Leagues Cup: FC Dallas

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Here's another episode of the Queen's Pitch podcast. I'm Bridget. And I'm kara. Here we

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are after a game of all games we played against. Is it Dallas FC or FC Dallas? I think it's FC Dallas. Right. Anyway, we played them tonight in the league's cup, our first time in this little cup that we know. And we played them. And guess what? We tied.

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We tied but one,

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right? It felt like a one. This tie felt like a one. The other tie felt like a loss. This tie felt like a one. So we're pretty proud of them. The end score was two two and we went to PKS and Kalina saved the day. Well, I like to say we won, even though, like you said, we got two points, so that counts. It

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feels like a win for this tie. And two points is only one point below three, like a win. So, hey, it's better than we've done in a tie all season. We're

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leading in our little division or little area. We're league.

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Yeah. And I have to apologize for today. I'm so tired. I know we had two games. I'm leaving for the beach tomorrow and I'm exhausted. So if I sound exhausted, it's just the truth. But we're here. Still going to talk about Charlote FC.

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Hey, it would have been a lot worse. The whole game, I was sitting there, especially after the first half, I was like, oh, geez, here we go. And then we got that PK. So we tied it up and we're like, woo, we got a chance. And then we were like, oh, no, we don't have a chance. This is horrible because we had a our field scored and then it got called back. And so then we were down and we all thought it was over with, but it was not. And we went to extra time. Bender got us a little scorey. Score. I love married Bender. He's great. And there we go. PK. So you want to go ahead and just get into it?

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Yeah. Let's do Ralph's first. Let's get this over with. Okay.

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You want to go first or you want me to go? You can go. I don't know. It's a controversial one because we all wanted this person to start a lot. We enjoyed him starting, but the last couple games, he's not done really well. So my raft's going to go to with Jalen Lindsay today. Someone told me and I didn't notice it, which can you believe I didn't notice this, but he had his shirt untucked, which is very out of character for him. So that might have been what was throwing him off. But he's had a couple of games where he was missing, and tonight he was just way too far inside. He didn't even get burnt. He just got like he got blown away a couple of times. And I think that that led to some very key errors and thankfully clean and did some saves. But Jalen just I don't know. I don't have confidence in them. After these last couple of days or games, it seems like he's been shaken for some weird reason.

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I'm going to throw my wrath into yours, and that mine is for Nathan Byrne. And both of these, they're playing the same role, just on two different sides of the pitch. And we know it feels a little bit easy, like, I don't know, continuing to take potshots at the guilty party, but it's more like this fullback system that we have is leaky and we know it. And it also has 1s created how many goals this year? And here's two more for us on the same problem, but in 1s he just he was not settled into himself today. You could just kind of tell that wasn't normal. Lindsay, I mean, he made mistakes in the last game. He's going to make mistakes here. But 1s he didn't feel as solid as he did even the last game after those two mistakes.

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He seemed angry to me. Right?

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He just seemed off. It's not his same attitude, not his same style of play. Well,

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I mean, granted, it was 100 and something degrees there. I think it was 98 degrees at one point. And so 1s he probably just didn't feel well. I know I wouldn't be able to do that. And he stayed in the whole game, right. They never substituted him, did they? No. So dude might have just had an off day because it was hot as crap out there, but he's had a couple of off games. That's my thing. I just don't see him as being that reliable. We don't really have a lot of options, but I just don't see him as being the reliable one on that side. And we learned that Bill bill got a knock, so that's great. Bill won't be able to cover that side now, so we're kind of down. That's not

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true. I guess he did come in. 1s He did come out.

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Oh, yeah, he did. Ojimanj came in for him. I think that's what's that's throwing me off. I'm not used to player. Yeah. Like, why do you put some people in the he don't really care. I love 1s mean, I don't necessarily love his tactics, but he's scared to do whatever he wants to do. He don't go by any rhyme or reason. But, yeah, he came off for Ajimon. It was only for, like, nine or ten minutes. It wasn't, like, a long time, so let's not go crazy or anything. But it was for a good enough time that Ajaman. Made the 1s that's why. That's why. Okay. Remember I was telling you I don't know if anybody else noticed this, but when Patrick came in, he handed burn a note to read, and Burn read it. And I was asking Kara before we got on here, why would he have handed it to Burn, of all people? Why would you give burn the note from the coaches? That's why. Because Burns on one side, and they were putting Algemonge on the other side.

