Amilcar’s Back… and so are the L’s | SDFC Skid, Copa del Rey Final, & this week's UCL Semis

Amilcar is back from Japan! 🇯🇵 But he returns to some rough news… San Diego FC is on a three-game losing streak AND a tough result for Real Madrid. Talk about a welcome home! 😬

In this episode, Mario and Amilcar break down:

⚽ SDFC’s 3-game skid – what’s going wrong, and is it time to panic?

🏆 Copa del Rey Final recap – tears, trophies, and all the drama

🔮 Champions League Semifinals predictions – Is there a treble in store, or will there be a first time champion?

🎧 Hit play for soccer takes, bad jokes, and a little post-trip reality check. Link in bio!

Want more soccer content? Find us on instagram and X @_pitchreport

Transcript

0:00

Yo yo yo, welcome to Pitch Report, I'm Mario. And your favorite host is back! A mill car! Our third favorite host that is. Okay, Mocha, welcome back. Before we get into it, just one more quick shout out to Mr. Leo for covering what you were out. It was a pleasure recording with them. But also I'm glad to have you back on Mocha. How was the trip? Yeah, it was great. I'm glad I can also thank Mr. Leo for covering. I listened to all the podcasts while I was away and they were great. You guys did some very, very in-depth analysis. was like, these guys are putting me to shame. I was like, I hope I don't, I can keep it up when I get back. But no, the trip was amazing. went to Japan for almost two weeks, which was great. For anybody that hasn't gone, I recommend going. For anyone that has gone, I'm sure you wanna go back. planning going in September and looking at your story, especially the food you were eating made me so excited to go and yeah, I'm just excited to get your list of recommendations. yeah, like the best fish I've ever had, some of the best meats I've ever had. So uh the Japanese, man, they do it all. And in an orderly fashion on top of that, know, nice and clean and everything like that. m Made me realize like, you know, living in LA, I'm like, man, things are dirty around here. When I got back the first thing I landed at LAX, was like, yep, we're not in Japan anymore. Can't even take a train to get anywhere from LAX. For the time being, that's soon to change. Yeah, I will say that the construction looks like it's actually making some progress here, which is refreshing for the World Cup and the Olympics and the Club World Cup and all that stuff. Yeah, well, I'm very glad to have you back and I can't wait to catch up with you more and hear more about it. But I wish we could welcome you back with better news, but honestly, all around for sports, it was not a great weekend for San Diego. It was a good weekend in Cuape de Rey for me, but not for you. And we'll get to that in a bit. But let's start at home first with the San Diego FC, they play. We're out South Lake. was the second time these teams play each other. And basically they just swapped score. Last time we played at Roushout Lake, San Diego C-131 and this time at Snapdragon Roushout Lake 131 basically. Yeah, man. And your boy Diego Luna, the most unathletic looking person on the field had two goals uh and uh made a penalty and then the word asso that I think we can both agree uh for the third goal. Yeah, man. think it's been rough because I've been listening to the podcast and I'm just like, God, I think you realize like how repetitive we sound sometimes, but like the analysis from this game, like It's just, it's the same kind of stuff that we're seeing over and over again. They play from the back. They, it's a miss pass. They give her the ball goal, you know, um, there was a couple opportunities where it was like almost point blank with a goalie. couldn't score, you know, so seems like we're still having the same issues. The miscues upfront. And then also we're just, uh, the defense is kind of getting diced up is, is what it looks like, which is, I think ends up happening to us when we don't play with full possession. But I guess it's also counterintuitive, right? Cause if you play from the back, usually you do that to keep possession and keep the ball longer. But you know, they play from the back 50 times, one or two of those times they're giving up the ball and you know, it's an easy score. So it is a little bit frustrating. especially now we're on like a three game skid. What were your thoughts about it, Mario? Yeah. You mentioned like possession and I agreed like when you play from the back or when you play possession ball, usually start from the back, but I've seen like not as much cohesion in the team. They're just not connecting as many passes. It seems like they're not in as much of sync as they were earlier on in the season where they were just like dominating the ball and the scene very comfortable having the ball. I haven't really seen quite as much of that. Even though the stats will say that San Diego had it like more possession in the game. I don't know. It feels like