LA Galaxy GM Will Kuntz Talks the Financial Side of Soccer

Speaker 1 The LA Galaxy general manager Will Kuntz. The toughest thing about MLS is that the rules make it impossible to have deep rosters.

Speaker 1 If you lose a guy like Ricky Booch, it's impossible to replace them with a guy like Jovalich.

Speaker 1 In any other league in the world, a club like the Galaxy and where we sit relative to spend, it's like you just re-sign.

Speaker 1 Unfiltered Soccer with Landon and Tim presented by Volkswagen. Volkswagen has long been a supporter of soccer in America and has proudly been a partner of U.S.
soccer for the past five years.

Speaker 2 L.D., my good man, I am super excited to be here. I got a beard trim yesterday, woke up at the crack of dawn two days in a row, covered a Premier League on NBC, which is amazing.

Speaker 2 And I get to come to you.

Speaker 2 I'm getting on a flight after this. And I'm heading to San Diego.
Sunny Sanchez.

Speaker 1 God's country, baby.

Speaker 2 God's country. That's what you say.

Speaker 2 And for people who don't know, with unfiltered soccer, we have lots of things we need to do, content shoots, all the rest of it. And Landon oftentimes obliges and comes to New York City.

Speaker 2 So this time he gets his way, and we're going to San Diego.

Speaker 1 So I can't wait to see you, Ben. Cannot wait to see you.

Speaker 1 My weekend was awesome. My dad came out to visit.
Nice. Watched

Speaker 1 all my kids play sports all weekend, flag football, soccer, baseball, all the things.

Speaker 1 Awesome weekend. I was exhausted.

Speaker 1 As you know, you wrote a book. Yes.

Speaker 1 And that process, I'm in the process of writing writing a book and it's almost done, but just the editing part and reading it and then reading it again and deleting and every, you want every word to be like perfect, you know?

Speaker 1 Dude, what a grind. Nobody tells you this.
You're like, oh, it's great. I'll write a book.
Now I'm like, this sucks, dude.

Speaker 2 Dude, it's a labor of love, isn't it?

Speaker 1 It has to be.

Speaker 2 I remember writing the book with Allie Benjamin, who's my ghostwriter. And I just.
I just remember thinking, there's,

Speaker 2 I've buried some, I've buried some crap way down deep. I was like, I don't really want to bring this.
Like, it's like arduous to have to relive some of that stuff.

Speaker 1 And, and it's like, what do you put in? What do you don't? How deep do you want to go? And at the end, I was like, whatever, dude. Let's just throw it all in and we can cut it out.
But now we're just,

Speaker 2 I'm excited to read. I mean, I was a small

Speaker 2 small part of that journey. And I know you're, you know, from beginning to end of your career is incredible.
So I'm looking forward to getting a signed copy,

Speaker 2 which I know you'll give me. So that's awesome.
That's exciting.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, if I make it to that, I might just say forget it because it's just exhausting.
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Speaker 1 All right, Timmy, let's jump in this weekend MLS.

Speaker 1 First game that

Speaker 1 a lot of talking points for a lot of reasons. Minnesota hammered Miami.

Speaker 1 I know short history for Miami, but that was their worst loss since Messi's been there. 4-1, they lost.
Minnesota is great because

Speaker 1 I hate watching them. I hate watching Minnesota play.
I think they had 27% of the ball in this game, and they could care less. Sure.
Home, away, whatever.

Speaker 1 And what's happening in world soccer now, Tim, is it's like the Barcelona, have the ball, have the ball, Pep Guardiola, have the ball, have the ball. And now teams are going, don't care.

Speaker 1 Some teams are just saying, that's great. You can be sexy and have the ball.

Speaker 1 Don't care. And Minnesota does it every week.
And you know, they're going to do it. And then they wait for their chance and they go score and they score and they score.

Speaker 1 And they've been good, man. They're second in the West.
Miami, it feels, Tim, like schedule's starting to catch up a little with them. And that's the MLS problem, right?

Speaker 1 First 11, 13, 14 are good enough, but when you get deep into your roster and you have to fill in some spots, it's just not good enough.

Speaker 1 We have some

Speaker 2 interesting comments on this episode about roster depth, which we'll get to later. Look, I think it's the narrative that

Speaker 2 I've been shouting for forever, and I'll continue because I believe it wholeheartedly. There's more than one way to win a football game.
You've heard me say this.

Speaker 2 So, this concept of, oh, it's ugly, doesn't matter. Winning is not ugly.
Winning is not ugly. Winning is great.
So, if Minnesota wants to do it in a certain way, have at it.

Speaker 2 Do exactly what you want to do.

Speaker 2 And they're getting the results. I mean, in terms of Miami, look,

Speaker 2 I think the worry is, you and I have talked about this since the beginning of the season. It was preseason this year.
Like, it's MLS Cup or bust for Miami, right? Like, that's success.

Speaker 2 They won a supporter show last year. So absolutely nail that

Speaker 2 onto the wall, into the trophy case. That's a successful season.
But as you know, you've won multiple MLS cups. That's what

Speaker 2 they're thriving and driving for.

Speaker 2 So if it doesn't happen, that's a big issue but particularly because you know we're seeing the best of messi in the mls and if they don't get that then it's a little bit of a

Speaker 2 i don't know a stain but but people will be underwhelmed so um yeah but but i also i also think they you know i'm still not counting them out i still know on their day they can figure some stuff out and single-handedly messi and others can take over a game in the mls so i'm cautious when i talk about miami it's going to be interesting with messi because coming up this summer and this is for all players worldwide now there's a FIFA date beginning middle of June.

Speaker 1 So he's going to go. I mean, they've had a really congested schedule already with Miami.
And now Argentina have qualified. So maybe they don't bring him in.

Speaker 1 But if he goes back to Argentina, South America comes back playing in

Speaker 1 Club World Cup plus MLS games. I mean, we've talked about it a lot, but how he gets managed is going to be really important

Speaker 1 on a lot of their roster, to be honest.

Speaker 2 I think if he goes on international duty, I think minimum on the on the return, minimum two weeks break.

Speaker 1 Right. Like I

Speaker 2 maybe i i they're gonna manage him and and that's that's just uh you know and i wouldn't be surprised and i know i know it's not it's not amazing but i wouldn't be surprised if they manage him even more coming coming out of the summer and just going look we know all our eggs are in what basket so let's just try and be fit and and cross our fingers that that the magic can take over in the playoffs like i

Speaker 1 yeah but tim the the challenge will be then how seriously do they take the Club World Cup?

Speaker 1 Because he's going to come, if he goes away to international duty, he's going going to come back, Club World Cup starts. Bang.

Speaker 1 And so that's going to be a challenge because they're, you know, it's like you get in these moments and when you plan out the calendar in the beginning of the year, you go, ah, this isn't that important.

Speaker 1 That's not that. And then you get into the league, you lose 4-1 in Minnesota.
Now you're like, oh, now the next game's important. You know, so it's just, it's a challenge.

Speaker 2 The part you mentioned, and I don't think I'm speaking at a turn here, I think.

Speaker 2 I'm interested to see how important the Club World Cup is to everybody. Yeah.
No, I do.

Speaker 2 Like Manchester City and my enter Miami and all the rest of the teams, like this is as a player who played for 13 years abroad and was exhausted at the end of the season.

Speaker 2 I then went in with the national team probably a week later, sometimes two days later, and you can get up for those games.

Speaker 2 I'm not so sure from a club standpoint that I'm super excited about it. Now, that's just me, but I also know that's how players think.

Speaker 1 So we'll see.

Speaker 1 I'll reserve judgment, but we'll see how seriously these teams take it yeah yeah we don't know vancouver white caps lafc tied to two this is a reminder from our friends at nitza buckle your seatbelt to make it home safely don't risk it click it or tick it paid for by nitsa nitza is always reminding us tim to get strapped in every time we get in our car and someone who is most definitely strapped in right now is our man brian white in vancouver two more goals uh they draw with lafc he's on his way dude, to probably getting called in to the Gold Cup.

Speaker 1 And he just keeps going, man. And it's fun to watch.
And it's one of those stories we talked about. Goes into January camp, makes a little name, has a huge year.
We'll see where it goes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, look, he's off to a great start, LD. You know, you know how I feel about strikers.

Speaker 2 Get the goals. Get the goals when you can.
Make some noise. Make the manager, look, have a look at you.
He's done that. I think he's in the shop window.

Speaker 2 I'd like to see him get called in.

Speaker 2 It's not a strong point of ours. We talk about that all the time in terms of a country.