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Ajimongs. Went up front. What they did was they kept a back three with Privet, SoBo, and Byrne. Oh,

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I don't know. Anyway, that was my idea. It didn't work.

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It's close. It's a little off the mark, but that's okay. But I do want to say, despite the two goals, really kind of feeling more like burn's fault there because the back line was too compact. I mean, I don't know why they're just not communicating. Somebody's not communicating, hey, watch your back door. Or they're not trusting each other or something. And granted that a little bit makes sense because this back line is constantly changing.

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Yeah. We had a new backline again today.

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Yeah. New starting back line. Yes.

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We have private with SoBo, so that was a good

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time. But with Byrne getting those two, I mean, he was trying to do the right thing. It's just more like the communication, and it just wasn't solid. So to me, mine's more like, okay, I'm not sure how much better we could have done with what we have. We honestly just need to sign LF back, and so hopefully that is still coming. But also, Byrne really made an excellent effort at that one ball where he literally chased that guy down and got in front of him and never fouled him. He was so fast. It was like,

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just a go. And it was the cutest little thing. I was like. 2s You could see the fire behind him. He was just burning. Beep,

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beep. Yeah. But, no, he didn't even foul the guy, which I was very impressed. I was like, whoa, he didn't foul the guy? That's pretty awesome. Oh.

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I'm gonna say 90% of this game was not really the greatest. We were both like, what in the world are they doing? They're just sitting there doing,

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trying. But the problem is, is we know our back line is a struggle. So we knew that our backline was always is coming into this going to be the hard sell. But I think we did see an improvement. And we did 1s know even if they made a mistake, which everybody did, everybody made some really stupid mistakes. Notably, my favorite one was I think Westwood has one where he just, like, hands it off to nipsey dallas player

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cool, air mailed it. But that was good. Times like

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that happened to everybody, and I don't remember one being terribly egregious enough that it created a goal for them. I think that's more our luck actually turning a little better for us. This 1s you know, I do think we saw an improvement from some of the players who had been on there and hadn't had as many minutes or who we've been kind of frustrated with the last few games. So with the exception, maybe, of Lindsay it again, I don't feel like he did terrible 1s everything's shifting around him all the time, and that's a weakness and exposure of where that's at. So I'm not sure I can really fault him for that, but. 2s He didn't make any more mistakes than anyone else did. So seeing that we pulled off a tie win, I think let's just go ahead and move on to our favors because we need some wins in the praises column and some good things to carry us into nakaksa next week.

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Some good juju. Who are you favoring? Who am I favoring tonight? I don't know. I think I'm a favor Ben bender tonight. I love married Ben Bender. He's awesome. He has that fire under him. He's got the little spark. I wish he had starred him. I don't really know why we're not starting bender, but when he comes in, you know, you can count on him. The last time he started, he scored two goals. I thought little dude was going to score two goals tonight, too. I was really hoping to, but for him to come through with such a crucial save, I don't know if he could have done that last year. I just don't. I mean, he was a good player, don't get me wrong, but I don't think he had that confidence or the tenacity to go out there and do that. But this year it seems like he's got that. He's got the confidence. He's like, I'm going to make a difference. I'm not scared to do it. And he's doing it and. 2s I love it. I like seeing that spark on him. He just seems comfortable. I think we should play him a lot more. So my favorite is going with ben bender, benjamin bender, as you like to call

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him. Did anyone have that on their bingo card? Because I feel like, yes, that would be a shoe in for bridget to call ben bender, who's

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every time he plays. I was wanting him on the lineup, and when the lineup came out and he wasn't on it, I was pretty upset. Set. Everybody that was in the group chat knows I was not happy about that. But we got to see the little dude come out. And he's not little anymore, but married ben bender. I like

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him. You say little, but you mean young.