some things like missing some of the spark that I think we saw and not maybe it was just excitement off the gate that we were a new team. But I've also been wondering like a lot of our early wins came against teams and this is where we maybe sound kind of like, like the same points, but Maybe this is more of a reality of what 10 day UFC is going to be for the first season. Maybe we are like more of a mid table team where we're good enough to beat a lot of the weaker teams we've played. And we're going to maybe have some trouble playing the teams that are a little bit up ahead in the, in the table. Cause right now after this loss, we're in seventh with 14 points. So technically if the playoffs and started today, we have the last automatic spot. So maybe are we like a middle tier team in that regard? So maybe it's just uh through the law of averages, we're kind of just getting to where we're going to be ultimately. Yeah, but I mean, I guess to your point, do you think that, um, like it, there's maybe like a lack of chemistry, which we were talking in the beginning, right? We're like, there is no chemistry, but it seems like there's some sort of chemistry here, especially the back line, the back line seemed like they were all in sync and they were on the same page. And the lack of chemistry we were saying was between the forwards, right? We're talking about Chuki and Dreier and everyone up there was, was a little bit lack of chemistry, which is like, yeah, the final touch is missing, but at least we can, you know, we can hang our hat on the defense, right? first probably couple of goals or the first couple of games, right? And then I feel like the turning point happened when we played Austin. Um, that's when we gave up like two, three goals and then you realized, okay, like the running, they're running in behind us. And then I'm always wondering like our teams learning how to play against San Diego FC and how to, how to exploit their weaknesses. Because to your point of saying that maybe we're only being bad teams, if we beat Salt Lake, right? We had the three one against them. We saw the same exact team. for the second time and you know, then they beat us 3-1, right? So like, you how do you explain that? Yeah, I think there is an element that teams have gotten a look at us. They kind of know how to play against us a little bit more. uh But yeah, outside of that, I'm not sure really. I think we did play, I liked seeing the McDouble of McVeigh and McNair in the center. I think they're usually pretty strong there. The arrow did come from Kumato, like the first Diego Luna goal. But other than that, I really don't have. Much of an answer, I would say. uh you just coin the MacDouble or is that a thing that's going around? Have I been gone for this long? I read it somewhere else and I was kind of like a little mind blown. was like, wait, I can't believe I hadn't really seen that before. saw it. Yeah. Dmitri Anisimov uh on the East Village Times. He called it the McDouble. I don't know if someone else has called it the McDouble, uh but that's who I read it from. Now what a respectable guy. I would have just taken credit. Let's be honest. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought about it right now on the spot on the podcast. wouldn't want to run into Dimitri at the San Diego Sea game and not be upset at me. Honestly that's fair, he has a very very powerful name. like, if he's anything like his name you definitely don't want to be messing around with that guy. Exactly. But yeah, I know. mean, I think what we're talking about, like we said, it's the same stuff over and over again. Um, I'm hoping that Mickey Barrios can get the team kind of together. Um, one of the things that I will say that I, I think you mentioned from the beginning is C.J. Los Santos is like a stud man. Like these, these scorelines could be so much worse if it wasn't for someone like the great saves that he's making. So, you know, tip our hat, shout out to him for, um, keeping things as close as possible even when like the defense is getting run by. I'm particularly impressed near post how quick he is to react. And obviously he's a keeper and you're supposed to have quick reflexes, but I feel like he's very quick in this other. There's some shots that they usually try to sneak on the near post that he's able to get to very quickly that I don't think most goals would get to. yeah, he's been playing pretty well. And on that note too, like on the CJ Dos Santos note. We've given up three penalties in the last three games that we've lost. So there's a few things that we can improve on in that regard. I also wanted to talk about the... when you mess up, right? When you make, when you make a, when you make an error, you try to recover. And usually that's by committing a foul, something like that. You know, it's, it's, like to say when you give up penalties, generally like sloppy play, like you messed up or