Episode 5: Josh Rogers

What is your best shot? And back for another week of the Detroit City FC fancast. I am John Rosino, alongside Sean Brogan. Hey, everybody.

And Dean Simmer. It is I, yet again. And we'd like to dedicate this episode, as always. This one goes out to the people of Lansing, Michigan.

People are Lansing. First off, we'd like to make you aware. In fact, you have a soccer team. That's really cool.

Your attendance is here. Implies that you're not quite aware of that fact. Secondly, I would like to let you know that people have been eliminated from playoff contention. And thirdly, those who have been coming to matches, we'd like to assure you that, no, in fact, they are legally allowed to score goals.

And the mere fact that they just haven't done so in 25 days or so doesn't mean that it will never happen again. Because it's entirely possible. All things that are possible in the multiverse as they assure us. But if you don't like that, that we said, or if you don't like any of the other things, we said, as always, these are our opinions.

They are not those of Detroit City FC or the Northern Guard supporters. Deal with those as you will. We've got a great episode for this week. We're talking to Detroit City FC Captain Josh Rogers.

We're sitting here at the Mothership at Motor City Brewery Works, working through some technical troubles. This is off my phone and not our normal recording. So if we sound a little bit weird, we apologize. Thank you, USB.

And we'll be back with a discussion of a very interesting week that was. And with a very fun discussion about what happened last week, you're Sean. All right. First off, a lot of people ended up eliminated last week.

I think there were only two teams eliminated when we last talked last week. But now there's only five teams left out of the 13 teams. I think Erie went down, Michigan Stars went down, Lansing is out. Minnesota Twins stars.

Somehow we're not technically eliminated, even though they were bottom of the table. And they had like four points. But now they've played enough games to be eliminated. And I don't remember who the last one is.

Minnesota United. Yeah, Minnesota United Reserves were also. I might have already been eliminated. Whatever.

Pretty much all I needed to know is that there's only five teams left, two of them have clinched playoffs. That is Detroit CDFC and Madison 56ers. Then there's two more spots. The top four teams make playoffs.

Bottom two spots are being fought over by Buffalo, Cleveland, and the Indiana Fire. And those are the only three teams that can get those two spots. So one of those teams is going to be left out, fortunately or unfortunately. It's kind of awesome that there's a theoretical possibility of, as I said, theoretically, for the least possibility that the playoffs could be Madison and the Rust Belt Derby teams and for all the crap that sometimes we get about the Rust Belt Derby being made up and unimportant.

Who the hell are you guys? That'd be kind of a nice little thing to have happen. I think it's I think the Rust Belt teams are still sort of the meat of the division. They have been for four years since the trophy's been created.

It's been three teams that have really just been around are always hard to beat. They're never cake wash either of those teams. Or Detroit City, obviously, has been very successful. It's still really the meat of the division.

I was doing some sats earlier today. I think I shared some of them on Twitter about who had the easiest schedules this year because the schedule isn't balanced. Normally, like in the English Premier League, you play every team home in a way at once. And it all bounces out in any season.

That's not true in the NPSL. We only play at most the team twice, which is Lansing and Michigan Stars, we play twice. But most teams we only play once or even not at all. We didn't play either the Indiana team.

It's not so Indiana at the end. It's like fourth time. You got PTSD from when you had to go to Atlanta. I had to go to Atlanta.

Yeah. Anyway, some teams don't even play at all. So the table, it's all in a single table. And they rank the teams that way, but not every team plays each other.

So it's not necessarily even based on the strength of schedule. So what I found, I was starting to Dale, part of Owzki, from Buffalo on this about Twitter, he was doing some stats, too, in a different way. But we both basically came to the same conclusion, which is that Madison has had the easiest schedule of any team in the division this year. And so they're fighting for first, the other team could maybe finish first, besides ECFC.

But they've sort of cruised on this easy schedule. And obviously, we saw that when they came to Detroit City. They got blown out, five to nothing. Indiana Fire hit another easy schedule.

They're also fighting for the playoffs on their easy schedule, I think. And then really, what else came up is that the Rust Bell teams are strong. Lansing was pretty good. Lansing has had actually an extremely difficult schedule by all accounts.

They've had to play Detroit City twice. They've had to play Buffalo. They've had to play Cleveland. And they also played Madison, who even though they've had a decent schedule, are fairly decent team.

I mean, they've won most of their games against the bottom and middle table teams. They just haven't played any of the real top ones very consistently. I think there's gonna be one of those teams that's gonna be left out. Probably never legitimate complaint coming into the end of the season based on the not balanced schedule.

And that's unfortunate for them. I mean, it's a drawback to the league structure, I think, you're not everything. Not everything is ever gonna be truly settled there. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is.

We've already secured our playoff spot. So no matter what happens, it could either be hosted at Detroit, if we win both of our games, there's nothing anybody else can do. It will be hosted at Detroit if we win both games. Because it goes to the number one seed in the division.