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Yeah, I mean young because to me, he's young enough to be my

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you know, that makes four goals this season for ben bender. I mean, not an MLS play, but this whole season. So that's also pretty neat. Him climbing there. He's now right after capetti with how many goals he has. So that's pretty fantastic for him to be so dynamic. And then that's not counting his goals plus assists. He's got a few of those, too. So he's really grown this season. And we're only halfway through, so I hope that he does get more minutes. I also think that they watched. I think there was a purpose to him not starting today. I think the intention always was to play him because I think that the chemistry and 1s with our changing midfield as well, our field hasn't had too much time. And he also got that yellow card. So I think it was only a matter of time between him or bronnico because bronco is playing that upper role, too. So to me, my money was on one of them, too, coming out. And I feel like we had to see bender. And you know what? He really had the composure he had up to the run of play. Sometimes that's been a case where we have a really tough game and you put somebody in and he just doesn't quite get up to the run of play. A little bit behind, a little bit off on the tacking and defense, but time no, he was there the whole time. 1s That goal was kind of a hard one to hit. I mean, he's really up to speed. You know, that communication between him and westwood had to been very good as well. And then not only that. 2s But he goes in second in the penalty shootouts and 2s has great composure to just get that second one and notch that in, especially after FC Dallas shoots one and Kalina blocks it, continues the momentum right there in a key moment.

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I liked his little swag that he had after he kicked it in, and then he turned around and was he didn't even jump or cheer or anything. It was just I know. I know I did it.

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I just think it was all business. It was all seriousness. He's like, I know I'm here to do a job. I'm here to do it. And I really like hope I hope Hannah gives him lots of praise when he gets home. Who's your favorite? Well, I think this one very obviously has to go to Kalina now. I'm saying that before we even got to the shootout. Honestly, I was always thinking that throughout this game because I felt like he came out in clutch moments. This time, his play overall, this game is better than normal. And I'll tell you why. First of all, he gets a mitt on that really crazy save from I can't remember the guy's name who scores a goal against us at one point and kind of unbelievable. Could have hurt his hand. Maybe he did, but hopefully not. And then he comes out with two other really amazing saves, one of them much later, just, I think, saved the match. But then after that, he goes into the shootout and he blocks, what, two, three of them? I mean, just wild. 2s And the last thing was, you know, what we've been complaining about through the whole, like, the last few months, almost. What has been his problem? Distribution. I couldn't say that was his problem tonight. He was pretty solid putting it where he needed to. If he didn't win the first ball, we won the second from it, and that hasn't been the case, so I cannot get on him for his distribution today. A solid overall overall performance for Christian Kalina. I mean, really, just a win. He should be invigorated by that, and I love to see it. This was ten out of ten Kalina for me, almost.

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I'm probably not going to go that far with it, but I think he did a great job in aspects. He had his mistakes, too, like everybody else. I don't know. Is he not able to stop those two goals? Do we only blame it on the defenders or when do we start blaming on the goalie to stop it? But whatever. He had a lot of saves and I just don't think he's like a quick mover. That's my thing. That's okay. I'm not a quick mover either. I'm older. But I will say that he backed up. I like how he wasn't way outside the box like he always is. He backed up, so that did help him get his hand on the ball. And I wasn't when we went in the PKS because I as a goalie mom and, you know, as one, too, that them shootouts are hardcore. This is a nervous wreck on you. And I just man, when he stopped that first one, I was like, look at him go. And then the second one, you were like, What? 2s So that point I was like, dude deserves all the praise that he can get because he did a good job and he kept his composure. He did what he had to do, and I'm happy about that. So I'm going to give him a little bit of praise,

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too, especially when the momentum was kind of on FC Dallas's side, what with how many shots they got on goal for us and not only that, but the big chances they had and how many times they missed them. I mean, 1s that was kind of like our normal look. So it was kind of nice to see it going the other way. But I also think Kalina showed out in those moments, too, where they were really scary for us as fans.

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Yeah. Also when that whole scuffle went down

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with Westwood, kalina was the first one out there to jump in the middle. And I like that. He didn't go in to fight or anything. He went in to be in the middle. He went to stop it. And I like how 1s he went for his teammate, so I like that a lot. So make him props.

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Christian Galena so

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who is your second favorite then? Bridget, I

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gave this guy a hard time for the last couple of weeks. And I'm not saying he did a great job in the midfield today because let's not go too far, but I'm going to give it to westwood because he did a better job this week than he has done in the past couple of weeks, and I think he's been trying a lot. And I saw him working hard tonight and heck, for being one of the older dudes on that team and he played the whole freaking game and he was sweating hardcore. 1s That's gonna be hard. But he did make that assist to it. He was, like, literally standing up for the team, and he did. When that whole thing went down with Jesus, I like that. I like him fighting for the team. I like him building it up. I like seeing that in him. So for that reason, not for necessarily his skills today or his midfield action, I'm going to give him my favor.