you, you're, you're out of position. And then that's where you end up giving a penalty. Sorry. I just totally cut you off. No, you're totally right. Good point. Yeah. And way to go to and like look at the play before because usually it is a result of something that's not done correctly. But the other thing I was going to talk about was the Diego Luna, like not his penalty, but the other goal is really, really good. The way he shot it was between I think the McDouble basically. when I looked at that, I didn't even know how I went in because it was not a big gap. He just found like a very small space and placed it really well, like really quickly. It wasn't like the most powerful shot, but it was really well positioned. It almost looked like something you would like see uh in like an indoor soccer type of game. It was just really, really nice. So yeah, I it was a good goal. Yeah, absolutely, but San Diego fans, don't worry. It's not all bad. You can always, even though we're on a three game losing streak, we can always look at our Northern rivals and think, man, at least we haven't lost every single, at least we have a win, you know? Not like our friends up there at LA Galaxy that have zero wins so far for the season. you know, we're still doing all right. Yeah, who would have thought when the season started that it was going to get that bad? Three points so far in 10 games. I mean, at least if that's a price. Yeah, I was going to say that's a price paid for winning a championship. Maybe I guess you would take you. Right? Would you, Muker? Honestly, guess the alternative is what having two like playoff seasons, you know, and not winning it. yeah, I'll take the win and then I'll be last place the next season. Totally. 100%. Yeah. And I think about the Padres. Have you told me like, you win the World Series and you don't make it to the playoffs for the next three years? I'm like, sure, let's do it. You're like, that's what's happening now. We don't have a World Series. So yes, I'll take it. I mean, we're making the playoffs, but. Yeah. You would take it too, right? oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. think, especially, I think it's also, it's definitely different. I think if you were to guarantee like you're going to win it this year and then you can guarantee you're not going to make it to the playoffs in the next couple of years and like you're, you're a fortune teller, then yeah, like I would do it. But I think if you, if you ask the team, like, I don't know, like Kansas city or a team like the Patriots or someone that's had like a lot of history winning, if you were to say like, Hey, would you rather make it to the playoffs or not? They're like, well, make into the playoffs because the odds of us winning are much higher than someone that isn't right. You know, so, um, I think it all depends on the experience that you have with your team, honestly. Yeah, and I completely agree because the experience we've had, we've recently had good runs. We're still talking about baseball, ah but we haven't got into that final step of winning the World Series, which we hope will happen even though this weekend was kind of rough, as we mentioned for San Diego sports. um But I guess we can just talk about really quickly about the next game. So this upcoming weekend, San Diego FC is hosting FC Dallas at Snapdragon Stadium. Amilcar and I will be there to watch. And FC Dallas is one place ahead of us. They're currently 16th with 15 points, but this is coming off a 4-3 win add into Miami on Sunday. Granted, Messi and Suarez were not playing, but we talked about how we do against better teams. This is a team that's technically on paper better than us from points, and then they're coming off a big win. So I think this game could really... kind of prove a little bit of what the San Diego FC team is maybe gonna be for the rest of the season with the, I guess we're getting to like a third of the season. So it's like a decent sample slice. So hopefully this is the game that helps us right the ship and helps us turn things around and kind of get back on the winning side of things. So if they do win, then we can be like, know what? We just gotta go to all the home games, man. Because every home game we've gone to, Mario, they've always won. So that's our theory for now. the field. Knock on wood. All right. I said we were almost done with this, but just our San Diego FC first, we had two maybe not great ones. One was our first home loss, sad face. Then we had our first penalty that we score. It was Chuky Lozano. It was the only goal for the game. And then I guess you could officially say it's our first losing streak. I don't know if two games would count as a losing streak, but at least I'll tell you with three, we're definitely having our. first losing streak and hopefully we cut the damage at three. But yeah, maybe we can move on to Copa del Rey. MoCart, thank you for coming back for