Landry Launches, Arturo Arrives, and Juan David Dishes: Battery 4, Phoenix 1

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 they will help fortify and conquer. They are the Cannon Crew.

Welcome to the Can Crew. I am Granite, and I am here Introduce my lovely niece and her little gring of the Phoenix not so Rising. Take it away, Harper.

Hi, I'm Harper. I'm 10 and I came all the way here just to rose Phoenix Rising with some of these jigs. What do Phoenix Rising defenders and paper towels have in common? They both fold when things get wet. Welcome to Charles. Why did Phoenix Rising cancel their cookout? Because the Battery already grilled them. Why don't Phoenix Rising players like fireworks night? Too many flashbacks from the last Battery beat. Now, what's the real reason they call them Phoenix Rising? Because after every Charleston match, they have to rise from the ashes.

Fantastic job, Harper. Welcome to the Canon crew. I am Granite, and I'm joined by Ryan. Ryan, how are you?

I'm doing fantastic. Granite can't.

Ready.

Ready for this week. I'm ready.

How are you? Ready. So ready. And also joined by the ever elusive Patrick. Baby Daddy Patrick.

What's going on, everybody? I see you guys have been keeping it down and enjoying your free time, which I think used to be abundant and wasn't consumed with a whole new life form that you have to take care of. But we're doing great. We're still alive over here. No hiccups, but literal hiccups, so pretty good.

I see you got the rocker going. That's always the plus. Is that for you?

Yes. It sues me as well as Palmer. Sometimes it sues both of us at the same time. And I catch myself waking up to make sure she has gone to bed first and not just me.

Well, good luck. That'll happen for quite a while now. And then you get to middle, like, and they get three or four or five, and then you have to play keeper all the time. And then all of a sudden, you're staying up late again when they're 16, 17 being hooligans.

Yeah, I think as of now, 80% of my blood is coffee. So I'll just keep that going for 16 more years and we'll be fine.

That'll work. Well, later on, you have to add some alcohol to it. Right now, I understand the lack of alcohol to it, but later on, I mean, unless DSS is listening, he doesn't drink. He's a teacher.

I'm not breastfeeding as much as she tries to laugh.

I think I'm gonna leave that comment alone. Ryan? Nothing?

Nope.

Okay, let's talk about something fun. Know what was fun? You know what was really fun is watching somebody show up Saturday night. You know who showed up Saturday night?

A lot of people.

Battery. The battery. And about 5,000 fans or how many it was. And biggest among there, the person that really, that showed up, Arturo Rodriguez. Hats off.

As much as we now hold on, let me. As much as I talk about Arturo in a not so positive light, most times when I talk about him, what a game to step up and what a game to absolutely deliver. And this is, this is what we're missing. I mean this is what we want from him, right?

Man, he just, he showed up and showed up big and all of a sudden he's in the box and he's taking shots and he's, you know, just everywhere.

The quick cut in shot is his move. I mean it's, there's no doubt about it.

Now. There is one person that motivates Arturo and it is Juan David. Now this. We were at the game, we made our way in. We're a little bit behind getting to the seats naturally, but So I missed MD's goal. That doesn't count in my mind. Didn't see it didn't happen. But when I get up to the stands and we're sitting down watching, get to see Arturo working his ass off from the get go and trying to keep play moving, trying to keep it going. He knows how to break down Phoenix and just drive it down their throat, make the plays. And at one point it was early on, but Juan David kind of overlapped and took the ball from him and then did some weird shot, pass, cross thing and it just turned it over. And you can visibly see Arturo just get like very upset with him. And this is a great turning point for players where either you're going to be upset and it's going to ruin your game and that's it. But it could go the other way, which it did. And Arturo just turned around and took over. He took over this game. It was long overdue for a player of his caliber. And quite honestly, it was amazing to see him break out of this so called shell and just take the game into his hands. And let's not have Juan David take it over or ikaza or Cal Jennings. It's another playmaker. So another chink in the armor that teams have to worry about.

Man, we got to see the side of Arturo that Ben Pearman's saw a Long time ago. And we haven't really seen up until now, we've seen glimpses of it. But this last match, he's been building up to this every game. He's been getting stronger and stronger and he's obviously one of these players. The more playing time he gets, the stronger he's going to get. And he showed his worth Saturday night.

