City SC Posse - Ep21: CITY Is 8th, Hartel Is Cooking, and Colorado Is Next

Bright: All right, day before our next game. We got a lot to talk about. We gotta recap the galaxy match. We gotta preview we have to preview the next game against Colorado, and we gotta talk standings. but first I noticed we had a a pretty good jump in our our listener count from our last episode. So I just wanted to say, if you're new here what this podcast is all about, of course, is St. Louis City. We know that, duh. But for the casual fan, right? We're not going, we're not breaking down any advanced metrics or anything crazy like that. It's all about the eye test. What do we see with the eye test from the casual fan? What are we looking at? Yes, of course, we both played soccer, we know soccer, but we're I'm not looking at expected goals per games and and all of these advanced metrics that are out there. You'll never hear that from us. This is for the casual fan, and if you can't follow what we're talking about, then you probably shouldn't be listening to any podcast because this is as easy as it gets. Am I right?

Kev: I know for a fact that we have talked about expected goals per game before. So just want to call you out in that lie.

Bright: All right, maybe.

Kev: It might not be the centerpiece of conversation, but we do bring up some stats on occasion.

Bright: That that's true, but pretty standard stats. And and again, it's about the eye test, who looks good, who doesn't look good, what we did right, what we didn't do right, what the standings are, what we're excited about

Kev: Sometimes it's

Bright: for the next game.

Kev: sometimes it's about the food down at the stadium, you know? You just th

Bright: Absolutely.

Kev: th the experience of being down there. So yeah. Pretty easy.

Bright: For sure. Yes. Well and w we'll talk about that too. So well let's let's kick it off with The midweek matchup against the galaxy. So as I mentioned last week, this was really the first game since the break. I missed I missed the the opening game from the break due to work obligation. So I was bummed about that. But with a 9:30 start local time, kids were in bed, wife was reading a book. I had my beer. I was taking notes. I set up a blog to post the next morning. I did some live posts on X, all of those things. So I was in the moment. I was loving it. even made a couple of bets and they paid off. And we

Kev: There we go.

Bright: won the game, of course. It was a three one win, so it was exciting and and when you're winning, you're having a good time.

Kev: Yeah, you know, late start kind of hit me. I was a little tired going into it. I thought maybe I'd be more energetic like you, but nine thirty I was I was kinda tired. towards that end the end of that game. Yeah. At

Bright: Your kids are younger, I think you get less sleep than I do.

Kev: the end of the game I was like, boy, all right, we've won, let's wrap it up. but man, it was it was a good game and and I never thought for a second we were gonna lose it. Not for a second.

Bright: I didn't either really From the beginning I could tell that we were playing good and not that the galaxy wouldn't have their chances and they did,

Kev: Bad.

Bright: but I could tell we were putting pressure on them. And I didn't actually place my bet until probably like the twentieth minute or the twenty-fifth minute. it was still still zero zero, of course, and I I put the the money on City to win, and I put a separate bet on Hard Old to be an any time goal scorer. They both paid off. I won like forty-five. bucks or something like that. So I will I will take it and I will use that money to bet on on Saturday's matchup against Colorado. Yeah. Yeah.

Kev: next couple sure you know that's that's the beauty of winning we're not we're not trying to make our careers on betting right like it's not where our money's coming from so it's just making enough to make it to the next game. Now I won on the prior game right we had talked about that last podcast.

Bright: Right, right.

Kev: This game I decided to just send it all back to the casino. I stuck true to my word from the last podcast I went after a two two exacta box exacta box, exacta score,

Bright: Okay.

Kev: bet and I I threw in a Adleman Anytime goal scorer and then a Luven Anytime goal scorer and unfortunately nothing hit. but you know sometimes

Bright: Yeah, ouch.

Kev: sometimes that's the way it goes. So

Bright: Well, and like we've said before, we'd rather see a city win than our own personal wager pay out, right? So I think we'll both take the the win.

