Charlotte FC is back and kicked things off with a win!

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For the ones who get it done. There he is! It's Will Palaszczuk at Willy P Style. I must have screwed up the whole Twitter reference. At Willy P Style on Twitter, he is the voice of Charlotte FC.

Also does Panther stuff, Hornet stuff. We can talk about anything, but the soccer season begins on Saturday for you guys, so are you fully into Charlotte FC mode with NYC FC in town? I'm all in, Adam. It's very exciting anytime you get to open up a new season. Thankful and privileged once again to be with the club.

The fact that we've been telling this story since the beginning is also incredibly gratifying. I think there's a sense of newness around this club, especially with the new head coach and some of the ideas and things that he's brought to the table. And the fact that I think the biggest thing that's exciting around him is that he's recognizing a lot of the talent that has developed in the player pathway and a lot of the promotions from Crown Legacy and other things that have happened over the course of this preseason has kind of people who are connected with the club somewhat bullish about what can happen, not just this year, but for the future. So let's dig into Dean Smith, the new manager who has his roots in English football, whether it's in the championship or in the Premier League. What does Dean Smith, other than the name Dean Smith, how can you not win if your name is Dean Smith and you're coaching in the Carolinas? But what does Dean Smith bring that maybe hasn't been there before?

I would say freedom for positions. And I think that's something that last year when you looked at the way Christian LaTanzio managed the team and he had an intricate system, it was very much behind the Citigroup type model where it's possession based and you want to score beautiful goals and things of that nature. But I think a lot of what he was trying to do with the concepts that he had maybe had certain concepts that conflicted with each other, especially when you think about the way that they defended.

And I think there's maybe a more sense of a pragmatism that comes along with Dean Smith. It's not very complicated. It's get the ball, shoot and score. It's not necessarily anything more complex than that. He does have some different intricacies that he likes to follow. I think he's going to probably play with more of a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3, depending on how it looks to you out there organizationally. But I do feel like the big thing that he wants guys to have is he wants them to feel free out there. He doesn't want them to feel somewhat tied to his system.

I feel like a lot of it will be opposition dependent, but I think there will be certain principles that are followed. And one of the biggest things that I've heard him say, and I don't know if he said this to you in your conversation, but the one thing that I think encouraged me a lot was when he said, don't make a good chance better. There were so many chances last year where Charlotte FC was trying to just dribble the ball into the goal. And he says, if you see a shot, you take it because you can't score without shooting. Yeah, well that has been proven.

I think that is, we don't even need to dig into the, like Opta doesn't have to go into the analytics to come up with that. Look, the city method, you know, the beautiful football, a lot of little passes, that works if you've got a lot of players who can execute that. But when you don't, and I'm not saying that, you know, Charlotte FC doesn't have quality players, but when you don't have players to execute at that level, it's dangerous the other way. Because it's just, we see teams building out from the back all the time, and it doesn't go well, and it ends up behind your keeper.

So you have to have the right players to do that. And the other thing too that he did a lot, and you'll know this from watching them, is they inverted their fullbacks, which left them very vulnerable on the outside. Dean wants them to be a lot more traditional, keep them out wide, have width. I was really marveling at the fact that in the first preseason game that we got to see out in California, Nathan Byrne just running down the flank in a way that we would not have seen him do so last year. And I think this suits him better, it suits Jera Orenen, the left back better. Orenen's somebody who plays internationally with Finland, so he has plenty of quality, and I think he was able to adapt well, but I also feel like this is going to bring guys a lot more into their comfort zone. Players will be better utilized at their spots, I think, under Dean. And obviously, if you look at the way the preseason went, they didn't concede a goal out in California, so it proved some dividends already. It's hard to lose if you don't give up goals.

