City SC Posse - Ep 11: Stolen Point in NYC… Reality Check in Dallas?

Bright: All right, let's do it. Game day, game day again. ⁓ tonight against Dallas. ⁓ so for this episode, it's already our 11th episode of a city SC posse. ⁓ but we'll combine the episodes again and we'll do the review or the recap of last week's draw against New York city FC. And then we'll preview, ⁓ the game tonight on the road again against Dallas.

Kev: Yeah, what a draw to get to. We needed that point. It felt really lucky to come away with it, obviously, with one we were able to tie it up, but... ⁓ I'm in the next game, you know, let's go get some more points, but it was kind of a rough game.

Bright: You know. Sometimes, ⁓ yeah, it was a rough game. Sometimes draws feel like wins. And we've talked about it on the pod before. I don't like draws when, you know, when they're forced a little bit, when both teams are playing passive or, know, like we did not play well in this game. ⁓ and it came down to the last minute, you know, and it's the latest city SC goal, ⁓ to date.

Kev: Good day.

Bright: So the 90 plus six, you know, so was the latest goal in the history of the club. ⁓ so of course, you know, you score that goal and you come away with a tie in a game that you did not deserve any points on the road. And it feels like a win, you know, so we'll take it. It's still frustrating, you know, from a loyal fan perspective, because the team just doesn't look good. It honestly doesn't look like we're improving, you know, the, a coaching perspective, player ratings.

Kev: Yeah, okay It feels great. It feels so good. ⁓

Bright: ⁓ player decisions, you know, position on positions. None of it was really great. The only thing that was good were the two subs that came in at the end to that, that combined for the goal. That's the only thing you can really give to make credit for.

Kev: Yeah, but you got to give them credit for it. Like we finally made a couple moves that were a little bit more timely, if I remember correctly, and they paid off. So let's be happy. You know, I'm positive today. I'm feeling really good. I'm just feeling good coming away with the draw. That goal, That goal felt so good tying it up, didn't it?

Bright: Well, the player choices paid off. Definitely. Feeling good about tonight? It did it. Yeah. Well, any, again, anytime you score 90 plus six, you know, to tie or win or whatever, you know, the that's huge. Even last night, Friday night city too, was down to one and scored in the 90 plus three minutes to tie it up. And then ended up winning the game in, in penalty kicks city, you know, the MLS two does penalty kicks to decide, ⁓ draws. So, you know,

Kev: We lost that game. We lost. We snuck out that draw. It feels so good. ⁓ To tie it up? Yeah. Yep.

Bright: fun to see for the, for the fans that were at the game. And, ⁓ you know, we'll talk about this a little bit, but you know, for city two last night, had ⁓ struck Louvin fall. ⁓ yeah. So, so Nielsen, you know, so, ⁓ no, no, not Nielsen. He's gone. Who am I thinking of? Hebert Hebert. ⁓ yeah, yeah. So, you know, some, players getting some, some playing time for C2, but of course that means that they're not, they're not going to be eligible tonight.

Kev: some big big players. Hebert, yes. minutes.

Bright: They didn't travel with the team. So we know obviously Louvin. ⁓ struck, ⁓ not getting any, not in getting any minutes with the first team tonight, but you know, good for them to the squeak one out there. Good for those players to get some playing time and hopefully work on their fitness. and, ⁓ you know, I don't know. You look at the squad that played last week against, ⁓ New York city FC and you know, the overall lineup, ⁓ it just, I don't know. Not great.

Kev: Nope.

Bright: Cordova, you know, he gets his first start, which, know, in theory was like, great. You got to give this guy some more minutes, see what he can do. He looked completely lost and he was playing more out wide, which I don't think is his natural position. You know, he should be probably a more of a, yeah, you know, certainly up top in the center. And, ⁓ and yeah, he just looked, he looked lost. So he did absolutely nothing and he had, and we'll get into the player ratings here in just a minute. Absolutely horrendous.

Kev: Yeah, he wants to be up top. Middle, yep.

