Issa Tall

It could be worse.

I went scorched earth on this podcast a couple weeks ago about Laurent Courtois and Issa Tal.

And since then, they've balled out.

Like, somehow they...

And we talked about it on previous episodes, Morgan.

Folks were calling for Issa's head, Issa Tal, the GM of the crew.

And I was saying, and you were agreeing with me, which is rare, but just give it a minute here.

Yeah.

And what was so special about tonight is that we had two who got it.

You know, what Columbus has done over the past 30 years, more than 30 years now, because they were the first club officially to sort of raise the level constantly of – the league but also fan engagement and authenticity um and then obviously 10 years ago now save the crew maybe nine or eight either way save the crew was like a landmark moment in the history of mls and so this is a club yeah that means something culturally in this town and in this country and st louis for all the reasons you enumerated um Has meant so much to American soccer over the years and everybody that we've talked to, whether it's Tim Bespachenko and Issa Tall and Corey Ray has talked about why the Open Cup means so much and you end up here with two teams that aren't here by accident.

They're here on purpose and they're putting everything they can into this.

And the fan bases, I think, recognize that.

And Columbus has been one of those.

So it's been really fun this week.

As I said, we sat down with Issa Tall.

We sat down with a couple of players, some legends, Darlington Nagby, Dante Washington.

And he did, he gets this job.

And the DNA between these two teams with those two architects, because what Corey Ray's built in the infrastructure of the club, beyond all of the obvious signings and everything for the team, what Demay has done, obviously on the field tactically, what they have done in terms of their culture, it's a lot of the positive that they did together in Columbus with under Tim Bezbachenko, with Wilfred Nancy, Issa Tall, Neil McInnes, Mark Nichols, all of the other people that were at the club.

there is just such a direct line between these two clubs.

And covering League's Cup final, MLS Cup, in that era, you talk to any of those guys I just named, and the architects of the on-field style, the culture, everything else, in a non-arrogant way, in just a confident way, to a man, they would say...

But, no, I mean, I'm hoping.

I mean, even if we don't, I think just trying to get the basics back together of going from Henrik Rudström and then letting him go before the World Cup break and bringing in Courtois as the interim, trying to get back to those basics of soccer and how Issa Tall and them want the team to play, I think maybe could be a good push for us, but I don't think it's going to happen.

mean i've seen crazier things it's mls

well and okay i was gonna say i was just gonna mention oh well i was just gonna mention just real quickly in terms of like your schedule okay well let's get into cincinnati because cincinnati's sitting a little bit higher uh in regards to the standings uh like i guess you know what they