Kev: Well, you know what? When we were up to nothing, I was like, Okay, I think worst case scenario, right? Worst case scenario, you're hitting that exact score with a tie. I don't think we're losing this game. so that already kind of started shifting up, you know, the the worst case scenario.

Bright: Yeah, you know, eventually we we broke out. McNaughton gets that that first goal. I've I felt like we were putting the pressure on and it it was a fantastic header.

Kev: That was a hatter, man. That was great. That was beauty. Yep.

Bright: You know, he went to the ball, made a good run, got in a good position, got up there, and then just that kind of like glancing flick on header, and it ended up being perfect, you know, off the post and goes in, and you gotta get excited about that one. Now we're up one nothing, and you're like, Okay, you know, we're now we're in a good position. Now, something I always say, and I said this in the blog, you're most likely to give up that next goal within the first ten minutes. And it didn't take City long. We gave up a prime scoring opportunity, I think like two minutes or less in, right? Less than two minutes. And if it wasn't for Berkey.

Kev: Right away. right away. It just no, it was less. It was less. Yeah, it was one of those where they they come back from, you know, break and all of a sudden you're looking up and it feels like they're they've got that chance. So yeah, it was probably two minutes. You're right. You're right, it was probably

Bright: Yeah, a good save good save by Burkino goes to Roos, who's who's one of their better or best players. and he struggles, I think, to score on Berkey because of course they're old buddies and I'm sure they always have a wager going on. But he luckily he kinda put it, you know, right right down the middle and he had some power behind it, but Berkey was in a good position, is able to get down, make the save, and then collect the the rebound. So I like that. And I like that Berkey is back in the lineup. You know, last episode we talked about that and DeMay wasn't necessarily one hundred pr percent committing to it. You know, fitless levels. I'm like, what fitness?

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: He's and we talked about this. He's the goalie. Like he stands there most of the time. Surely his fitness level is enough to get through ninety minutes. I don't know. So

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: I don't know what that was all about against Kansas City. And of course, a lun we talked about this cost us a goal. So to have Berkey come back in did make a couple of big saves. Bummer that we can't keep the the c clean sheet for him, but he played he played okay.

Kev: Yeah, good to have him back, right? Like you feel good with Berkey back there. And I know there have been some games where he's been criticized a little bit because he's let up a couple of goals maybe that have been a little soft. and he's making all that all that juice, all that money, right? But

Bright: That he is.

Kev: give give me Berke any day of the week, so glad to have him back here. And

Bright: Sure, yeah, yeah.

Kev: I'm I'm starting to wonder how much of like that fitness thing was more just him protecting Berkey from something else that they didn't want to get out there.

Bright: Maybe, but then why you know, why throw it on him that he's not in shape? You know, s say something else. Say something like, we just wanted to give him one game after the break to make sure

Kev: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. It just seems so weird. I still don't get it. It does not

Bright: Yeah.

Kev: line up to me, but I'm not a professional soccer player, so what do I know?

Bright: That's true. That's true. All right. So right. So we get the first goal, McNaughton in the forty-second minute. We give that up up that opportunity pretty quickly thereafter. But then we come back and we score in the forty-fifth minute

Kev: Yep.

Bright: with Hartle. Hardle has a banger. And I don't know what happened to the goalie. He was just frozen. So either frozen on the shot, screened on the shot, not expecting the shot. I don't know. It looked pretty obvious to me, you know, Hardle gets the ball, moves

Kev: I

Bright: it towards center on his right foot, and just pow.

Kev: I mean, from what I saw it w reminded me of the old Patrick Mahomes look over here and and toss over there. Or Stafford

Bright: Yeah.

Kev: maybe on football, right? Like that's kind of what he he was looking across that field, looking to make that make that pass, or at least his eyes were saying that's what he was gonna do, and then he just popped it in. Right? And it looked like maybe it looked like maybe the defender was

Bright: He was in the line of sight, I think, in the goalie. Sure.