Bright: So what do you do with him tonight? Now? Like, do you give him another chance? Do you, do you put him in the number nine spot? ⁓ or do do you have him on the bench and, know, maybe you put them in again, ⁓ the second half, depending on how the, game's playing out. I don't know. I didn't know. I don't know what you do with this guy. And does he already worn out his welcome in St. Louis. He's on a short-term loan so we can get rid of them. Yeah. Yeah. So if he doesn't prove himself.

Kev: P. I was going to say he's only got another couple of months, I think, going on his contract. So, but you need to figure out, you got to figure out what you got them, right? Like, I feel like you're playing them again. To your point, I had a joke lined up about like, you know, his picture on the milk carton, because I didn't hear his name the whole game. I don't know where he was. I don't know where he was. He was missing.

Bright: No, yeah, you're right. He was missing. He was missing from the field, right? Missing from the action. Yeah.

Kev: But to your point, I don't know if that is his position out wide. I think he needs to be more in the middle. I'd like to see him given a chance more in the middle there. Maybe, I don't know. What are you doing? Is better playing this go around? I think maybe he could.

Bright: No, of course not. Well, it'd be better. No, I don't. I don't think so. You know, I yeah, I feel like.

Kev: He could be on the bench for this game, I think. ⁓ So maybe you're sliding him in the middle of this game in terms of Cordova and get to see an opportunity and what he can deliver. Because you can find out. You need to know. And then you can make your decision.

Bright: Sure. Of course. you, you also, you also. Sure. You also have toy shirt, you know, like if he's, if he's ready to go, he's fit, he's healthy again. He's looked. Yeah. I mean, he's looked threatening. He's he hasn't scored yet, but he's, he's been when the times that he's played mainly coming in as subs, he's looked like the guy that is going to score or could score.

Kev: You know I want him in there. Because he's looked great. Yeah.

Bright: You know, then of course, you know, he was having a great game a couple of weeks ago. Um, and ended up coming out at halftime or, know, for, for injury concerns or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I mean, the other thing is, is of course McSorley comes in, scores this big goal, like, has he started to earn more minutes? So you said like earlier, you said the right players at the right time. Well, they didn't put McSorley in until the 81st minute. So Betcher stayed in until the 80, 81st minute.

Kev: taking out, 50th, 55th minute or something like that, ⁓ ⁓ yeah, OK. Well, you know, that was the right time, though. It was when we needed them. Yeah.

Bright: So it really wasn't all that great. I mean, when you score, you know, it all looks good for the coach. Yeah. But you know, should he be earning more minutes? ⁓ you know, especially as a top goal scorer for city two last year, you know, maybe you want to see what you got with him. You know, you said, ⁓ you got to see what you got with Cordova. Maybe we got to see what we have with McSorley and giving him a little bit more playing time.

Kev: Yeah, I still think that McSorley is like a perfect sub in, bring him in later in the game, let him use the freaking energy that he's got in those legs to do what he does and attack and just he's freaking all over the place, right? Like in terms of his field movement. And I love that at the end of the game. Like I think he's a great under the game sub. just don't know. Like we don't have

Bright: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't, I don't disagree with that. Agreed.

Kev: somebody I feel really good starting the game either, which is the problem, right? Like, in a perfect world, I think he's coming in off the bench,

Bright: Well, That's more or less what I was going to say. You know, like in, a perfect scenario right now, when you have a true number nine, you know, that's going to play the game and hopefully scoring some goals. You know, McStorley is a great late game sub. ⁓ but when you, when you don't have anybody that can fill that spot at the moment, you know, do you gotta, you just gotta throw it to McStorley and say, all right, go out there, son. We're going to give you 90 minutes. Uh, you know, in back to back games or, know, 75 minutes, whatever it is, you know, it's string a couple of games together and see if he can score two or three goals.

