Beyond Expansion: Climate Fragility and Boston Legacy's Roster Blueprint

I was talking to my friend Yara, who grew up in France and is a big soccer person. And she was like, I really hope that the, you know, soccer can break through in America. I was like, I think it has broken through. I think between the utter success of the women's national team and the lines you are seeing and the numbers that you are seeing from television this time around, yeah, I think it's going to be fine. I'm really hyped for Brazil because I feel like the audience is absolutely there. We said after the friendly, it's just the size and the nature of those crowds in São Paulo and Fortaleza tells you that like the, the CBF and, and Comet ball and the Brazilian government are like really getting behind this. Yeah. Which made sure that it will not feel like, you know, France 2019 where you could block around a host city and not know the tournament was going on. Like, it feels like it's going to be a major, major event. Hello and welcome to expected own goals smoke gets in your eyes edition. I am your host Eric Morgan and I am Evan Davis. We got a very fun episode for you this week where we are going to be drilling down into the Boston legacy, both on main feed and on Patreon as a matter of fact. And if you're not a member of Patreon yet, we've got a discount code in our show notes. Use that to get up to 16% off either a new membership or if you want to upgrade your current membership to our higher tier, use the special code upgrade in the show notes to do so. We're going to talk about the Boston legacy from the perspective of building a team from the bottom up from nothing to 26 players with their director of recruitment Edward Gallagher today on main feed, which is awesome. And on Patreon, we'll be discussing the similar process, but even on a more granular level with legacy's director of data analytics, Jordan Kaplan, who was also awesome. So look forward to both of those conversations. But first, we're going to do just a very, very quick run around the league for anything interesting or special that happened starting with one of the biggest occasions in NWSL history that probably shouldn't have happened. The Queen's Classics that he field. First off, God bless Roslabel, because that game bar her moment of genuine genius with one of the better goals you'll see this year, including a nutmeg and a shipping of a keeper. That game with its 17 hydration breaks was, you know, a real disregarding of sort of the health and safety standards that the NWSL, again, purports to care about. And I get it. They're in a tough position to like, you've got 40,000 fans in Queens and a TV slot and the weather doesn't agree. But still, I don't know, that game probably shouldn't have been played all the time. Fear is a point at which, I mean, this is, this is pandemic thinking, right? Yeah. Doesn't matter like what danger you pose to your population, money has to be made, prestige has to be bestowed upon, and therefore we must push ahead. Now the league's, you know, cop out will be that, well, according to our standards, if the AQI is between 150 and 199, then four hydration breaks throughout the game allows us to let the game occur. And they reported at first whistle an AQI of 171. Here's the problem. Every AQI reading I saw in the hours leading up to and including first whistle had that above 200 in the general area of flushing Queens. So maybe you got lucky there with your one reading that got you through or you are just cherry picking data to allow this to happen. But Trinity Robin said it best in the press conference after the game, we shouldn't have played. Al Hirsch felt said that she felt pretty bad the next day in terms of her respiratory systems. So it looked terrible on camera and not just because everybody kept avoiding the right flank because that's where the grass was covering the infield dirt, but also because you can't breathe. Yeah. I'll say this. If my LA adult recreational sports league refuses to play at that AQI, professional athletes should not be playing at that AQI. And it's really as simple as that. If you've ever tried to go running in that in that kind of weather, you understand this sort of like the burn performing any task in that kind of environment, you know, including the pregame shoulder programming. It took until the 10th minute of the game for anybody on the ABC ESPN broadcast to acknowledge what was going on in the sky. Yeah. You know, you have long argued that maybe we need to switch to a winter schedule. And I will say that the realities of these fires suggest that like there is no actual salvation here coming. This is the climate crisis we have as a collective civilization and largely some billionaires. But we have crafted for ourselves where like summer months will run a foul of fires and extreme heat. And winter months will have things like a polar vortex after the last couple of weeks I've shifted from saying, no, they should keep their summer schedule to I think maybe we just need an aperture across a situation where where the season is like to stay like even if you want to just call it a single title where the season has like distinct breaks. Yeah. I think that's probably the only way to figure out how to balance everything. But sadly, I don't think that's ever going to happen and yet this is now the third season of the last four where some extreme weather event has either postponed a match or should have had a match postponed three seasons of the last four. And I don't think a rip as you say a reprieve is forthcoming in 2027 or 2028 or 2029. This is going to keep happening. And if there are any even medium term effects like if Hal Hirschfeld and Trinity Rodman like can't play the stretch run of the season because they're just have respiratory illnesses that they can't shake, then the union had better start rattling the saber again because this is unacceptable. And to stick with Gotham, you sort of had the two ends of the spectrum this week, even with all of the weather stuff aside, you have a venue and a crowd that befits what the league would like to be. And then on the weekend, you have a different weather problem, but in front of a stadium that should be by no means ever be hosting professional sports at Icon Stadium. And you went from having 40,000 to having 4,000 in change at that game at the weekend. And by the way, the rain did not fix the AQI in New York City that day. Oh, of course not. That's not how it's yet. It's not exactly how that works. Yeah, but that game was delayed two and a half hours and played in horrendous conditions. And you know what? Gotham showed that they are battle tested, not against not just against the league, but against the earth. This week, grabbing six points and moving to the top of the table where they what share top table rights with Washington, it's gold differential that separates them. Yeah. This does feel like the better teams in the league are sort of finally establishing themselves. Well, you know, more shared in during a broadcast said that every year we've had a summer break since 2023. There's always some team coming out of that break that it manages to work their way up the table and make the playoffs. And she's right once about Angel City in 2023 doing that. But by the time we came out of the summer breaks in 2024 and 2025, the teams in the top eight were the teams that went to the playoffs. So you know, this year is different potentially with the four extra games and the two expansion sides. You know, there are more games to be played after the break than there have been in the last couple of years. So maybe that changes things as well. But up to now, you're 33% right, Mora. Yeah, they're right. It does, it does to me when I look at the table now with your playoff teams, Washington, Gotham, San Diego, Portland, Utah, Kansas City, Angel City, North Carolina, it feels like we're looking at probably no less than six of those being like playoff teams and quite possibly more than that. Maybe there are two teams that are even going to have an opportunity to break through. Like Orlando and Denver, the only ones who feel to me anyway. And unfortunately, I haven't checked the projections. But like the projections have been kind of telling this story the whole way through. I mean, they're the only shift between the projections and what the table looks like is that Orlando makes it and Angel City doesn't. But right now, Orlando and Angel City are separated by two points and Angel City have two games in hand. So what does that ultimately mean by the end of the year? Don't know. So yeah, I mean, I don't see a surge coming from BFC, despite how much they took apart North Carolina from first whistle was honestly, you know, somebody in our Patreon said, finally, they're going to be forced to say something nice about BFC on the show. And like, well, this is the first time they've earned it. Having watched the BFC game, I think the thing that they did that was really smart is they played basically route one football against a North Carolina team that was trying to exert a fair amount of pressure. And they just broke multiple times and they, you know, they used Carly Lima's speed. They used speed and counter attacking to really break that game wide open. It's kind of too fast breaking goals that are their first two goals of this game. And at that point, they're allowed to sort of sit back and it's sort of the optimal with their lineup BFC game. And it's now the second week in a row that North Carolina has had to come from behind and the only moment where they've demonstrated any kind of attacking energy is when, you know, the game really is on the edge of a knife in the, in the back end of the second half. And they still only managed to produce two quality chances by the end of the, by the end of the match, you know, they got outplayed, a little, little shocking. Yeah, I think that they're obviously there was always going to be some sort of transition after the departure of Manaka Matsukubo, but you would have hoped that for them at least, it would have been a little bit