Speaker 1: But joining me now right off the top. You know
Speaker 1: it's gonna be football coming up this weekend, but a
Speaker 1: little RSL soccer and kind of a sneaky big match
Speaker 1: is Dallas is in town. Our next guest is the
Speaker 1: all time leading scorer from the Dallas Burn and now
Speaker 1: part of the brain trust at Rayale Salt Lake, Jason
Speaker 1: Christ on a Tuesday afternoon, Jay, Happy Tuesday, buddy.
Speaker 2: How are you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: How are you Are you.
Speaker 1: Still the all time leading scorer of the Dallas Burn
Speaker 1: FC Dallas franchise?
Speaker 3: I think so. I think nobody else lasted as long
Speaker 3: as playing there as me. There was guys that scored
Speaker 3: more goals per season, but I don't think anybody else
Speaker 3: spent nine years there. So yeah, I think it's still fine.
Speaker 2: Longevity is important, but you can't tell me. You don't
Speaker 2: know for sure. If somebody broke your record, you would know, Jay, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just trying to remember. I know Hydys Frera
Speaker 3: is close. Was close. Maybe that was a single season.
Speaker 3: There's something there that he's getting close to breaking my
Speaker 3: record on all right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is there when RSL plays formerly the Dallas for an
Speaker 1: FC Dallas, does that conjure up any Jason christ weird
Speaker 1: feelings one.
Speaker 2: Way or the other.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't anymore. After you've gone from that club
Speaker 3: to here, to New York, Orlando to Miami, your memory
Speaker 3: runs a little thin.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, fair enough? All right?
Speaker 1: Jay? You know, what do you say about Houston? What
Speaker 1: do you say about Saturday?
Speaker 2: It was? It was bad.
Speaker 1: Pablo owned it after the game during media. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: it feels like you and I have been chatting on
Speaker 1: a weekly basis about a team that once upon a
Speaker 1: time out a fifteen game on beaten streak and was
Speaker 1: atop of the table in MLS, and now, Jay, it
Speaker 1: feels like there's a bit of a slide going on.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts both on Houston over the weekend
Speaker 1: and where you guys are at from a macro level.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not good, obviously not good. None of us are happy.
Speaker 3: I think all of us feel a bit of angst
Speaker 3: to the frustration. There's a whole lot of questioning now
Speaker 3: about where the problems lie and how we can move forward.
Speaker 3: But there's one thing that's clear in my mind after
Speaker 3: spending yesterday with the coaching staff is that we're all
Speaker 3: still in this very much together, and also there's a
Speaker 3: belief that this team can get back to where it
Speaker 3: was before or even actually be better. I think it's
Speaker 3: it's typical that every MS team is going to go
Speaker 3: through a slide. We I feel like, have had been
Speaker 3: on a little bit of a prolonged one. As I've
Speaker 3: said now many times, for me, there's been some results
Speaker 3: that have gone our way or met perhaps maybe we
Speaker 3: weren't quite there, but to be fair, through this run,
Speaker 3: there's also been a result or too that actually felt
Speaker 3: we deserved more. In so now it's I think it's
Speaker 3: a time just to continue to move forward. It's the
Speaker 3: time to realize that we're getting to the end of
Speaker 3: the season. It's a time for everybody to come together,
Speaker 3: really really together and understand one thing. In my opinion,
Speaker 3: I think it needs to be simplified now to the
Speaker 3: point where the players need to understand that you must
Speaker 3: out work the opponent. If we have a chance to
Speaker 3: win anything here, it's going to come through a collective effort.
Speaker 3: It is not going to come through individual star players
Speaker 3: or star players.
Speaker 2: So every sport matchups are real.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes it's what leads to great results or fallen flat
Speaker 1: on your face if you just simply don't match up
Speaker 1: with another team very well, or the other team simply
Speaker 1: doesn't match up with you. I mean, it's just how
Speaker 1: it is. It doesn't matter what sport it is. What
Speaker 1: is it, Jay, Like, I think it's one five and
Speaker 1: three over the last nine for you guys against Houston, Like,
Speaker 1: what's have you been able to identify with why this
Speaker 1: club has been so problematic for you guys?
