Episode 15
Bridget
0:15
Well, welcome to this episode of the Queen's Pitch podcast. I'm Bridget. I'm Kara. And here we are on a late night Saturday night after another Charlotte FC game. Kara, I don't even know if I want to talk about it, so why don't you start us off with it. So
Kara
0:31
I wasn't able to go to DC. We were supporting NC soccer around Winston Salem with some other actual Charlotte FC fans who are all here supporting their kids, playing in a big tournament this weekend. And we weren't able to actually start the game. Even our service was so, so bad that we knew nothing for 75 minutes of the play because everything got delayed. And so we were like, this is a pretty crappy night as well. Everything could and did go wrong. And then of course, it did for the team, too. So that feels like, oh, okay,
Bridget
1:06
cool. Well, at least you didn't have to drive six and a half hours up here and spend your money and be around a bunch of DC United fans. That's
Kara
1:16
true. I did get to support my kid. Yeah, my kid's game got canceled this morning, so we didn't get to do that. So I came and supported the kids on the Charlotte FC team. That wasn't too fun either. Anyways, the score tonight was 30 in favor of DC United. The goals were incredibly ridiculous. I'm going to go ahead and say that, and I guess our team did kind of show up, but let's go through the lineup. Okay, let's see. We started the people that were healthy. 1s We started Westwood. So he's back. That was a good thing in the midfield. And our front lineup was Gaines. After Tuesday night, that was a surprise. But anyway, we had Gaines and then we had Enzo and Irwin Vargas. So we just had a four, three, three today. Yes.
Bridget
2:07
Oh, I did it right. I didn't do it backwards. So then our middle was obviously Westwood. Bronco. DJ.
Kara
2:14
No. Carol yeah. Carol yeah. DJ was at center defense.
Bridget
2:19
Yeah. Somebody said Bronco is playing that part, but I don't even know what Bronco is playing tonight. So we're just going to say midfield. And then our back on up was obviously my favorite person in the whole world. Byrne and and a fool. And then on the insides, we had Melonda and DJ. DJ, he played the back line. There we go. Look at that. So then Bronco did like, a CDM. Yes. And then DJ did our little CB thing. 1s And then we have Burn out there just hanging out. No, he did run around a little bit and do some stuff. So anyway, that was our lineup. Our bitch was kind of surprising, though. We didn't have Mellow on the bitch. Don't know what happened to him. No,
Kara
2:59
nothing. Bender.
Bridget
3:01
Still, poor Bender. Yes. Yeah, we saw him on the plane. So he did come up here and then actually a little cute little thing. Danny with a Charlotte soccer show, saw his mother before the game down in the little concession stand area, or at least someone pretending to be his mom, so we hope that it was her. She told us he still felt a little bit under the weather. And they had 70 people come to this game to support Bender, and then he didn't even play. But
Kara
3:25
look how much they loved him and got to be there for the team to
Bridget
3:30
see us do whatever we do,
Kara
3:31
but out of love for him.
Bridget
3:33
Right. And he got to see his family because he probably ain't going to see them in a while. And if you're sick, you want to see your mama. So I'm sure Bender definitely love that. But anyway, that was him. But then the rest of the lineup on the bench was like The Legacy. All of our Legacy guys that have been playing for The Legacy, we just popped them right on up, set them on the bench today. Yeah,
Kara
3:49
we had a lot of them today. Yeah, we had
Bridget
3:50
Adamant I don't know how to say his name. Ajimanj. Ajimon. Yeah. Adjimon and diop. And we had Cambridge, and we had Was Private on it, too. Yeah. And then we had Kalina on the bench. How about that? That was pretty fun to see him out there.
Kara
4:06
Hagert subasinski. Let's
Bridget
4:08
not forget about good old Hagart. Hagart's becoming a Laddy fan favorite, I think. Well, not a fan favorite, but a lady favorite, I guess, is what it is. But anyways, on that note, let's go with our favors and Rafts, you want to do
Kara
4:19
it? Sure, go ahead. You were there, so I feel like you had more pain being there and seeing all of that.
Bridget
4:26
Maybe you should have the favors because I have all the pain
Kara
4:31
on a high note because this has just been a little
Bridget
4:35
no, I'm going to be nice. And I'm going to go with Westwood today because he came. Back. And he seemed to be. Especially when the VAR incident happened and some of the other calls that were stupid. But we'll talk about that later. Westwood was there. He was very talkative. I thought he was controlling the ball in the midfield, although we didn't do much in the midfield. But when he did, he controlled it and he didn't lose it. It's just nice to see Westwood back. I know I've been a big critic of him for a lot of the season, but having him out just makes me see how much we need him back. And he didn't lose the ball when he had it, so I'm going to give him my first favor today. Yeah,
Kara
5:16
well, really great to see him back out and playing a full 90 minutes after an injury. He took a few knocks too. And we also know that Laddie wants to see he's a vital part of Laddie's lineup. So when he's in, he needs to be out there and he needs to be leading for him to play the full 90 after coming back from an injury. And then he had some key passes. He. 1s Had a shot off target. It would have been really nice if that actually went, but it didn't.
Bridget
5:46
This is his first game back.
Kara
5:48
Yeah. Well, yeah, and I have some more things to say that are going to come into this later, but it's going to fall into my wrath and not necessarily on him, but anyway, I'm going to save some of that.
Bridget
5:58
He has to have a little bit of a problem because when he left, there was Andre and there was Nuno and he had been there. He was working with a lot of different people, and then he gets hurt and then he comes back and he doesn't have those people. And so it's got to be a little bit different. First of all, him coming back, but then second of all, he's coming back trying to readjust himself to some of the other lineups that he has to deal with and some of the other players. So I think just giving him a little bit of grace tonight. We're hoping that he just keeps doing better and keeps staying healthy because we need him. We definitely do. So who's your favorite tonight, your first one?