And about Arturo too, like, for those out there, it's like we're not asking for Arturo to score every single game or anything like to that effect, but the way he commanded and dominated and controlled that midfield and made a presence known in the final third alone as a midfielder, to make a presence known in the final third is a special thing in a game. You're drawing out defenders 20, 30 yards extra, further out and exploiting them, taking them on one on one. And he did just that. And it was quite, quite beautiful. To go to the whole game with that was a 4 to 1 scoreline. Doesn't do justice to that game as it was a fight back and forth. But the battery, the consistency, the standard, everything was there on Saturday.

So.

Yeah, yeah. And it was. There's a huge turning point from leveling it after what, 37, 38 minutes for the battery to put the gas right back on. Not even seven minutes, which, I mean, if you count celebration time, tracking back not even five minutes after their goal, we're getting it back. And Arturo, as you said, stepping up, dribbling it in, taking two guys on and just wrong siding the keeper who thinks he's going to go far post and taking him near post. I mean, it's a beautiful goal. You, you watch it from the stands and you just go. You can see the keeper visibly is like, oh, I'm going this way. He's going to try and curl it in. This is what I see on tape from these guys and he just surprises them. Amazing shot. It wasn't a screamer, but it's exactly where it needed to be.

We had two.

And I think from that point the battery kept the gas on that really going into halftime, brought that confidence level all the way back up.

Yeah, because they scored 40 minutes, something like a little, little before that. And I was thinking, man, we're going in half drawn on this. And I think we kind of showed what we need to do and got that goal going in before halftime. And the other amazing thing, let's go back to MD Because MD was just calm and cool it it Juan de Does incredible pass into him and I don't think MD looked up. He Just put far side and it was just fantastic. Everybody just. It was a fantastic go.

It most certainly was. I mean, this game, if you listen to how Grant and I were commentating before the game even started, this game felt like it was almost like a script. Almost like it was already prejudged. Especially like the first half and how you could read how the atmosphere felt. Right? The atmosphere felt we were going out for revenge. The entire stadium knew it because we sold out. We wanted this game back at home. Home. There was a lot to prove at this game, especially with us losing on the road to Miami last week or midweek. That game did not do us justice, did not do the fans justice. And the Battery knew that. And you just knew. And SM could smell it in the air, the revenge that was about to take place.

Well, I could feel it, but it was always kind. It was kind of also this nervous energy too. We're like, we're going to win, we're going to win. But it wasn't like we were confident, like we rolled into something. It was that kind of nervous energy, but it was very optimistic. Even pre match out there with the regiment and all the people out there, everyone's like, oh yeah, we got this, we got this. But, you know, but it was, it was quite the atmosphere out in the parking lot and quite atmosphere even when you got in. It's always, it's always cool to look around a stadium and see it packed and then look back behind where we stand and seen back in the food area. It's packed out there too. It just pretty amazing. Pretty amazing.

Yeah. One, one noticeable missing person from my section where I sit, he was down on the field in this game was Graham Smith.

Interesting, huh?

Last home game I was at is about 20ft away. This home game, I mean, what two weeks can do for you, you come back, some of your favorite players are out there. We got to see Leland out there.

Yep.

Yeah, I mean, I saw him a little bit from the hospital computer playing midweek, but it was great, great seeing these guys back. And like, does this not just build confidence in these defenders? Seeing what their quote unquote replacements did for them while they were gone and kind of bringing that competition back to our center backs.

You kind of mean your equals because I don't. What do you do now?

I mean, it's a, it's a great, great place to be.

Right?

I mean, last season we didn't have this issue until someone went down where it was like, oh, what do we do now? I, I personally, I'm all I'm a big fan of competition. It keeps you sharp, keeps you pushing, keeps you trying to get to that next level. And I think that's what we missed a little bit last year in the playoffs. And I think that's going to be our, not our turning point this year, but it definitely solidifies the back and gives you that confidence boost that we can go through without giving up goals in the postseason.