Kev: Shielding the the line of sight, yeah, for the goalie, right? So yeah, I think it it surprised them and he just stood there. I mean, goalie couldn't do anything. Didn't didn't know what was happening, right?

Bright: Yeah. He didn't even yeah, didn't even make a move. So now you're pumped. Right. And to get

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: two goals like that right before halftime, that that's huge. It is a huge momentum swing, obviously. And then of course they pick up the yellow card right after the goal. both Garces, if I'm pronouncing it right, and Roos, they both pick up a a yellow card for arguing and complaining. And they showed

Kev: Mm-hmm.

Bright: the replay, and yeah, you know, it looked like Bum Gardel comes down on on Roos a little bit, but Roos doesn't really challenge for the ball. To me, it looked like an innocent soccer. play not a foul. So if you're complaining that the ref didn't blow the whistle, I'm not sure about that. And then the announcers were talking about like, maybe it's because Roos was down and we didn't immediately play the ball out of bounds.

Kev: That's yeah, that's what I heard. I was like, Well, why would you do that?

Bright: No, of course. We were on the attack. You know, like people go down all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kev: Not in that position, right? Yeah, it'd be different if yeah, it'd be different if we were, you know, on our side of the field, kinda playing a little bit more defensively, but come on. It it plays. You

Bright: Sure, sure. So then then you come out in the second go ahead.

Kev: You've completely breezed by a couple of great chances that we had while it was still nil nil. Hardle could have had

Bright: Well, sure. And and I did

Kev: a goal early on, you know, just a great strike. as we were coming, I think it was at about the top of the box that I think the goalie got a piece of and hit the hit the post was phenomenal.

Bright: Yep. Off the post. Yep.

Kev: And then who was that that caught the deflection off of that was I think Betcher. who couldn't have put

Bright: Yeah.

Kev: it away after that. And then Betcher had had another one, I think, when it was still Milver. Yeah, like I I feel like he could

Bright: He had two or three in the first half alone, and I do

Kev: have had like five goals this game.

Bright: I do talk about that in the blog a little bit, certainly. So if you want to go read about those specific chances and my overall thought process and and we'll get to Betcher's third goal here in a minute, but to your point, he he could had five or

Kev: Well, it's her.

Bright: six.

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: And that's what's frustrating, especially when the score is zero-zero. It's a little bit different when you're already up three-nothing and you miss an opportunity. But he had a couple of opportunities where he shot the ball right at the keeper, couldn't get the right angle, made the move, but couldn't get the shot off. And that's that's what's frustrating about Betcher, you know, he's a He's just not that proven number nine that's gonna bury the chances when you 100% need them. Can he score?

Kev: When you need them to

Bright: Of course he can score. And he can score some buttes. We've seen him score some beauties. he had one in this game that was was great. He's also a nuisance and he picks up lots of fouls. He, you know, he gets under the skin of of the defense, which I love and that's what ultimately r leads to this red card to start the second half. He goes down relatively easily but grabs the ball, so the ref has has no real y he has to blow the whistle and it gives he gives

Kev: All the time. We had that guy's falling on that ball all the time, grabbing it.

Bright: Sure, a hundred percent. And so he picks up the ball, he sets it down, he turns, and then Garces comes in bonehead play, kicks the ball away. And by the letter of the law, that's an automatic yellow card. He's already on a yellow, it's a red, he's out, and you're like, my god, what an idiot.

Kev: Yeah, you're right about it. Yep.

Bright: Now, yeah, now you're really feeling good. We have all the momentum coming out of the half and now we're up a man. Now, Damay said that we didn't do enough with it. He didn't necessarily like our play. So if you listen to the post game

Kev: Good. I like that.