Speaker 2 We don't produce top strikers. Every now and again, one comes through.
So

Speaker 2 I think he should get a chance. If you're scoring, you should get a chance.
I agree.

Speaker 2 The crazy thing about strikers is you get one game or two games, which is not a lot. There's not a lot of games left before the World Cup.

Speaker 2 You bang one or two goals in. you're asking to get put on again you know and so as long as he does the business for vancouver there's nothing holding him back from getting a call up.

Speaker 1 Yep, we will definitely keep our eye.

Speaker 1 We are going to discuss the Red Bull LA Galaxy result, one I'm sure you reveled in. I did not,

Speaker 1 but we will have Will Koontz, the GM of the LA Galaxy, on after the break. We recorded that interview on Thursday, FYI, so everyone keep that in context, but we will get into that later in the show.

Speaker 1 All right, let's move on to the Premier League, the fight for fifth place.

Speaker 1 City drew away at Southampton.

Speaker 1 Ruben Ruben Diaz was fuming after about Southampton didn't try to play and they didn't do this and that. I'm like, don't care, dude.
Don't care. I don't care.

Speaker 1 By the way, if Southampton had done this all year, they might still be in the Premier League next year. That's right.
So give them credit. And City, it's like, don't whine.

Speaker 1 That's that's what do you expect them to do? Yeah. That's what you expect Southampton to do.
You're right. You should come out and play and get beat 6-0.
Totally.

Speaker 2 And look, that's on City. I mean, obviously, that was our feature match on the weekend on one of the days, whenever it's Saturday.

Speaker 2 And, you know, it's interesting, LD, because what you see at the end of the season, and we saw this a little bit with Lester as well.

Speaker 2 You're so fearful of going down, and then it becomes official.

Speaker 2 And these players are almost like, we see it. They're actually playing like more free.
They're relieved.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're almost relieved, which is a, it's a crazy sort of, you know, human nature behavior, but you, you see it, they're more relaxed. They're more free.

Speaker 2 The other part and Southampton Sachs, they're second manager of the season. So they're they're on another interim manager.
But

Speaker 2 that's been my point, and we've talked about this in depth, right? Like these teams come up, and you mentioned it, everyone wants to play like Pep and Man City.

Speaker 2 They don't have the quality of players, so

Speaker 2 their center backs are some guy you've never heard of, not John Stones and Ruben Diaz, right? And so you're like, let's play expansive football. We give the ball away, we get punished.

Speaker 2 Southampton parked the bus and they got a result.

Speaker 2 And I'm saying, all they've spent the entire year playing a certain way, playing expansive, wanting to play between the lines, and they got cooked every weekend.

Speaker 2 So, I'm saying, well, why don't you earn the right to play in the Premier League, incrementally grab some points, and then open it up a little bit when things start to go pretty okay?

Speaker 2 But they didn't do it,

Speaker 1 forest a little bit, probably.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't say open it up, but they're just more free. They're more, yeah, totally.
Bournemouth did it as they got back in the league. It was just, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 But anyway, so yeah, interesting result there.

Speaker 1 Just the result: Bournemouth, nil, Villa one. So, big win, Ollie Watkins get the goal, big win for Villa.
Newcastle, Chelsea. Newcastle were good.
Chelsea not good. They seem to have hit a wall.

Speaker 1 And bad moment for Nicholas Jackson. I saw what you said, Tim, on the weekend.

Speaker 1 I think people, you know, people have these comments that he's like, he's trying to elbow him and he's lining him up. And

Speaker 1 it's hard to judge intent, of course.

Speaker 1 He definitely knew where he was, right? And he puts his elbow up. And that's when you're going to get into trouble.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I think we certainly covered it this weekend. I think people are wrong when they say like

Speaker 2 he only, the pictures tell a really interesting story because when you slow it down, he raises his arm and he looks at Sven Botman.

Speaker 2 Now, what I would say is, and I stand by, if you raise your arm, you're giving the referee a license to make a decision. And that decision might go against you.

Speaker 2 But what ends up happening in every single direct long ball up to a striker, right, there's a confrontation with the center back.

Speaker 2 So what ends up happening is a striker looks at the ball, looks at the defender, edges back.

Speaker 2 Some strikers bottle it and they go, I ain't going up with him, right? But if you do challenge, we're taught, LD, and you know this.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, we don't teach our young kids to do this, but you're taught to bring your arm up and then the defender is going to bring his arm up and you're just trying to gain leverage, right?

Speaker 2 And when you watch Sven Bottman, he actually goes down and then he goes to lift off and Nicholas Jackson just mistimes it by half half a second because what he wanted to do was get his arm up and basically share airspace with Sven Botman.

Speaker 2 When Sven Botman goes up, he wants to go up with him and challenge for the ball. As it was, Sven Botman never got off the ground because he just mistimed it and his elbow ends up going to his chin.

Speaker 2 I don't believe for one second that Nicholas Jackson thought, I'm about to take his chin off. No, that wasn't his intent.
So he just mistimed it.

Speaker 2 And like I said, you give the referee license to send you off.

Speaker 1 It's been tough to watch for him because he had such a great start to the season and it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Speaker 1 Liverpool Arsenal, I don't, the result didn't matter.

Speaker 1 The fans, Tim, we talked about this, booing Trent Alexander Arnold. And obviously, we're both blues and we love Everton.
This was embarrassing.

Speaker 1 I mean, this phenomenal season you've had, and now this is the talking point. Are you kidding me? You're booing this guy? Played out his contract, grew up there, given everything.
Maybe he wasn't.

Speaker 1 everything everyone wanted. And yes, he's leaving, but that absolutely, it shocked me.
Honestly, it shocked shocked me, and it was so disappointing. It was so disappointing.

Speaker 1 So poor, yeah, so poor. I don't have anything else to say.

Speaker 2 It's just no, I do. I think,

Speaker 2 you know, I think for a football club who fancy themselves as being incredibly classy, it was a very classless act.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 Trent Alexander Arnold

Speaker 2 has given this football club everything. He grew up as a red, he came through as a red.
Like

Speaker 2 this concept that he owes them anything,

Speaker 2 Liverpool fans are joking themselves.

Speaker 2 He, two Premier League titles, a Champions League, and countless other cups he's brought to that football club. He doesn't owe them anything.
And

Speaker 2 I know that comments are going to come in, so I'll get ahead of it. So they're going to say, we get nothing for him.

Speaker 2 This is a player worth 60 million pounds. We get nothing for him because he's going to leave on a free.

Speaker 1 Here's how this works.

Speaker 2 If you have a decent player, any type of player, and they don't have to be decent, by the way, it's good business that with 18 months running on their current contract, you renegotiate.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 If you can't come to an agreement, usually what, land in 12 months prior, then you just say, I'm going to play this thing out.

Speaker 1 Right. Both sides know it.

Speaker 2 Both sides know it.

Speaker 2 The issue is. It's always, oh, these players are money hungry.

Speaker 2 And you want to, I can assure every single Liverpool fan, any football fan, and I've been in dressing rooms where players let their contracts run down.

Speaker 2 The player doesn't come in every day and go, guess what, guys? I'm going to hold this club hostage and they're going to get nothing for me.

Speaker 1 That's not how it works.

Speaker 2 Either you disagree on the terms of the deal or the money or the length. Someone doesn't agree.
And sometimes it doesn't work. And then when you get to 12 months, you just, that's it.

Speaker 2 You didn't do your job from 18 months to 12 months as a club and as a player to get the deal done. Now that's it.
But to think that he owes them nothing. Like he's LD.

Speaker 2 Who are they kidding? In 14 days' time, they're going to lift a trophy. And that trophy goes from the captain Virgil Van Dyke to every player.

Speaker 2 He's going to lift the Premier League trophy, the one that takes Liverpool above Manchester United in the trophy count. He's going to lift it up to the cop and they're going to boo him.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you what, Liverpool fans.

Speaker 1 They better not.

Speaker 2 We've always had a love affair, but do one. I mean, that's a joke.

Speaker 1 Shocking. That's a joke.
All right, Champions League elsewhere in Europe. I know we're a little far removed now, but PSG beat Arsenal 3-1 on aggregate.

Speaker 1 Arsenal, Arteta was kind of complaining about, you know, the best team not in the final, da-da-da. But PSG deserved to be there.

Speaker 1 They were the better team over two legs.

Speaker 1 I think they've been the best knockout team, knockout stage team.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. And I don't, look, I think Arsenal were very, very good.