this episode. Speaking of losing, hey, you know, there was a loser, I think we all won in terms of having a pretty good and exciting game, right? Yeah, for sure. I wore my black shirt, you know, just in solidarity with the Rammuidger losing the final. uh But yeah, I know I had a bunch of people telling me that I was ducking, ah you know, ducking the smoke because I wasn't, I wasn't showing up to the podcast when, when Rammuidger would lose the Champions League. But here I am, you know, I thought, I thought maybe they would win this one and they would come back and be like, yeah, I'm back now we won, you know, but unfortunately that was not the case. So, uh yes, a little bit of a bummer, but I think it was. It was one of the better classicos that we've seen. like I was talking to Mr. Lee over the weekend, I was like, I think this revived the classical for me. Like it's been probably since like the messy Ronaldo classicos that it haven't that things haven't been as exciting as they were. And for better or for worse, I think that it's kind of revived a little bit like the rivalry and a little bit of like the physicalness and, the hate between the two teams, you know, if we can say that, um, which I think all football world football. wants, you know, and craves like this, this rivalry and this thing. Cause I mean, I think you and I can probably remember when we were in college or even high school, like when these games happen, like figuratively, like the world would stop. And like for those three hours, like everyone was watching this, you know, like everyone that you knew was watching this. And then it kind of went in a lull where people didn't really watch it that much. seems like it was either one side of where Barcelona was winning all of them. And then lately it was Real Madrid was winning everything. And so I'm very happy to see that as, as bummed as I am. that we ended up losing the match. Yeah, I completely agree. I feel like for the last few years, one team has been clearly been doing better than the other. And in this case, Barcelona has had a slightly better season, but the game was super competitive. And looking to the future, you really don't know who's going to be like a better team. It's really going to be a very, very close race. At least that's what like it looks like in the future. Both have like really young, talented players. So. Yeah, very excited for this game. I honestly thought when Rama Jutta went up to one, was like, my gosh, they're going to like sneak away with it. The way we've gotten used to seeing them do it in the champion's league. frankly, or ultimately that's not what happened, but I really thought after the Chumendi go that you guys are going to win. Yeah, cause I think like the tide kind of turned in the second half, at least during those goals, seemed like Real Madrid was pushing a lot more. They looked a lot more, a lot more cohesion. They looked like they were, you know, building up an attack, you know, um much better than they had previously. So, you know, with that, was, was, was good for a little bit, but then once, once that second goal was scored, I was like, okay, like here we go again, you know, like frustrating. And I say, here we go again, just in the last handful of times that we've played, you know. Um, at least it wasn't a five two or, or I think it was like five one or four Oh, that it has been in the past. So it was a little bit competitive, but I think it basically just showed our weaknesses, which there was no surprise. The weakness was our defense, you know, not being able to, uh, mean injuries and all, but not being able to, to, to stop. Arguably the most prolific offense in Europe right now, you know, in, terms of Lamina mile and Rafinha and there was minus Lomondowski too. So. I can't imagine how it would have been with him. But the other thing is also just the frustration that you get from having Vinicius and Mbappe and Rodriguez kind of off a little bit the last probably six months or so. But having them and you think like, you see it on paper, you're like, dude, these guys should be destroying people. At least if you're losing, you're losing five-four. You're scoring a ton of goals. But there's so many times where they're very ineffective. And so I think whether it's Ancelotti or whoever comes in, comes in next year, think that's gonna be the biggest thing is how do you make them effective and how do you make them work well with each other? Yeah. And what you mentioned about like the different strikers, I think another winner for from this game was the French and Spain national team. Maybe look at the goal scores. was only French and Spanish players. We had three goals coming from arguably three starters from the French national team and then the other two from Spain players. So I would that would be another takeaway for me that obviously we know these things are really good, but I think they're really really really