smoother than this. I still think there's time. I know that people will argue that there's a replacement in line. I would not argue such a thing at this point. Let's talk a little bit about the Kansas City current in San Diego Wave. That should have been a big deal match, high tilt for playoff standing. And ultimately, Kansas City just sort of crumble and conceded remarkably high XG chance late. Do you feel like Kansas City, you know, pulled the Thomas Tucco and bunkered a little too early? I mean, yeah, maybe, but also, you know, Chihuenga grabs a goal in the 65th. So it's not like they were never pushing for a chance. And it paid off for them. I mean, it was a great goal from Chihuenga. But and I don't even know, the buyer's equalizer felt like just like a weird, like, break in concentration from, yeah, I think that's, that is, that is how it felt to me. It's a set piece goal. It's sort of on the backside of a set piece. These things just happen. Yeah. And like, I know everybody thinks that Kansas City is terrible at defending set pieces. And like the raw goals they have allowed from those have not been good. But like the XG, they allow from set peat from defending set pieces is actually quite strong. And if you want to help that, but yes, it certainly will not. But this will, this will be one of those events that like skews Kansas City's actual performance. But also, you know, this is a, this is a nutritional game. I mean, these are two of the three best teams under the hood in the league. Like, and you saw like much of the game outside of, you know, the two buyers goals and Chihuenga's goal, they canceled each other out in a lot of ways. You know, they were not able to find and exploit territory either through what San Diego likes to do, which is keep the ball and what Kansas City likes to do, which is run at you when they don't have the ball. So yeah, San Diego was fortunate that Kansas City switched off at the very last moment. It is circle back. I do think you can say that the Seattle rain got a little too defensive a little too soon. Yeah. But we're not shocked by that. Yeah. Yeah. But this was like not that surprising crazy game, Angel City, continue their winning ways. Another game that probably shouldn't have happened. Correct. Put on and I was like, wow, what a beautiful sunset. Look at this. Oh, wait. Yeah. It's air particulate. Yeah. That said, this was another performance from Angel City. And again, granted it's the Chicago stars with bad weather. But where Angel City is sort of like putting together something, this new manager bounce does just feel like someone benefiting from the numbers regressing to the mean. I agree. Yeah, especially when a lot of hay has been made about three straight results, three straight clean sheets. And you know, you guys won your first three games of the season as well. Like, you know, as we always talk about like the shape of the distribution of results. There's always one or two teams where it looks pretty extreme because wins and losses end up getting clustered. But by the end of the year, you're still probably at best in eight seed. And you might not make the playoffs either. So like the Alex Strauss was not the problem. And Lafstrom Airroad is eventually going to start losing games. So it was a great performance, but it was against Chicago in a horrible weather. So let's let's temper our expectations. I do think to Angel City's credit, the performances against Orlando and Chicago would both been solid, but they lost the XG battle against San Diego and shipped over to XG. So there's that. We'll wait and see. Now they get racing Louisville this weekend. So yeah, maybe this trend will be fighting a little bit harder next week, but there we go. Speaking of Louisville. I mean, a game where they actually played well and lost. Now again, the answer is played well and they drew, but yes, sorry, sorry. They played well and drew. But that equalizer came at the absolute death. So it might feel like a loss. But they played really well. Granity was at home against Houston, but you know, same old Louisville problems, conceding late and not shutting the game down. Yeah. It's a it's it's really unfortunate. And then the Denver Summit grabbed three points against Portland. I saw something that Jeff Kassouf posted the other day and I was like, we just need to agree on the cropped the Schross. Just it's just just how it's spelled. Schross. I don't like the sound of cropped. That does not hear my. No, the cropped is bad, but I think the Schross should it be SC each are O SS or no C. I think it should be no C. No C because the C interrupts the SH of the word shot. So that makes no sense. Yeah. So the Schross. Yeah. You take the penalty out. And this was another kind of soft performance from Portland and pretty offensively anemic, which is the other. It's actually kind of the big problem that like you know how frail their defense can be, but when you're defending a one goal lead, albeit on the road, like how are you not generating more attacking, verb, you know, especially because like Denver can be defensively frail themselves, but they got thoroughly up late. Yeah. Jesse Fleming was extended this week. A player that I think probably splits opinion at this point between, you know, what we see with our eyes and what the numbers say. And you know, Mishdod really does need to be a difference maker because Portland is pretty threadbare in that midfield and you're starting to see it really affecting their attack. You're informed actually by a Dutch listener that it's pronounced Nishdod. Nishdod. Yeah. So we got to catch ourselves with that one. Speaking of extraordinary defensive performances, let's talk about Utah or Lando. Yeah. Is it an extraordinary defensive performance or is it incredibly anemic or Lando team because I think the answer is yes. Well, I mean, when you have Barbara band in your lineup, like Barbara band was held to zero shots in the first half. That has never happened in a game that she has started in this league ever. Yeah, that's crazy. You got to, you got to tip your hat to that. I think what it demonstrates is that like you put all of your defensive energy or defensive focus on Banda to keep her quiet and she only ended up with what one shot, two shots and only one of them was a quality chance. Like if you do that, Orlando ain't going to give you anything else. Yeah. I think that Utah successfully executed and again, this is a team in Orlando that had to travel cross country midweek to play a game in elevation. Yeah. So it was sure this was a tough task to begin with, but I think yeah, but they rotated and I feel like Utah really understood. They sort of, they approached the game with we're going to take Banda out of the equation. You figure out how to beat us otherwise in Orlando, you know, I think that is the playbook for everyone else at this point to beat Orlando. Like you take Banda out of the game and you see what Orlando can generate and against Utah on short rest. It was not much alarmingly not much. I also feel like Kate Delphaba and Ted and Melanza, the roomie's been so good for Utah. I really feel like Utah continue to play within themselves in really smart ways and the results, you know, are following it. It does feel like are they the best team in the league? No. Are they a playoff team? Yeah. We've felt that way for a while and this result does nothing to dispel that notion at this point. Yeah. They're what tied for fourth on expected points per game right now, like they're legit. Yeah. Absolutely. They're just straight up legit. And maybe we own the own goal on that. I think at this point, we can say that we, I feel like we've been, I think we've been quite tempered in our analysis in that like it's a, it's a wildly successful year because they're going to make the playoffs. We just don't think they're shield contenders. And I think that is trading that. Yeah. I mean, from our preseason feel about them. Oh, sure. From early on. They make playoffs. Nobody. Yeah. They have, if you were worried about, you know, I think there's a narrative about them that like they can't put together a complete season, this game is a result that stands in opposition to that. This is. It helps. This is one of the better results that they've had all season. Yeah. But let's quickly discuss our main topic of conversation, the Boston legacy, who strung together three consecutive results coming out of the summer break, two consecutive wins, including one against Orlando, midweek, and then kind of crashed against the rocks of reality a little bit against Washington, although didn't perform terribly against Washington on the weekend, either. But you know, Washington, despite heavy rotation, still had some pretty key pieces in the starting 11 and looked gassed and had even more of a legitimate reason to look gassed because of the air that they were sucking into their lungs on Wednesday. Yeah. So they punched Boston in the mouth really quickly in the first half and then Boston kind of scraped their way back into the game late in the second and just kind of wasn't enough. Yeah. It was a little, it was too little too late, but also I think that, you know, taking in total the Washington spirit or the best team in the league, the Boston legacy really did sort of ask questions after conceding to early. This is, look, they've got seven points from four fixtures coming out of the summer break. I think that this is a Boston legacy team that can feel like they are heading in the right direction, but yeah, sometimes, you know, against the class of the league, you're just going to lose. So I, you know, what Boston does against Washington matters a lot less to me than like what Boston does against Orlando, which was actually not a particularly good performance either, but a result that they grabbed that said they're grabbing, you know, they're grabbing points. They're headed in the right direction. This is not the team that started this season with five straight losses in the same way. What it feels like is what moving in the right direction means is that they're just getting some positive