Speaker 2 PSG did the business and certainly Mikel feels, Mikel Arteta feels that way about his team. I've got got no, I got no beef with that.

Speaker 2 They were very good, but ultimately, you know, PSG did advance and they did the business. Interesting, interestingly enough, on, I want to bring something to your attention, which I know you've heard.

Speaker 2 David Beckham and Friends, which is a show surrounding that, he was asked a question about whether Declan Rice should be Arsenal's captain or not, because obviously Martin Odegaard is the club captain.

Speaker 2 But that then

Speaker 2 brought him to talk about when he went to LA

Speaker 2 and kind of the interesting juxtaposition of when he got there and you were captain and he regrets taking the captain's armband

Speaker 2 from you, which I just thought was, I mean, that dynamic is so interesting.

Speaker 2 But the fact that, you know, he was talking about the situation and the regret, and obviously you were at the forefront of that, I thought was very interesting. How did you feel?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I got my phone kind of blew up and I wasn't watching. So my phone blew up.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, it's funny when you play with a guy for seven years, you know this, Tim.

Speaker 1 He's, he's not just another teammate, but he's, he's one of your teammates, right? And that's the way you view him. You forget that

Speaker 1 how famous, you just forget how famous he is.

Speaker 1 And especially as time's gone on, in the moments, like when we would travel and people were crazy and sure, you know, all around him and whatever.

Speaker 1 But now you just see him as, you know, it's David, right? And so, but then you realize when he says something and he references you that it becomes a huge story.

Speaker 1 I really, I reached out to him after and said thank you for

Speaker 1 making those comments. We've never actually spoken about that, but I also then was putting myself in his shoes

Speaker 1 again, which I've tried to do since we had some tough beginnings in LA. And it's a tough situation he came into, right?

Speaker 1 And I can understand why either he or the club or the team or everyone thought it would be best for him for all the reasons to be the captain.

Speaker 1 But it was interesting to hear him, upon reflection, say, you know, that that was a regret.

Speaker 1 And it was the right thing, ultimately, because the team needed to believe in him and have him guide in that way. And I think it, it helped him sort of settle in more quickly.

Speaker 1 And ultimately, it all worked out. But it was, it was nice of him to say.

Speaker 2 How did you, in the moment, how did you feel?

Speaker 1 I was not happy. No, I was not happy.
Yeah. It's funny because I was telling you about earlier about like grinding through my book this weekend.

Speaker 1 And I was going over those chapters to talk about that in the book. And it's just interesting to hear him speak about it, what my perception was at the time and go back over that timeframe.

Speaker 1 But then when you look back to him like on all these things, you're like, who cares? Like we ended up winning three out of four years championships, right? It's like, who cares?

Speaker 1 You know, I just, I was, I was not, I was not happy in the moment, but in the end, if it all works out and you win, like, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 It just doesn't matter. So I think that's classic on your part because I, you know, it's interesting when you talk about how, how alphas react, right? And, and that's your club.

Speaker 2 And he's a big name and it's going to help you, but ultimately it's still your club and you feel a certain way. And I like the way you handled it.

Speaker 2 And obviously after the fact, he's able to come out and say that is brilliant. But

Speaker 2 the captaincy is always an interesting thing. And not everybody who should be a captain is.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 most of the time.

Speaker 1 But if you really genuinely, oh, this last thing, like if you genuinely care about winning. Yeah.
It's like your kids, right?

Speaker 1 Like, if you really love them and for whatever reason, they don't call you for six months, but they are just living their best life and joyous and what you're happy. You're happy for them.

Speaker 1 You want them to call you, but it's not about you.

Speaker 1 And so if you really genuinely care about winning and you're like, look, I'm going to be a leader on this team, whether I'm wearing that strap or not. Sure, sure, sure.
Then who cares?

Speaker 1 Like, it doesn't matter. We'll touch briefly on the Europa League, to be honest, Tim.
I don't really care. United, Tottenham.
I really don't care because they're both so disappointing to me.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to watch the game, you know, unless it's kind of just on and I have nothing to to do.

Speaker 1 I just don't really care about the game. They, they, congrats to both of them for getting there.
I know it's not easy. I'm not belittling it.
I just don't care.

Speaker 1 I just have to tell you, honestly, I just don't care.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I care for the fact that they're both,

Speaker 2 they're both, you know, Premier League clubs and

Speaker 2 important Premier League clubs. You know, you're talking about big six, certainly not this year, the Big 16th and Big 17th, but not Big Six.

Speaker 2 But, but, but also kind of the

Speaker 2 soap opera and drama behind it all, right? Like you look at Tottenham, right, in 17th place, they could very well win. They're a better team than Manchester United.
I think United will win on the day.

Speaker 2 I agree. But they're a better team, better squad than Manchester United.
They could win and Angel Foster Coglu could lose his job.

Speaker 2 Very possible. So there's a lot online.
If he loses, he loses his job straight off, right? Manchester United are interesting because I think it's good that they...

Speaker 2 have as they build and we know they're building under Ruben Amarin this this in 18 months this team won't even look the same I mean, the play, there's so many players will be out the door, new play, right?

Speaker 2 But as you build, and you've been a part of this,

Speaker 2 it's important that you have these like mile markers that like were not great, but boy, it was good to win that and that feeling of winning. And so Ruben Amerim's downplaying it a bit.

Speaker 2 And I don't, I like Ruben Ameron. I like the way he speaks.
He's kind of like, yeah, we could win this, but boy, we have a long way to go.

Speaker 2 Whereas Angel Pasta Cargo, on the other hand, is like, he knows his job is under threat and he's banging that Anne's drum saying like, I'm the guy.

Speaker 2 this, we're in this final, and not a lot of other people are, so give us credit. So, it's there's an interesting drama there.

Speaker 1 To be honest, I think if you gave Ange some truth serum, like in the darkest moments, I'm not sure he wants to be there anymore. Like, do you really want to deal with this?

Speaker 1 We'll see what happens, but maybe he wins a trophy and goes off, yeah, and that says for sure. Very, just we're gonna do real quick USLNT on USMNT.

Speaker 1 Um, we're not gonna dive into all the players this weekend, we just want to give our kudos to Daryl DK, who came back after two Achilles injuries, 750 days between starts

Speaker 1 for him, scored last weekend for the first time in well over a year, about a year and a third. And just want to say congrats and another guy who's off the radar, but you never know Tim.

Speaker 1 And so just happy for him and

Speaker 1 well deserved and happy for him.

Speaker 2 Happy for him. And I think it's important for, you know, you read some of that.

Speaker 1 Like, but what?

Speaker 2 750 days between starts, two Achilles, right? Like

Speaker 2 what happens in these moments is your, your entire worth, and I know we can talk about mental health and we can talk about why your worth shouldn't be just in playing.

Speaker 2 When you're an athlete, your entire worth is, can I lace my boots up, get on the grass and contribute? And when you're out for like almost two years and you have these debilitating injuries,

Speaker 2 you spend most of your days thinking, I'm not good enough. I'm never going to get back.
Am I ever going to be able to compete? I know how good I was. Will I like those

Speaker 2 thoughts haunt you? So the the fact that he got back on the grass, banged a goal, and like that is incredible. Incredible.
So, yo, hats off to him.

Speaker 1 It's hard to go two weeks, Tim. I know.
You know, like much less two years. I'm just, I'm really happy for him.
Yeah. All right.
Let's take a break. When we come back, we are talking.

Speaker 1 We already referenced this to LA Galaxy GM Will Koontz. A reminder again, this was filmed on Thursday before they got.
destroyed 7-0 by Red Bull.

Speaker 1 So he's in a little bit more of a jolly mood than you would expect from a GM who just lost 7-0.

Speaker 1 We will come back with Will Koontz right here on Unfiltered Soccer with Lannon and Tim, as always, presented by our friends at Volkswagen. Don't go anywhere.

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Speaker 1 All right, Tim, I lobbied hard in our chat not to talk about the galaxy this week,

Speaker 1 but it's in the name of the show, Unfiltered Soccer. So Galaxy go to Red Bull.
Lose

Speaker 1 7-0.