good. Yeah, I mean, you might be looking like a workup final, you know, if it works out, like, I think a lot of people can pen that, you know, throw England in there, throw Germany, throw a couple of teams in there, but like, that could be the final, honestly. So, yeah, but I think a lot will be said from here to then. But I guess for me as a Spanish fan, obviously, like, that's exciting for me. But right now, you know, gotta soak it in. think it's tough being a Madrid fan right now, just because I think we've been used to winning, especially a lot very recently. So I can't remember like the last season when we had like nothing or potentially nothing because La Liga is technically still, you know, in the running, although, you know, there's much more slim possibilities. But I know that when we signed Mbappe after we had last season, this is not what I thought was going to happen. You know, I thought it was going to be, all right, cool. We have the treble, you know, and here we are. Barcelona might get the treble with a young team that was generally unproven before this year and their, you know, fancy flick has them, you know, going at all cylinders. Fingers crossed and my car got my fingers crossed and they'll have the next challenge in the I mean, OK, for the league, they they have a four point lead with I think four games left, so they have to drop a good amount of points there. And then for a championship they have inter. Or they're hosting into this week on Wednesday and then PSG's are also hosting PSG on Tuesday. Yeah, I'm just I'm hoping that. They can keep it going. What are you thinking for the for this Champions League semifinal? Man, Mario, what a smooth transition. It's almost like you're like you're you do this for a living now, man. Yeah, now we're gonna talk about the Champions League. Absolutely. uh So in terms of what I think is gonna happen, obviously, like it's a little different watching the Champions League when there's when there's roundmagers not in there. But I will say something from that I've kind of learned from this podcast is just trying to be a little bit more unbiased and watching it to watch the games, which has been definitely very neat. um So in terms of the Barcelona-Inter game, that one's going to be interesting. um know Inter obviously is a defensive team and they pride themselves on defense, um They hadn't let in any goals, I believe, in the Champions League until this last, um the matches against Bayern Munich where I think they let in, I want to say two goals during the whole thing, um which hopefully for them is just a fluke and they're still going to be heavy defensively. But it's going to be one of the better defensive teams against like I said, mentioned earlier, probably the best offensive team that there is right now. So I think it's definitely going to be a duel on that side of the ball and who can come out ahead. And then the PSG Arsenal one, I'm actually really excited for that one because I think that's just going to be like an offensive game. So I'm like, just based off how Arsenal, for lack of better words, kind of toyed with around Madrid at certain points, um I think that and the way like PSG has also been playing lately, I think that's going to be an offensive game. and the other one is going be a much lower scoring game. What do think? Yeah, I think with Arsenal PSG, Arsenal was a team that I just thought was kind of there earlier on in the tournament, but they've rightfully so really impressed everyone, especially coming off like the statement win in the previous round. And now I think they could actually maybe be PSG from the quarterfinals. thought PSG and Barcelona were like, gonna like for sure be there, but now I could really see Arsenal and I'm excited at the prospect of it being. a new team that's never made it or that's never won the tournament. So we'll have from that bracket, the PSG Arsenal side, we'll have a team that's never won playing in the final and then against teams that have won it multiple times with Inter and Barcelona. ah With Barcelona, they're going to, I think, really be tested when, especially in defense, because this might have to be a series where they don't score a of goals to go through. uh And if Inter can really stop him, I could see the Barcelona players, especially the young players getting frustrated and just doing kind of like silly things. I'm thinking like Lamin Yamal where he like in Copa del Rey final, like didn't even get touched in the face and just jumped to the ground. I don't know if you saw that play, but I was like, come on, dude, like that's just so soft. And so I just hope that they can keep the composure there to make it through. I mean, there's gonna be physical. I think that's what they do, right? They play physical football, which is gonna be different than Barcelona. Barcelona is more finesse, which just in general, the Italian leaves more physical, Spanish leaves a