Kev: Yes, he's he's pretty good, honestly, coming off the bench over the last three games, I think. You know, he brought all of the energy. I'm thinking of when Joyner came in, it was him and Joyner and can't remember who else was was brought in. McNaughton, probably, probably it just it felt like, yeah, they had all of the chemistry going in.

Bright: Mc, McNaughton maybe. And of course it was McNaughton and Mick Sorley that, that hooked up here.

Kev: you know, when they were subbed in and they brought all of the energy to the game. They look like the best players on the field, at least from a city standpoint when they come in. So you almost, know, part of me wants to ride with that.

Bright: Well, let's look at, let's look at some of the stats before we get to the player ratings. ⁓ again, kind of like we said, they're not great for city, you know, it's like, again, this was, this was a game where we'd stole a point, especially on the road. And first off, we also need to talk about how terrible, the pitch was, you know, ⁓ yeah. The pitch, yeah, yeah. The pitch, the, ⁓ the, you know, the baseball diamond putting down the sod people were.

Kev: Berkey? Yeah, Berkey was bad. ⁓ the Petsch, yeah, yeah, Berkey was good. Baseball, yep.

Bright: tripping all over the place. It's a smaller field. And I know it's just temporary. Obviously they're building a soccer specific stadium, but I'm like, ⁓ it's not a, not a great look at the moment for sure. And I'm glad that we don't have to play in that every time we have a home game, right? Could you imagine if they were playing at Bush Stadium until they finished? Like, no.

Kev: Yeah. It's what they used to do early on in the MLS, right? They were all over baseball stadiums, so it kind of brought you back to those times. But yeah, not ideal. I felt like Little League out there when you were just up at your school field and half of it's the baseball field, right? Didn't feel great. You were.

Bright: Sure. Yeah. Baseball stadiums, football. Yeah. Well, yeah, you were playing on dirt when we were, when you were kids, they didn't lay down new, so you were just playing on dirt. Right. ⁓ so maybe that, maybe that led to something, you know, and again, a, a smaller field, although Demay was like, we practice on a smaller field. We're used to it, you know, but, but it didn't, it didn't feel that way because our possession was terrible. 38 % was our possession. ⁓ and you know, this year, anyway, our possession has been much better. So.

Kev: Good.

Bright: Uh, this is, you know, think the two games that stand out this one and then San Diego where we had a really, really bad possession. So 38 % possession, uh, not great shots again. We only had two shots on target. So one of which was clearly a goal. So, uh, not great. So two shots on target of eight attempted shots, um, versus their 10 attempted shots and five on target. their conversion rate was better at least as far as shots on target.

Kev: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Bright: goals was, you know, was not as good. ⁓ and their possession was better. They had 62 % possession to R38, which means that they had more passes. They had better pass accuracy. They had less fouls. They had six fouls to R9. We had more yellow cards, three to their one. ⁓ you know, offsides was pretty negligible in this game. And then we had four corners to their two. So I think you said that you did bet the under on the corners. And it was way under in this game, so you cleaned up on that one.

Kev: Yeah, that was, you know, we were talking about that bet if we wanted to take it over and then we talked about how Pompeo was out. I was like, well, wait a minute, like that might be my deciding factor. And as I was putting it in, yeah, I leaned heavily on it and I thought, you know, we're not gonna, we're not gonna be putting up any quarters and it paid off. So that felt good.

Bright: Yup. Nope. Yep. That was a good, good thought process. Good, ⁓ good win for you. ⁓ all right. So let's look at the player ratings. ⁓ I just, you know, I just pulled these up and, and again, not great. So. Becher up top 4.9 pathetic Cordova right wing forward, I guess is what you put them at 4.2. Hardell, not one of his better games. 6.4.

Kev: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Yep, better comparison.

Bright: Santos. Yeah. Yeah. Santos on the left 5.2 Edelman center mid 5.2 Durkin 6.0 wall. Four point six. Yeah. So not the worst on the team. Cordova the worst on the team, ⁓ but 4.6 again, just terrible. And I, know, he, he is like,

Kev: 416, oh wow, okay. Consistently, like consistently. That's the problem.

