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Craig Waibel talks to us about the Pedro de la Vega signing
120 Plays1 year ago
Following a 45-minute press conference introducing Sounders fans to Pedro de la Vega, GM Craig Waibel sat down with Jeremiah Oshan and Niko Moreno to discuss the signing. Waibel explains what he liked so much about the Argentine, gives some insight into the process behind securing his signature and what this could mean for the Sounders going forward.
There is also an extended version of this interview that's available to paid subscribers of the podcast on our private RSS feed.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast NOS Arietes
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes.
Sponsorship by Full Pull Wines
00:00:06
Speaker
This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
00:01:26
Speaker
special edition of NOS Audio Disc, sponsored by Fullpool Wines and our subscribers. We're recording on January 24th, 2024.
Live Recording with Nico Moreno and Craig Weifel
00:01:34
Speaker
I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me today for this live recording from Long Acres is friend of the show, Nico Moreno, as well as Sounders, GM, and CSO, I guess, is the right title, Craig Weifel. It's a long title. It is a long title. A lot of letters. CSO, though, feels a little like
00:01:53
Speaker
Doctor who does surgery. Feels like I studied to get that. Right. Exactly. Right. Exactly. But thank you so much for doing this, Craig. Obviously, Nico, thank you as well. But we are here.
Signing Pedro de la Vega: Process and Relief
00:02:06
Speaker
We just finished the about an hour ago. We finished the Pedro de la Vega signing press conference.
00:02:11
Speaker
Is there a sense of relief for you to just be like, okay, it's really he's here. Everything is signed. We are, we can, we can like, we know we can plan for this, or has this been really done for weeks and you guys have just been stringing us along?
00:02:27
Speaker
We just, it's been years. It's stringing you for years. They're never done until they're done. That's the craziest part about this is even when you're 100% sure, you feel like you're about 70% sure. Until the last document gets a signature.
00:02:45
Speaker
It just builds stress. It's weird. You never, you never get closer to relief. Uh, so this is a, this is a great, it's a great day. It's a good moment because obviously the documents have been done for a couple of days, but you know, in order to get it out there to release it so everyone can talk about it openly and how does it fit? What does it mean? And, and start having the fun part of sports, right? The fun part of sports is now we start speculating how does this impact and what are the decisions and how does it fit and all those things that.
00:03:15
Speaker
That's what makes this whole thing enjoyable, and so it's nice to get there. I definitely want to get into all that stuff, because I don't want to get lost. I've been to a lot of these signing press conferences. I don't know that I have been quite as blown away, frankly, by a signing. His presence was
00:03:37
Speaker
Like he came off as humble, he came off as articulate, he came off as engaging with the questions and having thoughtful answers. This is me listening to him trying to basically translate it from Spanish.
00:03:52
Speaker
You actually understood what he was saying, Nico. Are my impressions fair,
De la Vega's Enthusiasm and Commitment
00:03:57
Speaker
you think? No, absolutely. I think that he was very careful in what he said. He came across knowledgeable, not just the soccer side, but the history of the game. Because one of the laughing moments that didn't quite get translated correctly was the fact that he had talked to the Almatas and the Audas and all these people. But he has to talk to Diego Valerio. And immediately, he's like, ha, ha, ha. But I know he's from the opposition, the rivalry.
00:04:21
Speaker
right so that alone tells you that you know he's a young guy that didn't just come because he this is going to be an opportunity for him to either move on or expose himself it is showcase that is MLS in today's day and age but he also has that value of being engaged with the club and that's kind of what you hear from him
00:04:42
Speaker
I don't like news because he was embedded into that club and he was embedded in to that academy and that process. So I feel like he wants that here. And that makes me feel really good about the player. Yeah. The other question that I thought came off very endearing was when he was asked about wearing the number 10 and he sort of like looks to Brian to make sure it's like, is it okay for me to go here? And he like not only understands the weight of the idea of being a number 10, he, I guess it weren't 10 for Linus as well.
00:05:10
Speaker
But he also understood who wore it before him, that little bit about how they gave me his phone number and I was too shy to call him equal Ledero and how he wants to work for it and he wants
De la Vega's Humility Wearing Number 10
00:05:21
Speaker
to earn it. And it was just like everything.
