yeah. Maybe we need a time away. Maybe they need time away.

I think it's gonna be good. I think it'd be good for Battery. Get away for a bit, that the fans, you know, have two weekends, get some stuff done, and then be like, is there. Is there an event going on this weekend? And realize when the Battery come back into Town on October 11, that stands will be packed. Press cancer.

Yeah.

Ball support. Stadium's gonna be pinked out. It's gonna be a big night. And we're playing against the team that won the league last year. So they won it all.

That already banked out. So.

Look at Pat. I mean, he's just.

He tried.

Pat just gets it.

Just trying to be ahead.

I think that's the only clean shirt he had. I think it's probably what it was.

Ryan, I am going to respectfully disagree with the thought that it's good. I think it's terrible. We're playing three west coast teams in a row. We should be playing east coast teams because we're about to be fighting for our lives against east coast teams. Let's build it up. I know Oakland Roots was at home, but you're playing three east coast or west coast teams in a row. It's not great. You add the traveling that you're going to come back. We always see. We come back a little sluggish. Don't love that. So that'll be what, Colorado at home. And then we have Detroit which is going to be a huge game no matter what anyone says right now. Whatever standings are us two games on the west coast could drop points and then come home lackluster and drop more points and be in real danger at that that point on from slipping to third, maybe fourth.

Yep. Yep.

Because right now we're sitting 14 points above loud and right now with six games to play. So that's 18 points. So we just need to pick up four points in our last.

Well I. I think it still goes back to. Do we need to be informed when we hit playoffs?

Yeah, you don't want to be lackluster going in.

The informed part comes. We all agree that the informed part comes from our back line. That that's where we're struggling at is our back line and keeper.

You heard it here first. Ryan demands a keeper change if you want to save your ass.

Ryan, have I not said this all season long? I mean not all season.

We had good keepers to start. 16 year old kid we can pop in.

Yeah but maybe we don't pop them in right. You know, at a really bad time. I. I just want to point out that Luis has given is let what seven goals passed him in to the last couple matches. So that's a lot.

Christian. Why not give Christian a chance right now against El Paso?

Yeah. If the games don't matter then might as well put them in.

Have you guys seen how big Leland Archer is?

Put Leland in.

Oh, we probably need a vocal guy. Put Juan David in.

Oh, helia hat. He'll have no problem.

He'll get carded within 10 seconds from the ref.

Absolutely. He will immediately ball and oh, this is the scenario. The other team just kicks the ball off the field. Both takes one bounce in the box. 1. If he goes up and karate kicks.

Indeed.

Right in the chest.

Or. Or he score scores from there.

Would roll around on the ground. The ref would come over and then he would pop up and start screaming at him.

Okay y', all, we gotta wrap this up. This is. This has been the longest one all season.

We had fun tonight.

Guess so. Yeah. Trying to put it together. We did a good job. So I will. I will be traveling on Saturday so I won't be at any club watching this thing. Yeah. Going to the big city of Ro. Raleigh. Liam played in tournament up there so.

See Carter Finley, baby. Carter Finley Stadium. Chrome and the proud. Love that place.

Yeah, I was thinking about where I'm gonna go watch Arsenal on Sunday.

Oh, there's some places up in over there. I'll send to you.

I, I, I, I got an expert. I got a guy.

I just for him.

Patrick.

Yeah.

Ryan.

He doesn't need a man United bar for filled with wolves.

Arsenal Bar. Raleigh's the only. Raleigh's the only place that has a Wolves bar. And it's.

It shows. Yeah, it shows.

But the techie guys. Oh, look, the Wolves.

Yay.

All right, well, social media, where we're probably gonna pregame and watch the game at.

Okay. Yeah, watch it. I'll try to put it on there.

Sounds good.

Oops.

All right, though.

I see you boys. Clean sheet.

Peace. Oh, we didn't do a predictions.

My prediction won quickly, even though I didn't get to watch this last game. I said a draw. We'd be lucky.

He did say. Ryan, what's Your prediction?

Prediction 2 0. We win with Christian Gardner. And goal.

Okay, I'm with that. I'm with.

I'm saying without the goalie.

All right. If Luis is in goal. 2 1, we win.

Which I'll go. I'm. I'm going with Ryan.

Okay.

I will say Edwards gets to start. Got to get him informed. He's going to. Can you feel the thunder?

I love it.

Okay, guys, let's get out of here. Win against them, but draw them lost in those two previous encounters over the past two years.

This is dicey here.

Oh, a penalty has been called. We are the fleet.

Yes.

If we will sink, but we, we are the battle race.