Bright: Consistently. that's the thing Cordova. This is his first start. You know, you're trying something new. Okay. It didn't work out. You shift this game, but wall them. They just keep playing them in the same spot, expecting different results and it's not happening. And again, we've talked about this. just kills the attack. He can't drive. Of course, now you don't have Pompeo. So you don't have that option anymore. So you're going to have to get creative, but you got to do something here. You know, I think we talked about it last week, whether it's Totland.

Kev: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it kills the momentum.

Bright: you know, um, whether it's Sangbin, you know, mate, mean, joiner. Yeah.

Kev: join or get more minutes out there, although I don't know what his status is after being moved up to U21. U21, I think? Yeah. Yeah. I think so.

Bright: Right, right. So yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So not great. And then our defense, which I thought our defense played pretty well. Um, obviously the one goal right after halftime, you know, was not ideal. Uh, Pulvera 7.0, bum guard, 6.7, uh, and then a Roscoe 7.2. So, you know, I mean, not bad, not bad. Uh, Berkey 7.8.

Kev: Yeah, not terrible.

Bright: Um, and it certainly could have been higher. Um, you know, he gives up the goal. Maybe, maybe there could have been an opportunity to save that somewhere along the lines, but he had some huge saves. Especially at the end of the game, you know, when we're pressing, trying to get something to happen and they had a breakaway, you know, a couple of other shots on goal and he keeps us in the game. And then we come down, we score.

Kev: He had a lot of big saves. A lot of big saves. Mm-hmm.

Bright: tie it up. So you really got to give Berkey a lot of, a lot of credit for not giving up, ⁓ you know, willing his team, know, you get a couple of big plays like that. And then the team starts to get a little bit more energy, you know, kind of like hockey, you know, somebody goes in with a big check or how many times do you see it? You know, a goalie makes a crazy save on one end and then write down the ice blues score, you know, tie game, something like that. Right. But our offense could have been dead the whole game, but Bennington makes this out of this world save.

Kev: Yeah. Yeah.

Bright: And then all of a sudden we come down a score, right? So something, something kind of like that.

Kev: They had a couple of chances that felt like they should have put the game away and Berkey comes up big, good positioning, ⁓ doing what he does, right? He keeps us in so many games. think the announcers even had mentioned of it, just Berkey doing what he does, making big plays. You can never discount what he does for us.

Bright: Yeah. Now, as far as, um, as far as coaching goes, um, tactics to make it's a 5.6, uh, starters and subs 5.7 timing on his subs 5.8. Not great. then choices.

Kev: Are we sure that wasn't in the 70th minute that we made a couple subs for ⁓ Yeah, huh. It felt like it was the 70th, but...

Bright: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right here. You know, um, no, definitely not. Uh, well, I mean, we made some, it says McNaughton came on at 71, Perez, no, Perez didn't come on, did he? Or maybe he did. He did come on, right? Uh, 65. So, uh, you know, I don't know. I don't know. Um, choices though, 7.5. So, you know, of course two subs come on, they hook up for a goal, but that ends up being the.

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: you know, the difference maker between a loss and, and a tie. So again, ⁓ we'll take it.

Kev: It's a mean tie too with what we have coming up here in terms of road games.

Bright: Well, sure. Well, mean, we've talked about that a lot of, you know, road games. We've had a, one of the toughest strengths of schedules in the league. think the toughest, at least that's what I'm reading online. haven't necessarily fact-checked that, but, ⁓ and you know, still a tough stretch of it the next couple of weeks. So it didn't, unfortunately we didn't move in the standings at all. We're still sitting at 13th place. ⁓ Uh, Austin FC, they're currently losing. They're playing the galaxy. So I got live standings here. So if they lose and we get a, you know, a draw or a win tonight, we'll have the opportunity to, to jump them. We could jump Houston. Um, you know, put us right at around, you know, ninth, 10th, 11th place, uh, with a win tonight. So, uh, you have, you have an opportunity here. It's not like we're completely. We didn't, we didn't set ourselves up great. We're still minus three and goal differential five points versus LAFC's 16 at the top of the table. Uh, but it's still, it's still crammed between that, uh, eighth and ninth spots. You know, those last playoff spots and all the way down to, know, where we are in sporting KCR. So you string a couple of wins together or draw a win, a draw, something like that. And you could be right back in playoff contention.

