Transcript
Speaker: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to episode 82 of The Cooler Guild. I am Coop Cooper, and joined me, as always, is my co-host, Vayan Crisp. Happy to be back. ah Yeah, it's been a minute. um Today, we're recording on Tuesday, October 20th, 2026. On today's show, we got a dub pod. Dub pod! We did play Chicago, so it would be really bad if it wasn't a dub pod. But before we get into what happened in the game and a bunch of whatever else we decided to talk about, got some housekeeping take care of.
Speaker: The Cooler Guild is part of the Sounder at Heart podcast network. You can either listen to us on our public feed or if you're a Sounder at Heart subscriber on the private unified feed with the other podcasts on the network. If you'd like to become a subscriber, just visit our page at sounderatheart.com forward slash the Cooler Guild. New subscribers get 10% off the normal rate and you'll help support everything we're doing.
Speaker: It's been a minute. Has been a minute. Anything interesting or weird happen? ah Uh, oh my God. Okay. This morning, driving home. Like I waited two, almost two weeks off and you're going today.
Speaker: Well, I saw a kitten on the side of i5. Oh shit. Okay. Like rolled up in a ball. Uh-oh. had to call the the state patrol line and it had already been reported. And it was like in the median like between south and north.
Speaker: Oh, no. So I couldn't stop and like run and get it Yeah. And I turned around and like got back on south, like went north and they got back on south to try and find it. And I didn't see it. So hope it's okay. Heesh.
Speaker: um And then on that note, I've also gone to two haunted houses. Cool. Since it's spooky season. Have you done any haunted Halloween things? No, I don't. I don't know. No.
Speaker: and I was like, no, I feel like I haven't gotten into the spirit of things really. or The town usually does stuff for like Halloween and stuff. So i figure I'm just going to do it whenever stuff pops up. But I mean, I did go to that haunted hotel on my road trip or whatever. That's right. But I had my my have my half marathon and then I had my 10K. So I feel like i this last weekend I just kind of did nothing. And I was really happy about it. They should do a haunted race. I'm sure somebody does it. Probably. Creepy things chase you. We were talking about doing a, like, haunted tour of Astoria, like, around town.
Speaker: But we were, like, it would be just, like, dumb things. But, like, we can make them kind of scary. But, like, we have, like, a bunch of, like, pits. Just, like, parking lot pits, but that aren't really used as anything.
Speaker: And we thought it'd be funny to, like, I don't know. Pits, like, Leslie Knope style? I... You never watched Parks and Rec? But she did she did like a haunted thing in the town or something? No, but there was just a pit. The whole first season was about the pit. So we do have a true pit and i watched my first ever town hall meeting like a a couple months ago or something. And the big the but the first thing that was on the docket was the pit. And I was losing my damn mind.
Speaker: They were just like, I don't know, we're to pit. They kept calling it the pit. That's somebody somebody there watched Parks and Rec for sure. Yeah, know who was really sending me. Anyways, I they don't really have any interesting updates other than maybe we'll have haunted pits. There's a really cool, so I took a photo shoot in a really cool pit in town recently with a friend because he does photography and stuff. So that's where I was like, we should be taking more advantage of our local pits.
Speaker: Yes. and At least the ones that are safe. uh anyways the rain game um they came back we've got some notes before the game with some unfortunate notes yes the worst thing possible mean my heart kind of sunk when i when i saw this news Well, there had been talk because there weren't photos of her after the game. Because both teams, after the youth national team game, they did, the two teams together took a photo.
Speaker: And people were wondering, where's Maddie Darlene? Yeah. And then they didn't have like any sort of game info. So it was hard to find like, did she play? What's happening? um And then the rain announced on like Saturday that Maddie Dullian was put on the season ending injury list after tearing her al ACL in the last US Youth National Team U23 game.