If we lose or tie one and Madison were to finish first, they would host if, and Cleveland is the other team that has a theoretical possibility of hosting. Though they would require both Detroit and Madison to lose. Buffalo cannot host anymore, India cannot host. So don't make any travel plans there.

Ever, well, I went to, I went to Buffalo earlier. They treated me well. So, but Indiana, not such good experience as the party stuff, podcast. Listen to our next podcast show, Why I Hate Indiana?

Coming in the off season, podcast. So, yeah, I mean, win both of games. We'll be in good shape. I mean, strength and schedule is a legitimate thing to talk about.

And I mean, you look at that, it's basketball, with RPI, we'll get into the playoffs and all this stuff, but it's all well good. But at the end of the day, win your games. Win your games and your strength and schedule doesn't matter. Win your games, rack up the points, and whether or not you got a great schedule or not, is immaterial.

So do what DCS is done, just lose once so far. And things like good. You get to get beat or draw a bunch of guys like the way Buffalo has, and things like less good. For the record, the DCFC's strength and schedule is sort of in the middle.

In a large part, that's because we've dealt out so many losses to our opponents. None of the really top teams at the top of table actually had very strong schedules, just because they beat all their opponents, and their opponents are there for lesser than them, and their strength schedule is gonna be so strong. Yeah, but way of whipping on Madison, the way we go all of a sudden, it looks a little bit different. But you've only got one loss.

You are one of the strong teams in the division, even though the strength and schedule is not theoretically. Anyhow, I guess the other thing they really call out is from the last weekend, Lansing, I was really surprised. They straight up collapsed in the last week. I think they went what, four games without scoring?

Four games without winning, yeah. Four games without winning, for sure. They haven't scored a goal since DCFC. All right.

Yeah, it will apparently broke that. Will there's players goal pass, apparently destroyed, whatever they had. I hope they got the extended warranty on Matt Brown or whatever, because something's not right there either. I looked at the roster they took out to Buffalo and Cleveland and we had discussed on the last week how difficult of a weekend this was gonna be playing against Buffalo and Cleveland in the same weekend on the road both games.

So I looked at the roster that I brought and they essentially left their entire midfield at home, literally. The six midfielders that were listed on the roster combined would have played the 11th most minutes on their teams. Like barely a starter, those six players combined. That's for, that's insane.

They left Jason Stacy at home, he was a machine state player and he's really a player, thought he had a good game when I've seen him play before. Some of the other guys, I know, tried to kind of play a lot for them, but most of their starters all season long didn't even go on that trip and it really showed honestly. And we've been talking about how good their defense has been this year. I don't think their defense straight up had a chance if you don't have the midfield coverage.

By the Cleveland game when they lost five to nothing, they probably just lost all heart and like just, that was a collapse. The Buffalo game was a little bit closer. It's delicious, delicious collapse. The Buffalo game was a little bit closer.

I mean, they kept close and then they had a red card, which it was Stephen Eluisa, who's one of their better attacking players. So then they hit him out with the second match and that was pretty much their season over right there. Yeah. I mean, their season was functionally over, so they lost the Cleveland.

I mean, the Buffalo was the cherry on top. But at that point, once they lost the Cleveland. Right, the Buffalo first. Sorry, I once they lost the Buffalo, a lot of things had to happen for them to make them play out.

So it was in the second one to sort of put a stamp on what was already mathematically gonna happen. Right, right. When we talk about teams being eliminated, obviously, you can still be in it and it can be a never, ever scenario. So you're saying there's a chance model.

Right. On a much happier note, DCFC, even with a roster that had some weirdnesses to it, some guys starting who weren't traditional starters, you know, the Star of the Bitch, well, it wasn't necessarily the cleanest thing. It was pretty emphatic by the end of the game. But we're almost done done.

Yeah, so there's three one victory. First note from that is that Wilma's Blair is a star. There is nothing else to be said about that. He had two goals in the game and the penalty kick goal was he was filed for that because he took a player one on one and beat him and the guy holding down from behind.

So he was basically involved in all three goals, even though only two of them were his. And he's been absolutely electric to watch this year. Every time he gets on the ball, he's a danger. Seriously, because I noticed in the middle of everything that, you know, our chance in songs will keep going right through the opposing team scoring goal.

Like we want to do on this indeed. Wilma gets the ball in space and we sort of trail off as everybody sort of like starts like, oh, here we go, here we go. You know, it's funny to watch people like, you know, we'll like stop Tetris just about when he gets on the ball compared to like, you know, something else happening. I know the third goal there, he was on the left side of the field and started to take a player one on one.

And I just leaned over the person next to me and I was like, oh, here it is. Here it is. And he burned the guy and put it in the far corner. The one goal was a beautiful ball from Alex, essentially that that, you know, at times it's challenging to me, at least it seemed to be touch.