00:05:24
Speaker
you can't coach that sort of answer like this is it feels like it's coming maybe you did maybe I'm giving too much credit but it felt it just was very endearing and like that perfect mix of like humble but like no I want the I want the 10 I want this weight I want to like I understand what I'm asking for here
00:05:42
Speaker
I mean, were these the impressions that you had of meeting him? I mean, you talked about how you felt like you vibed with him like right away when you met him in Argentina. Yes, it's wild because we don't speak each other's primary languages. We both kind of, I'm speaking really, really basic Spanish. And his English is much better than my Spanish.
00:06:07
Speaker
But it was really interesting when I went to Buenos Aires to study the players that we had scouted and our group had identified, you know, there was a list of three or four. And after those five days where I sat down with multiple players and went and watched them in their environments, I came home with a list of one, you know, it was, it was really remarkable. I think what you got today in the press conference is exactly what I got when I went
First Impressions of De la Vega in Buenos Aires
00:06:31
Speaker
down there. It was just this sense of.
00:06:33
Speaker
Um, something's different. Something makes sense. Something clicks. There's, there's a seriousness to him. There's a matter of fact in his answer about what he is trying to accomplish. But it's all under the umbrella of that humility of team and the understanding of like you guys said, he knows the history. Right. This is not a formality for him. He did the homework and he had done that homework before I sat down with him with no reason to do the homework. Right.
00:07:04
Speaker
That was a really informal meeting, you know, and, and so it was, I think you're, I think you're getting what I got. So it's nice to hear that I wasn't that far off. You know, one of the things that I contrast this with, and this is going back a long way and it's not a commentary on, on the player at all. But like, I think back to the first time I heard Alvaro Fernandez talk about Seattle and he didn't know how to pronounce the name of the city.
00:07:29
Speaker
And you just go from there to this player who granted Seattle is a bigger city and all these things. But I just think it really does illustrate what kind of player this is. You don't take it for granted that these guys know at all what they're getting into.
00:07:45
Speaker
No. And there's, look, there's parts to all of us that people are going to figure out over time. One of the things that didn't come up, nor did it really need the opportunity to come up in that press conference. You know, he moved out of, of his family's home, uh, last year to prepare, to be a professional, to prepare, to be on his own, to prepare psychologically for what that next step was. That was before I met him.
00:08:10
Speaker
You know, so he's been thinking in a really mature way, you know, some would say beyond his years, but many would say, you know, parallel to the way soccer works. If you want evolution in the game outside the country you're in, you've got to prepare yourself to grow. And he's been doing that. And these are little things that'll come out over time about him. And I think we're all going to learn more about it. Yeah. Intangibles have always been a big thing for Seattle.
00:08:36
Speaker
So anytime you just count a player and he definitely seems to have that, but also the soccer component is there. Uh, however, I will say that it's, it's never easy. And you talked about courage is never easy because not only is the pressure on the player, but on you by getting a player that young for that much money, uh, that of course it could be a.
00:08:58
Speaker
home run and you could get this player. That's amazing. But there's always the gamble of adaptation of taking a little bit longer. So when you approach that, I mean, we kind of talked about it a little bit, just a couple of minutes ago, this club was used to just bringing this older players that were proven commodities. Uh, but now you get a player that is part of the U23 for Argentina. He's a prospect that everybody knows. So how do you go about that? Taking that, that leap and, you know, saying, this is the guy we need.
00:09:28
Speaker
I think it comes down to the mentality of the entire group, right? So we start with the coaching staff. We say, where are we? You know, where are
Leadership and Support in the Locker Room
00:09:35
Speaker
they? Do they need a veteran player to walk in the locker room that can start on day one with the team, with the walk in with street cred, right? A different kind of street cred. Or are we in a position where our leadership surrounding
00:09:51
Speaker
What our positional needs are support any profile. I think that that's where we started was we had that conversation and the coaching staff said, no, this locker room has leadership. This locker room has proven identity. This locker room is not going to be disrupted by any player so we can look at anything. So we.
00:10:11
Speaker
You know, from a front office standpoint, that's like the blank slate. That's where we all live as fans. Oh my goodness. Like what? Like, where can we go from here? Right. All the paint is on the palette. Nothing's on the canvas. And so that's where we got to start. And then, you know, you start shopping with a budget.