Speaker 1 That is not misquoted. 7-0

Speaker 1 to Red Bull. um i'm sure you are reveling in it go ahead give me your thoughts i was not i was not if it was the metro stars i would um

Speaker 2 you know what my my thought is

Speaker 2 so this la galaxy galaxy team is winless in 12 games it's an mls record an unwanted mls record and i think back to a couple of heavy defeats i took uh a couple five nils and one six nil And I remember coming away from that game land as a team, but certainly as a goalkeeper in the defense, thinking like,

Speaker 2 we we stink like i we should we should stop playing soccer like that's how heavy those defeats are you're like i don't know if i can i don't know if i can go play the next game like that's how bad i i think i am and so you a lot of times those those those results are like an anomaly right like they kind of happen on like a regular run this team's on a horrific run yeah and then that happens and i so i worry for the team a little bit in terms of like it's not like they can pull from like oh don't worry guys we we we've we performed really well that was just a one-off this has like been a trend i I'm curious.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I know you're so close to this thing with the galaxy, given your history.

Speaker 2 Give me your raw thoughts on this overall.

Speaker 1 I think your point is great. So

Speaker 1 in the course of a season, if you are a good team or even just an average team or whatever, and you have a 4-0, 5-0, 6-1, whatever, you come in and a lot of times on Monday, the coach will say, not watching film, literally throwing in the trash, and we're going to move on.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 We know it's not good enough. Let's move on.
Right now, with the galaxy, when you're in this form and then that happens, now you start to go, do the guys really care? Have they stopped playing?

Speaker 1 That's the question. Have they stopped playing for the coach? Yeah.
And that's what's worrisome. Greg is, I think, a great manager and a great coach.

Speaker 1 But when you get to that point, he's been there a long time now. Do the players start tuning out? And, you know, he pulled them around on the field and berated them after the game.

Speaker 1 The question will be, Tim, now,

Speaker 1 what is the response? And sadly, I hate to say this, but it's, they don't even have to win the next game. They just have to show that they care.
And if they don't, now you're like, okay,

Speaker 1 something's going on.

Speaker 1 And that's what I worry about. So.

Speaker 1 All right, as I referenced, we did speak to Will Koontz on Thursday of last week. So we will be dressed differently.
You will see that. And

Speaker 1 just want you guys to have that context as you listen to the interview with Will Koontz.

Speaker 1 And here's that interview. All right, Timmy.

Speaker 1 We get

Speaker 1 really good guests on this show. We're very fortunate.
And we get an eclectic and wide range of guests.

Speaker 1 And this man who's going to join us today has a really unique story, a really interesting story that we're going to get into.

Speaker 1 He has been a part of Major League Baseball at the highest level with the Yankees. He has been a part of Major League Soccer at the highest level at the league office, and then both

Speaker 1 part of both

Speaker 1 MLS teams in my former city in LA, and has a lot of interesting perspective and can talk about a lot of things that I think fans have genuine questions to, but don't understand.

Speaker 1 And this will give them the opportunity to understand and then also ask questions on the back of it. So without further ado, the LA Galaxy general manager, Will Koontz, welcome in, Will.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Thanks for joining us. It looks like you are not in the office.
I take it. Yeah, no, thanks for having me guys.
I'm here in my childhood bedroom in Brooklyn, New York.

Speaker 1 So came back ahead of our game against the Red Bulls.

Speaker 2 Keeping it grimy in Brooklyn. I love that.
Will, welcome. And it's awesome to have you on.
I echo everything that Landon said.

Speaker 2 Your path to the top has been incredible. It's kind of the way it should be.
And we're excited to pick your brain and hear some of the other anecdotes that helped you get there.

Speaker 1 So, Will, can you dive in? So for people who don't know, you have an interesting story. So can you tell us how you got started with the Yankees?

Speaker 1 It's a cool story. I was reading about it again this morning.
And just fill people in because

Speaker 1 it's quite unique now in this world because most people would just turn you away without even thinking about it. But back in the day, this is how people got started.
So fill us in.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, look, I got uh really lucky i was a freshman at uh williams college up western mass played basketball there and it was a you know friday night during the season we took our basketball really seriously and so while the rest of the school was out doing you know whatever college kids do on a friday night i was thumbing through like an alumni directory and i saw that george steinbrenner the late owner of the yankees was a williams alum and i was like you know what like let me let me take a shot right so i I wrote him a letter and asked for an internship.

Speaker 1 I did. I lied and said I was a Yankee fan.
I grew up like a lifelong Beth fan. But,

Speaker 1 you know, like I wrote this letter.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to just send it to George Steinbrain Yankee Stadium, so I emailed the school president and introduced myself, said, Hey, I have this letter, do you have an address? And that turned into,

Speaker 1 yeah, an internship working for the Yankees. Uh, and I was in the baseball operations department at 19 and, you know, like summer job work for the Yankees and the Bronx, like

Speaker 1 Brian Cashman, like just a dream, right? But

Speaker 1 a really like eye-opening experience to see what everything is like at the highest level. And you guys know this

Speaker 1 as well as I do, right? Like, just because there's all the money in the world doesn't mean that you've got the best people necessarily or that people are working hard, right?

Speaker 1 You've got lazy people everywhere, you've got people who are checked out everywhere. And it was just a really good way to understand how

Speaker 1 an organization runs, especially because, as an intern, you got to run to the ticket office and drop off tickets, you got to go to the marketing department for X, Y, or Z, and you get a feel for how everybody at the club interacts.

Speaker 1 And then you also work for Brian Cashman, you get a sense for what it's like to put together a roster of hyper-competitive guys at the highest level. Every little

Speaker 1 percentage point matters. Oftentimes you learn, well,

Speaker 1 things that you want to do if you ever get there and things that you would do, but equally as important, things that you wouldn't do or you don't want to do or how you don't do things.

Speaker 1 And so you being at a young age, starting there, I'm sure shaped

Speaker 1 the way you do things now. And so how do you then go from Yankees in baseball, playing basketball? growing up to then Major League Soccer.
How does that happen?

Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, I've always been a a big soccer fan, right? And

Speaker 1 just always followed it, always loved it, thought there's something really romantic about it. When you're working in baseball, because the,

Speaker 1 you know, the soccer, the international soccer offseason is the summer, you have all these clubs from Europe who come through Yankee Stadium.

Speaker 1 And, you know, when you're talking to other baseball teams, you're really guarded when you're talking about scouting or player development. But these soccer teams, they didn't care.

Speaker 1 They're like, you guys are a baseball team. So you sit with, you know, guys from Premier League clubs or a La Liga clubs and you talk, you talk to shop, right?

Speaker 1 And it's different sports, but you kind of get a feel for how they do things and what their scouting process is like.

Speaker 1 And I had just turned 30 and I had, I went to law school at night when I was with the Yankees. I'd passed the bar and a buddy of mine worked at MLS with Tim Bezbachenko right before he

Speaker 1 went on to Toronto, right? And this is my buddy who's a lifelong soccer fan. We'd watch Premier League.
We saw you guys play in England like every Saturday.

Speaker 1 And I was just like, hey, what's going on with this guy in Toronto, right? He signed Michael Bradley. He signed Jermaine Dafoe, and he was like, Oh, that's my buddy Bez.

Speaker 1 He just left the league office. I was like, Well, what did he do? He's like, Well, he worked on contracts and salary budgets.
He has a law background.

Speaker 1 I'm like, Well, I work, I work on contracts, I got a law background, you know, I do salary stuff. I was like, You gotta, you gotta get me in there.
Um, he was like, All right, yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 You know, so he threw my name in, and it came back like a quick no from MLS. They're like, you take all the boxes, but but no, because we want somebody who's got soccer playing experience.

Speaker 1 Uh, and then I kind of just, you know, said no worries. And they called me a few months later and brought me in.

Speaker 1 and I was I was like look if I don't leave baseball now this is my life and it's sexy and it's funny but I was worried that I'm always going to wonder what if right like if I could work for a team in Europe if I could work for like a high-level you know MLS team as the sport continues to grow like I never want to be regretting that right and then so I was really excited to like go work at the league office and I get to league office and it's really cool because you're working with different clubs on different issues all the time right so I got Bruce Arena yelling at me and telling me I'm dumb you know

Speaker 1 don't surprise me and And then I've got, you know, Garth Lager number. Yeah.
Garth Lagerway in Salt Lake trying to pull an okie doke on me with some, you know, some technicality on a rule. And

Speaker 1 it was, it was really great and interesting. The one thing that just killed me, though, is that, you know, we weren't competing, right? Like Friday,

Speaker 1 you know, we're, we're dip daddy guys on Monday. And after 10 years in baseball at the Yankees, I was just, I, I missed that, right?

Speaker 1 And I really believe this world breaks out like really cleanly into like,

Speaker 1 you know, two camps at different times. And one of those is like, you're either a league person or a club person.
Right.

Speaker 1 And there's, I was just like, man, I'm a club guy and I need to get back to a club.

Speaker 1 And that eventually turned into my time at LAC.

