Gearing up for Messi in Charlotte!

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Find your pair of tree dashers too, runners, pipers, and more at Allbirds.com. That's A-L-L-B-I-R-D-S dot com. Coming up tomorrow night, 8.30, Charlotte FC against Inter Miami in the quarterfinals of the League's Cup. I have never been more excited for an event I never even knew existed until, oh, two weeks ago. Will joins us on the Adam Gold show, at Willy P style by the way on Twitter, which is a dynamite Twitter handle. Alright, I know we'll get to the round of 16 win in a second, but holy cow, what is going through your mind as getting ready to call a game involving Lionel Messi?

I'm not going to lie to you, Adam. It is a little weird. I'm filling out my spotting boards this morning and typing his name and trying to condense his Wikipedia page, which is like 30 pages long, into a little square that's like this big. It's like, okay, what do you know, I got 15 time Argentinian Player of the Year, 8 time Ballon d'Or winner. I mean, there's so many accolades that you could go into and say with him. And honestly, it's a little surreal when you think about it.

I, for one, really never have had an event that I've called that has a player of this magnitude, so it's going to be a lot of fun. Especially the way his introduction to MLS soccer, even though this is not a league match, he may have not played a league match yet, I mean, the way it's gone, he comes on as a sub in his first match, he has scored twice in each of the last three, including a free kick that brought them even. Then he converts in penalties against the Houston Dynamo.

I mean, the whole thing has just been absolutely ridiculous. Actually, was it the Houston Dynamo? No, you guys beat the Houston Dynamo. They beat FC Dallas.

Texas teams, they all look alike to me. But what do you make of how he has just taken everything by storm? I mean, guys, maybe we should have expected it, but I don't know, this is pretty special. Well, that's the thing, Adam, I don't think anybody really thought he was going to come in here and suck, right? I mean, he is the greatest player of all time. I think that's the part of it that I think you have to kind of take with a grain of salt. And I don't like that people are taking potshots at MLS, saying, oh, well, look at this, he's making MLS look like a poverty league.

He was doing this in the World Cup, if we remember correctly, right? So it's not as if this is a situation where this is all brand new and he's just, you know, making it happen like old hat. But I do feel like the one thing that he has done is he's galvanized a side that quite honestly was dreadful. Like, they were last place in the MLS standings going into the League's Cup, and I think there's a lot of tension about whether or not they'll be able to get things together in their final 11 and 12 matches to get themselves possibly to a playoff berth. And obviously enough, they play Charlotte FC in the final make another season. So that should be very intriguing when these two teams connect back up here in the middle of October.

But I'm honestly curious to see just how they handle prosperity, because I do feel like there is a sense of, you know, inevitability with them that it comes with being on a Lionel Messi side. But you're starting to see teams push back a little bit. You know, Orlando did some a little bit, and I think Dallas also probably gave them their best fight they had. And I'm not going to sit here and say that Charlotte FC is going to 100% win, but I think they'll put some fight out for it.

And I think, you know, once you get down to this level of tournament, it does get a little difficult. Dallas was physical. Very physical with Lionel. And I mean, you probably have to be. You're not going to, I don't know, maybe you'd be dirty, but you have to be physical. It's a physical game. I'm sure you watch a lot of soccer.

I watch a ton of it. And it is a physical game. In certain leagues, it's more physical than others, but if you're not going to do that, then you're probably just going to get made fun of by Messi and his buddies, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba.

But other guys have played well, too. And Inter has really taken it to a new level. I am curious how they'd approach. Like, if they were to win this league's cup, would that be enough for them? And maybe would they just not necessarily throw Messi out constantly for every MLS match between now and the end of the season in an effort to make the playoffs?

Or is something like that worth it? I think they would still value the domestic tournament because they've got another tournament also that they're playing in two of the U.S. Open cups. So there's three different trophies they're playing for at this time, Adam. So from that aspect, I think they want to get all the glory possibly for him. I do know that there are some international windows coming up, one that precedes the game against Atlanta and one, ironically enough, that precedes the one that we will see for them in the decision day match as well. So I'm thinking they might limit him in those matches just because of the fact that he will be coming off of playing for his country in Argentina. And, of course, they'll probably try to use him as much as possible. So his minutes might be limited. But I honestly think there's an incentive to get as much time with Messi on the pitch as possible without, of course, also jeopardizing their own efforts to try and do the most they possibly can in their domestic season. Will Palaszczuk, he's the play-by-play voice of Charlotte FC, 8.30 tomorrow evening against Inter Miami down in South Florida.

I am curious about this. When it was 1-0 Dynamo, were you thinking, man, this was my chance to call a game with Messi. And then the crazy way, the equalizer in the 80th minute and then the absolute gift by Houston and made it 2-1.

Were you thinking at all about what might have been? I mean, how could you not at that point? You know, it's because of the fact that the goal came very early, came in about the 10th minute. So I'm sitting there thinking, you know, you got to get back into this game like this is your opportunity to play Messi. I know that we had two opportunities, you know, during the regular season, but there just seems to be a little bit extra on this one because it's a cup competition and because of the stakes that are with nature.