00:10:29
Speaker
whatever that number is. And thankfully in Seattle, those numbers have never been preventable. They don't prevent you from having that creativity. And so as we narrow the list down and down and down and down and down from anything from the most experienced, proven players to least experienced, and you start narrowing in on the bulls eye of what do you think is going to add to this group in scenarios.
00:10:55
Speaker
So then we start playing the game, okay, we're down on one. Okay, we're up one zero. We're tied one one, but we need to win. We're tied one moment, but we need to defend. Like, you know, how do our coaches coach those scenarios and players start to stand out? And then of course, personalities start to stand out to your point in tangibles when you get to know them. And to go off of that, I'm going to credit Jeremiah because
00:11:20
Speaker
It wasn't until two minutes ago that I realized that, and I hope we weren't trying to bring this up. But I don't re I remember when Elmarone was going to come to MLS, there was a lot of hype about him. And maybe there hasn't been that much hype about this player. And I just looked at the stats thing in Jeremiah and this guy played more minutes, had more goals, better stats than Elmarone in the news. So at exactly the same age, basically, he flipped my brain.
00:11:48
Speaker
I honestly had not even thought about that until right now. I'll say this back-handedly, of course. It's hard with personality to get it across on tapes, but we do tend to do our jobs every once in a while. No, I mean, the homework's there, right? We're not blind to that. We've seen profiles that have worked in MLS. We didn't do this on accident. We didn't do it without comparing him to
00:12:16
Speaker
Perhaps Almorone, you know, in our statistical analysis and our data. But when you, the naked eye will tell you, these are two different players, two different types of players. At the same time, I think one thing that Seattle, I use the word courage in the press conference a couple of times. And one of the reasons is because this club's never been afraid of creating heroes.
00:12:41
Speaker
and not necessarily needing to buy heroes. Some legends of our club, Nico, Raul, who's been a legend, Freddy Montero. These weren't player names that the fan base knew on day one. Clint Dempsey?
00:12:58
Speaker
Everyone knew. And he came and proved it, right? Obafemi Martins, some guys with higher profile that came in maybe with a little more of that street cred with our fan base. But one thing we've never been afraid of is creating heroes. And Christian Roldon fits that mold. Jordan Morris fits that mold. The future. Look at our young guys that played a lot last year that are contributing, that are going to continue to contribute. You're starting to see fans wear jerseys.
00:13:26
Speaker
of some of our young guys, including Jackson Reagan, including Josh Tensio, including Reed Baker, including Leo Chiu, including Danny Leyva, including, you know, the list is getting longer and longer. Creating those heroes is not something we're afraid of. And I think it takes a lot of courage to do that because the coach has to believe they're going to get the results.
00:13:47
Speaker
to stick around long enough to make that player a hero. And they've got to give them the minutes to do it. At the same time, the club's got to be dedicated to the process. Oh, you know, sort of along those those lines, this is every year, maybe every coach in a month talks about how, oh, we've got competition everywhere. We've got, you know, every no one's spot to say this, that and another thing. But you look at the roster the way it is now.
00:14:17
Speaker
And it feels like a much more genuine thing to say that you've probably got six starting caliber players in that front four. You've got three or four central midfielders or defensive midfielders that could all be starters. You've got probably five or six defenders who could all be starters. Steph Fry's position seems reasonably safe.
00:14:39
Speaker
But everywhere else, it feels like there is genuine competition. And De La Vega is a pretty key component of this, where it seems like you could slot him in any number of spots, and that's going to have a cascading effect on other spots. Does this feel like the most complete roster that you've... And I say that knowing that there's probably room for change, but at least if you just look at the starting lineup.
00:15:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think balance is probably the word I would use. It's probably a safer word, which is why I would choose it. But I mean, look, some of the names I didn't mention when I listed young guys, Obed Vargas, Cody Baker. I mean, again, there's more players. As soon as we start talking about the central midfield, we've got another youth national team player in there, you know, and we've got another outside back developing.