Kev: Yep. What's the Klaus goal differential? That's my question. Let's not look it up.

Bright: Yeah, I know. I didn't look that up, but you know, I did he look at it. Are you in front of your laptop? See if you can look it up right now. See if he used the goal scorer on the galaxy, a game right now that's that's happening during the day. ⁓ but before we preview this Dallas game, ⁓ you know, we were at Dallas tonight on the road. Then we're at Seattle. So Dallas are currently in sixth place and Seattle in fifth place. So again, two. two tough games were home against San Jose, which we've done really well against San Jose, ⁓ so far historically, but they're sitting at in third place in the division. So yes, you're at home, but you're playing a tough opponent. And then we've got to go right back on the road again to play Austin and Colorado. So right now they're both ahead of you in the standings. ⁓ so it's not great. And then you come home and you got to play LAFC again, you know, so, ⁓ we're not. You're not looking like you really got an opportunity until ⁓ middle of May. Then we're at DC. We're home against Austin and then we're home against Kansas city. ⁓ you know, those are all winnable games. ⁓ but, but we got a while to go here. So this is a stretch where we got to string some points together. got to steal a win on the road somewhere. We already stole the draw last week. So, ⁓ we'll have to see what we can do.

Kev: ⁓ News update it was not Klaus that scored here so he still has five goals and I think that puts us what? Two behind? One no because Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're back to even baby whoo

Bright: Okay. We have, we, we have five goals on the season. Yeah. So tied with Klaus. Yeah. Back to even five goals on the season for our team, five goals for Klaus. We've given up eight goals. So we've got that minus three differential, which is not ideal. So.

Kev: Yeah, so we're coming up on a game we're playing. We're playing Dallas.

Bright: Yep, Dallas at Dallas.

Kev: And from what I saw, they have like, they've had the exact opposite schedule set up than what we've had. They've had front loaded, like they're all home games and have played two away games. I feel like we're, you know, we're in a completely different position right now with the away games we played.

Bright: Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that- And you can flip the script, you know, towards the end of the season, you know, like that, that can happen. And all of a sudden you, you get on a hot streak, you know, it gives you more time for you to develop your, you know, from a city standpoint, you develop your, your team chemistry, you know, for Demay to figure things out. And then maybe, maybe that happens on the second half of the season. And you know, you've got a lighter schedule, more home games, and you can turn that into some points. I guess we'll see. ⁓ For tonight's game, the early percentages, so 46 % for Dallas to win, 25 % to draw, 29 % for St. Louis to win. So this might be a game when we start looking at bets, and I don't know if you're ready to do that yet. This might be a game where I bet on the St. Louis win or draw.

Kev: Yeah. I wouldn't blame you. What's that paying out? you The double chance? Double chance would be minus 135 day out.

Bright: I don't, haven't looked it up yet. ⁓ Yeah. all right.

Kev: No, no.

Bright: Not as ideal as I was hoping for, not as big of a payout.

Kev: Yeah I don't think that's what I am going to go with. You know, I keep winning on my Asian handicap bets. So like, why would I get away from it? St. Louis is plus 0.5 at minus 125, probably not the direction I would go. I think we're gonna end up with a draw in this game. I think it's gonna be another one-one.

Bright: Yeah, I know, right. Yeah.

Kev: kind of game with the possibility of ⁓ maybe sneaking in a win. ⁓ I'm going to aim for the draw. yeah, I'm thinking maybe playing the SC 0 on the Asian handicap. I might just play the draw plus 265. It of feels really good on that one. ⁓ Trying to look at total goals or total goals.