regression. Yeah. And what you'll hear, I think definitely from Jordan on Patreon, but I think also from Edward as well, is that like big parts of their jobs that first month, month and a half of the season was basically telling everybody to not to worry that what you're doing well are is meaningful and sustainable and we'll start showing up in the results and they're still plenty to work on, but it is not the disaster that it might appear to be. And that's probably one of the most important things that data informed staff members of front offices can do for clubs and situations like that. It's what maybe Mark Parsons didn't do in the case of firing Alex Strauss, which is disappointing, although we can't say that for sure, but it is what Boston did and lo and behold, the results started catching up to the performances. This team, as you'll hear from from both Edward and Jordan, you know, was literally designed from scratch with limited experience in this league. And the fact that, you know, you look at under the hood and they are 10th, there are six other teams in this league with all the structural advantages that they had that came into this season and have been worse than the Boston legacy. So I think in and of itself, that's a, that's a real accomplishment for this team, even if their own ambition is higher than that. But if they can play under the hood like a just below the playoff line team, given all of the obstacles that they faced in building this roster, then that, that bodes, potentially bodes well for them long term. All right. Right now, we've got Denver 14 games played 19 points, a lot of home games left to get Boston 16 games played 16 points, which team is likely to make the playoffs for you. I think this year I would give it to Denver. They've been a little bit better on the underlying metrics up to this point. And the schedule is just so much softer because they have so many home games and Boston's the reverse where like they loaded their home games up early in the year. And now we're going to be on the road a lot, especially after we get past this pocket window in a week or two. So I think for 2026, Denver's got the better shot. Yeah. But you know, as you will hear from Edward coming up, they still feel like playoffs should be a target for them. They felt it in preseason and that's something they're still shooting for. So we'll see if they can make up that ground. Well, in a conversation with Edward Gallagher, the director of recruitment for the Boston legacy. The NWSL is certainly no stranger to expansion and the trials and tribulations of building a roster in an expansion environment. But our guest today had to do something that basically no team has ever had to do before in this league, which is build a roster from the ground up with absolutely no help from anybody else, not an easy task. But we are beginning to see the fruits of that labor bearer in the 2026 season with the Boston legacy and joining us to talk about how he has gone about his job in building that roster is the director of recruitment for Boston legacy FC. Mr. Edward Gallagher, Edward, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me on. I appreciate it. Well, we're really thrilled to have you. First and foremost, you moved your way into the industry of women's football, basically right out of university if I'm not mistaken. What compelled you to work on this side of the ledger as it were coming out of uni? Yeah, like I played when I was younger and then started coaching really young, so started coaching at sort of 16, 17 and my last year at university I got the opportunity to win to Rangers who are one of the big two clubs in Scotland and that was to work with the women's team and at that point I didn't see it as women's soccer and men's soccer. I've just seen it and opportunity to work at a really big club. Being honest, I probably wasn't good enough to be working at that level at that minute in time and just where the women's game was at all those years ago, like there was opportunities for people that were willing to come into the game and I got the chance to work with some top players, some top coaches, international level players, yeah, when I was only 20, 21 and really from there that was my introduction to it and I've been in it ever since we're sort of, yeah, 13 years later, a few countries later, a couple of moves, different clubs and yeah, still enjoying it every day. So you start out as a coach, then you move toward scouting talent identification, it's been a brief period as the sporting director for London City Lionesses for a couple of years. Can you talk about why that transition made sense for you to move from coaching to scouting and talent identification and what skills as a coach lend themselves really well to talent ID scouting? The role that gave me that opportunity was when I was the academy director at Celtic where I was on the grass, I was still coaching, I was the head coach of the B team there, but we had to totally revamp the academy, so the academy wasn't in a great space, we had to own a group of players from youth 12s all the way through to sort of youth 23 and well being on the grass, I quickly realised that I had to go and sign all these players as the the academy director and yeah, from that position like we had to pitch to parents, to players, the agents trying persuade these younger kids to come to our academy, there was a lot of late nights, a lot of visits to the training ground, a lot of visits to the stadium and that was really my sort of first inroads into the recruitment world in terms of putting presentations together, explaining to players why this was the better route than potentially rangers, a Glasgow City or our hubs we're offering and where the coaching came in handy for that was because there was no money involved for those players, it was never a financial decision, it was solely a development decision, it's coming from the grass and knowing the game and understanding the game, I was hopeful able to pitch that like this is the right place for you from a football perspective and really get an opportunity to learn in a little bit of a more stress-free environment where the results weren't the main thing, it was about development at that youth level, so I got a chance to have that trial and error and see what worked from our recruitment perspective and yeah, during my three and a half years we probably signed nearly a hundred players across the academy, so got a lot of experience of those recruitment processes and also those retain processes as well. Brighton Hove Albion is where you officially got the label of recruitment staffer as a recruitment manager for a couple of years, this is sort of the time when Brighton became a force to be reckoned with for a quote non-top four club in the WSL. What were you attempting to do, what was your brief in that environment to try and build Brighton into a team that if maybe you're not challenging for the Champions League every single year can be a pretty competitive entity in a league where you know it can often be pretty open below those top four slots. Yeah, I think first of all Brighton is a fantastic club from top to men's women's academy and the people that involved in the club across the football club is yeah, second to none and I think just having that type of environment always meant that there was going to be success there because there's just some really good people behind the scenes that comes from the top down, so from Tony Bloom the owner through to the the men's technical directors David Weir in Mike Cave, there was just that transparent belief doesn't matter if it's men's football or women's football where we want to compete and the resources there to go and do it. Of course when you're competing for players against an Arsenal or a Chelsea they're always going to get the the cream of the crop but what we wanted to do was be in a position where we could be the best of the rest and try and compete for that sort of top four and try and yeah break into that sort of elite bracket and that support was there, that support was there from ownership from recruitment facilities coach and higher like there really was that that willingness from everybody to go and compete towards the top level and yeah the facilities at the football club had was was fantastic so again that made my job really easy when we were bringing players from abroad for their visit yeah once they committed that building you didn't have to say much they had everything that they could possibly need to go in and compete and that was the the starting point and as I said when you then add the people on top of that then it really creates an environment that yes since I've left they've continued to go from strength to strength like got to a cup final this year and I think I've been to lots of clubs and yes I'll speak to some people but most of the staff at Brighton I still speak to on a on a daily basis like that's how good the connection was there and yeah I'm so happy to see that they're continuing to go from strength to strength and I'm sure on the Dario this year that they'll go and try and push again so you're at this really wonderful place early in your career already at Brighton why Boston what is the appeal of moving to the NWSL from England yeah like I think I was in a position where I was in a position of power where I was in a really good place I was really enjoying my job there was a long time project there yeah we had to buy in and support from from ownership there was a few NWSL teams that had reached out about different projects over here and and the opportunity to potentially come to the to the US like Dominine I knew each other a little bit from before we had done a transaction so there was a small relationship there but not enough that the day he came any picked up the phone and said he want to come come with but when that call did come like the opportunity to come to an expansion team to go and build a team from from zero at the top level like that opportunity just doesn't come up at all nevermind very often I think there's not many people