00:15:31
Speaker
Uh, I think these provide balance for the coaches to look at and compare. I think it provides pressure finally in every position. Um, that's another word I would use. Like if you're not playing well, there is someone to go in now. It doesn't matter what position you play. And, uh, even there, Andrew Thomas and Jacob Castro, are they a little further away from putting pressure on Steph, right? Sure.
00:15:55
Speaker
But do our coaches probably have the courage given the rest of the management and the way they're balancing the rest of the decisions to maybe make that decision? Yeah, absolutely. I think you've identified the one spot where maybe the decision looks easier. But the balance on the rest of the roster, I think, does make that statement a bit more genuine than perhaps in years past. And that's fair.
00:16:21
Speaker
And I think Yevar Gomez-Andrade is one of the names that you guys turn into a hero. The guy's been unbelievable from the day he got here till now. Right. Statistically dominant year after year after year. And this is a guy that you guys got in a very good deal. And nobody had any idea that this guy was going to just dominate the way he did. What I will say, though, is you, when it seems like the approach this year is that you're going to use that core group
00:16:50
Speaker
too.
00:16:53
Speaker
sit your floor high, but in terms of that ceiling, how high is it when you go back and look at maybe what didn't get done in the playoffs last year? Because this is going to be almost the same starting lineup that, you know, there were times where maybe they weren't as dumb as they could have against the diluted Dallas with some injuries and then that LAFC game where you just couldn't get a goal. Yeah. I mean, the game can be brutal sometimes, but
The Importance of Belief and Genuine Conversations
00:17:22
Speaker
I would say going back into last year, the belief in the roster is something that I work on with my group. My group being the front office, the coaching staff, the support staff, everyone that's around is we have to believe in our roster and in what the possibilities of the roster are or the players will pick up on that.
00:17:47
Speaker
Whether that's the medical staff, the performance staff, the equipment staff, the scouting, whatever it is, if, if a player picks up on it, they're going to share it. Right. And so if we don't believe in what we have, we've got to talk about it. We've got to be honest about it. And we have to have the courage to make the next decision to move on. So going back to that fundamental.
00:18:08
Speaker
Uh, hope that that's how we're operating. You know, these conversations have to be genuine and they have to be frequent enough that the coaches can speak their mind and, uh, display their concerns, you know, express their concerns. And at the same time, I have to be able to sit on the other side of the table and go, I hear you, but we're going to march.
00:18:28
Speaker
And we're going to march this way. And that's something that Brian and I have a good relationship where sometimes he tells me, sometimes I tell him, but it's, it's not a lecture hall. You know, no one, no one has the head of the table every day in, in this group. And I think that's what also going back, like now going, taking that back into the players, I think when the players start to pick up on that in the second half of last season.
00:18:51
Speaker
You know, you start to see a bit more, um, a collectivity, a collective effort. Uh, and I don't ever want to come close. It wasn't lack of effort that the results weren't coming from, but Seattle's got grit and we didn't have grit all last year. You know, that's something that has to exist for us to win. It's that balance, but at the end of the day, it takes goals. And what was missing in the LAFC game was the goals, a great performance by a goalkeeper.
00:19:22
Speaker
But in those big moments, that's when you get judged the most, right? And that's something we don't hide behind. I never, I don't get to hide behind it, right? The whistle blows and the opinions start, good, bad and different. And that's something that we've got to embrace a little bit more this year, take a little bit more personally and make sure that we do the job. How does De La Vega fit into that sort of both from a grit perspective, but also from a
00:19:52
Speaker
finding goals perspective, generating goals. Yeah, I mean, look, people will start watching games now and go back and find video. The grit won't be questioned. The work rate won't be questioned. The two-way effort won't be questioned. There are times at his age where you'll catch him, but that's kind of normal for the age. That transition into MLS where it is back and forth a little bit more, it's not
00:20:18
Speaker
It's not retreat into this tight defensive structure and then counter, uh, you know, things that are probably a bit more nuanced, uh, for his upbringing and his soccer knowledge to this point. But where he fits is in the attack, he likes to go at players. He likes to run a players where we're going to see an a different version, but a similar mentality to Leo chew. The ball hits his feet and he has one or two things on his mind.
00:20:46
Speaker
And the first one is advanced the ball. And I think that whether it's on the dribble or on the pass, he's looking positive. He's not an East West South possession based player. And I think that's where, um, the first step comes in.