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He I thought that moment was kind of ridiculous, how it happened and then how the fallout happened with the guys on the ground, westwood goes over trying to like, hey, man, let's get then, you know, Ferretta comes into his back. And then it was just kind of, you know, I think the argument was the other guy was saying, hey, he put his hands on my neck. But, like, to me, it was almost like he put his hands on his collarbones, westwood did. And, you know, he was just kind of pushing him back. But then the other guy went further and went for the neck. So I think there could have been a potential red card, but I'm not too mad about it itself necessarily, although I agree that I think it was him on his neck. And we saw Weston McKinney get a red card for know, about a month ago, at least. And I just felt like that wasn't fair because in McKinney's case, too, but still, Westwood in the moment wasn't going for that guy's neck. He's just like, hey, man, come backward. But it happens so quick. And I think that might be why he doesn't get that red card. But it still seems a little ridiculous how that all happened and why it got so ugly so fast. When on our side, I'm sure FC Dallas fans see it differently, but on our side, we're like. 1s That wasn't that bad.

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I thought he was like turning the dude over to help him up, which I guess after the fact and watching it, he was not. But still, I thought I was like, oh, look, he's just being cool. He's turning them over. And dude was like, I'm gonna, like, lay you out. But he did put his hands on Westwood's throat like two or three times. Westwood only did it once and he did it like two or three. He kept going for West Westwood's next. That was my problem with like, if he had only done it once, like Westwood did, it'd be different. But he kept going for Westwood's next and that's where I had

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the problem. Yeah, I think he just went a little far even though Westwood didn't even try to pick him up or like I don't know, it just seems a little wild what happened there. But I don't think FC Dallas is going to like us too much. So I think we've got another potential Salty team on our hands. I ain't scared to face at some point. I

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ain't scared of them. Who are they? Who are

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you know? Westwood also deserves some other props. Know he got the assist for Bender's goal. He was paying attention. That was a free kick, but he delivers it perfectly for Bender to be able to put that in. He created two other chances. He had a number of passes into the final third, like this game. I really thought he held his ground and showed captain and showed his effort through the full 90. And I really liked I was telling you this earlier when we were talking throughout the match that Westwood was taking DJ spot this game because he's trying to hold the back line together because we have a pretty leaky back line. We don't have DJ. We don't have our experienced guys. We have Privet, who's new. So I think Westwood was back there trying to make sure to hold that back line together and that they understood their job until a little bit later in the match when things changed and we needed to. 1s Move forward a little bit better. And maybe he wasn't as worried then. But I really liked that effort. I thought he was trying to be the glue in that backline.

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He did a lot better job this week, I think. So who's your second favorite?

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My second favor very obviously goes to my man Carol Zarderiski, because you can't leave this game without giving the first goal, Kuda Oath, to Swadarsky. Like, if we hadn't got that penalty, we would not have been where we that's. And that's the shame because I feel like in other games that's also made the difference when we didn't get that penalty call. And this time we do. And you see how much it pulls these guys up to continue making the effort to try and get another. 2s You know, Carol has been playing that number nine up front. He's been trying to do the hold up play. He had a couple good moments, just couldn't make it there. Couldn't make that connect either with the cross into him or the long ball. But he had a funny 1s kind of scuffle ish with the goalkeeper on the other team a time very beginning or something, but getting that call in the box, drawing that foul and making that PK with just amazing composure and then not only that, coming and getting that next one in the shootout. Like, I really think that's why he doesn't get pulled because he just was really driving the team forward up there and needed to play that full 90. And he pulls it in because he's the first one in the shootout to just be like, okay, here you go, here's another one. And I really think it psyched the goalkeeper. So I think Laddie was very right to keep him in and I'm glad he looked for that. And that's the other thing that I want to point out, too, is there was a moment where at like 55, I think, or 65 minutes where we get the penalty. And before we got that penalty, we were planning on putting in our subs. But because we get the penalty, laddie pulls them back and lets the game continue playing with the guys on the pitch to see what would happen. And because they'd gotten that momentum, they'd gotten that result, they kind of got refired up. And so he was letting that continue to play out instead of switching all his subs in at that moment. That's why we got our subs a little bit later in the game than we're used

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to. That's a little controversial on the Twitterverse right now, too, about what or not that was a good idea or not. But Laddie did say in his post interview, I think that the reason he did that was because he wanted to give him another 15 minutes to play. He saw that they wanted to keep playing, so he let him keep playing. I don't know if that's necessarily great, but it worked I mean, it did work, so I don't know. We fought him a lot, but yeah, I agree with you, I think.