Bright: presser. He he felt like we should have should have done more. I actually thought even after we do go up 3-0. So let's talk about that. You know, we had a a good defensive stop and then I think it was somebody from the defense to Durkin. Durkin one two pass to Hartle. Hartle one two pass to Betcher splits the D up the middle onside breakaway. Betcher chips the goalie beautiful goal and And bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Quick, quick one, two touches, which is great to see. I don't think we do that enough. Sometimes I don't think we're good enough to do to do that, but we were on this occasion. And Hartle, of course, man of the match, two assists and a goal. And he he drives the majority of the offense. So again, you gotta get you gotta give Hartle credit. Gotta give Betcher credit for both drawing the red card and then scoring

Kev: Putting one away. Yep.

Bright: the goal to put us up three-nothing.

Kev: Yep. Some missed opportunities, you know, with him, obviously we talked about it, but gotta give him credit when he scores, 'cause man, sometimes he can't freaking buy one. He can't buy one sometimes. I don't know how he pulled this one off.

Bright: Absolutely. And so the th sometimes that that that is true. That is true. but so after that though, we're up three nothing. Even after we we gave up the goal, which which was frustrating, like I said, you blow the clean sheet, somebody gets nutmegged, I can't remember exactly who it was, that got nutmegged. And that we had two guys go to the ball. Nobody picks up the galaxy attacker goes right to him. He puts it under under Berkey, who really had no chance. Fine. Whatever. But I did like how we never really sat back. So I

Kev: Mm-hmm.

Bright: kind of criticized DeMay a little bit for that. Yes, of course, could we have done better? Could we maybe have had a little bit more possession? But we we kept attacking. And I think we could smell blood. We knew we were had the better offensive game. You just worry that, like, okay, you do give up a counterattack goal. We we gave up one. So, you know, you give up a second one all of a sudden it's

Kev: Yeah. Yeah.

Bright: a game. But I always thought our guys were hustling. So even when we did give up the ball, our guys got back pretty quickly. We we got more guys behind the ball. So I like that we didn't just park the bus. and and let them take all the possession, serve the ball in, hope to get a lucky bounce. We'd still brought the attack. That's American soccer.

Kev: Well you know, why would you? Why would you sit back like that? You're a a man up, right? Like there's no need to not put the pressure on a little bit because you do smell that blood in the water. You can get another goal in there. Best way to not lose a game is to score a goal. What are we talking about? Right? So don't need to sit back in that situation. Yep.

Bright: Sure. Yep. And we could have scored a couple more like like we said. Yeah. All right. Well what did you think of the starting eleven for a midweek game? Any

Kev: I So I was gonna I was gonna ask ya. you know, we knew that Wallum was Volum was not gonna be on.

Bright: Yay it finally yes.

Kev: but join like I I really like that joiner plug in on the wing there. so I like seeing joyner

Bright: Yeah,

Kev: out there.

Bright: I do too, and I did like seeing like overall I thought the lineup was pretty close to perfect for

Kev: Mm-hmm.

Bright: for what you currently have available to you, right? So Durkin and Edelman

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: in the in the middle. We've pretty much relied on them. Totland, you know, and I've I'm high on Totland, so to see him in

Kev: I like college, yeah.

Bright: that spot. Pretty much our standard back three, you know, you could have you could have what's his name? Starts with an O. Orasco in there. you

Kev: The Rapco, yeah.

Bright: you know, you could have Fall in there. So you you could juggle it up a little bit, but McNaughton Bumgarel Polvera has been pretty standard. And of course, McNaughton gets the goal. And then you got Leuven and Hartle, and then Betcher up top. So as far as what was available to us, great. Now Joyner on the right, he didn't have the best game, he had the lowest score on the team. With a 5.2. So I didn't think it was he didn't like have this breakout game that you were expecting. And and of course he gets he gets subbed out. I do think that all the subs, the initial three subs were pretty much on

Kev: Most of the sound.

Bright: target for DeMay, too. You take out McNaughton, who picked up the yellow, you take out Joyner, who I didn't think had a strong game, and you take out Leuven to make sure that he's fit and ready to go for Saturday's game. So I

Kev: Rested for

Bright: wonder how this. How does this impact Saturday's lineup? Who are we looking to get the start? Do you run out there with pretty much the same lineup? Wallum is still questionable from what I'm hearing. I don't know if he's going to be available. And if he is, I would love for him not to start.