Speaker: It's awful. Absolutely awful. I feel for her. It's never good, obviously, to take your ACL, ah unfortunately, for women's soccer and women's sports in general, least team sports that run a lot. um It tends to happen way more than it needs to. um But to have it happen as your team's pushing for the playoffs and then you're probably not going to make it back based on what we know about timeline and healing until like the end of next season. That's so brutal. And I really, really am sad for her.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, as somebody that's been through it, it's not fun. At least she's young. Yeah. But hoping hoping for a big comeback from her once she's recovered.
Speaker: um And, you know, with the Ryan Brown injury, it is nice to have that additional, with the Sounders own ownership and the whole group, a little bit more resources for the players. Yeah. Yeah, support and moral support is going to be huge for her recovery and road back to be one of our most valuable players. So shout out to Maddie.
Speaker: ah Sorry this happened. We're looking forward to, you know, even stronger comeback, though. Oh, my God, what a bummer, though. Yeah. Super bummer for Maddie. um And then there is, i mean, I guess this is related to, well i guess we should maybe mention the one thing. Madison Curry.
Speaker: Yep. Today, they announced the rain announced that she has signed a contract contract extension through 2028. That's good. Yeah. I wasn't sure because, you know, she's been kind of switching off with Brown. if if you know She signed with us over staying with Angel City. So to me, that said she wants a lot of playing time. But obviously with Brown getting into the starting lineup a little bit more every so often, I wasn't sure.
Speaker: you know i wasn't confident for sure that she would stay here. I wanted her to stay here, to be clear. But... Yeah, me too. That's a good contract link too. It is. And I think it's a testament to um how the players feel about what Laura Harvey's building. For sure.
Speaker: The other thing coming into this game, um because we were playing Chicago, they did make a big signing. They signed Rachel Kudanaji. No big deal. didn't think that was allowed. for seven They did it right before the, they announced it right before the roster cut off, but for $700,000 transfer fee.
Speaker: but Why? I just, I didn't know that teams were allowed to do that because of what I've seen with the rain. Yeah. So. But she was unable to play because all the Zambian players, including Kudanaji, are expected to miss several NWSL games due to a 21-day restriction.
Speaker: on re-entering the U.S. because they played Uganda on October 8th in Africa's Olympic qualifying first leg. And the CDC's got bans in entry for foreign nationals because of the concern over an Ebola outbreak. It's fucked up. But it was announced that they seem to be healthy.
Speaker: All the players are healthy. Yeah. So it just seems like bureaucratic precaution. Sure. And discrimination. But anyway, that also affected Barbara Banda and Chalufia. So they were out this weekend.
Speaker: Rough stuff. But yeah, let's let's talk about the game. ah The Reign won against Chicago. They were playing on the road in Chicago. They got 3-1. i wish it was a three to zero you know result. Obviously, that last goal was really annoying. But they got through yeah three to one win against Chicago. Were you happy about this? Were you expecting more?
Speaker: i think we said in the last episode when we were previewing that it needed to be at least a two-goal differential. And so we got that. I did feel greedy, though, at some point. I did, too. But to be fair, Chicago seems to be somewhat, I don't know, maybe not on the up and up is the right term.
Speaker: They have nothing to lose. They have nothing to lose. They're signing players. They've got Vlaco in there now. yeah As head of soccer. So players are going to be fighting for a spot. Yeah. The energy and mood is shifting within Chicago.
Speaker: So are they bad? Yeah. Definitely. Did we win by two goals? Yes. So I'm happy about that. Me too. And I thought the team adjusted well um in a way that maybe they haven't done recently when certain things weren't working. And so they just stopped trying. It seemed that they did a better job of problem solving and finding openings in this match.
Speaker: And a lot of that was just Matty Mercado. But I was going to there was i don't know. I have mixed feelings about what happened offensively. Yeah, but it was Sam Meza's 50th regular season NWSL appearance.
Speaker: Great. Racking up numbers for her. And another fun stat that came out of this match was Brittany Radcliffe made her 24th substitute appearance of the season, which is a new NWSL record for appearances off the bench in a single season.
Speaker: How many games have we played? 20... 28. Crazy. Yeah. twenty eight crazy yeah She's I think has like the ah most like was it goals per 90 or like or yeah yeah like because of how many men she's played in goals she scored is like she's like leading the team in some stat like that.