Kara
6:36
My first one is going to go to actually McKinsey Gaines. Oh, you didn't expect that, did
Bridget
6:41
you? No, I did not. You must have saw something different than what I saw, but we're going to let you go with your favor before I say I did. So, first of all, he played the full 90 Tuesday, right? Right. He also played the full 90 today. Wow. I don't know if that tells you something, but that means Christian Latanzio saw something for how McKenzie played first on Tuesday as well as today. And I feel like part of that is he's stepping up in some leadership as well as his work rate. I thought he worked really hard to be out there today and he was a great distributor Tuesday to me. I see his quality as being raised now. I don't think you saw that in final. 1s Product. He did have a key pass, he had a cross or two, he won an aerial duel, he had some successful dribble attempts. He won a couple of corners. From some of the things he did, he had to also come back and play defense in the midfield. So I feel like he worked really hard to be out there. And normally that work rate we see from people like Carol Swardowski, right, right. We're not really used to seeing that same level of work rate from McKinsey, but I feel like that's what he tried to bring now was everything perfect? No, he still got some possession loss for him. There's one point where he absolutely gets the ball stolen from him and he's like and he comes back
Kara
8:04
after him and gets that yellow card. And I'm like, okay, all right, he had some bite to him tonight. And so that was kind of new
Bridget
8:10
from our perspective. It looked like the guy had tripped him up first and they didn't call it. And then he was like, watch this, I'm going to do the exact same thing to you, and I'm going to take you out. And he did, and then they called it on him, but the guy had just done it right before to him. So right there tells you that this column was off the wall. But anyway, the only thing I think about gains from, I guess from where we said, I think he's so quick that he like, I think I said this the other day, he's so quick that sometimes he can't control the ball because he's just so ahead of himself. And 1s I think that comes with plan, too. I think he will get that. But sometimes I saw that too tonight, because he's on the side that we were sitting on. And when he would come down to score, he would just get ahead of himself a little bit too much, and then he does get double teams. So when he gets ahead of himself, that ball is just left out there and he's not going to win it back usually because there's two there. And I think if he could just kind of harness that because he does have a lot of speed and we need it, but if he could just harness it a little bit better and control it, I think that, like you said, he would be unstoppable on that part. So that's my only thing with him is that he's so fast that he loses control of the ball sometimes and. 1s That's where we have errors. But he is being double teamed, so, I mean, no one can fault him for that because everyone on our team loses the ball.
Kara
9:29
Yeah, but I also think this time, I think we're starting to see some better quality from him in not just being the guy to run fast and get the ball right. I think he is really trying now. He still needs some definite work in the final third in through passes, especially in getting things to Enzo or just anyone in the box. But he's getting there. He has made definite improvements in the last two games. I don't think that can be understated. I hope he continues to go up, but I'm proud of what he did tonight. And with the way he played tonight, I'm happy that he was there as opposed to someone else. Well,
Bridget
10:05
the only other person will be Camille.
Kara
10:07
Right. Well, I meant, like, from the bench. Yeah.
Bridget
10:09
I mean, I think some people want Cambridge to come in, but he played another night, too. I
Kara
10:14
think McKenzie's wisdom is greater than Cambridge's at this point.
Bridget
10:18
You could tell that we needed that on the field tonight.
Kara
10:20
Right. And I really do think McKenzie brought that. I think he played very smartly. All right, who's your second favor? My
Bridget
10:25
second favor is going to DC. United. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not I'm not giving it them, even though they whatever. But I'm going to give my second one to Carol. And I know he didn't, like, be superstar tonight. Eye and he didn't shoot the ball a lot, actually. I don't even know how many shots on goal we have. You said it was way more than I thought it was.
Kara
10:42
We had a total of seven.
Bridget
10:44
Okay, that sucks. We really need to do better. But anyway, on my favorite note, carol, I think, is going to have my second favorite because. 1s I saw some leadership out of him. I watched the little things, the nuances on the field, and I saw Carol go over and talk to Marks at the beginning of the second half. And I know Marks was shook up a little bit, so it was kind of neat to see Carol go over there and talk to him and just do whatever he does. And then I also saw Carol talking some to some of the other players on the team. He was instructing them where to go. Carol's got that back kick. He did it again today. I love it. I absolutely love it. If our team could actually control it and utilize it like he wants them to, it'll be great, because when he does it, he kicks that little backpass. He does it correctly, and he does it right to the person he wants them to do. It's just our team doesn't know what the heck they're doing half the time. So I love that. I love that he's getting that will, and you can tell he wants to win. He's trying. If we could just like now that we have Wesley back and we have him, I think some other people are saying it was execution tonight, mostly. So once we can get these execution down pat and get it going, I really think that with Carol's leadership and Westwood's in the middle and knowing how to control the ball, I think we really do have a good potential future. And I think if Carol keeps doing what he's doing, he can be that leader we saw at the end of last year, too.
Kara
12:09
Yeah, I think Carol, the way he's been playing when Carol's hot, we do better here. I don't necessarily think he did bad. I think his work rate was also very high. I think he definitely tried. 2s His darnness to do what he needed to do.
Bridget
12:25
I think he was triple teamed a lot. He had
Kara
12:27
a couple of shots blocked when he would make attempts, because they also know that he's going to one, two, and that's how he's made a couple of goals. So I think they were watching for some of that. I really enjoyed the one where he shot it and then did a I don't know, tumble artistic tumble flip or something.
Bridget
12:43
I'm telling you, they do gymnastics. That's our slide hobby for the gymnastics
Kara
12:49
well, and he had a great key pass. I think some of the other things that missed, nobody had perfect passes, so some people just gave it away. But I think some of the problems with Carol tonight don't lie with Carol. So I think for the things that he did, he did well. And I'm not sure how much better he could have done with what he was working with.