The thing about this competition, Adam, people are trying to, you know, get their arms wrapped around it. I know you were talking about it coming in in the intro. This tournament has the same prize money that an MLS cup would have. And it also has three berths to the Comp Cap Champions Cup next winter.

So from that aspect, it definitely is going to have some prestige tied to it and definitely has some stakes tied to it. So this almost feels bigger than the two regular season matchups that at least await Charlotte FC against Lionel Messi. And of course, this being the first time it happens, you know, I was sitting there in the Houston contest thinking, OK, you know, we got to get something back here because they dominated that game on the stat sheet. They just didn't have the final product. And it was a great ball from Jalen Lindsay to Patrick Ajumon, got behind the defense. Goalkeeper came out, maybe gave him a little bit of leeway there. And Ajumon made no mistake. And then you mentioned it being the gift.

I still I've watched it at least 27 times. And I still can't figure out how the heck that center back decided it was OK to pass it back to the goalkeeper because based on where the goalkeeper was, I don't know why he thought that was a good pass. But hey, you know, their misfortune is our treasure. He tucked it tucked it right in by the near post, I think. Right. It wasn't as bad as the one that was scored in the Dallas game, too, where the guy, I believe Taylor Twelman, said it was like a blood rush to the head. And I was actually texting back and forth with Jake Zivin, who does the play by play on the TV side for it. And he said, man, that was one, too, that really left the head scratching. It was almost like he was trying to score on his own goalie there.

No question. He looked like he was the intended target of the Messi cross. We're talking about Palaszczuk, the play by play voice of Charlotte FC. So goalkeeper, Christian Colina, has he approached in this one? Is he excited?

I mean, I'm sure something like this you have to be excited about. He definitely is. And I think, you know, we talked with him a little bit on Thursday after the penalty shootout victory over Cruz Azul. It was very cool to see him get three penalty saves in that contest.

He had two earlier on. The unique nature of this tournament is that after 90 minutes, it goes straight to penalties. So that is a situation that I feel like puts a little bit different kind of flavor on this tournament. So it's a way to give you some confidence. It's unfortunate that he gave up the goal early, but I think that wasn't necessarily his fault.

But I think he salivates at something like this. And I think it'll be very interesting to see how Charlotte FC approaches it defensively. They are going to be, unfortunately, down. One of their main defenders, Nathan Byrne, who was very good in each of the last two contests. Had a big recovery run against Cruz Azul to keep that game nil-nil.

Had a couple of also great moments in the game against Houston as well. But unfortunately, yellow card suspension has him out of this one. So I'll be curious to see how Charlotte FC lines their people up. We'll get a little bit of a sense of that when we talk to Christian Montanzo later on today. Before we let Will Palaszczuk go, two very quick things. One, just in case Messi continues his streak, do you have a goal call planned? How are you going to handle that?

I'm just going to handle it organically. People have been asking me if I'm going to give Messi a little extra prop on that. It's a Charlotte FC call at the end of the day.

We want Charlotte FC to win. As much as I want to appreciate what he is, at the end of the day he is still the opposition. Far be it for me to sit here and glory on something that doesn't help our club. That's very good. But the other way is good for the resume tape.

It's just me thinking about it in that particular way. There was supposed to be a match in Miami on the 20th, but that's been pushed back because of this tournament. One of these two clubs is going to advance, so that game isn't going to be played on time. We don't know when that's going to be rescheduled. Then in October, back here in Charlotte at Bank of America Stadium, I don't know if you even want to adjust this. Is there going to be natural grass put down for that match?

They're saying there's not going to be. I find it interesting too that they actually just agreed to have the Mexican national team play in the previous weekend. They're taking on Ghana as part of their international friendly series. Mexico actually agreed to play on turf as well. I think the intonation from Charlotte has always been they want to play the game against Messi on turf. He's not said anything expressly about not wanting to play on turf. I think this is all something that's coming from potentially the commissioner's office.

The commissioner has made it very clear he's not a fan of multi-use facilities and not necessarily a fan of turf. I think it's more of maybe his own agenda pushing somewhat, so to speak. I'm not going to try to put words in the commissioner's mouth, but it doesn't necessarily come from Messi directly.

He doesn't really do a lot of media, so he hasn't really addressed it particularly in that sense. At least from the standpoint of where I'm sitting, I think it's going to be turf. They're expecting Messi to play, so I'll be surprised if it doesn't happen that way. Messi's too busy shopping at Publix.

That's all we know. Also, he's a showman too. I don't think he's going to want to necessarily let down the fans who paid upwards of $500 to go see him like that. I don't think he's that kind of guy. My favorite thing about this whole experience has been it just seems like Lionel Messi is having a ton of fun doing what he is doing.

He just looks like he is enjoying the process, and he is bringing a lot of joy to the game, and that's what it's all about. Also winning, Will Palaszczuk, the play-by-play voice of Charlotte FC at Willy P style on X. Thanks, man. Have a good time tomorrow night. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Adam. Always appreciate it.