City SC Posse - Ep 6: Matchday 3 Recap - Still No Goals

Bright: Okay, it's the match day three recap. And I really had high expectations for this one. Like going into the game, I thought it was going to be good. Felt positive home game. You know, we came off of a stinker against San Diego. I'm like, we're going to bring it. Hardells back toy shirt starting. I'm like, we're going to score some goals.

Kev: Yep. And? No? None of the goals. None of the goals at all? Zero-zero? No-no?

Bright: No, yep, that did not happen. We scored zero goals. I wish it was a tie. Actually, I don't ties are almost worse at this point than losses. ⁓ you know, and that's something that I wanted to talk about and something that I brought up in the blog post, you know, ⁓ you know, we went down one, nothing early in the second half and we can, we can get into some of the specifics here in a minute, but then it felt like we were chasing the game from there on out. You know, of course, I mean,

Kev: Hey, guys.

Bright: You're at home. Now you're losing one, nothing. The time just kept going on and on and on. We can't score the mood in the stadium was just more and more dejected. Nobody had the belief that we were going to score. And then it got to the point like, okay, you're in the 80th minute or whatever it was. And I'm like, even if we do score at this point, it's a tie. And a tie to me is the same as a loss, especially at home. It doesn't matter. A tie is no good. We need wins at home. We need wins on the road. We're in 14th place again. We suck. We're not good. And ties ties just aren't going to cut it. And, and neither are games where we can't score any goals.

Kev: Yeah, I will say that I was loving the game. I was loving the game. I was all into the game. ⁓ First half, feel so good. Dominating. We had our chances. I had a feeling we were just, we were getting one in, right? Like I knew we were gonna, we were scored. I knew it. I knew it the whole time. I thought ToyShirt had, you know, a pretty solid offensive game.

Bright: ⁓ I mean, we dominated the game. We de- the... Yeah.

Kev: Thought he was going to get one. It just feels like Butcher needs to, he's there, he's got the opportunities, just cannot put something away. I it was going to happen, man. We scored, or they scored, right? I think like 50th minute, something like that. Just a terrible turnover by Volum.

Bright: Pretty early, yeah, pretty early in the. Yeah, here I. Yeah, I think I got it right here. They scored in the.

Kev: I still have the belief.

Bright: They scored in the 48th minute. Yeah. 48th minute days. Yeah. And I, you know, at that point we did too, I think, you know, and you didn't go to this game. This was my, my game. took our other brother, ⁓ John boy. He wasn't so sure about joining the podcast just yet, but we'll get them. We'll get them eventually. But yeah, because we were dominating the game so much. Like we thought the same thing, you know, we were like, all right.

Kev: We still had to believe we were a scorer. Yeah, no, early on.

Bright: We'll come back. We'll put some pressure. We'll score, you know, and if you score the 60th minute, the 70th minute, you're dominating the game. Then you start thinking like, all right, we're, know. Yeah. Yeah. But that did not happen. So let's run through a couple of these stats. ⁓ we had nine total shots to their six, four shots on target to their three. So pretty, pretty comparable there.

Kev: something really good about building that momentum. Second goal coming, right?

Bright: Possession though, we had 61%. 61%.

Kev: Yeah, complete swing from week to week, right?

Bright: Yep. Yep. ⁓ passes, had 90 % pass accuracy, which sounds great in theory, but one of my thoughts on this is all we do is pass the ball backwards. It's, very easy to have great pass accuracy when you're just passing the ball backwards every time. So we'll, we'll get into that some more too. ⁓ lots of passes. We beat them in passes. We beat them in pass accuracy. ⁓ we did have more fouls.

Kev: Yeah. Sure.

Bright: ⁓ they had more yellow cards, three yellow cards to our one yellow card. They had two offsides. had one offsides. had eight corners, eight, and they had one. Couldn't score. We nine and a half. took the under, ⁓ both, both John and I, and I do, I have a story. I do have a story about betting. ⁓ so I made two bets on the night. I made the under on the corner kicks and we won that one.