little bit more finesse in general. But I will say, I want to bring it back to someone that, you know, in one of the first episodes said that Arsenal was a sleeper pick to win the Champions League. And you made fun of me for calling them a sleeper, which I agree with you. But, you know, here we are. My sleeper, I think your sleeper was bruised and they stayed sleeping. For sure. But Arsenal's still alive. a deep run. Yeah, it's got a milk cart over here. I know in reality it probably shouldn't have been a sleeper pick just because Arsenal's they're big a big club or the big squad so they shouldn't have been a sleeper but you know I guess one thing that I've picked right you know other than Madrid uh clearly not was that so uh I'm now very excited and usually the what I was gonna say is like I usually don't root for teams that have beat my team so like if you beat Real Madrid I usually don't root for you you know but like for some reason, like the Arsenal team to me personally, it just seems like very likable. It just seemed like a very fun team to watch. So I'm, I am rooting for them to beat PSG. And then I think unbiased me is going to say Barcelona is going to be inter just the unbiased side of me. But I, who I'll be rooting for potentially is, is probably like inter to, to be Barcelona just cause like I guess it's the mindset of if we don't win it, you can't win it either. You know, like that would be the best outcome would be if Rammiger doesn't win it. Barcelona was the worst thing that could possibly happen. Yeah. And especially since Rammiger's never won a trouble either. So it's like, um, but yeah, so I will say unobjectively, I think I have Arsenal beating PSG and I think I have Barcelona, um, beating inter and that Barcelona Arsenal match. It's gonna be a lot. So it's only one game. So anything can happen. and one game in the final. Yeah. Barcelona looking to, again, go ahead from Munich or Bayern Munich for, because, yeah, I think it's Bayern Munich and Barcelona are the only two teams with two trebles. So it'd be awesome to make it three trebles. uh Yeah, we're going to break down these games after the fact on Thursday and tee up the next round, which would be the following week, and see who ends up making it to the final. Mokar, do you have a pitch of the week? I don't and I thought about it today when I was like, we were getting ready for the call. was like, gosh, darn it. I should have had a pitch of the week because I had a pitch of the week both times and one time he had two. Can prepare and my my only pitch, it's a minor one, but was Laminga Mall where he like kind of just jumped on the ground. Then he didn't get hit in the face and like went to protect it. And of course he's a soccer player and that's part of the job, I guess. But I it was just kind of silly that he clearly was not even hit in his face and he was like ducking and pretending he like got hit. But other than that. pitch of the week, actually. I just thought of one right now. Once again, a mill card. Heard it here first, being unbiased. Who would have thunk? My pitch of the week is actually Antonio Rutiger. And the reason is because he got a red card and then like on the bench, he was getting so mad. He threw like ice, like an ice bag and was threw something at the ref. So like as much as I love the fiercest that he plays with and like kind of how crazy he is, I think we can. unbiasedly agree that's like unacceptable to throw anything at anybody, let alone the ref. So that's my actually pitch of the week that I just thought of right now. So there you go. Look at us, keeping our teams accountable. yeah, actually, wait, that's funny. Yeah, because yours is Lameen Amal. oh Yeah. So I didn't know he threw it. I saw he had thrown something like a big thing, but I didn't know was a bag of ice. That's funny. ah was trying to throw it and he was getting stopped and held back. But I think he had a piece of ice or something that he threw. Like I said, energy is great, but just channel it the right way. Who was the guy from the Cavaliers that threw like soup at one of his coaches? There was a few years back. Yeah, the guy that like that. Yeah, no, it wasn't during a game. It was like during a practice or something. was RG Smith or JR Smith. Yeah, I think it was him. But the There was so many means that someone like called me a bowl of soup. it was just such an odd thing to throw at someone. I'll have to look it up and show you. But yeah. You know, we're all gonna be on pins and needles waiting to find out who threw soup on their teammate. Maybe it was like a spotch or maybe it like a cold soup, you know? But, okay. You are a soup connoisseur. do do and love your suits. I do like the soups, yes. ah But I'd say that about does it for today's episode. We'll be back later this week recapping the PSG Arsenal and Inter Barcelona game. Once again, thank you everyone for listening and we'll see you soon. See ya.