Speaker: And I think she started one or two games. Yeah. So 24 out of 28 with a couple of starts. She's played a lot. Maybe not a lot of minutes, but appearances. Some more impactful than others, but yeah certainly happy to have her on the team in this role. Let's get into what worked, I guess. What worked for you?
Speaker: so it was interesting seeing how the team lined up because it looked kind of like, well, first off, Jess Fishlock started on the left-hand side. She was playing out wide up top, which was interesting because we're used to seeing Jess Central as kind of a playmaker in that area. But they switched Jess wide and put Mercado and Fishel in the middle.
Speaker: And it Mercado able to get higher up the pitch was really helpful. I mean, it ultimately fruitful as well because she scored two goals. But the way that Jess was able to like kind of get some balls in behind and even on that first assist, that was just, that was great. That first assist was crazy. And they kept trying to run that play.
Speaker: throughout the game and they were getting close to, you know, getting a few more times just like that. Maybe she passes it left or maybe she takes it inside and just kind of cuts a player back. ah But she almost hit that ball a few times. And I was like, Chicago's going to fall for it at some point. And they did. well and It was kind of similar to the Coco goal as well. Yeah, totally. The way Huerkto played that ball in. Yeah. So it seemed to work, um but I thought the way they lined up was interesting, and obviously they're trying to make up for so that the loss of Maddie Darlene. Yeah, that was drill. I feel like that's... I didn't know what they were going to do when Maddie was out. I was like, that's a huge adjustment. They rely so much on her speed and her ability up the left, so this was their solution, I suppose. Yeah, it seemed that that was Laura Harvey's idea.
Speaker: Do you think it was... like I guess we should stand the positives, but like... Yes, we won, but it kind of took a while for this to kind of work. mean, we got the one goal, but I don't know. I just expected more against Chicago.
Speaker: But again, Chicago's fighting for their life. Yeah, but do you think this game plan works, I guess, next week? like Do you think this is like a repeatable thing that they should keep trying? No, but I think it's a specific game plan to show to Chicago. Yeah. I'm just, yeah, I'm still. I don't know what they do next week. That'll be another mystery. That's the thing is I'm like so confused in what we do with that. A little bit. Yeah. um But I think, I think Coco's making a case for herself to replace me official.
Speaker: I go back and forth on this. I don't know that Mia Fischl earned her starting spot. And I think Coco, what she did coming on, what was it? Less than 10 minutes after Fischl comes off the field, Coco's able to do what she does. and that That goal was nuts.
Speaker: It was six minutes later. Yeah. stepped on in 74th minute, school scored in the 80th minute. Yeah. But like the ruthlessness to pull that off. And just her ability to get around the ball back to goal, turn and get her hips around the ball to score far post. That's what a player that we spend two million dollars should be able to do. Right.
Speaker: But it sounds to me from what I've heard from Laura Harvey is that Coco is working really, really hard. And I think that she deserves to be rewarded for that. I mean, isn't her contract ah up at the end of the year? I'm not sure. i think it might be. So, I mean, for her, it is kind of a, you got to start putting up some numbers and putting some really brilliant performances in if you want to stay. Maybe even just in the NWSL, to be honest, because she's had some performances that have kind of left me with some questions.
Speaker: Yeah, but give her a chance. Yeah, I think give her a chance. And when she does do, when she does find goals like this, these are special goals. And if she can kind of hit that stride and keep those things going, you know, that's a really valuable player for for teams to have.
Speaker: Yeah. Do you want to talk about Maddie Mercado? Maddie Mercado, our savior.
Speaker: ah Yeah, Maddie Mercado. i mean, what what what can you say? She finds herself in places in ways that no one else on the team seems to be able to find. ah You know what i mean? Like no one else seems to be able to do what she can do. And she makes it look easy, but it's not.
Speaker: Like the way she's reading the game to be able to do what she does. I think she's very underrated. And now she's in the double digits officially with this, this, these two goals, getting a brace in a game that like you need to win.
