Phoenix Rising FC

Um, do we have any other things that we wanna touch on, too, um, with this episode of the show?

Briefly, briefly, New Mexico, uh, I think a big win for them to get back on track against Phoenix Rising, a game where we really see them manipulate the Phoenix press in a way that I came away pretty impressed with.

No Jamil Lienn in, in the lineup.

I think he might be suspended from a card.

So.

Sure.

I think if you go to backfield.com, and there's 25 of these every week, John does a great job, the first two sentences of the Phoenix Rising write-up are rather indicating if and when Phoenix Rising miss the playoffs, it will be a total and complete failure for this organization.

This team is remarkably talented, and they flash that talent every single week, and they really do flash that talent every single week.

Nominees are out, even though we pretty much know who it's going to be.

And then we'll break down all the action that transpired this weekend, including New Mexico against Phoenix, which I was watching even late into last night.

Only on, like, six hours of sleep, just because there was so much going on.

October is the hottest month of soccer in the United States, without a doubt, from just what's gonna happen postseason playoffs and add in the USL Cup as well.

I wouldn't be too concerned, though, if you are a Las Vegas fan because it's very tight, as we know, in the Western Conference.

Only one team has been officially eliminated from the Western Conference in terms of the playoff push, and that's Monterey Bay.

Plus, when you're Las Vegas, looking at the result that happened last night with Phoenix Rising and New Mexico, at least you have one less team on your tail.

San Antonio will certainly be happy about that too, but it's, it's very, very tight there, and Las Vegas is a team that I think has a chance to bounce back here.

And then we launched in NISA and had good success in the first two years and then eventually made our way to the USL.

I've been looking at the table whilst you were talking and there's some massive well, massive sort of towns in their cities, you know, the likes of Phoenix Rising.

Is that where Didier Drogba played?

Didier Drogba? Yeah, yeah.

And then we talk about the teams on thin ice.

Some Indy 11 versus Miami, Oakland versus Phoenix, we could add to it.

And we also had some really good encounters throughout the championship.

So as always, You know where to find me, TalkUSL Everywhere Podcast, our stream.

And yeah, we'll see what happens.

We're going to shift attention to more of the teams on thin ice.

And I had to shout out Oakland last week because it was do or die for them, for Las Vegas as well, Phoenix as well.

Because you need points right now to climb up those rankings, close the gap in the remaining games.

And then you got Orange County right below us with 25 games, 36 points.

And then out of the playoff zone, you have Phoenix Rising with 33 points, 25 games, just four points behind us.

Oh, sorry, what was that? Oh, never mind.

And then you got Las Vegas Lights, who we will be playing on a Wednesday game here after the New Mexico match.

But if we were to do that, we would actually be able to get up to 55 points.

So keep that number in mind, because that number is what tells you how high we can actually be in the table, at least here, preview to the following match.

But as far as what we need to qualify for playoffs, at least as it stands now, well, you got Phoenix, who only has five games left, which would mean 15 points.

They have 33 points right now, meaning they can actually reach 48 points.

In May, for a side that's no longer in the championship, Kelly scored a hat trick for, it's actually Dane Kelly.

He did it for Reno 1868 FC at Phoenix Rising on May 6, 2017, helping that expansion club to its first ever win.

And then in Reno's next match, he scored another hat-trick, making him the first player in the modern era to record hat-tricks in consecutive games.

And that was part of the season in which he won both the USL Golden Boot and MVP awards.

And the all-I's I probably would have to say are on Cal Jennings after coming back overseas from playing in the third division of Japanese football.

He's come back.

He played against Phoenix Rising in late August.

He got his goal as a substitute against Monterey Bay.

I did actually have a nice little sit down earlier today with...

Back Heeled founder and, of course, Phoenix Rising color commentator, Joe Lowry.

So we're going to be playing that one in full for the first half of the show.

And then when we get to the second half, I'll be talking through some of what we heard in the press conference this week as we look ahead to El Paso.

Is Max eating a shrimp pizza in Africa again? You know what? I wouldn't rule it out.

But while I go and get to the bottom of that, why don't we have a listen to that chat I had earlier today with Phoenix Rising color commentator and Back Heeled founder, Joe Lowry.

Okay, so Joe, thanks for taking the time to join today.

Hey, thanks for having me.

That makes it matter, and I think in U.S. soccer, there's not that many people that care about all these different levels of stuff.

I don't think you'd get people crying in the street after a game if Real Salt Lake lost to Phoenix Rising.

And I don't think you get many people crying tears of joy for Phoenix Rising winning that matchup.

So that's why I think it doesn't really, it wouldn't really hit the same.

And I think a lot of these people who have the take of like, it would immediately make millions of people in the US care.

Yeah.

So I became CIO in 2018, and we were just thinking through how do you get uncorrelated assets? And at the time, there's a small soccer team in Arizona called Phoenix Rising, and they participate in the USL, which isn't really the second tier in sports.

America.

It's a competing league to the MLS.

I think the average age is about 55.

So for all those reasons, they were like really positive sort of fundamental investment tailwinds for soccer and football in the UK.

So we started thinking about that and we approached the owners of Phoenix Rising thinking, look, this is an emerging league.

They had been talking about going to a promotion relegation system, which would compete directly with MLS.