Yeah. I mean, because what do you do with Edwards? What do you do with Joey? Because those two were just, they were, they stepped up and were just killing it the whole time since both our other center backs, you know, went out injured. And so what do you do sitting back on the bench? Do you start rotating all the time? You get them both much playing time?

I think it's kind of what we saw with Gutierrez and Rodriguez and Torres from a season ago is just you kind of rotate these guys. You get them switching in and out. I don't see any of them moving on from the Battery mid season, but this is what you need. This is what cliche championships are built on. Defense, you know.

Yeah.

You now kind of have a solid back four and if someone goes down, you don't blink an eye. You can replace them and know that that confidence is there across the line and they know what they're doing.

That'd be, it'd be a terrible decision if the Battery were to decide to get rid of any one of those guys or like to sell them or send them on loan somewhere else. That, that, this, this core of center backs would be the reason to win the USL Championship this season. That alone is going to get you there. Just like you said, defenses win championships. Yes. If you tie a game, 00 because your defense is that good, yet your offense isn't that good, you go to Pens. Anything can happen in Pens. We've already been there before against this team, against this team, against this type of team.

Yeah.

It's a scenario to where you now have to rely on your entire team now pushing yourselves through and that this last game definitely, definitely showed that. Now how they're going to work the center backs, I think that's a great question and it's, it's definitely going to open up for how this season is to come. Now when they do have the Jagermeister cup still and then you have league play. So you'll see them, you'll see them definitely rotate the Jaegermeister Cup. Like how you see Luis and Christian Gardner switch out. But I'd like to see how, how often it happens. Is it going to happen every game or is it going to happen like where Sebastian was there and he would come in for like the last 30 minute, 20, 30 minutes or so.

That'll be interesting to see because right now when we take our, what we would think is our lesser two center backs and put them in Jagermeister cup, but maybe we put our two backs that have been sitting on the bench for a while and they play in there because it's, it's really interesting thing. Problem to have. The other thing I've. I've want to talk about quickly was Edwards. So he's on loan, Correct. Does he go back.

At the end of our season?

I think this is kind of that, that tipping point of you see what you have and I think Joey's really stepped up, but I think Edwards is the guy that's made him step up and kind of built that. If you have guys like Graham Smith and Leland Archer in there, I think you kind of stick with Joey as your backup option and maybe fighting for his place. But yeah, I think Edwards, I would love to see him back, but I don't think he's going to stay with how strong we have this position now and the guys just in there, I don't think it's enough to want to stay at a championship team just to rotate around and play.

Plus, he's on loan from MLS and he, he can easily. With the amount of exposure he's now getting on the USL championship side, he could easily go play in Europe next year. Or he's back up in MLS playing for a different club side rather than. I believe he's with Colorado Rapids, if I'm not mistaken. Right. Is that who he got him from? It was them or Vancouver, I can't remember, but I don't know.

Yeah, and Ryan with that point, I mean you have three other guys that one of them may be called up. So this could be the point where then he is trying to make that loan deal a permanent deal. But I think this is a great, great issue to have four strong center backs that each are in themselves a number one center back.

So one of the person I'm gonna talk about on the back one, well too Nate, of course. Nate's a beast. Nate's. Nate is just. He is where he needs to be and he just loving life and doing fantastic work even though he's. He didn't. He wasn't scoring goals this week or, or doing, you know, some things that stood out. He did a fantastic job moving the ball from Back to front, ended up in the box several times. It just, he did a fantastic job. The other side. I, I, the more I see block play, the, the less I'm convinced he should be there. I think the goal that we gave away was due to his negligence.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean the goal we gave up is the goal we give up every game. It is. You watched it. I watched it. I literally ran at you and said this is the type of board we give up every game.

It is.

And we both, I think before that we both looked, we talked for a second, said it's building is building. We both knew something was going to happen.

I mean they had the same chance, what, two, five, ten minutes before that. Yeah, the ex. Almost the exact same play where the guy dummies it, the next guy tries to shoot it but gets blocked. I don't know how they fell for this dummy again.

If you watch the replay, I mean it was you see who fell for it.

Yeah, I mean it was still a good goal. So me personally, I'll just throw the blame on the keeper. It's easiest.