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: so whether you whether you go out there with Joyner, you go out there with Santos, Santos did get in. He got a a little bit of time. Sangbin didn't get the start, and he's been in good form lately. But

Kev: I know, I know.

Bright: He did come on

Kev: But

Bright: in the sixty first minute. They gave him a six point four score. So I'd also be perfectly content with Sangbin getting the the start again.

Kev: Yep. Yeah, you can dice it up a couple of ways, I feel like. And you know, I I'm feeling that way right now. We haven't even brought in our new guys, right? Like our our new I don't know, not recruits, but enforcements, reinforcements.

Bright: Sure. Now Matan is Matan is good to go from my understanding. I saw a report earlier today that he is training with the team, all the paperwork signed off on. So no, I I w certainly wouldn't think so. I would I would be shocked if he was even

Kev: But you're not starting him, are ya? Like Y you're it it yeah, he would be a

Bright: on the bench.

Kev: Yeah. Yeah, you can't start him, so you know. He maybe maybe maybe he would be a last late

Bright: But no, no no no. But they did say that he is available.

Kev: minute guy, right? Like, hey, okay, it's the class ninety three minutes, you know, into the game, you got a minute left, like get him out on the field, let him touch it. I don't I don't know.

Bright: Yeah, maybe maybe. We'll we'll have to see. I mean, certainly could be cool if he if he gets the start or not the start, but if he gets if he gets in the if he gets in the lineup, if he's on the

Kev: I can't imagine so, but i in in the lineup, yeah.

Bright: roster, then it's like okay. so I I was surprised when I saw that report today. Now again I I mentioned

Kev: But I'm I'm excited about the talent that we're starting to collect on the team. And it feels like it. I know that, you know, we've had a couple you know,

Bright: Sure, sure. Now they haven't

Kev: the last game was Kansas City, right? We're bottom of the barrel opponent, but you gotta feel good about the team right now.

Bright: Well, sure. Our our recent run of form, like we talked about this already, and now we've got another win under our belt. We're six six matches in a row,

Kev: Mm-hmm.

Bright: unbeaten, I think like four or five wins and one draw or something like that. So really strong performances both before the break and now after the break. And you come into the game against Colorado here on Saturday night. We are now in eighth place. And we talked about this. So we hopped over the galaxy and the galaxy have a game in hand. Or we have a game in hand on the galaxy, so that's great. Minnesota, they lost to sporting KC. So we hopped them. Now we're even

Kev: Yep.

Bright: on we're even on points, but we're better on goal differential. Right now we're minus one goal differential, which goes to show you if we would have kept that clean sheet, we would have been back to an even goal differential. And then the dynamo. And they have a game in hand on us, but they're one point ahead of us with a worse goal differential. The Sounders, unfortunately, we have a couple of losses, I think, against them. but they they're

Kev: We do. I think we have too.

Bright: only two points ahead of us, also with a game in hand. and then and then you look at Rail, Salt Lake, and Dallas, they're only four points ahead of us at the moment. So we're right in the thick of things where with the best the best form of the league, you string a couple of more wins together, and Including Saturday night against Colorado, right? So a team that we beat, and that's where we started this one up run of form was the one-nothing

Kev: You love to beat him too.

Bright: win in Colorado. So now you got them at home. They don't necessarily score a lot of goals, but they don't they don't give up a lot of goals either. at least recently. They do have 26 goals for and 24 goals against, which we are at 22 goals. Goals for and 23 goals against. And this is a game where it could be a in theory, it could be like a one-nothing, zero, zero, one-one kind of a game. Every time we've played Colorado, like in the last three games, I think it's been either one-nothing, one-nothing us, one-nothing them, and then a zero-zero draw over our last three against Colorado. So again, for your bets, something to consider. But

Kev: Ha ha

Bright: I'm at the moment predicting a 3-1 win for City. Of course, we're at home. The crowd's gonna be nuts. Weather's supposed to be good. I'm taking my wife. We it's a little bit of a date night, so I'm I'm excited about about that. I don't know food-wise, I don't know what we're gonna get. Last time we did Pappies.