Bridget
13:09
Right. He didn't have many passes to him. I mean, crosses him. He didn't get set up much. I mean, there wasn't anything that he had the opportunity to shoot that he didn't. 2s He tried his little heart out. And that's all I can ask for, is for these guys to try. And there's some of them out there I don't see trying, but Carol is not one of them. So keep it up, Carol. So who's your second favor? My
Kara
13:32
second favor goes to idealson. Alanda.
Bridget
13:35
Well, that's awesome. My daughter is saying good job. 1s Yes.
Kara
13:40
I just wanted to say, Lillian, I had this picked out beforehand, but 1s I thought that you could not have played this game without Adilson his defense, especially against Bennecki and Fountas. You could tell that he was frustrating them and especially being as talented as they are, he was playing against a former Premier League player and he's out there, him and DJ just frustrating him and that's what's making him cause all those pesky fouls. And 1s at the end you can see Adele get super pumped for how well he's playing and just defensively. And he was intercepting things. He was making great tackles at some point there's just like this really amazing slide tackle he does at the end that prevents a scoring opportunity. Thank goodness we had him there tonight. I feel like it would have been so much worse. Oh, I
Bridget
14:39
agree. I totally agree with you. Because there was a time where burns to see on the outside. I know he is okay, but he was not. And so. 1s A deal has to come up, you know what I mean? He has to come up, and he's pressing that guy on the outside. They're getting ready to try to score Marks, and Milanda's up there, at least trying to block the guy, while Burns back there doing burn things. I mean, Burns a little more than Melonda, so Milan has a little bit more of a presence. But like you said, thank God Melonda was stepping up because Burn wasn't pressing, you know what I mean? He was waiting for the dude to come to the goal, you know what I'm saying? And Melonda was like, no, go. You're not coming to go. And there was one I know where they were trying to shoot, and he kicked it out of bounds. He was like, no, you're not coming. You know what I mean? He did what he had to do, and I think we put a lot of pressure on him for him to be so young, you know what I'm saying? And he's stepping up to it. He really is. And I just feel sad for him because he doesn't have those people around him to help him. That's how I feel for Marks. If you don't have those guys to help you and support you, it's just got to be frustrating. But they still go out there, and they still do it, and they give it their all, and I'm sure they don't feel about their teammates like we do, but like you said, I agree with you that if it weren't for Milan, I feel like they would have scored a couple more times. He had
Kara
15:56
noticeably won more ground duels and aerial duels, and that's one of the things that I feel like was lacking today. We
Bridget
16:02
didn't win crap today.
Kara
16:04
Yes. That's part of my
Bridget
16:06
wrath. Okay. Veronica just jumped in the air for no reason at all half the time. Anyway. We'll go on that with your wrath, because I got some wrath
Kara
16:13
with that one. All right,
Bridget
16:15
go for it. Okay, well, my first wrath today is going to be against Enzo. Okay. I'm just going to go for it. I'm just going straight up. Straight down. Enzo. 1s This guy is either on my raft or I don't even know. If I gave him one favor, I might have gave him a favorite just for not whatever. Okay, first of all, let me give him you his positives. He did not get a yellow card tonight, and he is riding on that four yalla cards like nobody's business. So if he can go that long without one, then we know he can go without it. So I don't want to see you playing this Enzo card anymore. Okay? I don't think he flopped too much tonight. I think there was one or two times he got on the ground, but there wasn't enough for me to yell at him that much. But Enzo is just not doing what Enzo should do, and we give him every excuse in the book. No one's setting him up. He doesn't have help. He doesn't have this. He's doing this, he's doing that. Carol's there. Carol is there. Carol's doing what Carol did. Enzo is out there not passing. Who knows what he's doing? He wasn't winning anything tonight. I don't know what he was doing. I don't see we paid $6 million for this guy, and he's not performing. How many games are we in now? And he's still not been in sat. He's playing every game, all game, every game for nothing. It's just insane. It's insane that we keep that's the definition of his insanity. It's continuing to do the same thing over and over again and with the same results. Isn't that what it is? I think it is, and he's not doing it. So I don't know. I don't know if he's just not what we think he is or he's never going to be there, but he needs to start producing. And if he doesn't, then we need to sit his butt. We really need to sit him. I just really want him to get that fifth yellow so he will sit. Is that sad?
Kara
17:55
Who would you replace him with? Especially on the bench today? You'd put little Ajimon. Out there to
Bridget
18:00
debut, dude, it ain't a little Ajimon. First of all, he's not little, and Ajimon. Did really well on the legacy, so let's go. Let's try no. Yeah, but
Kara
18:09
that's like feeding him to the wolves. Here
Bridget
18:10
you go, buddy. I don't know. I don't know. That's the problem. We put all our eggs in one basket for Enzo Denver, mellow, but no one knows what mellows went Mia with. Freaking nuno. And mellow is hanging out in the mia land. Not mar land, but mia land. And we're over here. 2s We don't have no bench. That's why the whole legacy team is on our bench. Whose fault is that? Is that lady's fault? Or is that Zoran's fault? Or whose fault is it that we don't have anything backup? And during the trade, we over here trading for GAM. Well, GAM ain't helping me. Well, we didn't trade for GAM. We gave away. GAM,
Kara
18:49
which of those questions do you want me to address?
Bridget
18:52
Sorry. I told you this wasn't going to be a clever one. Okay. Any, let's go back to my wrath. It's Enzo. So it's just Enzo. The rest of the stuff is whatever, but. 2s Do we still give in their time? That's my question.