And there was some beautiful touch on that ball that we're living right now. Yeah. And I mean, it seems like at time, it starts actually had some good things going on. They were able to get a little bit of pressure.

But I never really felt like our back line, our central defenders, were over their heads, really, with it. Pretty much everything came in like crosses them were cleared. They were running the midfield pretty good at a couple little stretches, middle of the first half. But the back line really sort of held strong.

They had one good break. They scored their goal. But other than that, there weren't too many hugely dangerous moments. And the ones that were dangerous, Alex Buenenck cleaned up in the back.

I thought it was a silly season performance defensively. Defense definitely got stronger over the year. We gave up a couple of games. The goals earlier, the box game, the Lansing game didn't go so well.

But recently, we haven't given up all that many goals per game. The defense has really sort of seemed to gel. And I mean, the most concerning thing that came out of that match, I think, was the potential boss of David Woodson. He's now, and he's talked on Twitter about getting an x-ray.

And I don't think that there's been any sort of word about what his availability is, his issue is whether it's a break or whether it's the most dangerous for the rest of the season. But that would obviously be an issue. And obviously, Kevin Taylor's got experience. But the- Yeah, I was fulfilling there.

You're feeling- I'm sure he wants to play as in the center of Danny Greg, plays in the center of midfield. Kevin Taylor is hopefully some of the guys can fill in for that. But that's a huge, huge loss. I don't think you can understate the importance that David Woodson has had on the team this year.

He's played almost every game. He's played probably almost every minute of the season. And he's just all around solid as a central midfielder. He's been up the field, sort of fantastical at Lansing.

It's got another goal. Since he's put the icing on the cake, he's been- he's been the Troy City's rock this year, really, in the center of the pitch. And hopefully, he gets better, quickly, because we love Dave. Yep.

Yeah, well soon, Dave. You know we love you. So that's what happened. We'll get back around to some of the last little bit, so the potential is in the playoffs.

In a little bit. We'll be back. We'll be back. We'll be back.

We'll be back. We'll be back. We'll be back. We'll be back.

We'll be back. And here's the discussion. What's going on in around the culture this week? It's Dean.

Yeah. So first thing, we talked in the last segment about the Stars match at home, that cast. And we've got a match here coming up on Sunday against the Stars up in Pontiac. As we know, those of us that have been around a little bit, tend to be a little bit nomadic.

So last year, they were in Dearborn, if I'm not mistaken. This year, they're up in Pontiac. So you never know where they're going to be next. Next year, you're going to walk like, yeah, the traveling circus, I suppose.

But most importantly, we brought a few hundred people up to Lansing. This is an opportunity to bring a few thousand people, really, if we really want to. That might be a little unrealistic. But we should be able to have a thousand people.

There are no problems. You would hope so. It's early on in the season when we saw this game as the last game on the schedule, we said, ah, there are reasons we dislike that organization. And good reasons we don't need to be unpacked because they're good reasons.

But this game matters. So we talked about that last segment. We win on Friday. We win on Sunday.

We've clinched home field playoff for that next round. So that's not even just for fun. That means two teams come in and have tried to beat DCFC at Cass. It's either that or most likely playoff through Madison, Wisconsin, which on probably Friday.

So it's not just the pain in the ass, the pain in the ass. On Friday, who the hell knows what time it'll hold it. It's like three o'clock on Friday. Incubular fans there.

They come in and if I'm them, you know, regardless of what the money looks like from having the fans at DCFC, I don't know how the gate gets split. But I find them, I'm looking at like, well, I went to Cass and got beat five nothing. No way in hell am I letting anybody come and take this away from me. I'm going to host the playoffs here.

I just like that. And then we're going to have no starters. And that's, you know, so he has to worry about who they can travel with. And, you know, our chances of advancing the playoffs get significantly, significantly slimmer if we don't win out and host the cast.

If we host the cast, you know, things look a lot better for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Every single player, every single supporter front office, whoever will tell you that the cast experience is like no other NPSL midwest experience.

And so it's an utterly important NPSL experience. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm trying to give a little bit of it to all the games that we haven't had.

But yeah, I agree with you. It's unbelievable how different castes can bring to everything else. And so winning that match on Sunday up in Pontiac is going to be huge. We need to all be out there and force, you know, doing our chance.

I'm sure we can't do smoke at Whizzner. So don't plan on that. But, you know, it's going to be huge. And the players, you know, it's a big deal.

So that is my personal beg, get to Pontiac on Sunday. Be there. I will be in, I don't know if I can't be there. I'll be there.

I'll be there. I'm going to that I won't be. So please. If I take it there, they'll be probably Facebook about something pregame.