Speaker 3: I think you know, as you talked about last week,
Speaker 3: I think for me, first and foremost is just the
Speaker 3: differences in climates last week. It was really difficult to
Speaker 3: go into the end of that week thinking about, oh,
Speaker 3: we've got a cold front coming through here in Salt Lake,
Speaker 3: so our guys are now training in fifty and sixty
Speaker 3: degree weather and they go down there for a ninety
Speaker 3: degree game. So you could see from my perspective, you
Speaker 3: could see pretty clearly that there was a level of
Speaker 3: fatigue and exhaustion that just is it seems out of place,
Speaker 3: but it is what it is. And then I think
Speaker 3: there's also a little bit of the tactics of Houston
Speaker 3: and how good they are with the ball. We oftentimes
Speaker 3: are the are the dominant possession team and most of
Speaker 3: the matches that we play and we enjoy that, and
Speaker 3: I think the guy's gaining confidence from that. And then
Speaker 3: we go play against a team like Houston in Houston
Speaker 3: and now they have the ball for the majority of
Speaker 3: the time, and so I think that creates a level
Speaker 3: of discomfort in our group and creates a level of
Speaker 3: lack of confidence that that ultimately hurts our team. So
Speaker 3: we've got to we've got to figure out a way
Speaker 3: to not allow that level of unconfidence, discomfort come in
Speaker 3: are come into our guys feelings and minds.
Speaker 1: So I haven't addressed this, and we're gonna have Pablo
Speaker 1: on later in the week. I'll certainly ask him because
Speaker 1: this might be more of a question for him, and
Speaker 1: if it is, please go ahead and tell me. But
Speaker 1: you know, preseason then the start of the season, whether
Speaker 1: I had coaches or players on, a lot of the
Speaker 1: conversation was about this new system that Pablo and the
Speaker 1: new staff that he was given wanted to implement juxtaposed
Speaker 1: to what you guys tried to do over the past
Speaker 1: few years. Is that system something that needs to be reevaluated.
Speaker 2: What's the progress there?
Speaker 1: Have you guys considered changing things up because look, I mean,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. The results haven't been there
Speaker 1: as of late. So let's talk about that for a second.
Speaker 1: Where are you at with this system that we seem
Speaker 1: to talk a lot about, you know, three months ago
Speaker 1: or so.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I mean, I think that we should
Speaker 3: always be looking for answers and we should always be
Speaker 3: willing to challenge ourselves on whatever the issue can be.
Speaker 3: But what I'd say right now is that there has
Speaker 3: been a clear identification on one thing, and that's the
Speaker 3: work rate, and we can and those those numbers are
Speaker 3: right in front of your eyes. Some of the system talks,
Speaker 3: you can start to get into some of the greenness
Speaker 3: of a lot of things. But when you have players
Speaker 3: that are being tracked by satellites or wearing GPS modules
Speaker 3: on their backs, and when a work level and a
Speaker 3: running level reaches a low point or is below average,
Speaker 3: and every time you do that you lose. That's where
Speaker 3: you start first. And so and like I said before,
Speaker 3: I think we need to be very simple and very
Speaker 3: clear about how we put ourselves in a position to
Speaker 3: win games, and that is to outwork our opponent. It's
Speaker 3: very very clear, Spence, It's actually shocking to go back
Speaker 3: and look at the data and say align that data
Speaker 3: when it was below average, and then align that with
Speaker 3: the results. It's shockingly clear. If our guys don't outwork
Speaker 3: our opponents, we lose, as simple as that.
Speaker 1: So I've got to ask a follow up because this
Speaker 1: is the first time hearing of this, and maybe I'm
Speaker 1: the last one to know about it, but I'm interested
Speaker 1: to know what that tracking system looks like, what the
Speaker 1: ideology is behind it, and if you could shed any
Speaker 1: light and more details on how you guys are utilizing
Speaker 1: that to really identify exactly what your problems are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the players all wear GPS units on their back,
Speaker 3: some of them won't wear it just for collective bargaining
Speaker 3: agreement type stuff. There's information that maybe they don't want
Speaker 3: everybody to know out there. For the players that don't,
Speaker 3: their satellite tracking of their movements during every match. Oftentimes,
Speaker 3: as a fan, you'll see that because you'll see a
Speaker 3: player being subbed out and it'll give you his total distance.