Kara
19:06
I do think he had not a great game today. 1s I don't think he got serviced. I think the times he was supposed to get service, there's going to be two. I point out a little bit later. They don't make it to him. And he is frustrated by it because he's like, I am here. I am where I'm supposed to be. Hello. Can I have the ball? Because this is where you need to give me this ball. I'm plainly open. And so I think part of the problem is just 1s that tonight he did not get service. I do not think he won ground or aerial duels. And I think that definitely hurt him. I'm not sure if that's because of whoever he was pinned up against and that he just really can't win them against that person.
Bridget
19:46
It's the white shoes. He had the white shoes on. When he has the orange shoes, he can play. When he has the white ones on, he doesn't. Well,
Kara
19:55
somebody better go talk to the kit guy for shallow c and only hand capetti the right shoes
Bridget
20:03
anyway. I wish that was that. He had a
Kara
20:05
key pass. 2s He I just don't think he got the ball very much. I don't think he did as bad at passing it away this time because I don't think the man got the
Bridget
20:15
ball. No, he wouldn't go get it. They would kick it and he wouldn't go get it. He's supposed to be fast, isn't he supposed to be whatever. They literally kicked it to him. They set him up, and he just, like, didn't go get it.
Kara
20:28
Well, some of them are way too fast. Like, there's one that carol hits it's just way too far out in front of Enzo, and Enzo is like, I can't get that. He tries, but he's, like, 20 yards after the ball. Enzo didn't have a great game, but I think the problem lies in a different area, and this is going to go into my first raft. You go to your wrath. Okay. This is a big thing because I feel like this touches a lot of players. My wrath is whatever we're doing in the midfield is not working this game. We are not winning second balls. We are not winning first balls. So ground and aerial duels, we aren't winning them. Therefore, we're not getting the ball. Therefore, carol's not getting the ball. Enzo is not getting the ball. We're not controlling the ball. No. And part of this reason is, I think, because 2s the choice was to put DJ in the back. So if you don't have DJ as CDM. Then our midfield isn't stable. It's not closed enough. 1s Brandt cannot do the same job that Jones can. And I don't mean that, because I guess whatever happens to Derek, especially if he gets another yellow card, but I'm just saying we don't have a backup for Derek Jones. I think Brandt is a similar player in that role as Westwood. They both do this box to box. Brandt can't play the DM the way Jones can, and Brandt can't play the creative distributor that Westwood can. And so that is hurting us because he can be the engine. He can run all over, and I don't think Westwood can be that either, because he's just coming back from an injury. He's not as hot.
Bridget
22:09
Yeah, but you can run and not do nothing. You could just run and do nothing, which is exactly what he did tonight at the ran and did nothing but
Kara
22:16
that's, because they couldn't win the ball. Usually DJ is the one winning those balls and protecting
Bridget
22:20
them. We couldn't do crap. We couldn't win nothing. I don't know what we did. It was awful being there and watching it was even worse because I thought I could have won the ball. I know I couldn't, but I was just like, oh, God, that one. That just like there was one that just came down and it rolled off at the back of Ronnico's. I don't know, 1s we threw our hands up in the air. But, dude, that slope in that DC United Stadium is real slippery or really inclined, so you can't really do too much because you'll fall straight down. And then Lillian almost tripped me and I fell down. Anyway, we'll talk about that later off record. But yeah, it was one of those things where no ₩1, anything no one wanted. I don't know if they just didn't want to win. Sometimes I think this team gives up. It's like watching my child's ten year old team out there where you're just screaming 3s what you had
Kara
23:14
before. You had swadersky, you had bronco and you had Jones. 1s In subtracting Jones from that and adding westwood, there's still a quality there that doesn't get addressed, and therefore, we have this hole, and I realize that he wants them in there. So
Bridget
23:32
why don't we sit bronco? Right.
Kara
23:34
I think the ultimate answer is to sit bronco.
Bridget
23:36
However,
Kara
23:38
we didn't have Julie loma, and he wouldn't put sovasinski in there because I
Bridget
23:43
don't think for subzinski in
Kara
23:45
so part of that, I think, is because he wanted Jones and Melonda to be addressing the players for DC. You saw how well Beneck he
Bridget
23:53
did, and they did good. I can't say the guy's name that you just said, but that guy, that's the big time dude on DC. United that he didn't score till the second. It took him a long time. Melinda kept him off for a long, long time.
Kara
24:07
Melonda and jones, because they're both as tall and big as he is,
Bridget
24:10
even the DC. United fans around us were saying he hasn't really had a lot going on tonight. They've done really well keeping that guy. Granted, they had other issues, but that guy was kept where he was supposed to. They did a good job holding that guy. I can't say his name, but yeah,
Kara
24:27
tactically, I think that's the reason why he doesn't put Sobosinski in there, because I think if soposinski had been in there, he wouldn't have been able to hold it off. And so it was like, well, what do you sacrifice? Well, I guess you sacrificed the midfield. Do you sacrifice winning those balls? Well, that meant we were already not playing our we didn't have the same tools to play our offense the way we wanted to. We could basically hold our defense. And so I feel like that's kind of the game we tried to play, and there's obvious flaws with
Bridget
24:53
it. Yeah, I felt like we parked the bus the whole game. I was even at one time, I was like, matt Barbie, why are we parking the bus? Is this so stupid? We're down, and he's like, we weren't parking the butt. We're not. But it just seemed like that's what we were doing, but we weren't.
Kara
25:08
Well, I guess this goes into a little bit of it.
Bridget
25:13
I'm not done with my rafts yet. But okay, I'm going to talk about this first goal because I don't think that's a penalty on Jones. I think that's the stupidest crap I've ever seen because that's my rat.
Kara
25:25
What kind of pansy will go on
Bridget
25:28
it? Well, is that not
Kara
25:29
it? No, but I want to talk about this goal because I feel like if we pretend that that goal doesn't happen because it's crap, we would be at zero. Zero. We would be pretty happy with our
Bridget
25:41
whole momentum would change.
