This Is Silly with the Louligans!

There was some more quality players signed over the holiday break, and we’re excited to see the roster taking shape.  “Cautiously optimistic” seems to be the running theme of the pod but it’s getting harder and harder to not get excited by the way it’s fleshing out.

We run down the signed players and how the team shapes up on the field lineup wise.  We discuss the current status of the conferences and teams, how we sit in it, and look at the projected release dates of the schedule.  As always, we take your comments and have a thorough discussion on what the options are with some players returning.

Keep that New Year’s resolution, and listen to the pod again and again, starting now.

The first Louligan Player of the Year, Sam Fink, is back from his excursions to Oklahoma and is back on the pod!

Sam talks about what it’s like to be in the playoffs.  We were in awe, as that’s a story we’ve never been able to tell.

We also talk about the bottle throwing incident with Reno, what he learned from Jimmy Nielsen in OKC, and what he’s gotten from Anthony Pulis about which direction the team is headed this year.

Enjoy this Christmas miracle!

After Thanksgiving, we have a lot to be thankful for.

A new coach.

A front office that wants to put the best team out there.

A stable league.

We discuss the hire of Anthony Pulis a week later, the ongoing USSF/NASL debacle, and what to look for in the upcoming weeks when rosters start taking shape.

Plus the upcoming Louligan events…the busy offseason keeps rolling!

 

We get to sit down with Anthony Pulis, new manager of Saint Louis FC.

After talking with him, on and off mic, this is a top notch man.  Not only a relatable, personable person…but knows what’s in front of him, what the opportunity means, and what the city and fans are expecting.

The proof will be on the pitch, but his record as a player and two years with Orlando City B have shown that he knows what it takes to compete and build a competitive franchise.  It was hard to temper expectations, but I don’t think you’ll meet a coach that understands that better and is more prepared for the challenges ahead.  The word he kept coming back to was “accountability”: not just for the players but for himself as well.

We also sit down with Pat Barry, Jeremy Alumbaugh, and Tom Strunk to get their takes on the process and their expectations on the upcoming season.

Special thanks to Fred for saving my ass with an adapter to make this happen.  Man among boys, that one is.

 

No more hardware issues…but no STLFC news either.  Luckily, the rest of the league, USSF, NASL, and the courts have been busy so we’ve got plenty to talk about.

It seems like every week there’s more news about the NASL’s slow demise, new teams coming into USL, and just who will be the next USSF president.  Hint: it’s not Brad.

We’re glad to be back, even though we don’t like the USL Final teams.  Let’s not talk about that, k?

No changes at STLFC yet, but plenty going around the league.

The D2/D3 story heats up, MLS 2 teams reported to be folding, and US soccer is a giant mess of epic proportions.

We rapid fire down the line of news, so stop reading and get to listening!

…so we’re not going to talk about the results saturday on the field.  Especially since Matthew Bird is not here tonight.

We will talk about how great the Charity Du Jour has done, the potential moves in the offseason, and we discuss your 140 character statements after the last home game this season.

We promise we’re not as miserable as we were the last time Bird was gone.  It’s almost worth listening to.

We took a week off because we were so pissed at the results against Cincy.

It didn’t get any better against Harrisburg.

With two games to go, the season is over…so we start looking at what will happen during the offseason.  This will be a recurring theme over the next few months.  The primary question: Preki out or gets a second chance?

It’s not all doom and gloom…we’re gonna party on saturday.  We’re hoping to hit $20,000 in Charity Du Jour this season if saturday goes well.  And it’s Full Kit Wanker day.  That can’t be a bad thing.

Your therapy session starts….now.

That’s silly.  The two are not related at all.

But they are topics this week.  We discuss the game against Orlando City B, the workman-like efforts, and the rise of Ryan Howe as a prominent force on the squad.

It’s all for naught if we don’t turn it around this weekend against Cincy.  We HAVE to run off two wins in a row.  That’s become a broken record, huh?

And then…we talk NASL.  Their lawsuit against USSF was announced this afternoon, and we dedicate a LOT of time to the conflicts between USSF and NASL.  It’s a good history lesson for those that are new to the conflict, and poor Bird gets battered a few times.  But it’s all good, because at the end of the day, we have leagues to care about.

 

Mitch and Brad fly without Matthew Bird on this episode, as Matt’s back in Jolly Old England.  Where he made the mistake of staying up to watch saturday’s game until 4am his time. While we’d like to say the topics and questions are new and exciting, let’s be honest: it’s been the same podcast after […]