Speaker 3: Usually it's ten kilometers, which are usually between ten and
Speaker 3: fifteen kilometers that they've run per game. There's all kinds
Speaker 3: of other information that goes into that high speed running,
Speaker 3: high speed running per minute. There's all kinds of different
Speaker 3: data that can be looked at and analyzed and utilized.
Speaker 3: And so for us, we have several metrics that we
Speaker 3: track upon our game model, and when those metrics have
Speaker 3: dropped below a certain level, like a mean let's call it,
Speaker 3: or an average, the results have been poor. And when
Speaker 3: those levels have been higher than our average are, our
Speaker 3: results have been good. And on top of that, when
Speaker 3: you put those metrics against our opponents, when our opponent's
Speaker 3: levels are higher than ours, they win. And so this
Speaker 3: is what I mean when I say I think we
Speaker 3: need simple and clear messages to the players right now
Speaker 3: and not as basically outwork your opponent and you give
Speaker 3: yourself a chance to win. If you don't, you won't.
Speaker 1: So I'm very fascinated at this dynamic all of a
Speaker 1: sudden here. And I'm not going to ask you to
Speaker 1: put individual players out there, and I know you wouldn't
Speaker 1: need anyway, But has this data indicated that there are
Speaker 1: specific players that need to be spoken to in very
Speaker 1: uncertain terms and have some.
Speaker 3: Of the.
Speaker 1: Starting lineup, starting eleven and substitute decisions in line with
Speaker 1: the layers where the data reflects that maybe they're not
Speaker 1: working the way that they need to.
Speaker 3: Yes, and yes it simple. Yes, those conversations need to happen,
Speaker 3: and they will or have already happened. And yes, some
Speaker 3: decisions will be made based upon whether or not you run.
Speaker 3: And that's as simple as you can be. I think
Speaker 3: what you do is you make it very clear for
Speaker 3: the players that you know, if you're not in the lineup,
Speaker 3: it's probably because you haven't been working hard enough. If
Speaker 3: you're brought out of a game, it's probably because you
Speaker 3: haven't been running enough. And so it has to start
Speaker 3: with some certain level of something and that's where we're
Speaker 3: that's where we're starting it, and that's what we're holding
Speaker 3: onto right now is to just make that very very
Speaker 3: simple and very very clear.
Speaker 1: Have you considered putting a GPS tracking device on Trey
Speaker 1: during home games?
Speaker 3: We have not. It probably would be a little bit
Speaker 3: more worthy or times time well spent to put a
Speaker 3: blood pressure monitor on him.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, Hey, as a guy who wants upon a
Speaker 1: time and I mean, for me, number nine should be retired,
Speaker 1: that's my opinion.
Speaker 2: But whatever, As a guy for a long time who
Speaker 2: wore nine for.
Speaker 1: RSL and scored goals for RSL. Are you getting what
Speaker 1: you need from Chicho? And attendant to the question when
Speaker 1: the suspension came down, I talked to several people with
Speaker 1: the club and several people outside of the club that
Speaker 1: pontificated like this is the type of thing that derails
Speaker 1: the season. I'm not trying to be over dramatic or hyperbolic,
Speaker 1: but the fact of the matter is he's not playing
Speaker 1: the way he was prior to. He's not standing, you know,
Speaker 1: he's not finding the back of the net prior to.
Speaker 1: I can't speak to anything behind closed doors know what
Speaker 1: I ever tried to. But from a player and a
Speaker 1: leadership standpoint, are you getting what you need from your
Speaker 1: number nine?
Speaker 3: The message that goes to Chicho is the same that
Speaker 3: goes to every other player in the group right now,
Speaker 3: that exact same message that it has to start with
Speaker 3: the work. It has to start with your willingness to
Speaker 3: do anything and everything possible for the team. It has
Speaker 3: to start with your commitment level. That commitment level, that
Speaker 3: work rate has not been to the same level that
Speaker 3: it was before his suspension. And again, you know what
Speaker 3: you're doing is you're being very simple and very clear
Speaker 3: to say, if you give us that, the other stuff
Speaker 3: will come. And that just comes from my personal history
Speaker 3: of being a striker as well as being a coach
Speaker 3: of some pretty prolific strikers. That players like that go
Speaker 3: through slumps and oftentimes we can get them to focus
Speaker 3: on something else. What you'll find is you get the
Speaker 3: work that you need. That would be great, but you
Speaker 3: can also get some of that confidence back when they're
Speaker 3: not worried just about scoring goals.