Speaker: And Chicago was out there battling for sure. Like they were trying to shut them down. They were limiting chances. Like her XG in the first half wasn't very good. That header on the second goal. I mean, that's putting your body on the line. We all heard that. That was sounded extremely painful. Yeah. I think, too, she gives you that kind of gritty performance where not every shot she lines up is perfect. No, but that's what we need. Yeah, she's willing to shoot. That's how she has 10 goals. Yeah. And also her ability to be able to read the crosses coming in from whether it's Britt Ratcliffe or, you know, Jess Fishlock to be in the right space at the right time, not be offside. And she's physical in it, too. Mm hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, i think I think you're right. I think she's underrated. i can only imagine what she might be able to pull off had we signed. And I'm going to just bring it up once again.
Speaker: ah like Like a super great midfield, techie midfielder who can kind of feed her the ball. if she's ah She's at 10 goals with this the way that this roster is built. Imagine what she would be like if she had world-class 10 in their prime feeding her the ball.
Speaker: Yeah. But I do appreciate everything she's doing right now for sure. ah She's keeping her asses in this playoff race. And ability to get 10 goals with a really unproductive offense is pretty incredible. When was the last time we got a 10 goal like player was like. I think it's 2017. Yeah. It's been a minute.
Speaker: um It was Pino. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big fan. Big fan of her A little surprised. Maybe not completely surprised. I had asked for somebody to maybe get in the double digits this year. I thought it'd be Darlene.
Speaker: Glad she was able to do this kind of when, you know, they're all kind of reeling from Darlene being out for rest of the season. She needs to bask in this glory that she's creating for the rain. Yeah.
Speaker: She's going to be having fun right? Yeah. And I think she's making a name for herself and she's upping her value. Yeah. I was thinking of like, i was trying to come up with like a, like a joke or like slogan for her, but she was like Mercado, something about avocados and making guacamole. But I, I'm, I'm workshopping it still, but it's something about. Well, I use the, I use the Mercado brand guacamole mix.
Speaker: Is that a thing? Yeah. You buy it at Fred Meyer. Oh, interesting. Okay. Mercado brand guacamole mix. Mercado avocado. Golcamole. It's the best I got right now. I actually really like that. I think it's pretty good. think it's pretty good too. Maddie Mercado making golcamole. All right.
Speaker: We're having fun, but i do think they struggled at times. I think they struggled a lot of time in this game. So I think it's, what didn't work for you in this? I mean, a lot of things.
Speaker: I'll talk about the late goal. Okay. I mean, it was a ball. It was a through ball. was a hungry attacker in Simone Charlie. And I think, number one, the defense has to do better there. But number two, Dickie's got to do better there.
Speaker: Do you think, like, was it just like, we're up three? Who cares? I think that there might have been a little bit of a mental lapse. But you've got the World Cup next year and you're like, Spa is on the line to maybe start in that.
Speaker: Yeah. You need to turn up in every single minute of this game. Yep. she had to come she She needed to come further out and take more of the angle, but she hesitated. I've seen a little bit of that from her recently.
Speaker: So get it together. Yeah, there's a lot of times in the second half where I felt like they weren't hungry enough. There wasn't a sense of urgency in the attack.
Speaker: And when you're playing against a team that is at the bottom of the barrel, you need to shove it down their throats. Yeah. And it felt to me at times that they didn't really have that energy, which is something I felt in the last game they played, too.
Speaker: And I don't know if that's just them lacking that little bit of quality if we want to go there. ah But we have seen this team do some really great stuff over the season. So I just I don't know what what happens when they are presented these opportunities and why they can't seem to take advantage of them fully.
Speaker: I'm saying that they still won three to one. It just feels like they kind of like the like the Mercado goal. Right. It was kind of like a bad giveaway from Chicago at the end. Yeah, but you got to take advantage of those opportunities. Definitely. Should you also be creating more? that's Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker: i don't know where it all shakes out in the NBSL because anything can happen. So if you like hold on for your life, sometimes that's all you need to do. I just wanted this to look a little bit more convincing. Don't know that I was fully convinced. It was also the first game back from break. Totally. Missing yeah Maddie Darlene. Yeah.