We'll figure that out or tell me or something like that. Take that information for that match. I know I looked this up earlier. They were selling them online, but you get them shipped to your house for $9.99, which is a little bit deeper shipping, in my opinion.

For two pieces of paper for Pontiac to wherever you live in Detroit. And I'm going to be able to get them to the availability because they are not going to sell that stadium out. Even if we bring 2,000 people, it's a fairly big stadium. There will be space for all of us.

So just plan on buying them at the door. And I'll see you there. Yeah. To underscore what that atmosphere is like, there's about 20 of us that went and kind of scouted their home opener.

The season up there, we didn't, we were in the stadium. We were outside defense, keeping an eye on things. And it seats thousands and thousands of people. And they maybe had 45, you know, paying spectators there.

So this won't be as interesting. You know, it may be not as quite as drastic as the 10,000 feet empty Fort pit stadium. We're talking on that scale. So we got tons of space to fill up, to cheer on the boys and let them know that we're behind them.

But speaking of supporter section, we had an incredible match on Saturday. It was this incredible supporter experience. Odd statement was that there were a few people that were in the supporter section complaining about smoke. And I just have to ask if you missed a massive banner that says welcome to the supporter section.

This is what you should expect. Swear words, smoke, standing up, making noise. If you don't want that, there's a whole other section. That's larger.

So I don't know. Guys, if you bring in friends, make them go, like, I don't know, do whatever. It is what it is. But that made me laugh when I heard about that.

But you know, we talked about this last episode. John was bringing a huge crowd of people. I had some total noobs. People who flat out said, you know, we don't really know anything about soccer, but we've heard this as a fun experience.

And when they left, they joined us on the march. They did the whole experience. And when they left, they were like, we're buying season. Tickets for next year.

We got our gear already. We can't wait for the new scars. And so every week that 3, 884 people that we had there, which was insane. I mean, there was people lined up a lot of go-line fence watching because they couldn't even get in.

I can't even imagine what the playoff experience would be like this time around at Cass. That's going to be pretty awesome. My favorite piece of that match was the water balloons. It made an appearance again because of the warm day.

And right before the break, I just kick off. And we all chucked them everywhere. I thought it was one of my favorites. We didn't throw them on the pitch.

We didn't throw them on the pitch. Classic. Very good. All in some respect.

Yeah. We did get an actual Ask Podre question this week. I apologize. I'm afraid I'm going to just mispronounce your name, not for lack of effort.

I would say Paul Yatto. I'm guessing. I don't know Yatto. If I'm mispronouncing it, I apologize.

It's not intentional. And actually, I think it has to be almost more of an Ask Sean question than an Ask Conjure question. We'll take it. Yeah.

Question is, can you guys cover into detail the status of DCFC as a semi-pro club? I know we don't pay any of our college athletes. Do we offer stipends for the older players? Where to move up to the NASL?

Does that mean all our players would have to be pro or semi-pro still allowed? Whether or not we would be competitive in NASL with the amateur players to be in the question entirely. So really what this boils down to that Sean going to the more nitty gritty details of this. But really what it comes down to is the NCAA, as far as amateur and pro status.

So when we talk about the NASL, for example, you have to keep in mind that it's not that league could care not at all, but that still doesn't change what the NCAA rules would be. So the Sean Trek, if I'm wrong, but if you're an NCAA scholarship, you're an athlete, scholarship, or I suppose walk on whatever, you can't play on a team with pro athletes, like paid athletes. That is correct, as written in the rules. Someone may skirt it somewhere, but that is the rules.

NCAA athletes cannot play on teams that term themselves pro or are paying players. So realize then, Paul, that there are two components to this, what the league rules are. But also, so a guy who's got two years of eligibility left in the NCAA is not going to be able to come play on a team that's paying other players. Even if they're like, no, we don't pay him, we pay these other guys.

So let's keep that in mind. That's Sean, I know you can talk a little bit more about what the differences between the NPSL and NASL rules are, and that kind of thing. Yeah, so the NPSL actually does allow for the paying of players. There is a salary cap, and it is minuscule.

It's like, I don't know the numbers off top of my head, but it's like $200 for your whole team for a game or something, and then there's like a couple thousand dollar limit for the entire year for your team. So, and I don't know, if somebody officials listen to this and wants to correct me on anything I'm saying, I'm nobody official, I'm just a fan who just reads documents for fun. But yeah, so the NPSL does actually allow for the paying of players in this Russia. It's not a complete amateur league.

There may be some teams that do take advantage of that a little bit. The Midwest most teams seem to have college players on their team, which sort of you can't pay players when you get to college players. The NCAA rules however do allow you to house players in the area for your season. So, it's got the guys from Iowa out of state.

It is written in the NCAA rules that they are allowed to be housed here for the express purpose of playing for DCFC in the summer. And then other reasonable costs, like travel costs, you can't expect the players to pay for their travel to Minnesota and back. You can't expect them to pay for their meals, for trainers or anything. So the players aren't paying anything out of pocket.