that will get to in their career going sign 25 26 players and really and really see how good you are I think that was the test of like like at London City I had done a good job where I took a team from mid table to second at Brighton we went from 11th to 5th but it was like look can you go and do that from from zero can you go and put a squad together that can really go and be competitive so there was that aspect but again sum up to Brighton like the first thing I looked into was the ownership like how how supportive of the owners how how much were they willing to back it not only financially but from a time and yes sort of that that buy-in infrastructure of like they really want to support this long long term and then the last part was the city I did a lot of research into Boston as a as a place and a location and one was it somewhere I wanted to live but two is it somewhere where the players are going to want to live like that was a big thing we had at London City where yes it was London City but the club's not based in London it was based on our outside of London and when we were bringing the international players in they were like yeah and around 20 minutes on the train into the place that you say that was moving to so been able to be based here in a in a major city was with key so I think when I had to do all those bits together then speaking to Domi and realizing that we've seen the game very similar in terms of how we wanted to build something out quickly it became something that you know what the opportunity is there I would I would love to to have a go at it and yeah when I was sort of 16 months in and so far it's been it's been going okay your story and what we got to witness of your compatriots during the men's world cup there must be something in the Scottish temperament that just loves greater New England area yeah I mean it was I think I was the only person that was that was still working while it was all going on here but now it was great it was great and yeah I more or less opened up my own personal hotel for that two weeks I had all my friends here stay in the water and come into the game so that was that was good to see as well and somewhere that I've now sort of called home to to see a lot of people come over and and see what I've been able to see for the last yeah 16 17 months was was great so you know that the job of sporting director slash general manager as we say it here in the States is not solely the provenance of recruitment people assume that that job title means all you're doing is recruiting players day in and day out you know that that's not true but talk about the role of either a recruitment manager Brighton but more especially as a director of recruitment with the legacy what does a director of recruitment do when they've got a GM or a sporting director above them making final decisions about a lot of these things the great thing about these roles is they're different at every club and exactly as you said the the hierarchy and the job titles might change depending on the on football club and yeah someone might be called a general manager slash sporting director in one place and call something slightly different in another environment and that then changes the the job spec I think Dom and I work very well we spend every day together we drive into the train ground in the morning we drive back together yeah we've spent spent a lot of time we see the game similar which which helps but I think we were just in such a unique environment where not only do we have to go and sign 25 players we also had to go on higher 30 members of staff as well from a head coach all the way through to player care equipment managers directors of performance that we had to do everything so the way that we structured it last year was like I took lead on the players so it was me that built out the team with dummy support in that whilst he built out the staff with me supporting him with that so we managed to get a real alignment where we both had our key areas that we were focusing on we both were running with what we had to do but there was nothing that we were bouncing off each other on a daily basis to make sure again there was that real alignment across everything that we wanted to do in terms of how I see my role whether it was a bright in our here is like I'm not a scout I'm not just someone out who's watching watching players like I very much enjoy from the long list building stage of like years 20 players that we want to look at all the way through to being the person who is still negotiating the deal at the end and being the person that says hello the day that they walk through the door so if I have moved on to another club where I didn't have that part of the role it wouldn't be the right the right role for me so in both the clubs I'd been at where I've been in this role I'd been able to oversee the process from from start to to finish and I think that's where dummy and I work well where he trusts me to do that and he can trust that I can go and I can negotiate the best deals for the club and yeah we'll never sign a player that myself him Philippa or director of analytics are all on board with then that's where we'll then go and push with that sort of final decision but yeah there's a lot of is that have a say on making that final decision if we want the player to come through the through the front door when you say you see the game similarly to Dom what does that mean if I were sitting in a conversation with the two of you what would I be hearing about the game and were there any places that you disagreed have come to understand the game because of something dummy said or dummies come to your side on something yeah I think gone back to what I said about ownership I think that's like in all the decisions that I've made like also don't pick your football club pick the ownership pick in terms of how involved they want to be and how they see the game and something that really aligned with not only myself don't me Philippa was the ownership had an idea of how they wanted this team to look so they wanted this to be possession based they wanted this to be hard work and they wanted this to press but it was all quite generic but you can see the clubs that like Philippa coming from Benfica Domie coming from Barcelona me coming from Britain were very much three different levels of type of club but all very much possession based trying to play through the thuds teams that are hard to play against like teams that are yeah quite aggressive in the press so we all came from quite similar backgrounds even though the levels were potentially different the quality of player that we were working with so I would say that's the the main thing with regards to disagreements like yeah they'll always be bits where I think this player is better in this position and he thinks that players better in that position but that's where I think hopefully he respects where it's something that I am a hundred percent in I'm happy to go and push and say now a hundred percent believe in this if I'm not I would never try and overstep the mark he's the main person in the the sporting department and yeah he will get the final say on anything that needs a final say but I can honestly say that I can probably count those times on one hand where there's not been able to have been a conversation where we get the outcome that we both think is going to be best for the for the football club and I think that's to me what makes success well nobody's in it for their own reasons we're all here because we want Boston to win we all want to get the playoffs we want to be competing for championships we don't care who who makes that final say as long as it makes us that little bit better as we move forward no there's the famous quote everybody's got a plan until someone punches you in the mouth not only do you have the unique experience of being among the first expansion clubs to not have access to an expansion draft or a college draft or a lot of other mechanisms that previous expansion teams had to build rosters you also went a different direction from you know your your peers over at the Denver Summit and as you said in another interview you know the overwhelming majority of Boston's roster are coming from leagues around the world and but it's not just the on field lack of NWSL experience that makes Boston interesting it's also Philippa and a lot of the coaching staff it's Domain you there are a lot of NWSL rookies as it were finding their sea legs and when you talk about the identity and the style and maybe the on field philosophy that comes from ownership and is passed on down how do you align theory with practice when everybody or just about everybody are not familiar with how things are done in the NWSL which is a league that enjoys smacking you know pre possession football around sometimes yeah I think there's those two ways to look at it I think first of all football is football I think it's the same in in every country around the world so I think there's there's a way that we seen the game and how we wanted our team to set up and and hopefully from watching the games whether we've been losing tie and winning we've still kept our our style and and what we want to do and like I was actually on the phone to an agent today and I was like I don't actually think we're playing that much better than what we played in the first five games we just now have 15 games together under our belt versus only having one when we when we started so I think that's real testament to Philippa and like the real belief that she has on herself and her staff that like it had been so easy when the chips were down after those four or five games to decide you know what we're going to we're going to change and we're going to just try and get some some points on the board like at no point that you do that she still stuck with with what she wanted to do but I think going back very much to the start and the build is again especially for me and I know Domi was the same like we never once came in here thought we knew any better than anybody that had been in here like we totally