Yeah, let's do that and play lock.

Shocker.

So I do have a real question for you guys. Since I've been out for a little bit and just sitting down and seeing the guys on the field. No Cal and no Malloy.

They were there. They were there. They came out.

They not starting that.

No. When Ryan was was you and I stand, stand down there at the, at the beginning of the match or was it second half? I can't remember. Everybody else come out and then those two come out. Nobody else around. They were, they were just high fiving all the, all the people. Little tunnel there and stuff like that. So it was because I went, oh look, I guess we know who's not starting today because I hadn't seen the starting 11 at that point. Okay, here's a fun. I think that's football.

I mean like for Malloy. Cow. Give them some, some rest. You have this team now to be able. I mean that's, that's another threat though. You win a game 4 to 1.

End result.

Beginning of the game, you don't start one of your, your two best players on your team. Right. You could think everybody on the of the starting 11 is one of the best. Right. That's why they're starting. But when you have your best, one of your best midfielders and the best board in the league currently right now, the goals amount that he has scored, whether it's penalties or open play, he is not Starting and then you look at the end result with the amount of time that they've still played, maybe 20, 25 minutes in the game. You win 4 to 1 against the team that you know you lost the final in two years ago, a team that they were one win away from being in first place in the West.

Yep.

And Cal, that even after losing to a team like Miami 10 on the road.

Well, we went down there on Wednesday. Right. And then we come back up here and play again a couple days later. So those guys need the rest. Cal still come out, he's an old man. Come out in his walker and what it's 60 minutes or something like that and still put in. I call it the pre assist. He was working and he got the ball in and it kind of bounced around and. And then that's Arturo's second slow roller. A goal that everything was like paused in time as we were watching the ball roll across the line. But he'd come in and he was fired up and he was going to put his time in and be very effective at doing it. He had two balls across the box. That one Md just barely got it with his foot and just put just a little bit wide and then he had that second one that went in for a golf with Arturo shot. So Cal did come in and didn't look like he. He didn't look like he's got ears on him and he didn't look like he was tired.

So you guys are just saying probably from the Wednesday and travel, give a few guys a break. I assume that's the same with Archer not getting the start in this one, coming off injury and just playing a lot of minutes on Wednesday.

Well, and that you take Joey and Edwards and they've been working very well together and we've got to get some good results and he needs some. That's the reason why I would keep those two in there because we're kind of working well with them. Our loss to Miami wasn't because we the two center backs failed. Our loss to Miami's because our fours failed.

I was about to ask you that though. You lose Miami 1 0, we didn't really switch our forwards out, we switched our defense out. Do you think that that zero Miami loss kind of caused our defenders their job currently? No, because now we a mid table team to a team who's one one away from the first place in the West.

Well, I, I think what happened is maybe somebody listened to one of our podcasters, said, hey, let's try three at the back it was a colossal failure. Like the other podcaster is trying to say, never do three at the back. And they went, okay, we're not listening to that.

So that's dead. We don't have to have that conversation ever again.

We all know it's not three in the back. It's a two in the back system.

We should just go to one in the back. At this rate, who cares?

Yeah, just leave Louise back there. That's it? That's all you need.

Exactly. That's all we need. Hey, so I just looked up and I don't know why I had done this before. Joey's my new favorite. Well, one of my new favorites. So Joey, he has a degree in biology and apparently he intends to become a doctor.

So we have two doctors.

Being a fellow biologist, I appreciate his, his studies. It's not necessarily easy. And he apparently had a very good grade point average, but I don't know what grade point averages mean anymore because it's like out of 27 or something like that. I don't know. But good job, Joey. Now I have to buy a third kit anyways. Okay, let's talk about another super addition to the team that's now going to make it tough on what you do with the midfield. That's Landry.

I think this guy makes it tough on what you do in defense, offense, and midfield. Oh, my God, where can he play? I mean, he's played left back, he's played left wing. Now he's playing center mid scoring Juan David goals.

I, I tell you what, El Bubo better be concerned. He might have to play goalie one time and, and show everybody. I don't know that guy. When he stepped in, we had what, Chris Allen in his normal position and Landry stepped in for Malloy, and he was just both ends of the pitch and just going at it the whole time. It was amazing to see the work rate he was, he was churning out.