Speaker 2 Will, just a quick one, if I take you back to your start, like I,

Speaker 2 I'm 46 years old and, you know, I know what generation I'm a part of. And so I often talk about the kids and everybody wants a shortcut.
And anybody who's successful would tell you

Speaker 1 there's no shortcut.

Speaker 2 It's boring, boring getting to the top. And I think about that climb, you at Williams College and saying, like, I'm willing to go to the bottom basement level to work my way up.

Speaker 2 And you and I share a mutual, really good friend, Ben Tulibitz at the Yankees. And I'm just curious on how relationships kind of are important to you and impact the roles.

Speaker 2 I mean, I talked about starting at the bottom. You're now at the top and you've been at the top in a couple of different organizations.

Speaker 2 How important are relationships to you,

Speaker 2 both upward and downward within those organizations?

Speaker 1 You know, for for me, it's everything, right? Like this is a relationship-based business. And again, you guys know this better than I do because you've been in locker rooms.
Sports are unique, right?

Speaker 1 Because the rest of the world kind of sees it as a one or a zero. If you won, it's great.
And if you lost, it's terrible. And there's so much external pressure, right?

Speaker 1 And so much of what makes a team great or an organization great is that ability to come together and like face that external pressure together. And so,

Speaker 1 and you guys, again, you know this as well as I do, like that's so much of that is based on trust, right? Like, do I trust you to have my back? You know, can you trust me to have yours?

Speaker 1 How do we get there? And I think understanding where people are coming from is key.

Speaker 1 And I really take a lot of pride in grinding my way up, you know, from an intern because it let me see kind of what everybody goes through.

Speaker 1 Now, if I'm walking through the front office, if it's people in the, you know, the support or relations department, I'm like, I know what you guys are going through.

Speaker 1 And I apologize because maybe it's my fault, right? But, you know, you have to be able to connect to people. And then it's also like sports is a really small pond.

Speaker 1 And so there might be somebody that I worked with 10 years ago who comes back around now and you're like, yeah, I remember what it was like working with you on something totally different 10 years ago.

Speaker 1 But,

Speaker 1 you know, it's somebody you consider for this new role, right? And keeping that rollodex of people you like working with people that

Speaker 1 show up. You know, you made a point, like grinding is boring, right? I say it's not hard.
It's just hard work, right?

Speaker 1 And everybody, I think, in this age of social media, you're like, well, I could do that. It's like, yeah, but the reason you're not doing it is because you haven't done it, right?

Speaker 1 Like there is just a value in, you know, just doing it repetitions, right?

Speaker 1 But so much of that, like I said, is relationships and connecting with people and making sure that, you know, I set the standard, right?

Speaker 1 Like, if I can't be approachable and if I can't relate to you, like, then we're lost, right? Because it starts from the top down.

Speaker 1 And you've just got to find a way to make people feel comfortable, know that this is a crazy world, right? It's not real estate, it's not finance.

Speaker 1 Like, we deal with wild stuff and MLS, it's even wilder. So making sure that you set that kind of steady open

Speaker 1 um you know encouraging environment is really important so you you talk about setting standard and part of

Speaker 1 the reason I think the galaxy were so good last year was the standards were high and you could feel it it felt different for me as someone who's obviously a lifelong fan and played there by the way we're going to skip over your time with LAFC because there's only one team in LA that matters

Speaker 1 so a lot of times and you said being approachable, Will. And a lot of times people want to accept an invitation like this to come on a podcast when everything's going great.

Speaker 1 You won the championship and everyone wants to talk about you and everything. And we, you know, for a few weeks, maybe a month now, we've reached out and been wanting to have you on.

Speaker 1 And you could easily have said, no, we're good, right? And just shy away. And the galaxy's having a terrible, historically terrible start to the season, right?

Speaker 1 And, but you're being approachable and you're facing it. And I give you credit for that can you walk people through as as a galaxy fan myself the challenges of one

Speaker 1 going from 23 2023

Speaker 1 uh last or close to last in the league to winning a championship and now starting the season and being in last place and why that can happen because fans are like well i don't get it you know why does he trade yovalich and why didn't he do this or why did they so just so there's nuance and i get this and tim does too because we've sat in these meetings and we know how these things go, but for fans, they don't really get it.

Speaker 1 So can you help explain how that can happen so dramatically? Oh, definitely. And look, let me just say, Jamie Alvarez, our comms director, she told me you guys want to talk to me about the Knicks.

Speaker 1 So I

Speaker 1 was like, oh, yeah, Jason Kidd on. Great.

Speaker 1 Look, MLS.

Speaker 1 you know, it's, it's a really difficult league because it's got such strict rules that are, I think, really difficult from the outside to understand.

Speaker 1 And having been inside, I understand why they exist, but sometimes that doesn't make it any easier to live with.

Speaker 1 And I think, you know, the toughest thing about MLS is that the rules make it impossible to have deep rosters, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, think about the teams you guys had, you know, Manu and Everton, like so many good players

Speaker 1 on that roster. And that means that not just you have a good team, but like the quality and training is high every day, right?

Speaker 1 When you got 16 dudes fighting for 10 spots every day, like, you know, that constant pressure and competition makes the group better and gives results.

Speaker 1 And that's not to say that we don't have really good players who try hard, but the reality is, if you lose a guy like Ricky Pooch, or if you have DPs like, you know, Chichi Rito and Douglas Costa in 2023 who aren't playing, it's impossible to replace them, right?

Speaker 1 So we have no way of replacing a guy like Ricky, who's who's kind of irreplaceable to begin with, but

Speaker 1 there's no mechanism for doing that. And then with a guy like Jovalich, so you know, we,

Speaker 1 it's a really crazy thing, but again, I'm going to get maybe into the weeds here, but he was a U22 player. So his budget charge was a fixed number, right?

Speaker 1 But because he turned 26 this year, his budget charge jumped $500,000. And so even if I gave him $1,000 more, he's still a half a million dollars more expensive, right? So he's on the cap.

Speaker 1 On the cap, right? So he's sitting there being like, hey, I just scored 20 goals, whatever.

Speaker 1 I want a contract raise. And that's 10%.
And he deserves it. He deserves it, right? Like,

Speaker 1 I would give it to you if I had it. But the reality is to give you a $10,000 raise, that's a $510,000 raise on the salary, right? And so

Speaker 1 any offer I make you while trying to keep this team together is going to be, and I told him this, I was like, look, I can't offer you what you're worth.

Speaker 1 I'll make you my best, I'll give you my best bowl. You're not going to love it, but it's just a math problem, right? And we're kind of having this conversation.

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden, Tigris comes in and is like, well, good news, we'll triple your salary. Right.
And now we just can't compete, right? There is literally no way for me to triple day on salary.

Speaker 1 And then Kansas City comes in and it's like, well, quadruple it, right? And it's even further away. And look, on the one hand, it's a great thing for Dayon.
He gets life-changing

Speaker 1 bump and he deserves that. But in any other league in the world, a club like the Galaxy and where we sit relative to spend, it's like you just, you just re-sign them, right?

Speaker 1 You re-sign the guys you have and you add on top of that. And

Speaker 1 it's the depth piece for me, right?

Speaker 1 So if Ricky then gets hurt and you have to sell Dayon, although I will say Christian Ramirez has come in and done a really good job and really productive for for us.

Speaker 1 And a guy like Marco Royce is dealing with knee issues and you've got schedule congestion early. It's like, all right, well, you're down your DP.
You're down your highest paid TA player.

Speaker 1 You can't replace either one.

Speaker 1 And you had to sell your 20-gold striker.

Speaker 1 And then you also have to make decisions on guys like Marky Delgado and Gaston Bruegman. And that's the way the league is designed, right? We don't.
We want to have sort of parody.

Speaker 1 I want to make sure that nobody gets dominant, but it just becomes crushing in depth. And if you lose the wrong guys, it becomes impossible to catch up.

Speaker 1 Last year, on the flip side, we were really healthy, right? And we were able to run out Ricky and Joe and Gabe and the whole group a lot.

Speaker 1 And there's a continuity that comes there.

Speaker 1 You know, the other piece of it, too, is because the rosters are so tight, if something happens to a guy like Joe Painsill, then, all right, now we're using Diego Fagundez on the wing, which means we're not using him inside, which means, you know, you then have to sort of go further down the depth chart.

Speaker 1 That's one thing I think is really difficult because we have owners that are willing to invest.