respected what had been done in the past and you mentioned Denver like they've done an unbelievable job as well in terms of what they built they did go a different direction from us they had less league time than than we did then maybe they would have done something different if they had as much time as as us you just you just never know but yeah they've built an unbelievably competitive squad and and signed some top talent as well which is which is great but I think for us we just did it the way that we believed was best we bound our heads together we came up with a plan and we've stuck to it at no point here we sort of deviated from what that plan was when yeah when I started at the start of last year well this is how we're going to build up the squads these are the profiles that we're going to try and recruit to we've stuck to that we've stuck to that from a recruitment from a plane philosophy from a culture perspective and as I said from day one to now we've been doing the same thing and just thankfully the results are now getting better and yeah we're sort of pulling our way back up that table and yeah hopefully we can go make the same half of the season even better than the the sort of the last sort of month or two it seems like just from the jump Denver really was trying to win right now when we looked at what Boston was building early in the season we debated it a fair amount it seemed like there was on some level an understanding that this project was going to take multi years and to really build around a set of players that would be at least a lot of them would be components of a team in 2028 or 2029 as opposed to a team that might go bag you a title immediately was that the plan and do you feel like you really had buy in from ownership that this might actually take a minute yeah I think definitely a mixture of both I think we we committed this season wanting to reach the playoffs that was always the objective from from year one so yes we wanted to be competitive straight away but we did go and build a team where I'm sure you've been able to see from the free agency list we're the only team that has zero players on it so we committed to all of our players on loan term contracts we all know how football works that doesn't mean that every single player will still be here next year there's there's always potentially going to be some some movement but we definitely had a long term approach to how we wanted to build this squad and we have signed a lot of players that yeah through our data and through our market knowledge that we thought do you know what if we bring them into the right environment we believe we can get even more out of them and like some of the the perfect examples would be some of the Americans that we signed from from Europe in terms of Sami Smith coming from from Iceland to again probably not not many of any other NWSL clubs had her on the radar and we believe that this year was always going to be a bad minute period for her she had to play out of position for the first half of the season while Nikki was was coming back and we were waiting on Deja Deja coming in and the summer as well so now that Sami's getting to play a little bit further forward we know that she's going to be very very good for his long term Ali Yambon a player that I knew really well from our time in in Scotland to again it can through at UNC alongside so many youth and unnational players and players that did come straight into the league that maybe she was one of those sought out under the radar and even last night against Orlando she's come on for the last 15-20 minutes when we were under pressure a little bit and just her energy and work rate just helped push the group and sort of see us through so so yeah to go back and answer your question like we wanted to be competitive from day one but we have signed a lot of players that we believed bringing them into the NWSL letting them work under Philippa they were always going to go and push on and become even better and yeah that's hopefully the direction where we're going to go in. So Domé comes in as GM December of 2024 you're hired about three months later you guys don't play for another year so now you have these 12 months to sign 25-26 players you've mentioned what the overarching sort of stylistic identity everybody wanted Boston legacy to represent and you've mentioned in other interviews how you know given the you know the varying mechanisms available to you that you know free agency was probably going to be the way to bring players in take us through what you guys did to identify and sign somebody you've already mentioned a couple names Sammy Smith Ellie Gambo and obviously Amanda Gutiérrez was the big ticket name last year you know when you and Jordan and Domé are working on like what the kind of profile you're looking for for like a striker like what a Boston legacy striker is how do you develop that profile and then how do you guys go out and as you say develop a long list of players that could potentially fit that profile and then how do you pitch them on saying this is actually a project that's going to be worth your your the next few years of your career take us take us through all that maybe let's use Amanda as an example yeah I think like you you mentioned some of the key people and I'm glad you mentioned Jordan because she has a key piece of of what we're doing here across the across the football club she yeah works really hard in the background and many people don't even know that she she exists here but she's very much a key cog in what we are what we're doing and yeah her and I now share an office so we work very very close together every every day but yeah like you mentioned it I think I took the call from Domé on the last day the January transfer window so I literally just finished the January transfer window with with Brighton and maybe an hour after the window we closed so you'd give me a call saying like we want to do this and like are you in like let's go with it and yeah within a week I'd went from doing a bit of a January debrief Brighton to doing a handover and again Brighton more fantastic with with let me hop over pretty quickly without an Otis period or whatever and straight away we got to building out the player profiles exactly as you just mentioned there really from that vision of what the ownership wanted the club to look like so from that style of play it was my job to go and then say well what do we want a Boston striker to look like and I think the hard bit with that was when you have to go and sign 25 players as though there was potentially two or three profiles for every position because again if we look at a left back you're not going to go and sign to out and out ready made starting left backs or right backs and we had to then go and look at different profiles as well because if we missed on one and we then had to go and sign someone else that potentially skewed what the next profile had to look like as well when Jordan joined like that was the icing on the cake because what she was able to do was take the profiles that I had built and quantify them and add the data aspect to it where we could then really go the numbers alongside the knowledge and that allowed us to build out a database really really early where we were in such a good position where we did have plan E all the way down to plan whatever in terms of we had look between those 10 and 15 players for every single roster spot so not even just position like we had our our top 10 first choice strikers but we then also had our top 10 second choice striker and so on and so forth so we'd really build that out and then with regards to Amanda like if you look at the the types of strikers that we committed to a SATA trowelry was one of the first ones that we managed to to do at the relationship with agent in the past and I'd already watched how I sat alive a couple of things so we managed to lock her in really early she's very much a running behind a little bit of a maverick like we'll go and chase things down like yeah a little bit rogue with what she does but just such a worker just so good for the environment yeah like unbelievable human being like just yeah add so much to what we're trying to do and then when we've done horror like right but we need a focal point because I said I was not going to be that focal point she is going to want to go and run the channels she's going to want to go and drop in and be part of the build up so we had to go and find a nine who was big strong really just wants to stay between the width of the the the goalposts and has got a real a real life for a goal but there's not many of them exist and the ones that do it this cost a lot of money and Amanda had the option of more than half the leak at the time that we that we managed to pitch through and gone back to again the relationship between Dome and I the great thing that I now have with him that I didn't have a brightness I've now got someone am I calling up who can just speak so many languages and having who could could speak port to geese definitely helped with the with agent and the player and then adding Philippa on on top of that and just that that a bit of security where I'm sure you're aware like Amanda had moved to France before and it hadn't quite worked out for us you've got a little bit homesick and maybe hadn't performed quite at the level so we always knew that it was going to be a year to get her up to the level that we needed as well she was never going to come in here and be the 25 goals the way that she was in Brazil in year one and I think we've seen that already where there's been there's been moments where she's been really really good and there's been moments where she's still taking a lot of time to find her feet but I think again with the right support rounder like Amanda's here for the next four years and we believe that she will be one of the top strikers in the league it's just going to take us a bit of time to to get there so that was what we'd done with Amanda we'd looked at other options but come back to to what you asked in terms of that long term