Kev: Can't beat it. It's good stuff.

Bright: I could also go for that Detroit style pizza.

Kev: Yeah, yeah. Transports well.

Bright: Olive and oak burger.

Kev: I haven't done that one yet at this stadium. Not at this stadium, yeah. I'll have to check that out. I've been doing some pizza lately, so

Bright: No, that's that's really good. Yeah. Really good. Yeah, so we'll probably we'll probably hit up Schlafley. we'll get down

Kev: Mm-hmm.

Bright: there probably around five thirty is my plan. Schlafly for one, over to the block party for one, into the stadium

Kev: You know.

Bright: a little early, go get dinner, two our seats, right you know, right around seven twenty. Something like that. And then we got a babysitter. Well, at the C we sometimes we do the after party. Other times we go down to narwhals, which is perfect because you kind of skip a little bit of the traffic. Go down to narwhals and then you can get a you can get a slushy, a boo boozy slushie that you can drink there, or you

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: can bring home with you. You relieve the babysitter and then you you sit around and you you drink your slushie.

Kev: You know, I I must be having a little bit of a internet breakup because your face is frozen in the best of ways over that quick talk. So I'm hoping it shows on the video. that sounds like a pretty good day. Do you know who's playing at the pregame? At the city party?

Bright: I d I didn't see who's playing at the pregame. It is youth soccer night at Energizer Park. So I saw that they're giving away a slap bracelet watch. So we'll try and get a couple of those for the kids.

Kev: Ooh, that's a win. Yep.

Bright: And may you know, I'm assuming the maybe the musical act is more youth focused. So I'm not, you know

Kev: Gear toward it. Yep.

Bright: I I'm not big on their musical acts outside of the the big ones. You know, American

Kev: Mm-hmm.

Bright: Authors and the Struts for the openings, for the last two seasons have been fantastic, but otherwise, yeah.

Kev: I mean mo most of the time it's you know it's a DJ and you're kinda I don't know if that's really geared for us

Bright: Yeah.

Kev: specifically. that eighties band played, right? Like one of the cover bands played not too long ago, which was pretty good, you know, entertaining enough, but yeah, when it's just the DJ sometimes it

Bright: Yeah, I I I agree. So I'm not always big. We it's usually just enough for us to go walk around, see what's up, and then go into the stadium. Now, so they got us right now for 48% chance to win, a 24% draw, and a 28% loss. So I think we're still in good shape with that forty-eight percent.

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: And I could see you're trying to fake being frozen, but just to let you know that's not how

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: the podcast software works. it's all uploaded separately. So even if I do freeze,

Kev: She's

Bright: it won't show that way on the pod. And you trying to fake it, I guess that will show, but

Kev: You know the T V in the background was a dead giveaway too, you know? but what are you gonna do? No, that's

Bright: That is true. That is true. So what are you what are you betting? What are you betting?

Kev: Yeah. it's a great question. So I think I'm gonna go after City Win. I think I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna get after a city win. probably

Bright: Me too.

Kev: probably play in any time goal scorer will have to wait for the lineup to come out right to get an idea of who I wanna play my money on there. But

Bright: Hartle Hartle has been so good lately with goals lately. And the nice thing about Hartle, he pretty much is guaranteed to play ninety minutes. You pick Leuven, Leuven has been playing 60 minutes.

Kev: Yeah, seventy minutes, yeah.

Bright: But it was still like plus three thousand, I think, for him to be an any time goal scorer in the in the last bet. Maybe twenty two hundred, something like that. No?

Kev: No.

Bright: What am I thinking of?

Kev: Do you're you're looking at the two time goal scorer, multiple goals. yeah, yeah.