De la Vega's Expected Contributions
00:21:00
Speaker
The second step comes in is, you know, his goals are the same as our goals.
00:21:05
Speaker
He needs to produce in order for this to prove itself. Correct. Right. And part of that is on the team. We have a great team. We have a great base. We have a great core. We've got a lot of guys that we expect goals from, but Pedro's we're adding to that list. You know, now we expect goals from Raul, Jordan, Christian, Albert, Leo Pedro. We expect our quote reserve players, supporting players to score goals as well.
00:21:32
Speaker
This year, also that responsibility has to be shared by our defense. When we get set pieces and we produce the amount of chances we produce, they've got to contribute not to and take some pressure off individually, off Pedro, off Leo, off these other guys in order to get these numbers up. Yeah. Look, you've never been afraid to answer tough questions and you are probably as transparent as anyone that I've ever seen in your position.
00:22:00
Speaker
When it comes to the injury aspect, he had a big injury. He's young enough. In today's day and age, scientists change and medical advances have been huge now. But how much did he go into making sure that that was good? Playing in artificial grass?
00:22:18
Speaker
cliche is that it's so much harder for injuries and stuff. How much do you guys give thought into that when signing petrol? We put a lot into it. Look, we've analyzed the data before injury and after injury.
00:22:35
Speaker
We're not going to avoid the topic and we didn't avoid it when we were looking at him. We looked at the numbers before, we looked at the numbers after and we said, what are the differences? And where can we spot differences? To his credit, you know, to your point, medicines come a long ways, recoveries come even farther.
00:22:53
Speaker
You know, it's one thing to fix it. It's another thing to really rebuild it. And I think sports performance along with the nutrition that we now know about how to rebuild the medical apparatus, you know, all these things go into it now so much more.
00:23:08
Speaker
opportunity for players to recover strong sometimes stronger because they're not playing they get to focus on their body and some of the numbers would suggest that that's exactly what happened with Pedro's and in many ways he came back a little bit
00:23:25
Speaker
uh probably more balanced of course his age plays into this too he was still growing tremendously during during that time so to be able to stop and add muscle and add power in his recovery was huge and that that's what we saw you know is there concerns uh i i don't i don't have any you know he he's played well he's played consistently since recovery and um
00:23:52
Speaker
At the end of the day, we can all roll our ankle walking up and down the stairs, unfortunately. Um, I don't think, I don't think injury comes into play now in terms of worry. Nice. You know, uh, I look at this signing and I see, you know, it's been reported as a pretty significant transfer fee. Obviously we see a player who is young. Uh, and you look at the profile and you think, okay, there's.
00:24:17
Speaker
I'm sure the Sounders would love this to be a situation where he is here for 10 years and he's the face of the franchise. But I have to imagine that there is an element of like, we are buying a, you know, you look at an Emigielo Morone and here's a player who came in at seven and a half and they sold for 28 or whatever it was. Is there is like, if you're weighing those two possibilities of, you know, getting a player that's
00:24:41
Speaker
effectively spends his career here or someone that has some sell-on value, like how are you balancing those things and how do you look at this? Our last two player purchases have fit this category.
00:24:53
Speaker
Our last two player purchases are Pedro de la Vega and Leo Chu. They're both significant. However you define significant, I promise they both fall into that category. Is there a quote exit strategy involved? I think there's an exit strategy element.
00:25:12
Speaker
as to the when and the how. Obviously, when you make an investment, now all of a sudden the return of the investment plays into can you move a player and when you move a player.
00:25:25
Speaker
If the number gets high enough and it makes sense for the club and it makes sense for the player, it kind of becomes a no-brainer in that sense. Would we love Pedro to stay here? I would love Pedro to stay here for as long as he wants to, whether that's his entire career or not. But the performance has to match. And frankly, the performance for our last two investments, and specifically the investment we made in Pedro,
00:25:49
Speaker
is that we think there is an opportunity for him to improve his game here and get another opportunity at his age.
Investment Strategy: Long-Term and Sell-On Value
00:25:58
Speaker
I mean, it's, I would love to tell you that every player's ambition is to play for the Sounders forever, but I don't think that's realistic, right? We need to live in reality. This is a great club.