approach to it Amanda was one that we believed if we can lock her in for the next four years yeah she's going to definitely give us the value that we need up top and we'll contribute to a lot of those summer signings as you mentioned elsewhere had to go out on loan to finish out the year because of the way that the calendars aren't aligned and you have noted that that was a tough sell for a lot of players in addition to the on field stuff how were you able to pitch some of those types of players on the environment you know again a from scratch brand new environment in a tough league you know in a place that again I know personally is not always the most pleasant weather wise you know for a lot of the year could be tricky so what what were your and Domé and Jordan and Philippa's and the ownership's strategy to say no no don't worry we've got you covered right out these few months and then we're going to really make it this worth your one yeah I think the the first point like you mentioned Philippa like Philippa didn't come into the summer so we did have a good few months where we were we were pitching to players we were signing pre contracts ahead of summer 2025 and we couldn't tell them who the coach was because we were still going through the process at that at that time but I think the biggest part is again in all my years I've been in football where like I need to believe in the project because if I believe in it I believe I can sell it to the people that I'm speaking to and I can be passionate enough in my presentations flying out to meet people and in person where yeah if I really believe on what we're building here I think I can get that across to the players that that we want to say and yeah look for some players it was too big a risk some players will look yep and a years time maybe this could be right for me but at the moment to come in go and loan I don't quite know who the coach is like it's just too big a jump at this stage in my my career but for some players they were happy with what we said in terms of the style of play the facilities that the club are building as well in terms of the training ground is going to be yeah one of the best in the in the country and just our our long-term approach of what we wanted success to look like where we managed to get set and cleared over the line and the first one that we managed to do that for was was Ana Carrick who's now been and of our present and our our team and like I'm happy to say that when we signed Ana from Fryberg we knew she was good but really probably want to take a quite a bit of time to get up to the level of the NWSL she had should left University early to go pro had went over to Germany had only played 18 months so it was going to be a big jump for her to come in more or less as sort of similar age to what a rookie would to come in at a college we're in put her on loan to Mexico for six months she played the best part of 30 games for Club America and just during that time massively develop massively raised her level and has come in and has been yeah alongside Alba and our midfield has played the majority of minutes being one of our most consistent players and she's one that yeah we have really high hopes for like we believe she should be yeah not down the the door of youth national team and stuff and it shouldn't be too long until she's she's getting that recognition because yeah she's holding her own and and sort of the midfield so yeah players at that buying into what we wanted was yeah a great sort of achievement from our side and yeah helped us believe that we were saying the right things to get players of her quality to commit as early as what we did do so you've filled out your roster you're in preseason you're heading to your first real game what is the level of fear about how this project is going to turn out because it's all theoretical and even we talked to Emma Healy from the Boston Globe she was like yeah I mean you can only say so much about a team that really hasn't you know they've played some behind closed doors games and a little bit of preseason but we really don't even know what to expect we can't even anticipate necessarily like what a starting lineup looks like how are you feeling building up to this and sort of how is your impression been through the first 15 games has this hit your target for for what you've wanted what have been some of the successes and what have been some of the disappointments so far yeah I think with regards to preseason I think that that is something that we've reflected on where just how we struck to that and even you mentioned the weather in terms of we had to get away on two separate camps and we ended up in a position where we played all our NWSL friendlies at the start of preseason so like we played Washington and we beat Washington we played Chicago and we beat Chicago but we then played a few European teams and like we probably didn't open our players to like that real challenge and defeat in preseason where we went behind and we had like because I said we beat Washington 2-0 pretty comfortably in the first game within beat Chicago 4-1 pretty pretty comfortably and we then came into that first game against Gotham where you're playing the rain and champagne so you're playing in front of 35,000 and I think it's one of those ones where probably actually nothing can prepare you for that but in hindsight and in reflection if it had been possible we'd love to have tried to change your preseason a little bit to have some of those more challenging games towards the end just so that we could have walked up to to being a little bit more a little bit more ready and not to say that we weren't ready but I think just as I said in reflection that is something that we could have done a little bit a little bit better but I think with regards to how we've seen the first 15 games and on reflection of that is I think the biggest positive is even after those first five games where we had zero points and yeah had built out really well and like had dominated possession in most games but being honest hadn't really created much never really looks holding on a couple of matches like even though we were coming away and saying like yeah probably could have got a draw against Gotham in that first game and yeah probably should have beat Utah and like definitely should have Chicago but we didn't in that that's football you need to kind of take that on the take that on the chin but the biggest thing was you would never have told from the players in training that we'd lost five game in a row like they environment the culture the atmosphere was was sent to none no player ever derailed from what the plan was everybody continued to push everybody continued to work and even the experience players even the Michelle's cases Bianca Ellis Stevens who came here because they believed that we were going to be able to go and push and compete they still believed that they had made the right decision to come to the football club and that was that was great for us where yes the results are important but we knew they were going to come so as long as we could get the players to keep buying into what we were doing then we were going to be heading the right direction and I think now the results are coming where we've continued to get that which is which is great but of course we'd have like more points like we want to win every game that we play that's like we never go out thinking if we get a draw today that's going to be fine like doesn't matter if it's I said Gotham who won it last year in the two games yeah we got a loss and a tie well disappointed with that like we want to do win both both games so that will always be that'll always be the goal but of course when I'm not the coach and I can take that step back and I'm not in that day today like we've been competitive in every game apart from probably one like the game against Houston was a bit of a non-starter for us that that game day two and we just didn't quite get up to the speed that day but every other game we've been in the mix we've been competitive and if we can turn that competitiveness into more wins then I believe we're going to be in a being a good place for the sake and half of the year to use Lily Reel as a lens through which to explore some stuff here mainly talk us through how you and Domain everybody decided like what you needed out of a fullback and why a player like Lily might fit that profile talk to us about what you and Domain the staff wanted to do with the summer of 2026 transfer window back in the winter and how those plans might have evolved as you began playing games and maybe your needs changed and your outlook might have shifted and then finally like talk to us about like how financially a player of Lily Reel stature someone with US women's national team experience someone who really made a splash in her rookie season and turned a lot of heads could also fit the general project long term for what the Boston legacy are going to be able to continue to do you know from window to window yeah I think the the first part is like we we always try not to be reactive so we want to be working yeah two or three transfer windows ahead so again even at this minute in time like we already know what we want to do come into the year we already know what we want to do next next summer of course depending on results depending on injuries there might be something that that crops up that changes that but for the most part we're always working ahead so before I get to Lily if I use Deja Davis for example who was eligible for the first game like we signed Deja on a pre contract months ago so we always knew that Deja was a target we'd actually tried to bring her in in January during the January window but Paris didn't didn't want to sell and that's that's football so we always had an idea what we wanted the squad to look like and come back to those player profiles I'm sure from watching the games that you've seen like we have flipped from a back three to a back four depending on on the opposition and I think yeah you know that that's the type of player that Lily is like she's