Speaker 1: Interesting, well, yeah, I mean obviously you need them to
Speaker 1: find the back of the debt. I wonder if you
Speaker 1: could take us into the ongoing projects of breaking in
Speaker 1: new players. I mean, you guys had a busy transfer window.
Speaker 1: You took some very calculated risks, of course, getting rid
Speaker 1: of some players that were playing well for you for
Speaker 1: a premium and then bringing in players that you thought
Speaker 1: would fit in. So what don't we see about Lachlan
Speaker 1: and Diogo? And you know, obviously we're kind of still
Speaker 1: waiting for Mark Duke to be on the ground consistently
Speaker 1: to train.
Speaker 2: But just walk us through this. Obviously, it's a process to.
Speaker 1: Get teammates familiar with each other and acclimated to the altitude,
Speaker 1: acclimated to the community. All the things take time. I
Speaker 1: understand that where we actually with the continued to implement
Speaker 1: implementation of your five signings during the summer transfer window.
Speaker 3: Well, I think what we've seen is we've seen good
Speaker 3: signs from all of the players individually and within the group,
Speaker 3: but not consistently yet. And so that's what I would
Speaker 3: hold on to. That's what we are holding onto that
Speaker 3: We've seen a game and a half of Diogo that
Speaker 3: was quite good. We've seen sixty minutes from Javane that
Speaker 3: was really good. We've seen Dominic come off the bench
Speaker 3: now at Houston and have a really positive contribution. He
Speaker 3: looked bright. We've seen Lachlan probably arguably are only what
Speaker 3: I would say above average player at Houston was Lachlan
Speaker 3: and so in a couple of games we've seen moments
Speaker 3: from him as well, but we haven't seen it, you know,
Speaker 3: over a stretch of a couple of games, and we
Speaker 3: haven't seen consistency, and we haven't seen the group altogether
Speaker 3: firing and all cylinders. So we've seen the snapshots, but
Speaker 3: now we need to see the whole movie.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're getting buy in, Do you
Speaker 1: feel like you have trust in that locker room. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't win trophies, You can't win much if you
Speaker 1: don't trust your teammates, if you don't trust your coaches,
Speaker 1: if you don't trust your coaching staff, and Jay, you
Speaker 1: know the deal man. When the results go the other way,
Speaker 1: I've got to ask you these questions. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like the group trusts each other? Do you have the
Speaker 1: locker room.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent? I mean I won't speak to the
Speaker 3: locker room because that's no longer my domain. My domain
Speaker 3: is the coaching staff, and my domain is what I
Speaker 3: think of the players based upon what to see in
Speaker 3: the training sessions and the matches. And I don't see
Speaker 3: all the training sessions either. But we started the conversation
Speaker 3: with one thing that we're clear on. We are all
Speaker 3: still very much together in this. So absolutely the trust
Speaker 3: is there for the coaching staff. The trust is there
Speaker 3: that we have the requisite level of talent, and the
Speaker 3: knowledge is there that these players are all capable of
Speaker 3: doing exactly what's demanded of them. If we think we're
Speaker 3: going to have a chance to win, it's just about
Speaker 3: them doing it now. It is not a question about ken.
Speaker 3: It is a question of will or will not.
Speaker 1: So when last we spoke, and I want to revisit
Speaker 1: this throughout the course of the season. You know, Pablo
Speaker 1: himself shared with me the detail of like waiting for
Speaker 1: his Kyle Beckerman, waiting for his Jason christ waiting for
Speaker 1: his Pablo Master money, like the guy who is on
Speaker 1: the team that isn't afraid to m f the teammate
Speaker 1: if things aren't going well, even if you're a little
Speaker 1: bit afraid to offend somebody in the sake of competition,
Speaker 1: or the same of winning in the sake of competition
Speaker 1: and the sake of getting results and winning any sport,
Speaker 1: any level. You got a couple of those dogs. You
Speaker 1: got a couple of those guys. You know, I feel
Speaker 1: like Catronos might be one. But I don't know what's
Speaker 1: the what's the update on this search for the uh,
Speaker 1: the bite and the toughness you're gonna you're gonna need
Speaker 1: if you want to lift a trophy.