Bright: You're hopeful. ⁓ yeah, it's not bad.

Kev: ⁓ Total corner kicks. Feels like it could be another under. You know?

Bright: Yeah, it definitely could. All right. Well, let me, let me run through. You might change your mind after you hear the stats and you know, ⁓ so let's, let's run through some of that. So first, a couple of, ⁓ you know, obvious takeaways game Saturday night, ⁓ it's tonight. We're recording this, ⁓ Saturday afternoon, ⁓ four 11, the game is at seven 30 central time.

Kev: Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.

Bright: ⁓ so last, you know, last week we were on Eastern time. So we're back on central. So a seven 30 start time that I like ⁓ a little bit better. Yes. Yes. So obviously we're coming off the draw. ⁓ but Dallas for the year thus far are three, one, and two with 11 points. They sits in sixth place in the Western conference. ⁓ and they defeated DC United last week, four to nothing.

Kev: A little bit more, yep, same. Yeah. Home game. Yep.

Bright: And they're unbeaten in their last three matches. Now this is, this is what's key. So their, their main, ⁓ striker, ⁓ Pitar Musa leads Dallas with seven goals, you know, which is tied for the MLS lead at the moment. ⁓ so that, you know, that's somebody you got to watch out for. And then, ⁓ one of their midfielders, Joaquin Valente, ⁓ leads the team with three assists.

Kev: Yep.

Bright: So between those two guys, they're also unbeaten at home with a two ⁓ and two record. So, you know, they haven't, they haven't lost. Maybe they're due, maybe they're due to lose one at home. Maybe this is where we sneak one in, but you know, that's kind of where I am. Maybe a draw tonight, you know, you hope for a draw, although I never hope.

Kev: Yeah, yeah. Yep. I try to take a quick look ahead of time what the stats kind of look like. They do a lot of scoring at home, but they also give up some goals at home. ⁓ So maybe a total goals play could be in play today, right? I think it's, let's see what that total goals.

Bright: Yeah. Well, I've got There you go. Right. There you go.

Kev: Total goals, total goals, both teams to score, not what I'm looking for. Total goals, there it is at the top. 2 and 1 half is the over-under. Over is at plus 120. Kind of feels tempting. Kind of feels tempting. Yeah.

Bright: over at plus plus 120. Yeah, that's, that's tempting because you know, that could be a two, one score, you know, two, one, two, two. ⁓ and you, you're winning that bet. So.

Kev: Yep. Now the, the under is at minus 1 55. So they, does feel like they're projecting a two, nothing win or a one, nothing win.

Bright: or a 1-1 draw.

Kev: We're one draw right? Yeah, so

Bright: Yeah. Yeah. Which, which is right up, right up silly cities alley. Right. That's kind of tends to be most of the time where, where we've been playing. Right. Now I've, I've, I got the season stats here too. ⁓ so this is, this is, think pretty interesting because on paper it looks pretty even, you know, so you got one team Dallas that has scored a bunch of goals and, and is, you know,

Kev: ⁓ Where we've been playing. Yeah. Okay.

Bright: Firmly in a ⁓ good playoff position on the table, good mid, mid table team. And then you got city who's not. And yet when you, when I look at these season stats, they're not so bad. So possession on the season, we're at 48.5 % possession versus their 45. So between the two teams, we tend to have the ball a little bit more. And that's with those two games, San Diego and last week where we were in the 30. So.

Kev: Mm-hmm, kind of bringing us. Yep.

Bright: You know, yes. Uh, shots is almost exactly even 13.8 shots per game for them versus 13.7 for us on average for the season. So right on target there shots on goal again, pretty much the same 5.5 for them, 5.3 for us. Block shots. They got a little bit of an edge 4.3 for them. 3.7 for us total passes. We're leading at 502 to their 426 pass accuracy. We're leading 85.7 to their 80. ⁓ so with possession being pretty similar, our, our pass accuracy is better. that's interesting. Corners we're at 5.8 per game versus their 4.3. So you give us the, edge, but you know, right now. Yeah. So that, puts you right at 10 corners a game, right? On average, give or take.