Kara
25:43
That's what I'm trying to say. Like our whole outlook for this game and how well we did on defense would be
Bridget
25:48
different. But let me tell you then, people in that DC United fans thought that penalty was a penalty. Like they were going to put their life on that damn penalty. Of
Kara
25:55
course they did. We would have done the same thing, too. That was
Bridget
25:58
like, here's your toe. They really thought we broke his leg. I was like, y'all, we did not break his freaking leg. And then when they got the penalty, that like, it was the greatest thing since sliced freaking bread. Look, everybody can make penalty shots 50 50 of time. And George was right there and he almost stopped. So it wasn't like you all just made the hero shot. Back off. Well, I know I was in a different stadium. 1s I'm sure they love coming in hearing us. Anyway, are we done with your rat? Have we done with your first rat? Yeah, we've been done it. Yeah, well, my second rat is going to go along with that. My second raft is the VAR and the Ted uncle. I do not like Ted uncle. And I know we're not supposed to talk about refs, and we're not supposed to blame refs for things, and trust me, the team didn't execute. So let me just tell you, I'm not forgiving them, but that ref is awful. And as soon as I saw his name on the freaking scoreboard that he was ref and I knew that it was going to be an awful game, I knew that we weren't going to get calls in, that it was just going to be awful. Does he hate us? Does he legit hate Charlotte SC? Or does he call every game, every team that bad? Because he didn't make that bad a call towards DC and I that I'm aware of. So does he just hate us or is he just that bad
Kara
27:08
of a ref? I think his problem just lies in what he thinks is clear and obvious. And I don't know what on earth criteria he's using, but I feel like his last game, you'd be like, okay, now that we saw some of them, okay, we don't agree, but okay, this one, it's just kind of like he goes too far with the call he makes or doesn't go far enough. Like, for example, he gives that a penalty, but he doesn't give him a card for it,
Bridget
27:39
which doesn't make any sense because then he gives him a card later in the game. Correct. He gave me gains a card, too for doing the same thing that dude did to him. Yes.
Kara
27:50
So he doesn't get that. Yeah, and then not only that, but Benteki comes, he gets one, right. He gets a yellow, and then he comes right back after him behind the play and doesn't get a yellow, like a second yellow. And it's like, okay, but you gave a penalty for a
Bridget
28:06
toe. I think Ten uncle has it out for us.
Kara
28:09
I just think he's inconsistent. He's just not consistent with his calls. And for something to be clear and obvious error, it's kind of stupid. I don't mean that to say he shouldn't be reffing. I think we've had worse refs in general, but it is incredibly frustrating how that
Bridget
28:24
was. Well, it's just sad that when you know he's ref and that you know you're not going to get the right calls or you're not going to know how to when you see when you see, like, as a fan, when we see his name on that board, we cringe. Can you imagine being a player? When you see that dude's name, you're going to know that, oh, well, it's up in the air what's going to go down today, because we don't know which way is up and which way is down with this guy. I mean, it's just. 1s I don't
Kara
28:48
know. Hey, at least there weren't fights on the field this time.
Bridget
28:50
There was one almost. Did you not see that? It almost started between DJ and somebody and then he had to push him away. And then Enzo was running his mouth. Did you see the part where Enzo was running his mouth to the ref and Vargas had to come and grab Enzo and pull Enzo away? Yeah. And I looked over and said, you know what? It's really sad when you're 20 year old player on the team is pulling away your experienced player. 21. Sorry, 1s Vargas, don't want to offend you.
Kara
29:21
That's just because Vargas is a dad, too.
Bridget
29:23
Yeah, I get it. But still, it was just like Vargas doesn't need it. I mean, he didn't just push Enzo away. He 1s almost bear hugged him and pulled him off. And I'm like, yo, bro, that's when you know you need to step down because Vargas over here telling you to stop it. Stop it so I can get where Enzo can get mad at the ref that way. But when Vargas is telling the experience due to stop, that says a lot too, right?
Kara
29:50
You go into this knowing that Ted uncle is not going to call things fairly the way you think they should be fair. And I don't mean that like against us or for us or whatever. I mean legit fair on both sides of it. That call on Jones, I do not agree with. I do not fault Jones for that. He's got a crap rating because of that. And that penalty should never have happened. That was the dumbest penalty I've ever seen. And if that penalty gets called every single time listen, we would have ten penalties this season. I am not kidding.
Bridget
30:18
That's what somebody said. I read it on there, said 1s if that was a penalty, then soccer. You just might as well not play the game of soccer,
Kara
30:25
right? Can you imagine how many we would have had? Gaines would have had one. We would have had like two in one game. That game against the Red Bulls. Are you kidding me?
Bridget
30:34
Yeah, we'd have had like two or three,
Kara
30:36
four, five, something. Ridiculous. 1s Swaderski would have had a whole lot more penalties. Yeah, he would have a lot of
Bridget
30:42
them. That would have been fun. Okay, well, 1s we're on that. Calming down. What's your second raft?
Kara
30:49
This is a soft raft, and it's for Carolyn Vargas. He did not have a great game. I think some of his judgment on some of these this was not him. He was off tonight. I realized he needed to be out there to give him a chance, because he is usually very good and creative, but I think the chances that he had, he screwed them up, and it was sad. I think that some of those were some of our best chances in that he kept shooting them over the goal. He kept doing the lean back kick, and at one of them, he definitely should have passed it to Enzo so Enzo could have headed it in. That would have been the most gorgeous goal, and Enzo completely frustrated him. So I think Kerwin, he had a very off night, and so I would say it's not the mistakes necessarily he made, but his finishing in the final third was not up to his normal caliber, and I think it's partially because of how he got hit and he's feeling off, and I'm sorry. I need him to do better.