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think we're on a good wave to go forward.

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Yeah. And the other thing that happened this week that continues our good streak in the hopes that we get another signing here soon is that Nuno Santos is gone back to Portugal, and we got some money for him. Don't know how much or, you know, one down, one to go. So him not

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even the money we got for him. It's the fact that we released a spot on the roster and that we can now use that money to pay for somebody else, like salary.

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I think it's both, honestly. The fact that we got something for him and can then use that I mean, we can use that to 2s help entice someone else, hopefully.

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Yeah. I got to give an honorable mention to Arfield tonight. He got a Yalegard he joined the Yalegard Club

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and a goal that got called off. Welcome to the Charlote FC Club. Swadersky's had those before. And you know what? He goes on to score later, so we have to hope our field comes back and has another one at a different game. Maybe next week. I'd like to see that at home. Yeah. Now he's included. He's on the Yallow card list. We only got three tonight. I did see a stat, though. Our passing was, like, 80 something percent, which I don't know, maybe it's really good for us. It's

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86, but it was like I don't know if I believe. I mean,

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it is true. 480 passes. 1s It's because we're just not standing around looking at each other in like a group passing it to each other, like within a like my daughter said, we're playing triangles. 1s I was like, yeah, we are okay playing triangles. But hey, it worked. I'm not mad. I mean, I'm not mad. It worked. I was mad. Not gonna lie. 85 80% of that game. But then Bender shot that score and I was like, look at us. We did good. Good.

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We did good. I had hoped that he was going to do that and he did. And Patrick did a good little job out there while he was there. I thought he was going to get a really bad foul for doing that to that goalie, but I don't think he did anything. He just touched him and the guy fell down.

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Yeah, I think that was on purpose. I mean, I think they're both going for the ball and he's just trying to move in his body and his arms attached to so but also, I do think the praise does have to be given for those young guys on the last two shots, which is Cambridge and Ajimong. In the shootout, they really pulled it out for us and it was really just an awesome moment. I think we screamed down the jason. Well, no, he mostly he was hollering, but he also had his noise canceling headphones because we were too loud, me and the kids, because they stayed up till midnight watching this game. So I guess I'm a bad mom there. But we were all cheering for Charlote UPSEE today. The dogs were so

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yeah, I had the animals scared here. I thought the noise I was going to get a noise complaint because we were a little loud and I live an acre away from the next neighbor, but whatever, it's okay. We can cheer for them next week. We have a game next Friday or no, Saturday at home. We play what team? I'm not going to even try to say the name.

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Nakaksa.

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That one. And hopefully we can win that game and get three points.

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Let's wait and see. Yep.

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And on that note, we have a couple people that are hurt, carujo's out a couple weeks. What? Latonzio said Melonda should be back the soonest, I think. He wasn't Melonda the one that's going to be back the first person back

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the soonest, but not necessarily back for Nakaksa. He'll be back after that. If we get to move forward, it sounds like. And then Enzo is in the middle with that. But Bill took a knock in training, so that's why he didn't play today. And we asked about Mackenzie Gaines. Haven't gotten an answer because he also was not on the roster tonight, which was slightly surprising. So just wondering if everything's

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okay with Bill hurt, too. That's like all our CV.

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Bill took a small knock. I think he'll be fine for next weekend.

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Not that I'm Bill's biggest fan, but at some point, I know we

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want our depth. We want to keep our back line depth

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because I'm ready to see Neely bust out there. But it would be a lot to have Private and Neely. We need a little bit of experience back there. So, anyway, on that note, we hope everybody has a great week. Kara's going to have a good time on Vacay. We hope she comes back, makes it back on time. Enjoy the sand and the beach for us while we're all at work in this moggy in Charlote this week. Anyway, have a great time and we hope everybody's safe.

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Bye.