Kev: ⁓ shoot. Maybe I avoid that. Yep.

Bright: But I don't know, uh, total crosses we're leading 11.3 to their nine offsides is the same to aerial duals one. they, got a pretty big lead here, 94 to R 72. So you got to watch out for their them in the air, right? Those crosses though, you know, in the box now expected goals, they're much heavier, 11.5 to R 8.8. So we have 8.8 expected goals and we've only scored five.

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: Right? They have 11 and a half.

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: And projected goals and they have scored 14. So they're overperforming. Yeah. And we are underperforming. Uh, goal goalkeeper saves. We're at three, two to their two seven clearances. They have seven to our 5.7. Files. They have more files and more yellow cards. So maybe this is what you try and bait them into some fouls, some yellow card trouble early. And then you can, you can pressure them.

Kev: There are a person. Yeah.

Bright: Right. Maybe, maybe that's something. Now there's also been a couple of games against Dallas in the past that I remember where they've picked up some red cards. think they've picked up, ⁓ you know, in the first three seasons as a, as a team playing Dallas, I think they have at least two red cards, one of which was the goalie and like the first minute of the game, you know? yeah. So, but yeah. Yes. Yes. Maybe there's something there and you know, we can play a man up.

Kev: club. awesome. Let's get it. Let's do it. Let's antagonize, right? Like

Bright: We haven't seen any red cards at all yet this season for us or our opponents. So maybe this is the game, hopefully not for us.

Kev: Yep. Nope. Nope. Yep. Hey, you know, I'll look for that bet, see if we can make that somewhere.

Bright: Well, I'm telling you the history, and this is just from memory, but the history is that Dallas, when they're playing us, they've picked up a couple of red cards. So the odds of that are certainly probably higher than normal.

Kev: That'd be kinda fun. Love it. I wonder if like, do we just have somebody under their skin? Like, do they hate one of our players? What's going on?

Bright: I don't know. I don't, I don't think so. I think at this point it's just happenstance, but, ⁓ but you don't know. And the referee for tonight, I don't know his name or anything, but he's the, infamous St. Louis city referee. If you remember the game where we had scored a goal and it went to review and you know, he came back and he said, ⁓ upon further review, there was, there was no foul on the goal. so then the,

Kev: it Which one? Which time?

Bright: The crowd erupted because they thought we won the challenge. then, but then he said, however, leading up to the play. Yeah. And it was this big, you know, big thing. it's the same. ⁓ yeah, yeah. This. Well, it's in Dallas, but yeah, it's definitely the same official. So it's that's not necessarily a good look. Prepare yourself. Yes. Yeah.

Kev: What? I I do remember this, yeah. Yeah. It's a good thing. Good thing he's not here. It's not a home game would be taunting. Yeah. Prepare yourself. Fun.

Bright: So, all right, well that, mean, that's all I've got as far as, ⁓ stats go, you know, I'll probably put some money down, although I don't, I don't know what, what I'll go for just yet. Cause I, you know, I like to go for those bets that have a little bit of a payout, you know,

Kev: Yeah, you don't want to go too low at like, you know, minus 165. That's not a bet you really want to make. That's not feeling great about it. Not at the dollars that I'm throwing in, right? Like, who cares? Like, lose five bucks, whatever.

Bright: Yeah, right. Yeah. Now I did. Right. Yeah. For five bucks. Right. Right. Now I did win. I, you know, I won last week. I won, won, won and lost one, but I ended up making money on the night. So, um, you know, so I got some free money to play with tonight.

Kev: Yep. Yeah, I had both of mine between the handicap and the under on corner. So I think I'm going to play. I I'm going to go back to the handicap and put it in favor, maybe plus 0.25 on city. And then I might take a look at a goal scorer once the starting lineup comes in.