Bridget
31:49
No. Yeah. He didn't have the greatest night. It was hard seeing him. He
Kara
31:55
had zero dribble
Bridget
31:57
attempts. Yeah. And then you have Gaines over here doing all these things, and you have Vargas doing what? And I don't know. Like you said, Vargas is really good when he's on, but when he's off, he's off. And I think, like you said earlier, I think you mentioned this a couple of podcasts ago he's not used to playing 90 minutes every game. I think we're doing to him when we did a bender last year where we're burning the kid out.
Kara
32:19
Well, he's not playing 90. He's only playing 64
Bridget
32:22
usually. Well, he's playing every game, though.
Kara
32:24
Yes, that's true. He's only 21, and he didn't play as much last year. He played a little bit, but we didn't rely on him as heavily. And so I think that we just need to take it easy with him. He's going to have that like, everybody's going to have bad games. Yeah. When he got hurt that one time, we thought he was out. We were really worried about that because we were like, who comes in? Yeah. Moram. How do you say his name? Mariam moram? Maram.
Bridget
32:48
Maram. That dude that dude can come in, I guess, because he did. Yeah. Oh, and by the way, Maram had a great past or great cross. It was a beautiful cross. Like the beautifulst cross you've ever seen in your life, but it was to absolutely no one.
Kara
33:01
Yeah, well, we'll see better things for him. Way to debut there.
Bridget
33:06
Well, another one a part of that debut. Lillian's asleep now, or she'd tell you, but he was wide open. I mean, he was wide open a couple of times. I'm talking, like, so far wide open that I didn't even know he was out there on the field. We didn't even know he was there. And he was, like, waving his hand. He's out there. And Lillian goes, Mama. He's just trying to tell people, hey, I'm actually on your team. I'm really a team member. I'm not just on the sideline. I'm a player. I'm here. Pass it to me. I mean, it really was like that at one point, 1s but then when he did get the ball, he passed it backwards. Did you see that? He kept passing it backwards, like he'd get the ball, and then he'd passed it backwards to the defense. And I'm like, what are you doing? 1s What the heck are you doing? So then he moved forward and we passed it, and then he crossed. I mean, it was a beautiful cross. I was like, oh, my God, that's a great cross to no one, to absolutely nobody. So when he makes a cross to someone that's on our team, I'm sure that's going to be beautiful. And granted, dude, just like, came two days ago, so I can't really say,
Kara
34:07
but I thought we like, maybe he had two practices at the most, but
Bridget
34:11
dude, I don't even know why we had him out there. And another thing that makes me mad about him, because, you know, I watch everything. Watch it. So they went in at halftime, and it was kind of neat. George was walking in at halftime, and Enzo actually talked to George at halftime. I don't even know if they can speak the same language, but Enzo was talking to George, so that was cute. I thought, oh, that's cute. And then on the way out, the whole team, they came out really late. They didn't even warm up, so I'm sure they was getting chewed out. And then when they came out, they were all on the field. Like, they were literally on the field getting ready to play. And here comes Miriam moram, whatever the heck his name is, trotting onto the field from the from the freaking locker room. And he's just high five in the freaking high five in this dude on the freaking DC united team. And we're all like, dude, what are you doing? Get down there. Everybody else on the team's playing, and you're just trotting around. And then one of the people beside me was like, because he's so old. He's an old man. What do you all expect from him? So I don't know, but if you're going to play my team, you need to come out when my team comes out and act like you're on the team. Because then when you don't act like it when you get out there on the field. Yeah, that's why you're out there. No one's passing it to you because you didn't even play like he was on the team in the first place anyway. That's my rant for him. I can't really wrap him because it's his first game and he just came two days ago.
Kara
35:26
That sounds like very tough debut. 2s I'm not going to wait into that one. I don't feel like that's where I need to be sure
Bridget
35:34
he's going to be a great asset to the team. I did think
Kara
35:37
it was funny that at halftime, fooks could really tell that heroin was upset. And fooks came over and was just really trying to talk to him as they went in. 1s To the locker room. And so I think he was trying to give him some pointers, give him some guidance, something, because he could just tell like it was off. It was off. And then George, george, poor kid, when that bicycle kick went in that goal, did you see him? He lost his little mind right then too. He didn't slam it on the ground because he wasn't on the ground, but he was pissed like he was super pee us. And I'll send somebody else. If George goes to another team, I wouldn't be surprised because he ain't got nobody to help him on that defense. What are you going to do, just keep going out there and let him score on you? And then after this game, everybody like bench George, put clean in. But I'm just trying to tell you all, clean ain't doing nothing quicker than George on that freaking penalty kick. It is good though, that like you said, you see the teammate like team players when they do have a bad time, like the other teammates are coming up and talking to them and being there for each other. I just wish I'll be for each other to win, not just in the bad times. Be there for the good times, too. On another note, did you see Laddie? Okay, here's the difference between whoever that coach is for DC. United. I guess this is Wayne Rooney. Rooney? Yeah, that rooney. Dude, is that who he was?
Bridget
36:57
Lady's out there, and I don't get to see lady because I'm on the other side of the field at Charlotte. So Lady's out there, he's pace. I mean, he's running up and down his box like he's just doing what Lady's doing. I mean, I don't even know. He's not a kid. He's older than me. So he might have had a heart attack, I don't know. But he's running around and then all of a sudden you look over there and Rooney's just chilling with his arm up on the chair like, what's up? Just chilling like he's watching like a backyard barbecue. And here you got Laddie running up and down in his box. And I'm like, oh my god, this is crazy. This is insane. Laddie's going to have a heart attack. Rooney's over here having a beer in his freaking wise coaching, this is insane. So I don't know, it was just odd. To
Kara
37:38
be fair. Rooney was winning. Well,
Bridget
37:41
this is before they even got that high, though. This is before. This is before Rooney was chilling. Rooney was chilling the whole first half. And that was only when they were up on that PK. And that was a stupid PK, you know what I'm saying? But Rooney's chilling. Lady's running around with his chicken like a chicken with his head cut off. And I'm like. I don't even know why he put a coat on after halftime because I can't see how he got any cold because he was running around so much. I was sweating just watching him. But it didn't work, whatever he's doing, because we still lost.