Speaker: But do I want to see a little bit more? Yes. Might being greedy. Also, yes. We're rain fans. All right. Number one, we're fans and we just want to be better than everybody else. And we know that's not really possible right now. I kind of briefly touched on it, but I did want to.
Speaker: We got two games left in the season. We signed me official last year for a hefty sum. She's on a pretty good contract and I am not feeling great about how this has gone so far.
Speaker: It seems to be kind of a dud so far. Yeah. I thought, hey, maybe this Chicago game is the moment where she can just take it to a team that is definitely bad.
Speaker: And I just really didn't see much. I mean, she only had 24 touches. for I mean, i'm not as worried about that because if you get a few touches and you're turning them into goals immediately, then like I don't care how many touches you're getting because of where she's at in the field.
Speaker: But like we've seen her whiff balls. We've seen her shoot straight into defenses. We've seen her miss... the the net like she's shooting them wide I'm just I'm missing something completely like I haven't seen what I need to see to feel like this was a really good idea and it sucks it really sucks because she subs off we get two extra goals right why was that not happening while she was on the field I don't know.
Speaker: I'm not. Because the person that came in for her scored. Yeah, I'm just not because but she signed with us for a while. i don't know that anyone's paying us a significant amount of money for this, performance like the way she's been performing if we want to move on from her. So I don't i don't know what to do. i don't know what the team is supposed to do because they're kind of in a pickle. They spent this money and now we're not getting the performances we need.
Speaker: She doesn't she doesn't look like hungry to me. No. And the frustrating thing is like you can see her work ethic. She is really hard. Totally. But just nothing's coming up in front of goal. She doesn't look hungry enough to me. She's working every other part of it.
Speaker: But like we've seen the highlights of her when she is in form. And I'm not seeing that in front of goal. The frustrating thing for me is that if you have a player like that, with that expectation, you should know that every time they get the ball, they're looking at goal. That's not happening. That's just not what's happening. Yeah. You see Maddie Mercado get the ball?
Speaker: That girl's like, where's where's the goal? That's why that's why I'm extra annoyed. And like, granted, do we just mentioned that we think Mercado's underrated, but like... The way the commentators talk about me official sometimes, I'm just like, are watching the same person in the last two years? Or like the time that she's been with the Reign at least?
Speaker: She's like, oh, she's like a goal scorer, blah, blah, blah. Like she hasn't been for a while though. And I thought I really did hope that this was going to be maybe a sneaky great acquisition. I'm just not seeing it still.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's been way too long, but I have to say something. And I held out, held out, like, give her a chance, give her a chance, chance give her chance. She needs to get adjusted. and Like, I, I feel like as a fan, I kind of fought for that.
Speaker: You want to. people to give her grace, but. when you want to. I'm kind of over giving her grace now. Either put somebody in that's going to score. And if that's Coco, put Coco in. Or you need to start scoring. Yeah, put her on the bench, give her some time to I don't know, figure out how much she wants it in terms of the starting role because she shouldn't just be giving it because of how much they paid for her based on performances. Yeah, let somebody else fight for it. Yeah, I'm not happy about saying this, just to be clear. I really did. I really did like her as a player. I really do like her as a player when she's playing well. She's just playing for our team and it hasn't been going great. So it has to be said. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: All right. Post-match presser. Did you watch those? Looks like you watched some of it. I did. For the players, they had Ryan Brown and Matty Bercato. They asked about the, you know, just a couple games left and how they're feeling going into each game. And Ryan Brown said they're treating these last few games like they're all playoff games. They are.
Speaker: They are. They're play-in games, but yeah. um Maddie Mercado talked about Brit and how she's just determined, gritty, and fast and loves to take players on. And so she knows that she needs to get open for her.