Speaker 1 And I think even with the money we're spending now, you can have, and you guys were talking about this the other day, you can have deeper rosters. But man,

Speaker 1 it's really punishing if you have the wrong injuries in MLS.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, let me ask you this because you are, I mean, that insight is incredible.
And our listeners are going to be like, just drooling because we are as well.

Speaker 2 There's so much that on the outside, people don't understand. Now, my next question, though, I want to paint a picture for you.
So I've been in MLS since 1998. I'm slightly older than Landon.

Speaker 2 He then came slightly after me, but we've seen it. I was part of the group that said, to hell with this, we're going to take you to court because single entity is not fair.

Speaker 2 And then the court said, shut up and go play soccer. And it is fair, right? And so we know that in order, and Landon has talked about this a lot,

Speaker 2 from its inception, in order to keep the league together, there was very few owners.

Speaker 2 You had to kind of keep things by the book or else this league, MLS, would end up like all the other North American soccer leagues and would just go bust.

Speaker 2 But as you said, we now have owners who are willing to invest. This sport is alive well and more prosperous than it's ever been.

Speaker 2 And I'm an owner in the league, and we know valuations are incredibly high.

Speaker 2 What you use, you use the word mechanisms. Everybody does, and that's right.
There's so many mechanisms to build a roster. What stops MLS as a whole from saying,

Speaker 2 here's a fixed budget, I'll make up a number: 10 million per squad or 20 million per squad. It doesn't matter what the number is.

Speaker 2 You have 20 million to build your squad, have at it, build it however you spend 19 million on one player and then and then figure out the rest but do it how you like what what is stopping mls from allowing someone like you to say forget mechanisms forget age forget vehicles of getting players into the team and into the league you have a cap of 20 million you can do whatever you want if you stink and and waste your 20 million guess whose fault that is your own what stops a league from doing that

Speaker 1 like i think it's in in all these things it it's our ownership, right? And that's a group of now 30 owners. And that's a really, that's a big pool of people.

Speaker 1 It's the biggest ownership group in any international football league in the world.

Speaker 1 And they all need to be aligned. It's like a majority or super majority in order to affect something like this.
And it's difficult, right?

Speaker 1 You have some people who've been in the league for a long time who say we need to keep the structures in place to protect growth.

Speaker 1 You've got some of these new ownership groups that have paid, you know, $150, $300, $500 million just to get into the league. Or like, hey, I just dropped this big check.
Let me do it what I want.

Speaker 1 Right. And you have people who are in the middle.
I think the issue becomes, you know, when you've kind of been around these conversations is what's the right sort of like loosening that

Speaker 1 doesn't totally create an imbalance. Now, look, you're talking to a GM of a team in Los Angeles.
I would just, you know, make it unlimited, right? Or really raise that ceiling.

Speaker 1 Cause I think the reality is most GMs would tell you you'd be better off with a team of like

Speaker 1 18 to 20 guys making $1.5 million than

Speaker 1 a team of three guys making 20 and 15 guys making six and a half between them, right? Absolutely. This is a weakest link sport.
It's a depth sport.

Speaker 1 I think part of it too is 32 years ago, the issue was that soccer wasn't popular, right? We needed the World Cup here to kind of grow the game.

Speaker 1 But everybody younger than, you know, I'm a little bit younger than you guys, but everybody younger than us, like they've grown up with soccer on PlayStation and Xbox.

Speaker 1 You can watch whatever Premier League game you want. Like, yeah, like RAI in New York, when I was growing up, you could watch a random Italian league game.

Speaker 1 Same Champions League final on like a Wednesday, right? But now, like, you could, you can watch whatever you want. And the issue isn't that people aren't watching soccer.

Speaker 1 It's that people are watching really, really good soccer. Right.
And that dynamic has flipped. And that's a great thing, right? And you guys get a lot of credit for that.

Speaker 1 But we're now in a different world where like we don't need to justify ourselves in the league or soccer anymore, but we need to find ways to increase the product.

Speaker 1 Because I'm a big believer in better teams,

Speaker 1 make for better product, make for better league, make for better revenue.

Speaker 1 But that's a big shift and an uncomfortable shift for a lot of our owners to come to.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think, sorry, real quick, Lane, I think the big miss to your point, Will, is simply this. When the league started,

Speaker 2 there weren't enough, and this is no disrespect to the founding fathers, there weren't enough knowledgeable soccer people. We didn't have enough growth, right?

Speaker 2 You're now talking about, and there's three of us on here, but even our broader listeners, within the MLS now, there are geniuses. There are geniuses on the pitch.

Speaker 2 There are geniuses in the front office who know, who have connections worldwide.

Speaker 2 The name brand of MLS is global. We now have the ability to not worry that the league's going to fold because someone's going to mismanage a team.

Speaker 2 That's gone out the window. And I still think there are some people who believe that that can happen.
And I'm not one of them.

Speaker 2 This league is so healthy now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they just put out these valuations, right? It's like AC Milan, Inter Milan, LAFC, Miami, Galaxy, right? I mean, like, we're top 15. I mean, that's 30 years ago, 25 years ago.

Speaker 1 That would have been unheard of, right? Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, well, you've given us a lot of time.
I feel like we could sit here for hours. There's so many questions, but I don't want to get you fired.
So we're going to stop now.

Speaker 1 Congrats to your Knicks. We're happy for you.

Speaker 1 It's early. There's a long way to go, but next time we'll talk about your Knicks.

Speaker 1 Last, real quick, just a few seconds. We've referenced him a lot, but is there update on Ricky Pooja's injury? I know Galaxy fans want to know how he's doing, where he's at in his recovery, et cetera.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Ricky's progressing really well, right? I mean,

Speaker 1 he did his ACL in late November, right? And got surgery in December, and there's a pretty fixed timeline for what ACL is. Luckily, you know, these days there's not like a lot of

Speaker 1 question involved. Ricky's a little bit of a slighter guy.

Speaker 1 He's got a slight build, and his game is a little more based on agility and being shifty and deceptive. So I think that there's some,

Speaker 1 you know, just it's going to take him some time to get fully comfortable on it. And then you guys know, like, usually you come back 100% before you fully trust it, right?

Speaker 1 So, you know, Ricky will be in town for the LAFC game next weekend. So we'll get to touch base with him.
And, you know, he's working on his move.

Speaker 1 back over to LA from Barcelona where he's been doing his initial rehab. So but he's been he's been over a couple of times already and we check in with him on a daily basis.

Speaker 1 We've got trainers go out there. So the most important thing for us is that he comes back fully healthy.
If you let Ricky decide, he'd push himself back on one leg, right?

Speaker 1 Never let the player decide in December.

Speaker 2 Well, that's great news. And we wish him continued success in that recovery.

Speaker 2 And for the record, we don't speak about Ricky a lot. Landon speaks about Ricky a lot.
I think he's a great player, but Landon is in love with him and rightfully so.

Speaker 1 We have a bromance. It's fine.
Galaxy Legends stick together, you know? Amen. All right.
Well, it's been awesome, man. Enjoy Brooklyn.
Good luck this weekend against Red Bull.

Speaker 1 Let's hope, get off the schneide and get the season going. But thank you very much.
We're going to take a break.

Speaker 1 When we come back, we will get into your questions in the ATT fan connection and talk anything but soccer right here on Unfiltered Soccer with Lannon and Tim, presented by Volkswagen. Thanks, Will.

Speaker 1 Stay right there. Thanks, brothers.

Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by Airbnb.

Speaker 1 All right, Tim, between your work, your daughter, your son, or maybe just your own enjoyment, how much traveling do you think you've done to see soccer this year?

Speaker 2 Honestly, I've lost track at this point.

Speaker 2 You know, just this summer alone, I was all over the place.

Speaker 2 But it is, it's a beautiful thing to see how many soccer fans and how soccer has been embraced no matter where we go.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I was just in Austin. I'll be traveling to New York.
Everywhere I go, I meet fans. Whether I'm going to see a game myself or just on vacation, I see people everywhere.
I hear stories.

Speaker 1 I hear stories about their pilgrimage to Everton to go watch a game, to go see the new stadium, to go see their favorite team.

Speaker 1 They get immersed in the chants, the songs, that incredible feeling of seeing the game up close and personal.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, I think that's where the game has changed. These trips have become a big deal for soccer fans.

Speaker 2 And this summer is going to be no different as we'll see the soccer community make their way to 11 host cities here in the U.S. to support their favorite national team.

Speaker 1 It's going to be incredible. I can't wait for it.
And what if those fans could turn their their homes into an opportunity while they're away at the game?

Speaker 1 Hosting your home on Airbnb while you travel is an easy way to earn a little bit of extra cash, maybe go towards tickets for your game that you want to go to. We know they're not cheap.