quite comfortable is that left wing back she can play left side 10 or back and so she was always a player who was high on our list of the type of profile that we wanted and we believe that yeah with Nikki Hernandez Sammy Smith Emerson Elgin who'd been playing in those positions she can be she can really compliment them where it's not hard instead of those it's hard as well as them and she can play in any other position but Lily's probably the perfect example of like could we have pitched Lily in January at the start of season maybe but it would have been a little bit of a hard sell because we had we had no proof in the tank yet we had nothing to show what we were trying to do and what we were about versus doing it in the summer we had four or five months under a bell she'd watch the game she'd played against us our family had come to the home opener that we had 35,000 fans at and the fact that she's local had felt that that connection and yeah as we went to do it became a much easier sale than it would have been if we'd tried to sign a six month before so for her we always had a plan it was always a clear that we were interested in like whether it had been last year now or next year if we hadn't been able to do it like we always wanted to bring Lily to to Boston and yeah I'm delighted that we've been able to do that because not only from a football perspective but despite being young she adds that leadership as well she's a talker she's been she's been great in our back line and I think even in the sort of three games she's played now we've seen an increased level in a few other players just through her connection with them as well so I'm sure that she'll continue to go from strength to strength she is young she still get areas of her game that she needs to develop as well and that'll be fully upon the coaching staff job to to make sure that she reaches her potential and I think that was great in terms of when we spoke to her is that's what she wants to do she wants to be the top she wants to be playing as a starter for the US national team she wants to be one in championships and that's the types of players that we want here and we're hoping that yeah her and the others that we've got will be the first of many as we continue to progress and sort of attract that caliber of player moving moving forward yeah so the barking swans thing has become a pretty appropriate tone for the team do you feel like you and dummy and the rest of the front office actually deserves some credit for the dark barking swans of it all because it seems like the player profiles you've put together and built basically were that without calling it that are you surprised by this as a phenomena or does this feel like a reflection of actually like pretty good design and recruitment yeah I think like the the player profiles that we built had the tactical and the technical but they also had the social element to it as well where like yes we want to do some good players but we also want you to bring good people because as I said even though we were ambitious in year one we always knew that was going to be tough times there was always going to be times where I would perform and say is or whatever it may be we aren't quite hitting where we want you to so we had to make sure we brought people here who we knew were in in it for the right reasons in it for the long term and I think we've been able to to see that but yeah with regard to the barking swans like during the the first preseason game Dominie we're sitting in the stand on the opposite side and I'm like I think I can hear them button from the the dugout in the in the game so they were sitting on the bench and they were and they were barking and yeah it's not a grown from there and I think yeah Sami Smith and Chloe Ricketts have been the the main instigators but again it just shows you for for Chloe who's 18 and has been in the league and Sami who hadn't come in the league that I've come in and been able to be big personalities and drive that competitiveness shows that yeah the squad is bigger than your 11 players you need everybody buying into it and we've managed to we've managed to get that but yeah I enjoy going to a work every day like I go out I watch every training session I'm at the side of the pitch and the players yeah we'll come over though yeah socialize every day with you they'll come over and chat so like really happy with the the types of individuals that we've got here because I'll say you want to enjoy your work and the way you enjoy your work is enjoying the people that you work with and that goes the same for the players with each other and I think we might have to get a real nice balance of of individuals we've got the quiet ones we've got the crazy ones we've got the ones in the middle but it seems to work together which is the which is the main thing moving from the right-brain side to the left-brain side of the recruitment job and responsibility you mentioned Jordan Kaplan your director of data analytics her contribution to a lot of the work that you've accomplished up to this point how do you value weight or determine the usefulness of data and statistical analysis relative to the more classical you know film watching game-watching kind of scouting this is something that every team in 2026 has to figure out and find the balance that works for them what did you and Dome and Jordan want to do with regard to how you got that balance right for what you were trying to achieve what do what does each side of the stats versus I test coin contribute to finding the right Boston legacy player yeah like I think is exactly that it's getting the right the right balance like if I think back to when I was at London City where I worked with a really good US-based coach Melissa Phillips who yeah was a football person had a bit of an analytics background but just infrastructure wise we didn't have any data at all like yeah we had some wise scout bits but we were more or less just signing the players that we liked and we believe we're going to be able to to play the way that we wanted to see the game so that was that environment I then went to Brighton that was the complete opposite end where yeah everything was data driven every decision we made the data had to agree so even if I've seen a play in and I really liked them if the data didn't back that up that player wasn't signing for Brighton so that was very much that the opposite end of the spectrum to what I had at London City and when I came to Boston and I was working with with Jordan was my aim for the recruitment department was to find somewhere in the middle where we were we were data informed rather than data driven so we wanted to be informed by data and every recruitment decision we make to have data as it's part of it and that's where the relationship with Jordan and I where it does help is grow or long less but even if I go out and I just happen to like a player that I've watched I will always share that with Jordan before I've shared it with anyone else and she will build me up on my reports give me the information that I need and that can really be a starting point for what we're trying to do and I think the great thing with starting this project from zero was unlike it Brighton where we had the data but that wasn't my player profiles it wasn't my data like that came from the top where I would something maybe not quite agree with the player like the player would be graded in a certain way and I think well actually they're better than that the great thing here at Boston is that the data is based on the player profiles that we've built so realistically the data is tell me what I should be seeing but potentially my eye has been drawn towards something else so I think the data can really help is a way for us to take a back step and just because the agent tells me that there's four other teams in the league that want to sign this player that we actually take a step back and but actually that might be the case but that's not quite right for what we want to we want to do so yeah we really want to be data informed not only across recruitment but across every aspect of the club and that's where I say like Jordan is yeah the most connected across everything from medical performance coaching even our operations team she helps them with how they do scheduling and stuff and making sure that that is is data informed as well so you mentioned 2026 everyone has data like everybody has got something now so for us it's well how can we use it and a way that's going to be beneficial to us and we believe that we've found something that that works for the football club and we want to make sure that we implement something so that yeah if I leave tomorrow or Jordan leaves in in a year that Boston has something in place that can be the structure for the club for the next five to ten years where there are data informed club that makes smart decisions rather than making quick decisions that especially in a in a salary cap league where you make a quick decision you get wrong that could impact you for the next four years so that's where the data can have a real key key impact on what we're trying to do yeah are there any players where Jordan presented someone with a data forward approach that you have maybe not seen as complete a light and then having looked at the data and then watched the player thought maybe I've missed something maybe this is actually a player that I now prefer have there been any of those like reverse data informed and I'm sure Brighton helped that but have there been any of those kind of players where you were like wasn't on my radar until I saw this now is on my radar yeah I think most of them to be honest and I think that's the the great thing with that relationship where the data was there before the long list so the data helped drive them so yeah you maybe get a list of ten players coming out and out of that ten there's the seven on it that you were like do you know what I probably could have picked them out myself if you'd said to me who are the best ten right wingers maybe seven of them I would have come up with the