Kara
38:08
So there were a few other players that I want to just briefly touch on. You did a little bit. I want to say I do not fault George Marks for this game. He got a MIT on that penalty, that backward bicycle kick that
Bridget
38:22
a fool should have cleared and he didn't. Right.
Kara
38:24
But to me that was more a fool's fault. So I don't think a fool had a great game. I think he got beat a few times and that one just really sold.
Bridget
38:31
What about the last one? Because I'm going to be honest with everybody, don't hate me. We didn't see that last one because we was not in a good mood and we were leaving the stadium. So when Di let I heard Di made a little mistake. Was that on George? Why did George not stop it?
Kara
38:47
There were five DC players. I don't know how George would have stopped that because he'd already blocked a shot, I think.
Bridget
38:53
Like I said, I didn't see it. My kid was getting the apron they was handing us when he was walking out and she was throwing in the trash because she didn't want it. But that was rude. She was mad. It's a
Kara
39:03
94th minute. Those kill us. Those will literally kill us every day. I mean, good for them. I guess it didn't matter for us, but I really think that was more just Diop not knowing to track and Bronco being so far, far behind the midfield, not connecting 1s and it's just no one was tracking the right people collectively the way they should have. I can't put that on the Dilson because Dilson was blocking the other side as well as Byrne. I know you're probably going to be like, I don't think Nathan Byrne had a bad game. In fact, I really think he had an amazing attempt with that almost header. I mean, granted it was right into the goalie, but almost
Bridget
39:49
only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. I'm skin.
Kara
39:53
He had a great attempt to almost be right there in the right spot and one time he does do a really poor giveaway. But I feel like all of his other attempts made up for it, especially with that big chance.
Bridget
40:06
I'm going to be honest, I can't give him a hard time. I mean, I can. But he wasn't the worst on my list tonight. 2s There was a couple of times I wish he would have stepped up, but he is only five foot six so he can't get too much taller, can't step up too much. Anyway. 1s I don't hate on him. I'm not going to hate on him. He gave my daughter some license the other night and he's got a pretty smile.
Kara
40:29
And again, Derek Jones. I'm glad he was in. 1s To Iloma's spot because I don't think we would have done as well. And I think for coming into that spot, I have to give him props. What
Bridget
40:40
do you do with him now, though, with four yellows? He's
Kara
40:43
just going to have to be
Bridget
40:44
careful, like you said. If he goes out, what do we
Kara
40:46
do then? I guess we're back to the problem of depth, which we currently
Bridget
40:51
have. In the words of Mar, we are screwed. No, we're not screwed. We're not. We got people. We got private.
Kara
40:57
I just don't know who he see S as his extra CDM other than Bronco. And I love Bronco, but it's not the same quality. Who's on
Bridget
41:06
the legacy as our midfielders? Do we have any of those that we loaned out?
Kara
41:10
No, I don't think so. I mean, unless you're putting in, like, what does Private play?
Bridget
41:15
I think Private does play midfield because remember, they brought him in for the shinoshiki, Andre Mess, when they weren't on the bench. But I thought he played up. I thought he did, too, because Carol was passing to him the other day.
Kara
41:26
Right. That's what I'm saying. I feel like he plays more of a Bronco than he plays a DJ. I don't think anybody plays DJ, but I think the problem is I think Sobasinski can play DJ's spot. I think he's a clearer. I don't think he can protect the ball in the way we need him to protect and hold onto possession. And I think that's part of the problem.
Bridget
41:45
Let's just put Colleen in as a CV. He's a big dude spend right there. Don't do that. If you all haven't read this, on a side note, if you haven't read Carol Walton's article from Friday on Football Friday about Kalina, you need to yeah, it was great because that will explain Kalina's injury. I was really harsh on him for not getting that surgery in offseason. I was really harsh. And that
Kara
42:06
poor guy was in pain so much,
Bridget
42:08
right? And at least thankfully, Carol got the reels. Made me feel bad about what I was thinking in. But no, it's good to actually get that information. So if you haven't read that, definitely go read that because we love Carol. But that Football Friday was really good for me because I liked finding that stuff out about cleaning. Because then you can see that he was really suffering last year and when he came back or he was really suffering. So for him to keep playing in that and then come back and hopefully hoping it would get better, and then it didn't, I'm sure that was just as dejecting for him as anybody.
Kara
42:38
Understand, I guess, why some of those decisions made, why he didn't play the Red Bulls game. Because we were all really wondering what happened at the end of last year because of some of those things. And then not only that, but to figure out, like, he's been playing in a lot of pain, and it just keep increasing. Like, listen, I have a newfound sympathy for that because this entire month I've been dealing with a teeth problem and. 1s I had an emergency root canal this week on Tuesday, like I talked about a little bit before, but I feel like you don't know how much pain it really gets in and just keeps going and going and going. And he was having to do some really hard jobs in the middle of that and he could have been more seriously injured. Yeah, and then
Bridget
43:21
he said during the offseason, because I saw him partying a lot, I saw on Instagram, social media, but that's their offseason, so I need to stop. But he did say that he had to fly to Italy to get some steroid shot or fly somewhere. I don't know if it's Italy, some different country than where he was at in Croatia. So he wasn't taking it as lightly as 1s we see from the outside world. I think that he was definitely really trying to do his best to take care of it. So that was a good
Kara
43:48
article. That should tell people to really mind their own business.
Bridget
43:52
Okay, so you're telling me not to be all instagrams and all that. Okay, I get you,
Kara
43:57
not you.