Kev: Yeah. Did you have the over? What was the over in quarters? Nine and a half? Rough. Yeah. Well, there you go. Oh yeah.

Bright: and I did city for the win and we lost that. And so it ended up being a push. ⁓ I didn't win any money. didn't lose any money. So that was that, but I did have an issue with draft Kings. ⁓ we get down there, we go to Schlafly. So we went to Schlafly before the game had a drink and I'm like, ⁓ John, you know, and he's, he's like you, he's really good with the sports betting. And I'm like, ⁓ hell, you know, help me pick some bets. So I log on draft Kings won't let me make any bets. They say they can't verify my location. And I'm like, what are you talking about? They made, let me make bets before that. I already uploaded a picture of my driver's license. You know, I'm, I'm on the. The cell tower. Nothing. So I switched to the switch to the wifi. Nothing didn't work. Log out, log back in. None of it works. and.

Kev: Yeah, maybe. Lights high? Mm-hmm. Whoa, okay.

Bright: I don't know what it comes down to. do have some, I have a VPN on my phone. I wasn't using it. So, you know, I'm not, I'm not sure what the issue was. I contacted customer support. They threw a big thing. I haven't done it yet, but they want me to take a picture with my driver's license in front of my face. And I'm like, all right, I'll do all that. But what about the $200 in promotional bets that I had that I couldn't use? So of course.

Kev: Yeah, yeah, because they were expired, right? Yeah.

Bright: I was like, now I just feel like it's a big scam. want my 200 bucks back. So I got to figure that out. I might just bow out altogether. You and John might have to make all my bets.

Kev: Yeah. There's, there's always FanDuel, I think, right? Like there are other books out there. But MGM or whatever it is, whoever ESPN owns or partners with, whatever.

Bright: Yeah, but they're owned by DraftKings, they're the same company. Well, they said that they want me, they said two things. They said that I'm not allowed to play two sides of the same bet. So I did that in week one to get the promotional things. So I don't know that maybe that was a mistake. I'm like, all right, fine. I was like, I only did that because I wanted the, you know, the promotional bets, but then they told me to get rid of all of the, the software on my phone that, ⁓ can mask my.

Kev: I remember that yeah the VPN kinda, you know.

Bright: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, how do you even know that I have that software on my phone and I haven't used it. So I don't know. We'll see. But it was, it was a push. It was a push day for me on the, you know, lost on city winning and one on the corners. Did you place any bets?

Kev: Yeah. I lost on City winning, threw that down. I think I specifically remember talking about taking the ⁓ Betcher toy shirt shots on goal. ⁓ Bet didn't make it, forgot about it. don't know. Did Betcher even have a shot on goal? I don't know if he did or not.

Bright: Yeah, ⁓ yeah. No, no. I don't know if better did. Toy shirt definitely did. Um, yeah, yeah. I don't know about better. I know.

Kev: Toy Sure You Had 2, I think, for sure. But, so, yeah, I don't know if that one was gonna hit. And then, you know, feeling good, I'm live betting, feeling, feeling still strong that we're gonna come back, at least tie this game, ⁓ after they score, right? So live bet, I think I threw down a, ⁓ St. Louis winner tie. And then for whatever reason, Not thinking about anything, probably too much football betting. I ⁓ parlayed it with a toy shirt anytime, anytime, goal scorer.

Bright: Well, the only downside with that is.

Kev: Out with it- out with the three minutes after making that bet, by the way.

Bright: that he got subbed out. Yeah. Yeah. Now, now we talked about this and I said this, that he was coming out between 45 and 60 minutes and he did, he got subbed out. Hold on. And I got the, I got the timeline right here. He got subbed out. in the, I bet you it was like the 57th, 58th minute, 58th minute.