same name but there's three that I wouldn't have thought of and out of those three salary wise those three might be a little bit lower than the other seven so but the data says that they're actually performing at a similar level to those players and that's where can we potentially go and get value for money in certain positions and I think when you are building out a squad of 26 is like we would love to go and pay every clear the maximum amount of money that we can we can go and play but when you are in a salary cat league you do need to be smart with with how you move money about and I think the data has allowed us to do that but yeah there was definitely players that maybe we knew of but the data allowed us to go and see well actually they would fit better into what we are doing and then you watch them with a certain lens and we get to go but something we're really big on as well as that when it comes to the recruitment data it's only myself don't me and Jordan they get to see that so when we are then speaking to the coaching staff and we're speaking to to Philippa we want them just watching them with with nothing sort of clouding the judgment that we believe that this player is better than player it's like we just want an opinion and I think that's our way of trying to fact check the data as well where if we are then getting feedbacks from the coaching staff that they like those players then we know that our data being impactful and effective in what we're trying to do value for money was an interesting phrase you just used there Casey Murphy, Amanda Gutierrez, Lily Reale these might be described as players who are not only high profile but potentially pretty high value in terms of what they cost there were some rumors kicking around a few weeks ago about maybe Boston was interested in a player like Alexia Puteus and it doesn't get more high profile or high value than that without violating the terms of your NDA can you talk about when the club feels like it's the right time and what kind of player is the right kind of player for Boston to go after who could be that kind of level of both financial and performance impact on the club for a club that's so young and has all the financial restrictions that the NWSL has like how do you identify and then decide to pursue someone who could really end up being sort of the most marketable and you know be slapping slapped on the sides of tea trends you know going into the into the city like when who is that for you and when do you know to go get her yeah I think like when it comes to the the NWSL wants to be the best league in the world like that that's the objective of the NWSL which means anytime that one of the best players in the world become available you want to be in the conversation like that that's always the place you want to be like for us as a club like we internally have really tried to drop the the expansion team phrase like that so that's a band well done our environment where like we we don't see yourself as an expand we have now expanded we're now in the league we now have the same level as everyone else so it doesn't matter we've been running for six months versus the teams that have been running for six years we want to compete for the best talent in the in the world but that's where we want to be so when we are pitching to players we want to make sure that they see Boston as an attractive environment and one of the key pressures I put on myself is we don't want a single player popping up in the NWSL that we didn't know was available I think that that means that we've not done our job right if someday pops up that is signed for Portland and I didn't know that that player was interested in NWSL then I've not I've not done my job right because it's my job to have that whole market market coverage what I can live with is if that player just doesn't want to come to Boston that's that's fine with the way within the right to decide that if through our salary cap of transfer threshold we just can't quite afford that player and the value that they want we just are not in a position to do I can live with that as well and then exactly to answer the question is there might be a top top player that just isn't quite the profile that we want and we can decide that as well so there might be someone who is one of the best players in the world but potentially we've got a 24 year old enough team that we've signed on a four year deal that we believe we see this start or we've got on a salary that's a starting salary what's the point in bringing somebody in who might be better than what we've got but it's then going to knock a long-term player out of our plans and that's come back to what I said the earlier in terms of a short-term decision can have a massive impact on you for the next four years and that's where yes we want to maximize our cap and we want to maximize like that's the great thing we've got with our ownership is they're not sitting here saying don't spend this don't spend that like we are in a position wherever we can do we'll do but not to the extent where we're flattened about having to move on some of our best players because we're a dollar over here or 15 dollars over there we want to be able to make the best football decisions and that is through deciding on the right player so yes we want to be in the market for all the best players around the world because we believe in the club but we believe in the league as well I keep I've been in the position where I've now worked and arguably the two best leagues in the world on paper and I think just the the infrastructure here the buy-in from the country the fan base I don't think that the WSL can compete with with that element of it and I think if we can lean into that and we can sell that then that can help us attract more to the top-time as well as retaining the top-time and I think that's a key piece where obviously the US women's national team are one of them not the best national team in the world so we want to make sure that the vast majority then play the club football here in the US and that's where our market knowledge and what we spend the money on is is key you mentioned that playoffs were goal at the beginning of the season and obviously some tough results beginning of the year put you behind the eight ball there but you know from the data that we have it seems like under the hood you are playing like a team that could be challenging for a playoff spot but with the results disparity that just makes it tougher so now for the rest of the year what are your goals with this club like what does the club want to achieve come November given the place that they're in and the place that you know they could be give you like a small insight into our recruitment process so every every player that we sit down with we speak a lot about like everybody wants to win every no player was on it the field and things it's okay if we get beat today from any team across world football so every player wants to win and then for the vast vast majority no player wants to be on the bench if there's a chance for them to play they want to play so if every player wants to win and every player wants to play but there are two things that are out with our control like we can't guarantee either of those things any week that we play so you might be on the bench and we might so we can't guarantee guarantee any of those what is the one thing we can guarantee and what we say to players is it's our goal and our objective like from the day that you sign to the day that you leave we make you a better player and we make you a better person that that's our non-negotiables so in terms of what success looks like for us is if we recruit the right players the ones that we generally believe are the best players for our squad in our environment yes they might not play as many minutes as they should be and with yes we might not win as many games but we're signing them because we believe they're already good so we can make them even better on the field then we can make them even better off the field then eventually those results come and I think that's what success looks like for us where if we can continue just every day to get that little bit better through yeah flip or through the coaching staff then that will be that will be success for us where if we set ourselves up for next season where yeah there's absolutely no talk of us being an expansion team it's like these guys are here they're competing every week they've got some some top players there then that's what a good season looks like for us come come the end of the year Edward Gallagher thank you so much for joining us today and best of luck with Boston the rest of the year no worries thank you I appreciate that being great great chantable with all of you well that was a delightful chat with Edward Gallagher from the Boston legacy Evan you want to take us out yeah as I mentioned at the top of the show if you're not a member of our patreon yet use the code upgrade which you can find in the show notes to get a discount on either monthly or a yearly membership if you currently are a member of patreon or thinking about upgrading to our culture number 10 tier which offers you even more bonus content than you're already getting you can use the same code and get the same discounts so go ahead and click on that in the show notes if you haven't visited our shop we still got limited edition scarves for sale those items are going fast so pick them up right now you can find the link for that in the show notes and do all the things you're supposed to do with podcasts rate is five stars drops a kind review in your pod catcher of choice tell all of your friends about us if you believe we've made an own goal drop us an email at exo g at exongles.com that's the letter exo g at the letter exongles.com and follow us on all social media platforms at exongles that's the letter ex own goals anatomy of season two coming to you on youtube right now so check that out we'll be back with you on patreon talking to Boston legacy director of data analytics Jordan Kaplan this week and until then enjoy your week