Bridget
43:59
Well, I am that person because during the offseason, that's how I was judging these players. Right. Because you have Bronco grinding and you had Mark's Grind and you had Adam on there grinding, and then you have Kalina and Andre on here partying and world travelers. And so I'm over here going, well, here we got half the team grinding or some of these people grinding, and you all out here partying it up like you ain't got a business. Well, we see where that ended up for some people and the others, we just now know that he was injured and he was just trying to deal with life and enjoy it, like, because he knew he might be out when he hadn't had that back surgery. So you're right. And then Bender wasn't on social media at all, so we were wondering, what is he doing? And then he comes back all buff and look at that, Bender got a little bigger. Yes, I should not be as nosy. I'm still going to do
Kara
44:43
it, though. It's more to think like, hey, people can run their mouth all they want. However, when people are making these, when the players are making their personal decisions with their health care providers or whatever, it's not just one to 100. If you are making those decisions for yourself, you're not going to be like, gee, I'm just going to jump right into that pool of let's get surgery. No, you're going to try other interventions. You're going to be smart about it, you're going to go, okay, what's the simplest method? And will that work? And you're going to try things and try things and try things until you get to that point of, okay, this is the step we need to make. And I feel like you can take that sort of comparison into some of the other drama that's sort of embroiled right now, that we just have to trust that they're making good decisions for them to protect the team, to protect themselves personally. And we need to be about supporting the team.
Bridget
45:41
Right. I think on that note, I don't have much more to say about the game except
Kara
45:46
we really hope we play better than this every other game this season. Right.
Bridget
45:50
But I think also we have to remember and I know and just that we don't know what what's going on in the outside drama world of Charlottesey, but there is a lot of drama. Things were said this week. It came out that some stuff, private matters are happening with Shinoshiki. We don't know. We don't know what it is. Nuno is practicing with the Crown legacy. I know that Laddie said that confirmed that. We don't know what Mel is doing. There's a lot of stuff going on that we don't know. And I think that the fan base gets really angry because they're like, oh, Charlie should tell us what's going on, or these certain people that know fan people know, tell us, tell us what's going on. We need to know. We're the fans, we should know it. We
Kara
46:31
have a right to know,
Bridget
46:33
but we really don't. And I think we all need to take a step back because I'm guilty of it too. I want to know too. But we also have to take a step back and know that the reason that the club is not saying anything and the reason that certain people are not saying things are because no one knows for 100% what happened or what's going on. And the only person that can speak on it would be the team. And if they're not able to speak on it right now and they don't want to, then we have to respect that. That is their decision. 1s That's their business. They're running their business the way they're supposed to. And there's a lot of legal matters and stuff that we as fans, just because we're fans, we don't have a right to. 2s We shouldn't expect that from them. We do expect that they do the right thing as an organization. And I feel like let's wait and see. But we can't get mad at people if we're not telling, oh, you know the rumor, so why don't you tell me the rumor? Well, it's a rumor, so if there's a rumor, I'm not telling you nothing. It's
Kara
47:25
a sense of entitlement to people's personal lives that goes beyond fandom. It makes them less than people in those options, and they are people with the same rights to be protected as well.
Bridget
47:39
And we don't know like we're saying, we're not saying we're not supporting anybody in anything because we do not know what's going on. But at the same time, we just have to respect that there are certain things going on. When the team's ready to tell us, they'll tell us. If it's available to come out, it'll come out. And if it's not, let's respect everybody that's involved and respect the players, respect the team, respect everybody and just move on and go on with it. There's no reason to harp on it and get mad at everybody and all that. So on that note, let's just be happy and think about that for what we're dealing with. Think about the players, you know what I'm saying? Because they have to deal. That's their life, that's their job. These are their people they deal with every day. So if we're stressed out by just being fans and wanting to know everything going on or what's happening. Think about the players that are having to deal with it. That's a lot on top of their job. So let's give them all a little bit of grace,
Kara
48:33
and I'm sure it's been a rough two weeks for them, too, right?
Bridget
48:37
You just want to hug them all, right? As a mom, I just want to go out there and hug them
Kara
48:41
all at some points today, I'm just, in general, mad. 1s They don't need to hug for me today because I'm not very good and supportive today. In general,
Bridget
48:55
I'm
Kara
48:55
upset. Today I'm just upset. I'm an upset person. Today not
Bridget
48:59
the problem. It's me today. Not me. And Karen. Karen today. No. I just want to give them hug. Not after this performance, obviously. I want to chew them out, but I want to give them hugs in the whole situation and say, look, suck it up. It's a thing. Let's go on. And we'll all get better and move on. And as a fan base, we'll all get better. We'll learn and we'll all do better. And if you did come to DC, thanks for coming. There was great fans there with lots. The supporter section group was awesome. We chanted, we did what we had to do. We still lost, but we came. We will continue to support the team next week. It's at home at the Fortress the bank. Who do we play next week here against New York City Football Club. So we are hoping for a better showing and we're hoping for some better news, of course, because UCL might be
Kara
49:52
back. Right? Right. That's what we really hope. And Mora, it would be nice to have more
Bridget
49:57
about we need some more depth on that line. And Bender. And Bender, hopefully your mama got you some chicken noodle soup. Something feeling all better. Maybe he saw his girlfriend and his mama. That'll make him feel
Kara
50:08
better. Yeah. And hopefully Kirwin can improve too. And his ankle heals up a little bit better and we get some better news on good
Bridget
50:17
old Bill. Yeah. And the Legacy Games tomorrow, they continue to win. They don't have half their team with them. So it's going to be fun to see what they do tomorrow. And I really have faith in them, though. And next Saturday we hope to see at the Fortress the bank, 730 sharp. And on that note, hope everybody has a great week. Good night.