Bright: maybe that's what it was. Cause I did look at that. I did consider that. Maybe maybe I did maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Kev: Yeah. for an any time goal scorer, he was probably at like plus one fifty, maybe. a hundred and fifty. So you're getting, you know, but a hundred get

Bright: No. It it was higher than that.

Kev: one fifty. I I don't know, I doubt it. I've been looking at his lately. The other one that you could have been looking at maybe was the first time goal scorer. So whoever scores first, right? Because those are usually higher. But even for that one, I would think that he would have been like plus I don't know, five hundred or something for the first goals record.

Bright: Yeah. Yeah.

Kev: yeah, I mean, you know, it feels good. Like I I feel like he's gonna be scoring like every game now at this point in time that we go into it. I'm like, horrible, like anytime goal scorer.

Bright: He has chances every every game for sure.

Kev: Yeah, but you know, if you're only in the plus one hundred something, like is it worth it? Or do you go with that Sang bit? Like when I played Edelman, I don't know, was sitting there at like plus seven hundred for the any time goal score, which is just incredible payouts. So

Bright: Right. Now he doesn't have a lot of goals.

Kev: well, exactly, right? You're just kind of hoping for that one off. There's middle ground and it's usually Yeah.

Bright: Well, like McNaughton.

Kev: Exactly. So there's middle ground, it's usually like right at Louis. Like Luvid's a great play 'cause he's he's got some good odds to him and good payouts, but feels like that could happen anytime too.

Bright: Yep, yep, yep, yep. All right. Well what else what else you got? I got some other stats here. You know, Colorado on the season, their possession is a little bit higher than ours. So Well, you know, we'll see how that game shakes out. But at home, I would think we would have pretty good possession. We have more shots than them, more shots on goals than them, more block shots. You know, because they have more possession, their passes and their pass accuracy is is a little bit higher. Corners, though, we're averaging about six and they're averaging about five. So that could be in play for the over-under, depending on where that's at. you know, pretty much right on

Kev: I think that's a great one. Yep.

Bright: Yeah, know, and it's probably somewhere sitting at around ten and a half, right? For the to be in the the money,

Kev: Really nine point five.

Bright: right? So but I did want to call out, you know, some of the stats from from the last game, when you look at how great we were with our shots. We had twelve shots on goal and eight on target, at least with the updated numbers. I think it was even higher than that when I was looking the other night. So we really Converted on our opportunities

Kev: Dominated

Bright: to get the ball on net, and then of course we score three goals. Whereas the Galaxy had 10 shots and only three on target. So I think that's where we've been trending better lately, is we're creating chances and we're putting the ball on net, where earlier in the season it was high and wide and all, you know, terrible. So I think that's been the the main difference. And you start converting goals, we've talked about it, it's infectious. It they they just start start to go in. So that's why I'm predicting three one three one city.

Kev: I'm hoping for that. Like that that'd be fun. That'd be a fun game to go to three one. I'm gonna go with a one-nothing victory, and it is going to be who puts it in the back of the net? I'm gonna go with the Totlin goal. I'm gonna go with a Totlin goal. Yeah.

Bright: Shotland goal. that'd be that'd be interesting. I'd love to see that. All right, we'll wrap it up with this. So we're sitting at twenty-two points now in eighth place. A win on Saturday could, in theory, put us as high as sixth place with twenty-five points. And then we are at home the following Saturday, August the first. Now you have that game. So looking ahead, that is against Rael Salt Lake, who's currently sitting in fourth. So that becomes another big game. If we're let's say we're sitting at 25

Kev: That's right.

Bright: points, they could be sitting still at 26, maybe at 29 if, you know, if they win. And but but that's an opportunity that we could over we could be sitting at like fourth place in the next two weeks or something like that. So completely flip the script. So if we can go out, win these games at home, and then we do two on the road, and then we kind of go two at home, two on the road, two at home, two on the road, two at home, and that takes us all the way up to the end of September. And then it's on the road, two at home, two on the road, two at home. end the season on the road. So so where you're gonna have these stretches where it's two and two for a lot of the times, but certainly some

Kev: This is

Bright: opportunities here.