Again, we don't have to dig deep into the stats. How do you replace the goals, not just the goals, but the goal involvements of Karol Swoderski? It's going to be interesting to see what Enzo Capetti looks like this year versus last year, Adam. I think that he and Karol a lot of times tried to occupy a lot of the same space, which I think benefited Karol, and I don't think it benefited Enzo a lot. I think the injury to Enzo also got rid of a lot of the chemistry that those guys could have developed during the middle part of the season, and Karol kind of felt himself a little bit as well in thinking that, hey, you know, I was signed to be the number nine of this team.

Why can't I fit that role as well? I think Enzo is going to be somebody who is used a lot more between the boxes. That's one of the things that Dean Smith said. He said, I don't want him out there wide.

I don't want him setting things up. He's got to be our target man. I think there's still going to be some holdup play with him, but I think they want to build the offense around Enzo. I think a breakout season is definitely due for him because I think, and you look at the first goal they scored out in California, Yuri Tavares played a ball for about 10 yards short of the halfway line to Enzo running in behind. He's got the speed, the ability, and when he gets that first touch on the ball, whether it's him versus the keeper, he rarely makes mistakes. So I think he's somebody who could very easily have a double-digit goal, if not maybe even a 15-goal season, if the things break right for Charlotte.

And they also get the requisite help because the one thing that you'll notice is that they have not replaced the DPs yet, which I think is something that a lot of fans are wanting to see. And one of the things they have shown this offseason is intent. They tried to offer $10.5 million for Albert Gronback in Norway, tried to offer $12 million for Luciano Rodriguez down in South America, to no avail. So they're looking to try and add to the roster definitely, Adam, and they definitely aren't shy about trying to spend some money. You know, Jesse Lingard is still floating somewhere out there in the ether, trying to maybe play in Korea. I have no idea where, and Lingard's obviously washed at this point. Will Palaszczuk, the voice of Charlotte FC, is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. They will open up the season on Saturday at home with NYC FC. I don't know where I was going with that.

Let me ask you about this because I watched a little bit of the opener last night with Inter Miami and Real Salt Lake. And by the way, Inter, while great, does look a little bit elderly. Vulnerable is what I would say. Vulnerable.

Elderly is where I'm going to stick with that. How does the league, especially this year, how does it become more than Lionel Messi? You can count on access to a committed team ready to go the extra mile for you.

Call clickgranger.com or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. I think it starts with just how the success goes. Just because I think one of the things I think we're going to see is that I don't know if Inter Miami is going to find themselves always at the top of the table. And I think there are going to be statement matches anytime Inter Miami plays against a team that is in the top half of the table. But I also feel like, unless they go out and just completely run roughshod over the rest of this league, I think there are going to be other stories that come to the forefront. And I don't know if we necessarily got it last year because so much of the attention was around Messi and it was still such a novelty. There is going to be a part-time in this season, I'm sure, where he's not necessarily playing 90 minutes every game or Inter Miami is not at the top of the table.

And there will be other storylines that are forced to the forefront. And the other thing, too, we haven't seen yet, Adam, and maybe this happens in the summer, is there is going to be another player who comes to play for a team that's not Inter Miami because they want to play in the same league as Lionel Messi is and they want that attention. So I still think that there's something still to come with that and I think if Major League Soccer is smart, they will make sure that the narrative doesn't consistently say we're Lionel Messi's league and that's it. And it's even something that Don Garber said, he said, you know what, it's not smart for those of us who write and talk about the sport in this league to be having Messi be the constant focus. There are other stories in this league that are prevailing and Columbus winning the title last year is part and parcel of that. They are one of the, you know, original teams that has come in and built themselves around a player pathway and a franchise and a brand-new renewed head coach.

But those are the stories that are definitely, I think, going to rise to the top, especially. Well, we're going to talk about something else that Don Garber said, the commissioner of MLS in just a second. Will Palaszczuk is joining us, voice of Charlotte FC, because it can be, you know, Messi is the son that the entire league revolves around. But I was looking at the Opter rankings, second reference to that today, and MLS ranks 15th in the world, which people will go, well, that's terrible.