Kev: He subbed out, yeah, subbed out three minutes after I made that bet and I was like, ⁓ yeah, that's right. That's a good reminder. Good reminder, Kevin. That's dumb. I know. Yeah. No! 57th or something? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Bright: And they bring, they did bring in Cordova who is our new striker. ⁓ and he did some good, he did some good things, you know, he didn't score or anything like that, but I, you know, I thought he played well in the time that he had. And obviously it's his first, ⁓ first game with us. We'll see. Maybe if I don't know if he'll get the start, ⁓ I wouldn't be shocked if he got the start over. Betcher Betcher's done nothing for us, ⁓ to date, ⁓ you know, toy shirt showed a lot of energy.

Kev: Yeah. He needs to be... He needs to sit, think, for a game.

Bright: Definitely. Toy shirt showed energy. showed control of the ball. He dribbled into space when he had the space.

Kev: I liked everything he was doing, well, offensively, right? Like, I honestly had a feeling he was putting one in the back of the net. I couldn't believe he was the first sub out of the game. Disappointment. Yeah.

Bright: Yeah. Yep. Yes. Yeah, we knew it. We knew it. It's a fitness thing. It's a fitness thing. And, you know, we'll see where it goes from here. ⁓ I thought, you know, Harto played well, Durkin played well, ⁓ Edelman played well, but he didn't really make a big impact. Durkin of course, picked up another yellow and unnecessary yellow. And I'd call it every game. He's going to pick up a yellow every game. It like just. ⁓

Kev: Can you bet on it? I don't know. Is that a bet you can take?

Bright: It might be a bet you could take. if you, if you do your odds are in your favor, picking, you know, picking, dirt going to get a yellow. Now our defense solid all game long, all game long, very solid. Even the goal that we gave up was all because of the one player on the team that I despise the most. You know, and. ⁓ I have, I have another player on the team that I really do not like.

Kev: Yeah, we should be, yeah, another one that needs to be on the bench for the next game.

Bright: And I've called it since year one. I'll be like, this guy is bad. And you know what? He hasn't played and that's Josh Yaro. Josh Yaro is not good. And. Wallum, Wallum is in the same boat. How he's made it this far in his professional career is beyond me. I counted me and John Boy, we counted how many passes he had backwards and how many he had forward.

Kev: ⁓ yeah. Yep. terrible. Any times he passed back, I knew you were gonna say it.

Bright: And it was somewhere between four to five to one. So we'll call it a four and a half every, every four and a half passes backwards. would pass one forward. It terrible, terrible. You know, he had, he had, there were times where he could dribble and John even laughed at me because I told this in front, you know, before the game started. And I said, just watch. And he started dribbling the ball and he could go to the corner one-on-one had space. And John's like, ⁓ if he passes this one backwards and then literally

Kev: Yeah

Bright: Right after that, he stepped on the ball, stopped his run, passed it back. And you're like, what are you doing? Like you have the space.

Kev: You back? Yep. Yeah. We need to get you in his ear and let him know we're counting these now. We're starting to count these passbacks. We're going to start tweeting it out.

Bright: You know what? Well, I started looking, I started looking on Facebook and, and acts and all that stuff. People were tearing them up. So I am not the only one, you know, people are noticing. Yeah. Yeah. And if, if, we're noticing, then the coaches should be noticing and you know, who else is noticing the other team? They know, they know that he's not going to beat them one-on-one down the wing.

Kev: It can't be after that game. him.

Bright: So now they can completely adjust their defense. Now to piggyback on this. And I also talked about it on the blog. I will say that Santos played a great game. He brought energy. He was, you know, calling for the ball. He had the belief, but what he does not have is a right foot. And it was obvious.

Kev: right foot. I talked to John boy about this ⁓ yesterday, how, you know, it took a little bit for the defense to realize this and clearly they caught on. They started pushing him off to the right. So we switched him, we switched him to the other side of the field, didn't we? ⁓

Bright: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. the very end of the game, ⁓ we, who did we bring on? Let me see. ⁓ saying bin, we brought him on to play the left mid and then Santos went and played right mid. And if for nothing else, I'm okay with that move just to shake things up and you know, but they were daring Santos. Like you could, they were even putting their arm out, like go for it, dude, like push down the wing and, cross it with your right. You're not going to do it.