It's not that sort of amateur league, which some of the lower levels are sort of pay to play. You're paying for the privilege of playing. No, these players club covering everything legally, but they aren't necessarily paying the players salaries. So these guys are doing it of their own love for the game or their own developmental ambitions, but they're not professionals out there right now.

And the one caveat is that the NCAA rules, it's a little bit different with NAIA. There's some stuff with that NAIA, which is sort of like the NCAA, it's a different crediting body for college athletics. They're a little bit looser on what they will allow. And you can handle it, really.

If you've been a professional at some point, but aren't any more and things like that. So I mean, as with anything, I mean, there's lawyers who have entire practices just about eligibility. And there's entire compliance departments at major universities that are starting out. Like at one point, literally some university got in trouble for offering its scholarship athletes more bagel toppings than the average student was allowed.

So like this stuff gets really practical. So please don't make your own personal decisions based on this, but that's a general theory on how this all works. Right. And I don't know if it's different.

I know we've got Michigan players on our team. We've got State players on our team. Michigan is a D1 school. The second all- Valley State is a D2 school.

I know there's some different rules between the two divisions as far as scholarships for them go. I don't know that it's any different as far as those NCAA rules we were talking about earlier goes. But it wouldn't really matter because we've got the Michigan guys on the team anyway at the D1 school. Two other things that come into that one, Sean explained.

They want to be different about NAIA. So the reason we don't have active Michigan State players that we're not allowed to, because the Cesar coaches there. That is an NCAA rule that a coach can't be training his players in the offseason. There's a start date for the season practices a couple of weeks before the first game.

Maybe three weeks before the first game. Or something like that. So that we can't have active Michigan State players on our team. We can get some of them after they're done playing.

But Josh Rogers, who we talked to, he was a Michigan State player. Yeah. But he can't be, he's done an active scout athlete on the club at that time. So that's going to apply to any coach in any league, NPSL, or whatever.

You can't have any coaching active players on a season. So again, all those NCAA things are going to apply in NPSL or MLS or whatever. Those rules that we're talking about. You are an amateur college athlete.

You can't be playing on a pro team, even if they're accepting. They can't just excuse you from getting paid. You can't participate on the team. Or you are a pro at that point.

But at the NPSL, Sean, can you explain, what is the structure there with like? So NPSL is the second division in America by USF rules behind MLS. That is a fully professional league, well, as written. So college players are not playing at league.

There are no college players playing at the NSL currently, as far as I know. And they've got a lot of career professionals playing at league. NPSL doesn't really have that many of their own rules, as far as player structure goes. MLS has a lot of rules about designated players and minimum salary.

And I don't know. They just added some core player that I still don't even understand. NPSL really doesn't have that many rules. It's more of an open market sort of thing.

So I have to think that on NSL teams, the top guys are sort of making a living salary and sort of the guys who are like reserve team, whatever, are sort of doing things on the side that can make a living. Everybody's probably getting paid there. I know Minnesota United Reserves are in our division. Really interesting the last week, actually one of their former players who was on the Minnesota United first team got moved down to the reserves.

He's actually suing the Minnesota United over getting moved down to the reserves because it's an amateur team. And he says that's a breach of his contract. So I really hope they move into an amateur team if he's a professional player. Well, that's what I'm wondering how this is all going to shake out.

I'm going to be watching this closely because I'm hoping it's going to shed a little bit of light into the NSL reserve teams in our league and the NSL compensation and sort of how the reserve teams are working with the first teams. Just because one, I think that's an interesting subject. Two, it affects us in our league. I mean, with the U.S.O.L.2 team being the two and the reserve teams for NLS, that makes us both professionals.

It's like somebody going from the Tigers to the Mudhads or something like that. But it's the idea. And then you've got sort of the academy tight teams, like the crew babies that we play. Those are all still amateurs hoping for their shot at NLS, but they're all still amateur players.

And nobody on that team getting paid. The idea of sending a guy down from a protein into an amateur teams seems a little counter to it. It's so interesting to like it happens to them. It does, because I've looked at them and said, you know, you know, it reserves for us.

And there's a couple players. Like most of their players are either sort of on the reserves or on the first team. That's sort of where they played most of all of their games. But there are one or two players who have directed between the two.

So I'm interested to see how that hopefully this case will shed some light on the structure of these NSL reserve teams because I'll say this for the cosmos reserve teams out there on the East Coast. I don't see how they can be a fully imager team. That team has some disgusting talent on it for the NBSL level. It's a bunch of former pros like up in coming.

Khaji right is like a US 2017 national team player. And he's opened that now. He's been youth national team player all the way through. And it came out like he was signing his first contract or whatever with the New York house.