Speaker 1 Or maybe to help your kids pursue their soccer dreams.

Speaker 2 Yeah, your home might be worth more than you think. So find out how much at airbnb.com slash host.

Speaker 2 LD for me to holidays are all about connection to family and to friends. We host a lot.
So we got a lot of people over the house.

Speaker 2 Oftentimes when it starts to get chaotic and the turkey or the ham is getting burnt and the kids are running around playing with their new toys, I go out back by the fire pit and I choose chill.

Speaker 2 I crack open a Coors Light.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's my favorite time of year. It gets cold,

Speaker 1 not quite as cold as New York, but it's cold outside. It gets dark early.
Kids are playing. We turn on the jacuzzi, relax in the hot tub with a Coors light, choose chill, relax, have.

Speaker 1 family, friends, good food, good memories. My favorite time of year.

Speaker 2 When you embrace a chill mindset this holiday, it's a good time to choose chill and crack open a Coors Light.

Speaker 1 Choose Chill this holiday season and then reach for a Coors Light. Get Coors Light delivered straight to your door.

Speaker 1 Visit CoorsLight.com slash USLNT, or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer.

Speaker 2 Celebrate responsibly. Hoars Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado.
There's nothing better than feeling like someone has your back and that things are going to get done even without you having to ask.

Speaker 2 Like your crisp new jersey waiting for you in the locker room or a perfectly set up wall for a free kick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, as we on Unfiltered Soccer get ready for next summer, we know that very little in the beautiful game is guaranteed.

Speaker 1 But as we prepare to bring our unfiltered brand of non-stop soccer coverage, it's good to know AT ⁇ T has your back with the AT ⁇ T guarantee.

Speaker 2 Staying connected matters. That's why in the rare event of a network outage, AT ⁇ T will proactively credit you for a full day of service.
That's the AT ⁇ T guarantee.

Speaker 1 Learn more at ATT.com slash guarantee. AT ⁇ T, connecting changes everything.

Speaker 2 Credit for fiber downtime lasting 20 minutes or more or a wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers must be connected to impacted towers at onset of outage.

Speaker 2 Restrictions and exclusions apply. See ATT.com slash guarantee for full details.

Speaker 2 It is time now for everyone's favorite time of the week. The AT ⁇ T fan connection with everybody's favorite person, Jordan.
How are you?

Speaker 3 I'm wonderful. Thank you so much for asking.

Speaker 1 Jordan, how do you feel about the Liverpool fans?

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, she took a Liverpool shirt off. Since you are

Speaker 3 no, I'm wearing my FC Sampali shirt because it looks like they're actually going to stay in the Bundesliga this season. So I have more than one favorite team.

Speaker 2 I love your soccer knowledge.

Speaker 2 How do I feel about

Speaker 2 your...

Speaker 1 No, not him going.

Speaker 2 How do you feel about

Speaker 2 your fans? Your people.

Speaker 3 I don't like the booing. I don't.

Speaker 1 She doesn't like booing in general. She's like so positive.

Speaker 3 That's not true. There are some things that I would boo, but I just feel like,

Speaker 3 I don't know, I don't speak on behalf of all Liverpool fans, but I didn't, I didn't love that.

Speaker 2 How do you feel about Trent going?

Speaker 3 I don't really love that either, if I'm being perfectly honest with you. But at the same time, like he's a person who's entitled to make decisions that are best for him.

Speaker 3 And if he wants to leave, that's totally fine.

Speaker 1 He's refreshing from a fan.

Speaker 3 He's still going to lift the trophy and he still helped get us here. So that part is good.

Speaker 3 But I also don't think that anybody should not tackle him when we play Real Madrid in the Champions League next year.

Speaker 2 The voice of reason. Jordan, agreed.

Speaker 3 What do you got for me? Every once in a while, I get it right.

Speaker 1 Every once in a while.

Speaker 3 I've got some what-if questions for you this week.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 We're going to start with one that we got from Chris via email. I've always wondered if Hugh Dallas had awarded the handball in the 2002 quarterfinal against Germany, which U.S.

Speaker 3 player would have stepped up to take the penalty.

Speaker 1 That's a great question. Great question.
So in 2002 World Cup play Germany quarterfinals, there's a handball on the line by Torsten Frings. It's not called by Hugh Dallas, the referee.

Speaker 1 Who would have taken the penalty? I'm trying to remember who was on the on the field because it was the fifth game.

Speaker 1 My gut was going to say Claudio. Claudia.

Speaker 1 I think Claudia would have taken it because the only other person on the field who would have really taken it was

Speaker 1 they wouldn't have given it to me. And I guess it would have been McBride.

Speaker 2 I think Claudio takes it all day long.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Claudio takes it. Yeah.
And carries it. And we go to the semis and we beat South Korea and we go to the final and beat Brazil.
And I have a World Cup trophy.

Speaker 2 Wow. What a day.
What a day. Hugh Dallas.

Speaker 1 You ruined it. You ruined his.

Speaker 1 What a great question.

Speaker 3 Dan via Instagram has a similar question about the 2002 World Cup quarterfinal match. What What if Eddie Pope's late header goes in?

Speaker 1 Same thing. We would have lifted a trophy.

Speaker 1 Eddie Pope, man. It's all your fault, Eddie.
Just kidding.

Speaker 3 Jonathan via Instagram wants to know, what if Greg Berhalter had been replaced a year or two earlier?

Speaker 2 I think there's a cautionary tale here. What if Jürgen Kleinsman was replaced two games prior, right?

Speaker 2 At the beginning of the cycle? What if Greg Berhalter was replaced a year earlier? Like, you have to bear these things in mind.

Speaker 2 Now, Greg's a little bit different because he took over with what, three years prior to the last World Cup or two and a half years.

Speaker 2 I can't remember because I know that I know Dave Serrican was interim manager before that or something. I think it was three years.
Yeah, but yeah, you have to be careful of that because

Speaker 2 what ends up happening with the national team is you don't lose, like if you...

Speaker 2 If you're a club team and you stink,

Speaker 2 you only lose like half a season and your manager can like help rebuild.

Speaker 2 When you're a national team manager, you don't have a lot of games over the course of the course of four years.

Speaker 2 So when you sack a manager after a short period of time into a cycle, you lose a lot of games. You lose a lot of opportunity to develop a team.
And so, you know, the runway is really short.

Speaker 2 So I think the team, the team would be in a better place preparation-wise if another manager was given the opportunity to have longer with his team.

Speaker 1 You just need more time.

Speaker 1 And I think what we're learning is probably one cycle is enough, generally speaking, because if you get into the second and there's problems, now you have to make a really hard decision.

Speaker 1 And you just need more time.

Speaker 1 so i would say if they were thinking about thinking about doing it then you just move on you don't you don't if if it's absolutely this is the guy or woman and we're staying with them then you stay with them but if you're like i don't know should we you should probably just move on yeah so then by the same token based on an explanation you guys gave about what happened in the run-up to 2018

Speaker 1 that probably would have been beneficial unequivocally yeah yeah because and also

Speaker 1 there's inevitably, especially with the national team, a new voice comes in, new man, you're going to respond.

Speaker 1 So like having, even if you just got one result there, because it's just the new manager, you're not going to learn how to play differently or whatever, it's worth it, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 One more World Cup question from Drew via Instagram. What if USA did beat Belgium in the 2014 World Cup game?

Speaker 2 I think we got worked because the next game was Argentina, right?

Speaker 2 I think that's right. I think the next game was Argentina.

Speaker 2 We were spent. We were spent after that 101.

Speaker 1 You guys were exhausted.

Speaker 2 I mean, we just, the boys put in such a shift. I mean,

Speaker 2 we were getting pulled from pillar to post that we couldn't get near the ball. And like, the amount of running we did was incredible.
I mean, so I

Speaker 2 unlike Landon, I don't think I'd have a World Cup trophy had we gotten past.

Speaker 1 But you might have made 17 saves in the next day instead of 16.

Speaker 2 I mean, I played against Messi twice and he didn't score. So maybe, maybe,

Speaker 2 who knows? But it's a great question.

Speaker 3 Here's one for Landon from Eric via Instagram. What if Landon never left Everton?

Speaker 3 There would be one fewer statue outside of well,

Speaker 1 there would be one fewer statue outside, but maybe there would be a statue outside Goodison. Just kidding.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a good question. I mean,

Speaker 1 what I always ask myself is, how long each year could I maintain that level of output?