Speaker 3: It's still ongoing, Spence, and I would say, you know, again,
Speaker 3: like I said last week, this is the time of
Speaker 3: the season that players either step forward or step back, right.
Speaker 3: This is the time of the season. This is where
Speaker 3: big players make big plays in big games, and so
Speaker 3: the answer is to be determined, and the opportunity is
Speaker 3: there for all the players to step forward and be counted.
Speaker 1: All right, before I say you lose, tell me about Dallas.
Speaker 1: You know the record isn't great, they're outside the playoff line.
Speaker 1: But of course you know right now, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: who you're playing. You gotta get three. You gotta get
Speaker 1: three at home. It's a big It's like a sneaky
Speaker 1: big match Jay tomorrow. So tell me about Dallas. What
Speaker 1: do you guys need to need to do to get
Speaker 1: all three? Take care of your home field.
Speaker 3: This is a big game. It's not sneaky big. It's
Speaker 3: a big game. As in, all of the games are
Speaker 3: going forward are big games for us because this is
Speaker 3: about making it into the playoffs and giving ourselves the
Speaker 3: best chance to win something in the playoffs, which means
Speaker 3: home field advantage. So every game is massive. Dallas is
Speaker 3: an interesting team because they had a good season last year.
Speaker 3: They came in this season and really struggled to kind
Speaker 3: of find their way. They've had a lot of injuries
Speaker 3: with some of their most important players. From what I
Speaker 3: gather now, they've got all their best players back and
Speaker 3: are all healthy. They've been on a run of good form.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's a team that seems to be
Speaker 3: heading forward and we seem to be heading sideways or backwards.
Speaker 3: So it's time to arrest all of that. It is
Speaker 3: time too, As I said before, it's time to simplify,
Speaker 3: simplify and clarify, and it is time for players to
Speaker 3: step forward and make their mark.
Speaker 1: All right, my guy, well be pulling for He's always
Speaker 1: appreciate the time today and good luck tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, buddy, take care.
Speaker 1: Jason christ Right, I'll salt Lake. It's a big one tomorrow.
Speaker 1: If you guys are looking for something to do on
Speaker 1: a Wednesday evening, go to RSL dot com for.
Speaker 2: Single game ticket options.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, Dallas is in town and RSL badly needs
Speaker 1: a win as a result of the recent slide.
Speaker 2: Rayel saw Lake is still in fourth.
Speaker 1: You need a top four slot to get a home
Speaker 1: playoff match, but Seattle is lurking and they're good, so
Speaker 1: is Vancouver. Houston is now up there as well, and
Speaker 1: Portland has kind of turned it on. So RSL in
Speaker 1: a virtual tie with Colorado one point behind LAFC in
Speaker 1: a full eight points beyond the galaxy. You have really
Speaker 1: turned it on. But Rayal saw Lake badly in need
Speaker 1: of a win. Coming up tomorrow, RSL dot com. Let's
Speaker 1: pack the place all right. Before we catch a break,
Speaker 1: I want to tell you about my friends at Prize Picks.
Speaker 1: Prize Picks America's number one daily fantasy sports app with
Speaker 1: over five million active members. All you do is pick
Speaker 1: more or less on two to six player staff projections
Speaker 1: and watch the winnings roll in.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I want to emphasize two to six. So if you
Speaker 1: get two players, right, you win money. Now here's the deal.
Speaker 1: Right now, they're giving you one win. One Caleb Williams
Speaker 1: passing yard gets you one win on Prize Picks every
Speaker 1: week in September. That's right, Only one yard from Caleb
Speaker 1: Williams gets you an automatic win football weekend September. Take
Speaker 1: advantage though, because it is gone when September end.
Speaker 2: So here's what you do.
Speaker 1: Go go download the Prize Picks app today and use
Speaker 1: the promo code ESPN seven hundred and get fifty dollars
Speaker 1: instantly when you play five dollars with my good friends
Speaker 1: at Prize Picks. That's promo code ESPN seven hundred on
Speaker 1: Prize Picks and get fifty dollars instantly when you play
Speaker 1: five dollars. You don't even need to win to receive
Speaker 1: the fifty dollars bonus. It's guaranteed Prize Picks run your game,
Speaker 1: so download that Prize Picks app and take advantage of
Speaker 1: the promo code ESPN seven hundred