I mean, is this just a, like, this time of the year, we have to have a sports center number one ranked goal? I mean, deja vu, almost 12 months ago, same thing.

Let, let me check the contract with the, with the NBC Sports quarter.

Check with the writers, too. I think the script is in. Charleston Battery. Half, half field goal, middle of June, beginning of June. Put it on SportsCenter. Make it number one.

Make it number one. You know, this goes. They're, they're, they, they look, they're fun. They're fun because you could see all, all of us up at the sporter section when we saw Them take that. I think everybody just like hesitated. And then we were all like, oh. And then it was in. It was just. Those are always fun goals to score. What do you think, Ryan?

I wish I was there. I had left early for bath time.

About two minutes before that, he goes, I gotta go see you. And when it happened, I turned, I said, oh, yeah, right. Missed one of the best goals of the, of the season so far.

I mean, see, this is why you. You bring the baby with you. So I was there like this. How, How Scoreboard. It's like about a week, week, week. Eight days. Eight days old. She caught her first game. Real fan, loyal.

Good, good, good.

But yeah, we were on our way out and do our restroom stops and I'm just over there holding her. And then see this spectacular goal. And the stadium erupts. And the joy was taken from me because I was just like, please don't wake up. Please don't wake up.

Please don't wake up.

So I got to catch plenty of highlights from SportsCenter, from Instagram, Snapchat, all that, reloading it onto my algorithm. So that was great.

It was a fantastic goal. So we talked about all four goals. Now, somebody described it in one of the news articles or whatever come out and says called it the explanation point of the game. And I can't agree with that more because it just put everything. It was like the smack in the face. It's like we're winning three, one here, take this. Bam. Because there's no coming back. They. Phoenix stopped playing at about 65 minutes or so. It was just totally. They were done. And then to do that was even better.

Yeah, I mean, you put. You put super subs on that'll just continue to run you down. You really can't do anything. I mean, if your fitness isn't there. It started. I mean, it got muggier as the night went on. It started out great. And it seemed to get muggier and Muggier as like 60th minute I was drenched. So I can't imagine having Rodriguez, ikaza, Maryland. Who else? Torres out there. And then all of a sudden you're like, yeah, put on Cal, put on Johnny Klein. Just have these guys run them to death.

Well, it was the. It was the wet heat versus the dry heat. I think the wet heat won that one.

Put the flames out.

They sure did. They were trying. They were trying to. And they had that silly goal. Then all of a sudden they just. It's like that little pitiful campfire that has that One little wisp of smoke and you pour your last little cup of water on it and it looks so sad and wet.

Just kind of, it's like, it's like.

What you're seeing with the Club World cup where all these American teams and South American teams who are used to this heat are starting to beat the European teams. And they're all just out there like, hey, we need timeouts, we need water breaks.

Yep. Because. Because I don't know. I was going to go with it. Yes, you're right. It's just like welcome to the, to the Swamp Cooler. Matter of fact, we talked about. Did we not, Ryan? We talked about before this match, talk about the Swamp cooler. That's what we did. That's what it was. Yeah.

Now, Pat mentioned earlier, super subscribers, did you all see the Battery signing today? New signing.

Who is that guy? The midfielder, what's his name? Test.

Joshua Kelly.

No, Try it again. Jeremy Kelly. Jeremy. Jeremy Kelly.

I tried, yeah.

From Crawley, was it? Crawley Town fc. But he'd been playing over here and went over there for what, 18 months. They got played on team, got him promoted to what? To their league one. Is that right? In the English, the efl? I think that's what my note from my massive. He's a little bit older, he's 27. But here's the other fun thing, is that guess who he used to play for.

Ew.

Ben Pence. This isn't the Charleston Battery. This is Ben Beerman Battery. Is there a player on our team that has not played for Ben Pearman.

At some pointerman going at throwing in the chips right now saying we're already making a playoff push.

Okay, so what do you do with him? He's a midfielder.