Kev: a good feeling. Yeah.

Bright: And what did he do? He tried to make a move back to the middle of the field and he couldn't do it and he ended up passing it back.

Kev: Yep. Not a good sign. Not a good sign. Got to be able to play with both feet at this level. So yeah. My only thought is that we moved him to the other side of the field in hopes that that side wasn't paying attention, that he's lucky. That's all he can do, right? Like flip it and see what happens.

Bright: Mm-mm-mm. No, no. Yes. Now again, I was happy with his energy. Yeah, that, you know, that, yeah, that could have something to do with it for sure. ⁓ Mick Sorley came in, you know, he didn't make much or any of an impact at all. ⁓ and that was it. You know,

Kev: Are you playing McSwirly over Butcher if you have-

Bright: ⁓ at this point, definitely. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that McSorley is ready to be a starter. My problem is, is if you're bringing them in in the 75th minute, he might not be in there long enough to make an impact. It's tough. It's tough when you're coming in off the bench and you got 15 minutes of playtime, you know, you got to capitalize on a chance. Otherwise, you know, you're going to get passed over, but Betcher's doing nothing. And I think he's a ⁓ bench guy too.

Kev: If that's what it comes down to. you Turn.

Bright: Bring him in when he could be high energy late in the game. Maybe there's already a, a defenseman on a yellow and betcher can get under a skin or, or get a fall or, you know, something like that. That's betcher's game. ⁓ mixed or they right now, you know, great city two player. And we've had a great city two team for the last several years, ⁓ really since its inception, but it hasn't translated to the MLS. So I think that's definitely a story, you know, ⁓

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: You like to McSorley get something and he might have to just do it coming in off the bench. So we'll have to see. feel like, you know, we'll talk about this in the next episode. Toy shirts. Got to get the start Cordova. You got to give him a chance. Certainly Pompeo and people are screaming where the F is Pompeo.

Kev: No, Pom. Yeah. and him on the field. Is it for his defense? Are they working on it on his defensive position? Like, I don't know. I don't understand. No.

Bright: I don't, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. No, he's got it. He brings in enough offense. He's enough of an offensive weapon. He could score goals. can dribble one-on-one. He can, he could take people on one-on-one. He could take it to the corner. He's fast. You need an offensive weapon. have one goal on the season. Klaus has what? Three, four, maybe by, maybe by tomorrow, maybe by tomorrow we'll have, he'll have four. Like give me a break. We got to score goals.

Kev: I'm sure he can pull it back and pass if he needs to. He scored on, I think he scored on, yeah. Yeah.

Bright: And that like it's getting tiresome. It's getting old. ⁓ and go, you know, I have some more thoughts. have some thoughts about some of the coaching decisions that we're not going to have time for in this podcast. The, the ownership of the team, the message that they send about exciting soccer, you know, it's not there. ⁓ it's great to have a good defense, but if you're not, if you're not

Kev: Yeah. think we have a good defense. don't know because week two was just kinda, ⁓ I did not feel good about our week two performance defensively.

Bright: I think San Diego is just a better team and we're going to, we're going to find out. And again, we'll, preview this in the next episode. We've got LAFC there three and ⁓ it ain't looking good. And then our next, our next batch of games, we're coming home. You got the next game, new England. Okay. You know, Easter conference team, you might have a shot at it, but then we're at New York city. Then we're at Dallas at Seattle. You know, ⁓ yeah.

Kev: We talked about it last week. It's a rough stretch of games and that's why we felt like this was such a necessary win. We needed the three points coming out of this week.

Bright: Yeah, three away games in a row. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you, you assume I'm as much as I would love a win and ain't looking good. You assume we're going into a loss here and now we're, we're what? ⁓ three and one, right. With probably one goal, you know, we'll have a negative five goal differential. We'll be in either 14th or 15th place. know, the momentum is not on our side.