Speaker 1 Because every match was like at least 11 kilometers, so whatever, seven miles, which was the most I would ever do in an MLS game.

Speaker 1 And by the end of my 10, 12, 13 game run, I was shattered. I mean shattered, like needed a couple weeks to just, and now, granted, I was coming off the end of an MLS season too.

Speaker 1 So I had no break, but man, it's so demanding. So I would always ask myself, like, when you know there's an end, Tim, you got 13 games, like you can put it in.
But by the end, I was like,

Speaker 1 man, like, you got to go again and again and again. And that league is brutal.

Speaker 2 It's great insight because the players who do it year and year out.

Speaker 1 I have so much respect for them, man. So much respect.
It's crazy. And Champions League and FA Cup and their national team.
And it's just like, wow.

Speaker 2 I think the interest, maybe we would have won an FA Cup.

Speaker 1 Maybe.

Speaker 1 Right? Maybe.

Speaker 2 Something to push over the attacking push. I mean, we could.

Speaker 1 We beat the big teams. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then the show would be hosted by two FA Cup winning believers.

Speaker 2 Speak on it, JR. Speak on it.

Speaker 3 Okay, last one. This one's from Michael via email.
And I think it is a direct correlation to the earlier part of the show. How long do you guys think Greg Vanny holds on to his job?

Speaker 3 He's a G for sure, and I hate seeing anyone lose their job, job, but 7-0 is embarrassing.

Speaker 2 Well, I think my take is what Landon mentioned is what is the response? Because what you have to realize, when you're Will Koontz or you're any GM and

Speaker 2 you hopefully have enough distance, right? So you're in touch with the coaching staff and the technical staff, but you have enough distance so you can kind of create clarity. You're looking at...

Speaker 2 We all look at results. As fans, we look at results.
When you're on the inside, you have to look at what does it smell like?

Speaker 2 Are the body, of the players' shoulders hunched? Are they bright and lively?

Speaker 1 Are they still listening?

Speaker 2 Do they still listen? What's the feel? What's the pulse? And we don't have that. Landon, Mike, because he's closer to it, but we don't have that pulse.
And so

Speaker 2 results aren't the be-all end-all when it comes to deciding whether someone gets sacked or not.

Speaker 2 It's certainly a narrative and it's certainly optics. And sometimes optics went out.
But I would suggest the best player from the championship team is out.

Speaker 2 Second or third best player went to Kansas City,

Speaker 2 right? That's not excuses. I mean, look, the LA Galaxy are the haves, not the have-nots.
So sure,

Speaker 2 they're held to a different standard, but I would pump the brakes a little bit on the Greg Vanny situation because I think he's a good manager and he just brought you a championship.

Speaker 2 And we have to take some of this into context. Now,

Speaker 2 all that being said, that's not an excuse to not win in 12 games. That's not an excuse.
So there's an issue there, and it's just a matter of how big it is.

Speaker 1 So important to remember, the Galaxy still have two, whatever, $10 million wingers on their team, right? I think about Salt Lake, a team I follow closely.

Speaker 1 They don't have anywhere close to that, right? Not nowhere close. So that is context that matters.
Ricky Pooge is unique in everything he does.

Speaker 1 Jovalich was really important to the team, and you don't have either of them. But that you could get away with being like 10th or 11th place right now with that all being said, not

Speaker 1 winless and 12. And Tim said it perfectly.

Speaker 1 Majority of coaches, managers get fired, not because the results are going poorly, but because of what the feeling is and the culture and the environment in the, in the locker room. That is,

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 right now, before this weekend, I would have said,

Speaker 1 he's not getting fired.

Speaker 1 Like they're going to, they're going to hold on to him and he, you know, he's, they're going to wait till Pooch is back and they're going to work their way back and everything's going to be fine.

Speaker 1 You lose 7-0 and the team kind of quits on you. Now you start, now you, now your antenna starts to go up and you go, oh, what's going on there? There's something more going on there.

Speaker 1 And importantly, and this is an important part, and people have to remember this: where a coach is in their contract plays a huge part into this. So after last season,

Speaker 1 and this is public, Vanny

Speaker 1 and the galaxy could not agree on a new deal. So he's playing in the last year of his contract, JR.
So he now does not have a contract for next year.

Speaker 1 So if the galaxy decides either A, let him go or play it out, they don't have to pay him anything.

Speaker 1 And I know these are billionaire owners, but like you have to pay a couple million dollars to release a coach. It's a real thing.
So that plays a huge part.

Speaker 1 If he had a three or four year deal right now, they'd go, uh-uh, we ain't letting him go, unless it got, unless they lose seven nil three or four times in a row. But that also plays a big part of it.

Speaker 1 So that makes makes it a little interesting right now. And I love Greg, I think he's done a phenomenal job.

Speaker 1 Definitely don't want to see him lose his job either, but you know, just being real, that is, those are all factors that play in right now. All right, that's it.

Speaker 3 Thanks, thanks, guys.

Speaker 1 All right, Timmy. Uh, last but certainly not least this week, uh, anything but soccer.
And this is a soccer story, but it's a human story.

Speaker 1 Savvy King from Angel City, she plays with Sid and Alley on Angel City, had a really scary moment, 74th minute last week of their game. She collapsed on the field.

Speaker 1 She was under supervision for 10 minutes before being taken to the hospital. Don't have a lot of answers as to what happened.

Speaker 1 We do know she is awake and responsive and communicating many days after this happened. Glad that she's doing well.

Speaker 1 I think it's important for our listeners to understand when something like this, unfortunately for both of us, nothing this serious has happened, but when something like this happens, what it's like on the field.

Speaker 1 And just for context, they did end up finishing the match.

Speaker 1 We were a little confused as to, you know,

Speaker 1 why they would or wouldn't. Generally, if someone is responsive and getting carted off and okay, then you say, okay, everyone feels okay finishing.

Speaker 1 If you remember the DeMar Hamlin incident.

Speaker 1 with the Buffalo Bills a few years back, that match was abandoned and they said they would come back and play it if they needed to, but it ended up being irrelevant in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 We all remember when Christian Erickson

Speaker 1 collapsed on the field and that match was resumed quite a bit later.

Speaker 1 The Mwamba incident that happened quite a few years back and that match was abandoned.

Speaker 1 So just, look, I haven't been in that situation, but I have been on the field training sessions in particular where someone does their ACL or someone, I saw a guy's.

Speaker 1 ankle get dislocated and it's people have to remember we're human tim and when you see that in person someone you love and that you go out and battle with, it's really jarring. It really is.

Speaker 1 It's a tough moment to watch.

Speaker 2 It is. You know, I don't have a ton more to add to that.

Speaker 2 Other than, yeah, I have been on the field when a teammate has snapped their leg, you know, and it's hanging off. And

Speaker 2 it just,

Speaker 2 it's moments like those that you realize like

Speaker 2 you get so excited and you get so invested in the game. And that's what's asked of you.
And then those moments happen and literally soccer doesn't matter anymore.

Speaker 2 um so it's a you know to savvy king obviously we send our love and our well-wishes and um you know hopefully the road to recovery and health is at the forefront and um you know the the rest of it the soccer side is completely secondary you're so

Speaker 1 emotionally invested in testosterone adrenaline everything's pumping and every time you go on the field you just you have to forget i've heard nfl guys say this you have to forget that you could get seriously hurt

Speaker 1 It doesn't even, it never came into my mind, ever, but you can get seriously hurt.

Speaker 1 And I think people need to appreciate that, yes, these athletes make a lot of money and they're famous and all these, but like you are putting your body at serious risk every time you go on the field.

Speaker 1 And so, Savvy, get well.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, she is okay. Hopefully, she is able to continue playing, you know, because sometimes you can have issues, you know, heart issue or something where you just can't play anymore.

Speaker 1 So, we are wishing you the best. We thought it was important that we speak to that this week.
Absolutely. All right.
Great show.

Speaker 1 Thanks to Will Koontz for coming on, even in the midst of a really hard time for his club. I give him a lot of credit for that.
As always, we appreciate you guys listening. Your support is awesome.

Speaker 1 We missed not being with you guys last week.

Speaker 1 Please remember, subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, everywhere you get your podcast and follow all across social media for lots of bonus content.

Speaker 2 Yeah, thanks, everybody. Thanks, Will, for coming on.
You're a gentleman, so much incredible insight and knowledge. We certainly appreciated Landon 9.
We know our listeners will as well.

Speaker 2 Thank you to our presenting sponsor, BW, and our fan connection sponsor, ATT, and our unfiltered refresh sponsor, Coors Light.

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