What do you mean you're making a playoff push with him? This is how this is. Now you brought. Because you got to look at it like this, right? We brought in, we brought in Sadi last season. We brought in Sadi, we brought in Chapman, we brought in somebody else and we didn't bring them in until about 5, 6 games left, 7 games left in the season, hoping that they would help us in the playoffs. Now that you bring him in much earlier, use him more in trainings use, get his minutes, let him rotate in. He's just going to get like the last 20 or so continuously to rotate in and you just make your team that much more competitive, that much more stronger and that much more of a championship caliber team.

Okay, here's, here's my problem.

Adding his values everywhere, not just on the field. You can't just look at it on the game field. You have to look at him as a person because there's a reason why Ben Pierman went after him. Well, listen, and it's actually that as a coach that goes after players on all areas, not just one.

And, and some of those sadi didn't pan out very well. Chapman did. But let's think back when we talked to Toby Sims he said hey, one of the hard things is coming off what how many game season in England and coming back he scored a 36, 40.

They're in the 40s but that's not even counting all their cup competitions too.

He's coming. Yeah, that and then straight into us and from. From England who's their. Their heat wave this week is like 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

That season ended the same time Toby season did and Toby's already three games in. Oh, he already beat us on our own field.

No, that's what, that's what I'm saying. It's not like he's coming in and not haven't played much higher. You know, we got to be able to handle his what load he now by the way, Toby scored the other night. If you. If you didn't know that anybody watch. Nice header into the back of the goal. It's kind of cool to see.

Aren't those sweet jerseys? They're like West Ham or Burnley jerseys. I can't remember what they look like. They're like a weird European collab. It's actually quite cool. I like it.

So just to piggyback kind of on that, on that talk, Ryan, I think Pierman learned a valuable lesson from last season where last season we signed early, we signed abundant and we had to offload because it just was not panning out. And I think you learned that lesson of there is not as much pressure to get these guys in right away and see if it works. But start with what I want and we'll make that correct signing as we progress through the season and add to our squad where we want it. So I think that like you said about like Prince and these guys at the end of the year, I think think that was just a last ditch effort of like we're going to throw all our cards on the table and hope it works. Where this season seems a little more like we know what we want and we know these pieces we want to add. Let's wait until we can get them and if we can't then we can move to this guy that we want to get because you Remember we had these guys up front, including like Laava and good years that I talked about where yeah, they were, they were great. But there's too much too early where you're not building the confidence of the rest of your team by constant rotating. And now that we're in the season, yeah, injuries kind of help that discussion where we can play guys a little more but you're picking the correct guys that gel with the team and can help build it instead of kind of take away that presence and that drive and that end goal mentality of championship or bust.

Well, if we remember the last part of the season last year we had what Chris Allen playing left back, right back. He was all over the place. We were so plagued with the injuries in the backline and I looks like we might have solved that problem. Knock on wood. So now, because when you take Chris to move him back there now all of a sudden you take one of our, you know, stalwart midfielders out of there and we got to replace him with somebody else. So now it looks like we got a nice little lineup of. Of those kind of defensive midfielders back there with Landry and Chris and Aaron. And now bringing in. Who'd you call him? Joseph Kelly.

Joshua Kelly.

Yeah, Joshua Kelly. Bringing him in there. So looks like we're. He's. That maybe that's where he's building MD And I'm. I don't want to jinx him, but he, he doesn't go down. That man's a workhorse. And Cal, he's got too many. He's just old and grizzly, you know, so he, he's. He's. I. If. And I don't want. I'm not going to say anything else, but I think we've got a good setup. Yeah.

This is also a team, quote unquote, essentially missing their number one keeper. Right.

Were they.

Would you call Coos the number one?

You talking about the battery?

Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know.

And I think going into the season he would be your number one. Correct? You don't think so?

No.

You think Luis would have been number one over.

It's not fair. It's not fair because he got hurt even before there was any type of signing or anything like there was. He got hurt way too early for there to be even a discussion if he was going to be the number one. He was there. He's the only just going roster. But then he immediately gets hurt on the off season, like not even near coming back.