Kev: you It's not, doesn't feel good. Now let me ask you, let me ask you the question real quick, a quick 30 second answer. Everybody's asking, what food did you get?

Bright: The schedule is not on our side. No. ⁓ we did the pappiest burnt end sandwich, ⁓ which is great. Yep. It's great with some extra barbecue sauce and their pub chips, ⁓ all good there.

Kev: That's delicious. So good. Yeah. Now this is this is what ownership's counting on. People coming to the game for the food, right? Like, doesn't matter what product they're throwing out there.

Bright: Yeah. Well, seeing that, I think there's something to that. And some people were talking about this, you know, on social media as well. How much longer does, do the fans continue? You know, we've already seen prices decreased. You can go buy a ticket day of the game for pretty cheap now. So for those season ticket holders like us that are hanging in there, you know, paying a premium for, for the ticket. Yeah, we have guaranteed games. Yes. If.

Kev: Right. you

Bright: We make it to the playoffs. You know, we get first right of refusal and things like that. And it's, you know, we get other things. It's great to be, I love saying it. Yeah, but the team sucks year in and year out. I mean, you look at what happened to the Cardinals. Nobody goes to the games anymore. You know, so I don't know. You need to start winning. You need to start winning some games at home and you have to start scoring goals.

Kev: Mm-hmm. benefits in there but Yeah. But yeah, we got a tough grouping of sports teams right now between where the Blues are, where the Cardinals are and City is not doing. Yeah. Battle Hawks coming up, right? Like, let's go. Kaka Kaka. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's brutal. We need we need offense here with City. It is sometime in April, I thought, but I could be wrong. I feel like.

Bright: And you gotta invest in a striker. Yes. Yeah. It's not great. Slew men's basketball, baby. Vanna Hawks coming up, Ricky Proll, the new head coach. When does that start? Is that next weekend? ⁓ no, April?

Kev: I feel like they pushed back the season like a year ago or something and it starts a little later than it used to, but I could be wrong. I'm no longer a season ticket holder there, I'm sure.

Bright: Huh. Right. ⁓ All right. All right. Well, to wrap things up here, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about Louvin. Um, I'm assuming that you heard that, you know, his wife did pass away. Um, yeah. And I know, you know, we talked about it a little bit on some of our previous episodes, how much the team needs him, you know, and, and his presence makes a big difference. And we knew that he had these personal issues. Um, you know, but miss miss the games and you're like,

Kev: Yeah, yeah. sad news,

Bright: you know, what's going on? Obviously now we know. and certainly, you know, I think everybody feels bad. mean, she was young. He's young. ⁓ heartbreaking, man. Heartbreaking.

Kev: ⁓ my god, yeah. It is heartbreaking. Like, and I hate the fact that I was even like, ⁓ where, is he? Right? Like my God. Yeah. Like be with your wife, be with your family and have that support system. I know that he's, you know, has the support of the team itself and the league itself. ⁓ you know, the, league was there to help them out, you know, be there for him as much as you can help them out, know, but

Bright: course yeah yeah Several, several posts, ⁓ the galaxy posted something Klaus and the galaxy were wearing armbands. ⁓ you know, so yeah, I mean, of course he has the support. Sure. He has a support of the team, his teammates, the community, ⁓ you know, he's very religious. So his, you know, his, his church and his, ⁓ you know, it's his community there. Yeah.

Kev: Yep. You like to see that, but yeah. Yep. Take, no at this point, take the time you need, I don't know.

Bright: Sure. So you don't know, you don't know where, where he fits in. And I think that's what you have to say. Take, you know, obviously take the time that you need. Maybe soccer is something that helps them. Maybe he needs time to step away from the game, but certainly we'll support them and you know, we will push on like we can. So, all right. Well, um, thanks for listening guys. Uh, we'll catch you on the next episode. We'll preview our match against LAFC.

Kev: Yeah, can be. Yep. Agreed.

Bright: That is coming up this Saturday evening. It's a late one. 9 30 start. need to win.

Kev: Whoo! It's gonna win!