Speaker: um And then they also praised Coco. Which, get her in. Yeah. um And then somebody asked about Maddie Mercado's face. It was on that second goal. There's just a rocket in. Yeah. And just Maddie met the the rocket cross with her face. And it she kind of dipped her head a little bit. And it went off her nose ah and her forehead. But ah she said oh she got a little bit of a nosebleed. But she's fine. Those hurt really bad. Yeah. Getting bonked in your nose is awful. I can't imagine you with ball to your face.
Speaker: Terrible. And then they talked about how McCammon and Mez are just such a great pair in the midfield. Kind of gave them some some flowers. ah Laura Harvey talked about the decision to start Jess on the outside and said when Maddie Dullian was ruled out, she asked Jess Fishlock if she fancied a little Pinot action this weekend.
Speaker: What? So it worked. And she talked about how Ainsley was off a little bit by like a half is what she said, like a 0.5, just a tad, tad bit off in the North Carolina game. Yeah. And how you could tell that that affected the team.
Speaker: That's how important she is. um But how she stepped up and did much better in this match. and That was pretty much it from the pressers. Cool. Well, it's a 3-1 win. Let's not dwell on our negativity.
Speaker: I am extremely nervous about what the playoff situation is, and I'm not feeling super excited given the next game we have. But let's let's go on to something good. Let's go on to the cooler play ofs the match. ah The cooler play of the match is brought to you by The Doctor's Office, a great little 12-seat bar on Capitol Hill. The owner is a big fan of the rain and is proud to be our first sponsor. who we giving it to?
Speaker: Golomole? Golomole? Golomole? We'll keep workshopping on whatever makes more sense. Matty Mercado. Yeah. You deserve it. Absolutely. Player of the match and cooler player of the match. Yeah.
Speaker: I will shout out Sofia Huerta here. 35 now assists. That was a really nice assist too. Yeah. She's really, the last half of this season, she's stepped up. but you didn't score two goals. So, so you didn't score two goals and also finally give us a season where we have a player with double digits, uh, for goal scoring. So thank you, Maddie.
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Speaker: ah We got some other NWSL results to go over. What happened? Lost Nation no more. Boston beat Louisville two to one The game started late due to a rain delay and there was a bad giveaway goal. um Floral Ivory gave the ball away to bad pass in front of the goal and the player just took it and scored. Yikes.
Speaker: But Boston wins two to one. Washington Spirit beat Gotham one to zero. And the goal was scored by Italian national Di Guglielmo. Guglielmo.
Speaker: One of the two. um It was her first NWSL goal for the right back. Fun fact, I was like, who is this? And she has a master's of science degree in industrial chemistry.
Speaker: That's what happens when you're a women's professional sports player. They don't pay them enough, so they have to have backups. And that's pretty badass, that industry chemistry. Not cooking up chemicals. She's cooking up goals. All
Speaker: With that win, Washington did ah clinch the third playoff spot. Boo. Oh. There's that Utah lost to Casey two to zero, two goals from Haley Hopkins.
Speaker: Jwinga missed an open goal after she beat a goalkeeper out breakaway. Just hit the crossbar. Awful. um And then D. Bernardo, D. Bernardo had her 33rd NWSL assist. And now she's two behind. if you heard the North Carolina lost to San Diego two to one.
Speaker: And then I said, of course, North Carolina forgot how to play defense after they played us. Ashley Sanchez is still seeking her record-breaking 21st goal. Would be nice if these bad defenses happen when we play them, but whatever. Right.
Speaker: ah Denver just absolutely dropped the ball here. um They lost to Angel City after being up 2-0, and they lost 3-2. That Heaps goal was really nice, though. It was.
Speaker: yeah Then she had to be a little whiny person and get into a pissing match with Savvy King. That's kind of her gig, though. She's just preparing for the World Cup. Don't mess with the woman with two moms, okay?
Speaker: That's all got to say about that. um Houston lost to Orlando two one Luana scored a penalty in this game. it was her first regular season NWSL goal because she scored the other penalty in the game against us. That was postseason, yeah.