Just going from the previous Year, So he was obviously going into this year. The plan was he was probably number one. We're going to add pieces, but we at least have a guy we're confident. So, I mean, this is still a team that there's one more piece that's a really big piece of this squad. I think one of the bigger vocal leaders on that defensive end because, I mean, the other guys are great, but I mean, Kuz is loud, he directs, he's. He's the voice for Leland a lot more. When Leland is not having his voice.

I think Luis doesn't command all the vocal stuff because he chews gum, spit the gum out. That way he can yell. No, I. That's an interesting point.

Well, I think K is just more comfortable here now. He's been here for, he's been here a while. He's, you know, he's in love with the city and it's more passion. And when you're a keeper and you have the passion, you have the obsession, that's where your voice comes from. Doesn't come from all your training and all the things that you do, it comes from simple obsession, drive and passion. And you, that's where you discover your multiple different tones is through your passion and through your obsession of it. Because that's what a lot of players struggle with too. Luis definitely struggles with that. And with Kuz, it's just hard for me to think that we would have immediately or would have for him to even rightfully consider that he could have easily been number one going into the season, considering that when Pierman came in, we went ahead and signed Trey Muse, made Trey Muse number one over him, and then last year signed Granny and made Granny number one over him. And then this year it looked at the same setup with Luiz coming in. Luis looked like he was going to be over him. And then it gets hurt. I mean, it's kind of like a trend. And that's why I said it's not really fair to kind of already give it to him. But it's also not fair to say he wasn't going to get it either, you know, because you just don't know. So I kind of hope he gets it, you know, can get back into the shape of everything. But I also think too, with Christian being there, Christian, I think Christian's same boat with him as C. Where Christian has the voice, he has fire. His problem is just the uncertainty at times and second guessing himself. That's what I see from him.

Now. Who's. Who's that guy for md because we know Cal is up here and I know MD is still different than Cal and he's up on that playing field. But is this that up top spot? Is there a guy that could still come into the team this summer to help us with that push? I mean I know we have Conway, but I just don't see Conway being that guy to push that spot for these other two.

Yeah, I, I, I take your point about Conway and I don't know if.

It'S, or is Ruby or is Rubio it because I mean he's on international form. Something clicks.

Sure he is, but he hasn't shown much when he's been down here. We talked about that before. Just for this the level of ability he should have, he's not showing it.

I don't know.

And I don't know if, if it's Con Conway, if he doesn't get, he's not getting all the playing time and maybe if he had some consistent playing time we would see some something better out of him. Because it's got to be difficult. You get 10, 15 minutes a match and you're expected to come out there and do something. And it's not every match to, you know, change the the game or score a goal or whatever and not have that full 90 minutes to try to do that consist.

Well, maybe we'll see some changes for the Jaeger Mustard Jagermeister cup coming up.

Is there any pathway for us to go into the next round?

Win by a lot, I believe.

I don't know. I've kind of my drop retire lose.

Us when we're out right completely like there's not even a chance.

I didn't like it anyways. It tastes like. I'm just kidding.

Got a win by.

This is a good thing to get out of. I mean yeah, it's a fun competition but there should be one focus on for this team and that's USL Championship.

Oh yeah. But just in case good things happen, I've got a whole bunch of shot glasses here that I can bring and pass out. There we go. Okay. I'm still on the Jaegermeister Cup. Yeah, I didn't look see where our pathway is but I'm sure if there is one we will find it and we'll do a fantastic job and it might be fun to see if, if our new midfielder, if he gets some minutes when he comes in. We'll see.

All right, next game. What's the next game?

I don't know. Jaeger Meister Cup. I don't give a. I'm just kidding. I think it's Saturday, huh?

Yeah, Saturday at 7:30.

And where is it? Is it at Patriots Point?

No, no, no, it's in the other swamp.

Yeah, it's the other swamp. We go from one swamp area to the other. Is it down Georgia Tormento?

Where the devil is?

Well, let's see. Let's see if we get a. Get another infield shot down there because we did that a couple years ago. And speaking of midfield shots, the one person that I have intentionally not talked about is Juan David. His assists this game were just fantastically magical for md and I think it was Arturo. Those just the presence and the. In the. And the ability to pass the ball and put it on someone's foot and get it through a whole two lines of defense is just something that the teams just can't account for, obviously, because he did it twice and he just did a lot of great things out there. And he wasn't scoring the goals this time, but he was helping the goal scorers do their thing. And I think now he leads the league and assist. I do believe, remember. Right.