Bright: Yeah. Yeah. I got away, got away for that. You know, if toy shirt gets in there, maybe, you know, you feeling good on toy shirt, you know? So, yep. Let's see what the lineup is. You know, I'll get the episode posted. Maybe we'll come back early next week and do a recap episode. ⁓ just a short one. and, ⁓ yeah, you know, I guess we'll see, we'll see where we're at. I'll probably write up ⁓ a blog post.

Kev: Yeah, I might feel good about that bet, right? Yep. Recap, I like it.

Bright: ⁓ I've been writing that up kind of towards the end of the game, especially when I'm frustrated. So I might get that blasted out tomorrow. If you want the, you know, the early reaction from myself, ⁓ our listeners can check that out. We're trending up on our listeners. So that's still good as is NFNP pod, ⁓ just posted the NFNP pod episode this morning. So we were actually a little bit behind schedule. So we'll have a couple of podcasts coming out on the same day here on NFNP pod productions.

Kev: Quick. Night. What? Love the topic on that one, you know, where are those scientists? What's happening with these deaths? just feels like it... Something's going on. It's got to be outside the average.

Bright: If you haven't, if you haven't had the chance to listen yet, it's, it's, ⁓ it's a little crazy and nobody's really asking these questions. Like where are these scientists? So if you're

Kev: I You know, I think people are certain too though, right? Like, these questions are building.

Bright: And well, was another one from the time that we recorded the episode to the time that we released it, a ninth scientist, just dead with no, no cause of death, you know, suspicious. So, you know, the fact that that happened in between the recording and the episode launch, something, something is amiss. And this guy worked for the nuclear, ⁓ nuclear space launch, right?

Kev: Okay. Yup, smells fishy.

Bright: So, ⁓ he's, know, these guys, these are smart people doing crazy stuff and dead or missing. So, ⁓ I don't know if you're interested in that, go check out NFNP pod this week. We also talked a little bit of a blues hockey and how the blues are really getting screwed. ⁓ and, and how the NHL needs to move to a three point system, you know, like, and even soccer's like this a little bit of that. They don't have the overtime, right? So with, with.

Kev: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Mmm. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Bright: The NHL, they have the overtime. And so what I really don't like about it is if you win a game in the NHL, you only get two points. But if you tie and you go into overtime, somebody is getting two points and somebody is getting one. So, especially as you're heading down the stretch and you're trying to play catch up much like the blues were, and you can't do it because some games are, are, they're awarding three points.

Kev: Yeah Over time you're getting that Yeah. Yep. So yeah, so you're saying, the outright win should be three, overtime win two, bringing in overtime one. ⁓ That does, yeah, yeah, overtime loss would be one. That does kind of feel like, you know, it makes sense and certainly gives the Blues an opportunity to play catch up as we like to do, apparently, in the second half of the year.

Bright: Overtime loss would be one, Yeah. Well, because they actually, well, sure. When we actually have a decent amount of regulation wins compared to some of the teams that are ahead of us in the standings, they have more, ⁓ overtime wins and stuff like that. You know, so doing this would separate clearly the really good teams, the Avalanche and Dallas, right? They, you know, they would, they would be cruising and in a really comfortable position. Those mediocre teams though, you know, and not to mention

Kev: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Bright: At the end of the season, you're in a position like the blues. Now you're going all out for three points. Right. So that to me, that makes it more exciting because an overtime win isn't, you know, you need three points. And so you could see some really craziness at the end of the game. Let's say it's tied to two and there's two minutes to go. We're really pushing because we want that third point, you know? So. Yeah. Could be. Yep. Could be interesting. So yeah. For sure.

Kev: Yep. It could be interesting, you know? Write up a nice little letter to the commission, see what happens.

Bright: Yes. Well, if you want to, if you want to hear more about that and our take on that, you can go check out NFMP pod. ⁓ we'll come back at you next week after the game, ⁓ look for the blog post for the instant reaction. And until next time, hopefully we're bringing home a city win.

Kev: Leave it. Ciao.