Speaker: And so Lee Washington scored the game winner in the 31st minute. And then Bay tied Portland 2-2. They should have won. Bay should won. It was annoying. um But yeah, that was it. So now the rain hop North Carolina and are in eighth place currently.
Speaker: Cool. Well, next game for the rain. ah We've got two games left for the season. i will in terms of the results that happened over the weekend, ah the rain did help knock out ah Orlando.
Speaker: Suckers. We are playing them last, though. I know. Will vengeance be coming? I don't know. We'll see. ah But the next game for the rain is goingnna be against Utah. Utah Royals. That's going to be oh, we have a Friday game. Fuck.
Speaker: These Friday the games. know where the is. Friday, October 23rd, 630 on Fox 13 plus and NWSL plus. I had some general notes that i kind of pulled up about Utah. The last five times that Utah and Seattle have played, there has never been any draw. So someone's come away as a winner or I guess someone's also been a loser in that circumstance. Um, So I am mean, hopefully we're on the right side of that because three points would be so helpful for us. Three points would also be very helpful for Utah as I don't think they've clinched their spot yet, right? Right. ah So that this is going to be a big game. Another note that I found out while researching, Utah is coming off of a loss to KC as Van just went over the results. Their previous result before that was a 1-1 draw with Louisville. They've lost three of their last four home games though.
Speaker: Hmm. And usually altitude is kind of something that teams would be concerned about. And I do think that's a factor definitely going to Salt Lake. um But their losses were two to zero to Casey, three to zero to Angel City. but That's a huge loss. um There was two early red cards in that one. And they also lost two to one to Boston.
Speaker: Yeah. At home. So I think there's a chance here. I think a few months ago I would have been like, this is going to be a loss for us probably. And I'd be happy to get away with the draw, but I'm seeing blood in the water and who wants it more? Yeah. This is a winnable game.
Speaker: And I think, like you said, it's going to be who wants it more. Who can scrap one out? Yeah. ah What do you want to see in this game? A win. Give the ball to Matty Mercado. Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe get Coco a start. Yeah. i mean, why not? I'm not sure me official's the answer. I think we've we've tried it too many times. Right. Unfortunately, that's just the case. I don't care. i don't care how much money you spent at this point. I don't either.
Speaker: eat Eat the loss. The financial loss, that is. Yeah. Hopefully not this at all. Do lose this game. Yeah, please don't. ah Yeah, your note here about Chloe Lacasse. You've watched her more than I have. I just went and started looking at the previous games and also looking at the stats of the league and with Utah. And Chloe Lacasse seems to be a big reason why they find success.
Speaker: And if she's not finding a lot of passes and isn't getting the ball with Utah, I don't know, tenacity, then that seems to be what you should do to find find a win. um What kind of like ah are you like familiar with her game? and a little bit.
Speaker: She's just very active. um She's got a really good passing range. She's sitting on 10 assists right now this season. They take a lot of corners. Yeah. so And we're historically not very good at defending those. So maybe you limit that.
Speaker: I think we also, there's a notable thing here with Kate Del Fava having just gotten her first U.S. Women's National Team appearance coming off of that.
Speaker: So defensively might be an issue there. Yeah. But how are they going to work around it? Yeah. Do you think ah Brown or Curry st start in this game? I think you stay with Brown. Yeah. um think Curry's been good off the bench.
Speaker: Sure. And it's working for now. It's a little bit it's a little bit of a short week, though. i mean, they're going from Chicago. I think they're going to Chicago and they're going back home.
Speaker: And then they're going to like be like a quick turnaround to Salt Lake is what it sounds like. Mm-hmm. didn't Didn't they try to like gamify this in KC too? And I think it it ended up working or not KC. Yeah, it was no Denver. Sorry, Denver. And that did not go well. No, I don't think the elevation is quite as bad in Salt Lake. So they're also recent forms. Not great. So at home at least.
Speaker: Curry came off in the 74th minute, so... Okay. Curry came on in the 74th minute. Brown came off, so... Meh. What changes from this last game would you like to see implemented in this game?