So I don't see how that house most player team can necessarily fit into the NPSL salary cap. And you know, there's questions about them signing guys after the theoretical. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's all sorts of goofy stuff there.

So we'll be interesting to watch all the legal stuff going on that maybe something we can make sure that can be in the off season. So just want to say thanks for the great, these obviously complex set of questions. But it's good. That's what we're hoping to use the Ask Pod Race segment for, whether it's a funny supporters question or something a little bit more complex that we just haven't got the chance to dive into.

So always send them our way. You can send them to the email at dcsafantcast.gmail.com. That gets all of us. Gives us a chance hopefully to dig into them and give you the best answer that we possibly can.

And you can always hit us at Twitter with something quick and easy as well. All right. And with that, we'll be back. Ah!

We're back. You're back. The mothership of Motor City Grooming works. And joining state is the captain.

The choice of the SC Josh Rogers. Josh, thank you. Thank you, guys, for having me. So starting at the very beginning, as I say, you've been with City since the beginning.

What brought you to the team? I knew head coach, Tyler Stander, from the first year from my state mission state. I helped coach the team as a volunteer assistant. Student coach back when I was just about graduating.

He offered up the opportunity to keep playing at competitive level. I didn't know much about the team. To be honest, I had to be down to Detroit very often, as I could keep growing up 40 minutes north of the city. So I was pretty excited for that to get back out there on the boots at competitive level.

It's nice to play at mentally, but you kind of lose that competitive edge. So could you ever possibly manage? It was going to turn into what it asked? No, not at all.

The first day, I was just hoping for a couple hundred people. We're playing in a football stadium with a terrible field. I know the Detroit, I was thinking a couple hundred people maybe. And then I think there's all the thousands of people there.

It's pretty unbelievable. I couldn't imagine that. So you've been here since day one, and we're sort of rolling down to the end of the season to whatever happens in the playoffs. I think the 10,000 dollar question of anybody, everybody's mind is you can't do it a little bit of retiring after the season.

Just to get that out of the way, is that still your plan? Yeah, I think a lot of people are kind of saying, oh, no, no, it's not for your last year. You're still young. But in the reality of the lever playing and the people we're playing with, I'm kind of on the older statesman.

I want to kind of end things on my own. All I know, I know a lot of people say that when they're retiring at like 3540. They don't want to be kind of frowned upon or looked down on as losing a step. So I kind of want to make sure I'm that same kind of guy who's controlling my own kind of fate.

And I want to kind of make way for guys to kind of step up and be leaders from the college level, from guys like Davey who are a little bit older, but it's still pretty competitive. And then the guys that are just about to graduate. I want to kind of see who's going to pass that up and take the club in the next section. So Dave Edrinsons insistence that he doesn't take you or maulin at your word that you're going to retire.

We should just take that for granted. So I'll sort of crazy, Jordy idea or something. Yeah, I think he's talking to Bonsense, Jordy Bonsense. OK.

You're talking about kind of being the elder statesman in the MPSL or maybe the conference or whatever. I've noticed you. So this is your four people like Vinny Bell and Cleveland who have seen him there as long as you have, right? Guys who watch one of their games, I've been Pontiac.

I don't think he came in until maybe the 75th or eight minute. And yet he had a huge impact, scored the goal that made it. It ended up being a tie. That gave whatever.

Who are some of the hardest guys that you played against year over year? I mean, there's somebody like Will on our team as a huge impact player. But somebody that's been around for like three or four those years who still seems to know. Yeah, I mean, two of the biggest ones you called out the first one.

Obviously Vinny, he's been allowed to have him in the past. We were kind of lucky that he was in the last couple of minutes for a time to play at home. So guys like Tommy Smith from Cleveland, who was a concert coordinator in the year one. And then last year with the NFL, I think he's sort of against us.

Danny Mudd from the Golden Front. I mean, he's been a big time player for them. Kind of one of an veteran. It's crazy that those guys can only play so many minutes, but make such an impact for their teams.

I think it's being that kind of thing that are reading the game. You may lose an edge-wise as far as like pace or maybe even technical ability, but you kind of never lose the game. And that's what makes those guys so good. So then I think that also has applied to you to some extent, correct?

Yeah. It's part of the mental skill, the technical skill. I don't think anybody who's watched the game just sees you in a doubt, your impact on the game, things like that. Even though you're saying that you feel like you're on the older end of things, all that kind of stuff.

There's clearly that field coaching position, that knowledge that you're kind of pushing out there to the other players. I know Dave talked about that we had on. So as captain, as that leader on the team, you kind of have the on-field quarterbacks I think going on. Do you want that to translate to something else, like Malen coaching on the, you know, down the road, or something you want to do?

Yeah, I mean, I'll see kind of next year what it brings. And I want to talk about it and see if I can come on. And be one of these systems, kind of be at training, talk guys through a play for a short guys, just some training, not a game. But kind of steal that upon the guys.