00:26:11
Speaker
For some, it's a great club for eight years. For some, it's a great club for two years. For some, it's a great club for a little while, then leave, then come back. We've seen all these play out and they all play out well. I think for the Sounders, I don't think it's a scary proposition to say that we're going to look at selling a player in the next 12 months, 18 months, 24 months.
00:26:34
Speaker
Well, I think that just means we're becoming part of the soccer ecosystem, the actual soccer ecosystem, not just a little bubble that we live in up here, but we're starting to participate on a much greater scale. And if an exit strategy is 28 million on a player you've invested, you know,
00:26:54
Speaker
a significant amount, but not 28. And you can turn around and maybe that equals two more players. There's an economic structure here that supports itself in terms of if you get it right. I mean, I think everyone gets the reward, including the player.
00:27:10
Speaker
If his desire is to play in La Liga or the Bundesliga or the Premier League, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that's an embarrassing proposition for the Sounders. That's a wonderful proposition for the Sounders. Well, let me phrase it a little differently then, which I think your answer is totally fair.
00:27:26
Speaker
But when you are talking to him, is that a, is that a subject that's explicitly coming up saying, look, we know someday you'd love to play, uh, in Spain, and this is a great way of getting there. Or is it you, that's sort of the unspoken element of it. And you're really pitching him on coming to Seattle and playing an MLS with some players. That's very explicit. And they'll tell you the other players, they're a little bit more hidden. I think you saw in his press conference today, well-spoken.
00:27:55
Speaker
not afraid of his opinion, but well thought out. So was an exit spoken of? Sure. I mean, superficially, aesthetically, we discussed what his goals are. You know, I can confidently tell you, and I've told you guys off the record, so there's no reason I shouldn't say this again, is if I talk to a 22, 23-year-old player from South America who tells me,
00:28:26
Speaker
I want to play in Seattle, Tom 35. I promise you, we're not having a press conference. Same sign them. Right. And that's not a shot at us. We are a high caliber, high performing organization. That's going to continue to pursue championships, but ambition is ambition. And if you can't see beyond where you are, that limits you. Right. And, and so that, that part for me has to be part of the conversation was a specifically
00:28:53
Speaker
with Pedro, there was no specific. It wasn't like, I want to play here in two, three years. No, but this was not a situation of like in two years. It's one of my questions. One of my questions when I sit down with the players, what do you want? What do you want out of this adventure? This is soccer. This isn't
00:29:14
Speaker
You're not taking an executive role that you can see the, you know, the retirement package in 35 years is going to look like X and Baba. No, you have this many years. If you're lucky to accomplish a dream. And what is that dream? The next dream for him was to play here. And until that next step is defined, it's hard to speculate too far because there's so many great clubs in the world. There's so many great leagues in the world. We fit into some of these categories.
00:29:44
Speaker
That's why he's here. We're not the only ones. And we have to respect that too. So to your point, like, gotta talk about it. You have to.
00:29:54
Speaker
but after we talk about winning championships here. Right. And I think that's the key part there. And we've talked about this specific topic in the past because there are teams that buy players when they intend to sell them. You're buying players when they intend to win here, whether he goes somewhere else and he is so good that you decide to sell them, then that's separate. Is that accurate of what you've told me in the past? Yeah. Because you said something a little bit more explicit, but you know. No, that's accurate. Look, when
00:30:24
Speaker
When I'm called into or onto the ownership calls, I never want to sugarcoat anything. Those are the owners of our franchise. Those are the owners of our vision. And the owner's vision, when I speak to them collectively, when I speak to Adrian individually, when I speak to Hugh Weber, you know, when we meet, the goal is to win championships here. That's it. If that player doesn't help us win a championship, we shouldn't pursue him.
00:30:55
Speaker
All of these other ancillary aspects, they're coming. They're coming whether we like it or not. Because if we do what we're setting out to do, we're going to attract a lot of attention. Because our league is legit now. We're watched all over the world now. We're scouted all over the world. And OK, people can argue about transfers and what's in and what's out. But it's coming. The momentum is there. It's not going away. It's the way it goes. Next year, we play in the Club World Cup. And if these boys have two or three good games in that,
00:31:26
Speaker
There's no better exposure.
00:32:24
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!