He's the, he's also the leader in the golden player. Right?

Yep.

Yeah, he does have seven assists.

Say again, Patrick.

So I was just saying he, he is in the lead with seven.

Yeah.

Assists now.

So it's the. I think one of the big takeaways from this match. One is our field, our pitch is. It is crap. Oh, somebody's got to do something about that. Somebody's got to be fired or they gotta let me go out, take care of it and then fire me and find somebody else. I don't know. Somebody. I don't know what they're doing to it, but they need to stop whatever we're doing and have somebody else that knows what they're doing come out and do something to it because it's horrible.

I think the 100 degree heat for a couple weeks isn't helping.

My yard's fine.

You have turf.

Yeah.

You got those corner flags that just sit on cones.

But one thing I was going to say, here's the great thing that noticed, is that there was a lot of people on the team that were contributing to goals. It wasn't just one person, you know, being doing outstanding job and everybody else just kind of watching. There were so many people contributing on both ends of the field. And that's what's going to carry us through to win the league this year because it just, it's fantastic because when people are not, you know, playing well, the Other players are picking it up and we see when that doesn't happen, we end up losing. The teams like Miami or Phoenix ends up losing poorly to us because they just couldn't make manage that. They had one or two players are trying to be the heroes and. And hidden and Emilio was cutting them, shutting them down the box as a midfielder. And that's all I got to say about that. Oh, except for one thing. One more thing. One more thing. Supporters, hats off to y' all. That was a raucous environment before we. Whoa.

Yes.

See? And even babies didn't sleep while they were there.

They tried. They couldn't.

Okay, that's all I got. Anybody else got anything?

Match predictions? It's the last thing I gotta go. But you got patrick.

I'll say two 1. Johnny Klein goal and get. We'll get Big Monster Graham Smith a headed corner goal. Start that back up again.

I like that.

Okay, Ryan, what you got?

Got a 20 win with MD and Dos Santos scoring.

I thought you were going to pick Luis to get one half field banger.

I hadn't seen him really come out of the 18 yard box, so that'd be hard for me to say that one.

Okay, I'm gonna go two nil. And you know I'm gonna go with, right? No, I'm going with Christian. I'm going with Christian Garter not giving up a goal. That's where the zero is coming from. And I'm gonna go with because Juan Davies gonna be chilling on the sidelines. I. I just have this feeling maybe not. If he's out there, he's scoring two goals. If he isn't. I like the game. And. And I'm gonna go with.

I love that you specified the Christian Gardner thing because that's also why I picked two zero.

I know why you picked zero, but I never.

But. And I never pick zero and I never do it. I have faith that Christian's gonna get it done this time. Dude. Again.

And I like. I like the. The. The Graham shout out and so I'll go Juan David Torres for one and Leland Archer for the other.

Leyland Archers all of the defender. I like it.

Yeah. Look at some minutes.

He'll get it.

It's time for them to start racking some goals up. Try and keep their. Keep their spots.

I don't know if we. If it. If I'm just dreaming this up, but I think Leland is the one that passed the ball to Landry for the assist on the goal last night or Saturday night. But anyways. Okay. That's all I got.

All right. See you boys.

Better watch out. Coming after him.

We are lovely. Yes.

If we will sink.

But we, we are the battle race.

Okay. We just finished up the first half and now the players behind us are coming out. Great first half for us. Went up one nil and then come back in. They scored a goal and then we tied it back up.

Tied it back up.

We took the lead and we took the lead.

Sorry.

So what do you think about the first half?

It was a great response to what we have been doing in the whole entire season. And what a statement to make it against a team who is absolutely giving their all to be that top team in the west right now.

That's fantastic. So I said 2:1 for my prediction. It's alright with me if Juan David scores about six goals and I'll throw a couple in for her also. Okay. You good?

I'm good.

Let's do the truck over here.

But I'm good.

Let's go, baby. Nice.