Because they see me doing it on the field. But then if I take a step back, I can kind of see who's doing it on the field and then kind of pressure that person into becoming that new leader, or becoming that new quarterback So like you said, being a coach, maybe on the side, I might be the next up one. And you go back a ways with them, right? To a Michigan State?

I do. It's even farther back than that. I mean, growing up, we both live in the bar, our youth system. And as we kind of got older, some of the teams kind of mixed together.

We had to be playing up a couple of years at Ben's Bar team. And we kind of built relationships then. And then go in Michigan State. I go on I recruit him as a there.

He's the one that hosts me. So I build a bond there. And then as soon as I commit, he's excited for me. I get in there.

And he kind of takes me as a sophomore. Ben ended up getting hurt. I think it's juniors. We got to red shirt.

We kind of ended up playing that as seniors. He was a fifth year as a normal senior. But relationships was great. We lived together.

My senior year, his fifth year. We kind of just kept in touch, obviously, on through the years. He went off to Western to kind of do his own thing. But we stayed pretty good friends.

So it's great to have that relationship. He's a little bit harder on me, I think, at times. Because I think it's a good thing. Which is a good thing.

To be more of a leader. To kind of step out my game. So other people look up to me. Other people who look up to me.

Kind of work a little bit harder in training or in a game. They see me putting in the work. They want to do the same thing. So as it's good to be a coach, I think it's good for the team.

And good for me. And then good for the team. I mean, sometimes they say they book a guy. And they say, oh, he could be a coach.

I think people sometimes say that about you giving the situation on the field. And then you guys, like, David Worsen, who's like, no, no, I got no interest in coaching. That's not me. And he was always one of those guys that he thought could be a coach.

Oh, absolutely. From the minute I stepped onto campus, I think I knew he was going to be a sister's coach at some point. His junior year when he was heard, he was on the sideline. Kind of limping her pound because of the grand injury.

Still shouting out orders, talking to coaches, putting in put, analyzing game tape. I think I knew from probably our freshman year, his sophomore, that he was going to be a coach at one point. The guy's very soccer savvy, loves the game, constantly around it. His dad was obviously a great coach growing up and has been involved in kind of Detroit soccer as a whole for the last 20, 30 years.

So I think he's had in his blood. And the guys don't know what he's doing for himself. I'm so proud about everything he's done. And I know the kind of this guy's limit for that guy.

Has he always been that snazzy of a dresser or just paid you a lot of credit for that? He's actually been pretty good. I think for a while he wasn't the best. But he's got this guy's in college.

He's in my grade where he's kind of on the other end of the trendy stuff moving forward. And I think he can't pick it up from us. But now he's like GQ-O-R-L on the sideline a little bit. What do you think of the whole Caesar phenomenon?

Does that just make you laugh? Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I know he was. I know he eats it up.

So I saw the side of it. We love it too. I didn't even know the story behind it. It's a week ago that he said, oh, I messed up it said the Caesar instead of the season.

People took it with that. I thought it was just a play on him being a big dictator. But I thought that Caesar saw things. I know when we told Edward that Edward was stunned.

That was the first time. So in addition to field leadership, we've also heard that you're a leader sort of in the back of the bus. That you and Red Kind of in the back. We tried to keep things loose before games.

Those long bus trips to four or five, six hours, they can get tough on guys. Guys can kind of get worn out with their legs. Kind of mentally, sometimes really early in the morning. So we kind of brighten guys up.

As far as some explicit stories. You've got some good ones. Sometimes we'll stop and get a few adult beverages on the way home. Some guys partaking a little too much.

Last year we got right now at Buffalo. We had a long trip ahead of us. We stopped and got quite a bit of alcohol. And I think Wade Allen got a little too intoxicated.

Was poor in drink time guys. Seeing something a little bit. I think since the day we haven't let him live in town. A great guy, great banter.

But I think he kind of overdulled a little bit. But it's good times. We like to have fun back there. So do you, with the whole shenanigans and stuff, do you have any favorite chance, T-fos, that type of stuff that the supporters do, or chances that you guys are singing on the bus that are picked off or whatever?

I think after any time Will scores, or Zach Muyer scored, especially last year, or two years ago when we were kind of going into being it, it was always like these scores. What do you want? These scores are any ones. That kind of turns into other things.

A little more explicit things. He does what he wants. I really love that Detroit City ain't nothing to talk with. I think that's my favorite.

The first time I heard was that it's Lansing. When people started pushing. And there was a little commotion on the field. And even though obviously we're kind of from saying that word, I'm on a sidelines, especially for you guys.

It just kind of brings us guys all over and about, gritty, hard working, stick together. I really like that. It's kind of whenever I'm on the bus, I kind of use that as my monitor to get going. We like to chant Lindsay's name on the bus as well, because she's the only girl on the bus, so we can't let her live that time as well.