Actually, that's not bad when you consider some of the leagues that it is ranked ahead of, and I think that's very cool. And hopefully this will, you know, Messi will attract some more good players because we know there are a lot of good young players in this league. But if they can get more, attract more players from, say, South America to come here, because theoretically there should be a lot of money in this league to offer some of these players.

No? There definitely is. And like I mentioned, the optics around the move that Charlotte FC tried to make with Luciano Rodriguez, the number that was reported was somewhere around $12 million from a transfer fee standpoint. That'd be top five for incoming transfers in the entire league. So and then that obviously includes Lionel Messi's, which obviously was a deal that was much more complicated than just money going to overseas to make that happen. So the fact is, is that there is obviously an appetite for people to want to come to this league and not just to do so from a I'm trying to get the last paycheck of my career standpoint.

There's ascending talent that's coming here. Look at Atlantia United and Thiago Almada. He's playing for the world champions. And this league, you mentioned where they stand across the across the world. This league will turn 30 when the World Cup comes to America in 2026. And I think that if you could tell the folks who started this league in 1996 that it'd be a top 15 league in the up the rankings by the time they turn 30 and get the next World Cup in here. I think they would take it. But I also feel like just from the Apple deal itself, I know that domestically it takes some flack from people, but it makes the product available worldwide and it makes every match available without blackouts.

So that's the part of it that I feel like, again, it's more of a global reach than what the deals might have been, say, a year or two years, three years ago. Well, Palaszczuk is joining us here real quick, your level of, oh, trepidation over replacement referees or scab referees as we have this this dispute between the referees association and the league over compensation and other factors, because we're going to have who knows? I mean, we could have college referees. We could have referees from I mean, who knows?

League two in the EFL system working MLS matches. Don Garber said it was about player safety. Not really. To me, it's about bad decisions causing poor results. Isn't it about that?

Well, that's the thing. It just it turns it in with talking point and every decision now, if it wasn't wasn't already micro analyzed, it'll be even more so micro analyzed. And as a result of of this scenario and look, we had it happen in the NFL a couple of years ago and you saw what happened. And I think I hope that there isn't some inciting incident that causes a deal to be made, because I think, you know, having labor peace with the referees is the best thing that the league can possibly have happened. But I think from the from the standpoint referees, they want better security.

And from the standpoint of the league, they they want to try and give what they feel is a fair deal. And I hope it doesn't turn into a talking point with us in week one. But, you know, I felt like even last night I'm watching and saying, oh, we know would that have been called a penalty? You know, when with regular referees, it just it draws that comparison that I don't think anybody who is involved with the league wants to see. Yeah, I don't believe they used VAR last night because of the new referees. They also didn't implement the let's speed up the when you're bringing on, you know, substitutes that we didn't speed that up.

There's supposed to be a time limit as to how much you have in order to get players on and off. So, yeah, we're going to have to it's going to be an interesting part of the season. Hopefully there won't be a fail, Mary, like there was that cost the outcome of a game. I'm glad I'm glad you referenced that, too, because that was that was what I was talking around and referencing that being ever again. I'm hoping that I'm hoping there isn't something of that nature that takes place where it's either a penalty or something involving dogs. So or, you know, trying to figure out something where somebody is unfortunately under their debt.

Well, plastic Willy P style on Twitter. My man, I appreciate your time. Good luck. Have a good time with NYC FC in town on Saturday. And we'll talk to you again very soon. We've got to get you and Victoria out to a game, Adam.

We can't wait to see you. I need a kit. I'll make it happen. Thanks. I do. I need a kit. I know we we should go. I think we would have fun.

Look, it's cool. I like Dean Smith as a appointee, as manager for the ones who work hard to ensure their crew can always go the extra mile and the ones who get in early so everyone can go home on time. There's Granger offering professional grade supplies backed by product experts so you can quickly and easily find what you need.

Plus, you can count on access to a committed team ready to go the extra mile for you. Call click Granger dot com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.