Kev: this is what winning on the road does. You win on the road, you can make these big jumps right in the standing. You know.

Bright: Absolutely. Start stringing stringing your home wins to together and then you throw in an away win here or there and all of a sudden, yeah, you're you're nine points out of twelve. Which is great. We're right now we have the best points per game

Kev: Yeah. Like it's huge.

Bright: at like two point seven one points per game over the last five or six games, which, like we mentioned, is the best in the league. So seven, I think, yeah. Right. That might include

Kev: Yeah, it's it's it's seven games now, I think, 'cause it was six games prior to last game, so

Bright: the US Open Cup game, so

Kev: Yeah, it probably does.

Bright: And something else something else to mention is we are playing Colorado in the US Open Cup semifinals. So we got a little bit

Kev: Good.

Bright: of time until that that game, but that's in Colorado. So that's our you know, that's our opponent. So we already got one game on the road against Colorado. We can win here, and then you'll have to play him again in the U.S. Open Cup. But if we win here, we'll put the fear

Kev: Really stick it to stand.

Bright: the exactly, stick it to stand, put the fear of God

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: in in the in Colorado, and and maybe then we can sneak out that US Open Cup.

Kev: 'Cause 'cause I'm sure he's watching these games and he cares, you know?

Bright: Course he does. He hates he hates St. Louis. He doesn't just like we hate him. Well, speaking speaking of which, Duds and

Kev: Yeah, he does. He has to. He has to hate us. Yeah. Mm this is a family show, but there's there's a chance.

Bright: I on NFNP Pod, we talked about the St. Louis Rams settlement and the spending for the St. Louis City. So they just said that they're

Kev: huh. The money. That hasn't happened.

Bright: gonna spend that money. it's what like

Kev: really? Okay.

Bright: $255 million that was designated to St. Louis City. and

Kev: Mm-hmm.

Bright: by that I mean downtown, the actual city, not the soccer team. But

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: if you want to hear a little bit about that, go check out NFN Peapod. that launched today, Friday, the twenty fourth. And then I'm gonna post this episode today as well. So we're gonna have two

Kev: They didn't

Bright: new episodes on the network: NFN Peapod and City Posse.

Kev: They didn't invest that money in SpaceX, did they?

Bright: I hope not, 'cause I did. And it ain't working out. We talked about this on on NFNP too. My Tesla

Kev: I mean, this is what it does.

Bright: stock, my SpaceX stock, my Bitcoin investments, it's all down. I'm in trouble, man.

Kev: Yeah, but you're up on your Tesla. Like no, we're not gonna go into that, but you know, like nobody sell nobody

Bright: I am of course yes, yes. I'm still way up over all

Kev: buys at lows and sells at, you know, sells at the peak exactly. So you could sell now for a profit there.

Bright: And I took my test some of my Tesla earnings to invest in SpaceX. So y it's still a sound investment. I'm in it for the long haul. So yeah, w we had a a bad week or two with those two stocks. And Bitcoin, you know, I invest a little bit here and there all the time. But yeah.

Kev: Didn't I tell you to sell the Tesla, sell the SpaceX at a loss, let it wash so you don't see any tax owed, right?

Bright: You did.

Kev: And then go buy into an EFT that already has both of those heavily invested, and you'll be just fine. That's my suggestion. Little investment stuff. Don't take me for anybody that knows anything about that.

Bright: I think I'm just gonna cash out and place one big bet on City to win

Kev: There it is. That's what I'm talking about.

Bright: Saturday and double my money. And that'll

Kev: Yeah.

Bright: that'll be a better investment than anything. I'll just double my money like that. Of course, if I lose it, then it's no good. But all right. Well, I'll

Kev: There it is. There it is. You're on at something. All right.

Bright: let you know I'll let you know next week how that goes.

Kev: Yep, I gotta get back to my game.

Bright: Aye, peace.

Kev: Right.