But those are my some of my favorite. So speaking of hard working gritty attitudes, sort of the team as the talent you talked about, do you know how many yellows you received for DCFC over the years? I don't know how many. I know the first year I had two red cards, five yellows.

Not as many I think the second year. Last year might have been some more. I think I like three this year. So I think I like that.

I think I like the first year myself. Yeah, I got one last year, the kick of all the way. A lot of times it's stuff like that. It's not usually hard fouls.

It's sometimes from my mouth, which is bad. But yeah, I mean, I don't know what the number is, but it's a lot, probably too many. So it seems like most of the time we're able to keep it just below a red card since that first season though, is that skill to just not get to the line, does that ever come in handy with cops, bosses, girlfriends, whatever, trying to push it? Definitely not cops or girlfriends.

Definitely not, obviously. Maybe with my parents, maybe that works sometimes, but definitely not the cops and girlfriends thing. But it's, I've heard a lot of people talk about the way in really high is to play with a kind of fire on your own, to get them going. I think I'm the same kind of guy where I need something to get me fired up to kind of keep that mental edge the whole game.

I teeter kind of on the edge of times and sometimes it boils over too much. But most of the time I can kind of keep it and try to use it as I feel like, get in the tackles, get the guys going, get the guys motivated. So I'm grateful for that. Sometimes I need to lay off the repurators by the side of your order.

So we saw after your PK, by when I was able to have your PK here the other day that you gave us the seven for how many goals, how many PKs you've scored for DCFC in your career? Yes, in real games, not expectations. Oh, of course. What's the game about that Michigan State game?

Right. For about that Michigan State game. Yeah, I don't really know. Perfect.

But how did you become the PK guy? Was that something that goes back years with you and Ben or what happened there? So it's kind of funny. So I was taking that Michigan State my junior year.

I scored my own skitake. I might break my foot later in the year, so I was kind of thrown off a PK duty. But later in the year, as I was coming back my injury, went to PK Shoudag in Penn State. And I was like, number five, the man to go to score.

Next year, we go into PK Shoudag. It was the second round NCAA tournament against UIC. It came down to my PK to keep our senior year alive. And I missed and our season was over.

So, Penn two years ago, in the Open Cup, we won PK Shoudag. I'm like, hey, I want to take one against Adrian. He's like, fuck no, you're not taking one of his. You ended my career.

It's not happening. So, you saw how that went. How busy my PK Shoudag was that game. So, Ben, let me have one.

So I took them in practice leading up, was confident scoring a couple of goals. I think we get one against Lansing that last year. I kind of stopped on just Bay Area at the confident. And I think I scored one later in the year again.

So Ben just kind of, we confidently sensed that. I think he was scared of this going this year. After I missed, I want to guess which you can state. We had a couple of guys taken in three seasons, but when we got that first one against Buffalo, and nobody kind of said the plate, I was like, I'm taking this, I got this.

I've just been kind of bearing in the sense. It's been good, I've been confident, which is good, because I think that's the biggest part about kind of bearing PK. Did you take it personally in all of his supporters were calling for Alex last man's particular job? No, not at all.

I know it's a thing for the guy who was the best, they are training games. I mean, he's a quality player. I mean, I get that. He's a great student guys.

I'm like, please understand that. But there's no chance of how I was going to give him a ball. He's asked me a couple of times just joking. He didn't even talk about it actually too.

But no, I'm not going to get it up. It's not a minute, so I'm going to start taking him, but it's not a minute. I think I'm going to keep snapping him fairly. Does he have the lowest miles run to Gold's sport?

I mean, I know sort of a 5x0. Yeah, I mean, him or his actually, they're sitting on the same. I think Alex might have a little. Alex said it in Minnesota.

Yeah, and she means, I think, he's got zero goals with him. So I think she means kind of in a race frame of that. Speaking of some of the guys, we were talking with Dave about Troy Watson and talking about some underappreciated guys. And Troy's obviously really been a wonderful surprise, with the wrong word, but one of the playerful states here.

He was some of the other guys in the team who sort of wish people appreciated more or understood more and sort of quietly what they were bringing to the team. Yeah, I mean, Troy's a huge one. I think that's a good number in the head of that one. That guy's been playing.

I think he's played nine out of 10 games, played mostly 90 minutes in each game. He's just a rock in there. He needs some joystick cameras while he's talking to him, which is not a bad thing. I mean, I see the whole field.

He sometimes plays back to all. But what he does to break up plays, to win hitters, to kind of keep his action for us, get involved in our back line. He's very good at the pressure. Jack Sheway, who I mentioned is another guy.

That guy's kind of saying, working his ass off, up and down that right flank, left flank. He played a little bit outside, made against Fort Pitt. He's been a pretty amazing guy. I'm trying to think of some other guys who have been a big minute.