Speaker: think you're going to have an issue with speed if you keep Fishlock on the side. 100%, especially at her age, at two games this quick succession. um If you do start her on the side, I think that there's a good trade-off with maybe bringing Ratcliffe in for Fishlock. Uh-huh.
Speaker: um just Just to add that. Yeah. Change up the press there. I'd like to see Coco start behind. I liked the way the team was set up. I just don't know if that's a sustainable personnel. It wasn't as dangerous as it should have been. Right.
Speaker: Because it lacked speed. Yeah, and the moment Coco came on, like, almost instant impact. Right. So i'd I'd almost like to see the same kind of um Mercado up top, player underneath her, maybe hopefully Coco. Yeah.
Speaker: And then maybe get Adamus a minute. That's what I was wondering about. I thought for sure she would play once I saw Darlene was, you know, not going to be around. But I think that there's, i think that I'm kind of excited about the new setup because like ah I don't know if I mentioned earlier, but you know in games when Laura takes off three or four players and then completely changes the press? and They're just like, Matty Mercado, go up top, figure it out.
Speaker: And then we suddenly have chances in the last 10 minutes. It felt kind of what that setup was from the get-go in the last match. So i'm hoping that comes through. Let her lose. Yeah, I need. Like a little Tasmanian devil up there. just like Yeah, I i just need i just need more and need more dynamic play from from the people up top. you know Balls moving around, just those finishing, the shots are not being taken as much as they need to be.
Speaker: And it looks like Coco wants to prove a point. It's a letter. Yeah, totally. I know that people have mixed feelings about her, as do i But if somebody's performing, give them a chance. Yeah, agreed. Cool. Well, anything else you want to on? No, i think that's it. Cool. Any shout outs for the week?
Speaker: um It's kind of a plea. Sometimes we do that.
Speaker: So North Carolina plays Portland in the next game. And Ashley Sanchez, you are sitting on 20 goals. Is it in Portland? Oh, man, that would be so sweet.
Speaker: I feel like it is a love Yeah, it is in Portland. Oh, man. This could be a great game. um It could be a great weekend. Ashley Sanchez, please score your record-breaking goal at Providence Park against Portland.
Speaker: If someone wants to hire a witch for this and it works, we'll shout you out. Yeah. but I mean, she's out a couple, a few games to make it happen. So it's going to, one of these, it's going to be one of these last two games. It has to. It has to.
Speaker: Make it this one, Ashley. We have faith in you. We do. Do it for your love of Megan Rapinoe. That's right. That's right. That's it. You got any shout outs? I mean, she'll never hear this, but shout out to Nashe.
Speaker: Her new album is amazing. And I just bought a ticket to go see her in Seattle. Nice. And it wasn't. don't know who that is. She has one of the top pop albums right now, and she'll probably win pop album of the year for this album.
Speaker: It's like her eighth album, though. She's like 33 years old. She's been around. You'll have to send me. She's finally breaking through, though, and it's like pretty awesome. And her tickets were reasonably priced. Nice. 55 bucks. We love that. Yeah. So I'm fucking stoked. But she's that album has just been on loop for me for like the past like several weeks.
Speaker: ah All right, cool. Well, ah you can go to visit our sponsor and also we can thank them. Thanks to thanks to the doctor's office for being our sponsor. ah You can always go follow us on Blue Sky on Instagram at CoolerGothPod. I'm not super active on there lately though. I've been outside and foraging mushrooms.
Speaker: ah Also, You can send us an email just like Kimberly did. Shout out Kimberly for the email and welcome. Welcome to the podcast. um You can send that email to thecoolerguild at gmail.com. You can also visit us on our main page. And if you haven't seen some of the stuff coming out of Sounder Heart, especially Rite the Valkyries, go take a look. It's good stuff. Yeah.
Speaker: Cool. cool i Did I say the website? Sounderheart.com forward slash thecoolerguild.com. Cool. Uh, wherever you're listening, please go rate five stars until next time. I'm Coop. I'm Van. Stay cool, yo. Stay cool.
Speaker: I'm a big researcher. Um,
