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Episode 439: How to feel about another scoreless tie...
79 Plays2 years ago
The Sounders closed out their regular-season home schedule with a 0-0 tie with the Vancouver Whitecaps. I think we can fairly say the Sounders had the better chances and certainly had more of them, but it would probably be a stretch to suggest they deserved much more than they got.
Defensively, they were stout and limited a very dangerous Whitecaps opponents to just four shots, and only one each from Brian White and Ryan Gauld. Offensively, though, it was a lot of half-chances without too many clear-cut ones.
The point was good enough to keep the Sounders in third place, but they’ll likely need some sort of result in their season-finale against St. Louis to maintain home-field advantage in the first round. It also closed the books on what is now officially their worst-ever home record over the course of a season, albeit one in which they allowed just .65 goals per game (the fewest they’ve ever allowed).
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
Meet the Hosts
00:01:26
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of NOS Adietes, sponsored by Fullpool Wines, Watson's Counter, and our subscribers. This is episode 439, and we're recording on Thursday, October 12th, 2023. I am your host, Jeremiah Shan. Joining me today is my co-host, Mark Kastner, and our engineer, Lickett. Aaron is off in Palm Springs, where I hope the weather is absolutely terrible.
Sounders vs Vancouver Recap
00:01:48
Speaker
the centers close out the regular season home schedule with a 0-0 tie with the vancouver whitecaps i think we can fairly say the centers had the better chances and certainly had more of them but it would probably be a stretch to suggest they deserved much better than they got defensively they were stout and limited a very dangerous whitecaps opponent to just four shots only one of which was from brian white and another from ryan gold
00:02:10
Speaker
Offensively, though, it was a lot of half chances without too many clear-cut ones. Their best chance didn't even count as a shot, as Leochou Cross went just under the foot of Jordan Morris at the near post.
00:02:22
Speaker
Otherwise, their best look was toward the end of the match when Yohai Takeoka dove to his right to keep out a Christian Roldan header. The point was good enough to keep the Sounders in third place, but they'll likely need some sort of result in their season finale against St. Louis to maintain home field advantage in the first round. It also closed the books on what is now officially their worst ever home record over the course of a season, albeit one in which they allowed just 0.65 goals per game, which is the fewest they've ever allowed.
Sounders' Playoff Prospects
00:02:51
Speaker
Given all this, Mark, what do you make of where the Sounders sit going into the final week of the season? You know, as we kind of talked about on the last show, I think it's really hard to be anything other than like whelmed by the whole experience. Yeah, whelmed is a good way of putting it. It could be so much worse. It could just be awful like it was last season.
00:03:19
Speaker
I think the ship sailed a long time ago on it kind of being a, you know, potentially special regular season, but they're, they're pretty poised to be able to kind of do something if they're able to do something, which I guess has been kind of the thing I've been saying about this team for the last three months, but yeah, I think they've done the.
00:03:42
Speaker
If we're kind of doing, like, the rose and thorn conversation, the rose that they deserve is, or the carnation, I should say, is they kind of, like, girded their loins, so to speak, and, like, and... They pulled it together. Yeah, yeah, and they did. It did feel like it was falling apart. Like, after the...
00:04:09
Speaker
And they just deserve a lot of credit for it largely being the same team that experienced the season falling apart last year with different availabilities and injuries and such. But they did kind of apply the tourniquet. And I don't know how many more analogies I can give you, but that's a positive.
00:04:35
Speaker
The negative is they're still kind of boring. And that's fine. But being a boring team in the playoffs is OK. We've experienced that before. And that's totally fine. I still don't know if they're a good team, but I definitely know nobody else in the West is a good team. So that's OK. Yeah, I think from the perspective of if you had told me in April that this is where we would be, I'd be disappointed, right?
00:05:06
Speaker
But the reality is that we had five months of living through some pretty bad, or four or five months of living through some pretty bad soccer to get us sort of mentally ready for where we are
Season Resilience
00:05:20
Speaker
now. And from that perspective, it's good. And we talked about this last week, but the centers never dipped below fourth in the West. But there was a stretch there where they lost
00:05:31
Speaker
on the road
00:05:48
Speaker
It felt like the season was absolutely falling apart. And to your point, they did apply the tourniquet. They did keep it from falling apart. And I don't know that these last eight games that they went unbeaten in were exactly inspiring, but they did show an ability to get results. They showed an ability to get their defense right. And
00:06:08
Speaker
They didn't score in bunches, but they did score consistently. They were shut out twice during that stretch. Both of those were 0-0 games. One of them was on the road. And so it's hard to be too frustrated with their current form or even where they are right now. If they were to, and I don't think this is an
00:06:28
Speaker
a hard that it's not that hard to imagine that they'll win their season finale against st louis st louis has let's remind everyone has nothing to literally nothing to play for at this point other than maybe there might be some overall seating like they have a um they have the expansion team franchise points record to play for against the sounders
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, I guess there's maybe that's something I don't I don't know how much they like that's not that I would say that in terms of like ways to motivate teams that when probably isn't real high on the You know, it's hard to make them feel like it's a must-win game if that's what that's the only thing that's on the line
00:07:04
Speaker
The Sounders, on the other hand, have very real stakes and that's, you know, home field advantage in the first round and, you know, seeding in the playoffs. You know, it's not make or break for them either, but they do have real, they do have real, you know, genuine stakes to play for. And so I don't know. And I don't know that the St. Louis, frankly, is that bad of a matchup. If you ask me right now, where would I like to finish in the West?
00:07:30
Speaker
Fourth doesn't seem that bad, frankly, because the teams that you're going to play, if you're second, third, or fourth, I don't know that there's that big of a difference between the opponents that you're going to face. You're still going to have home field advantage. And frankly, I might rather be on the side of the bracket of St. Louis than LA, if all things being equal. So I don't know. I don't think fourth would be the end of the world
00:07:57
Speaker
they might even be able to get forth with a loss in this game. Still, I'd like them to close out on a win. I think it would just feel better emotionally.
Ledero's Future Speculations
00:08:11
Speaker
But there were some takeaways from Saturday's match that I think we should probably get into. The first of which was, and we talked about this a bit on the website. You mentioned this in your column.
00:08:26
Speaker
It did feel like Lidero was saying goodbye to fans. There was a big TFO at the beginning of the game. Hopefully you've seen it, that ECS put out. I was told that ECS had no foresight into what might be happening. They just wanted to, they were aware that it could potentially be Lidero's last game. So they wanted to make sure that they sort of sent him a message recognizing his contributions. But when he came off the field, he did the double hand wave multiple times
00:08:55
Speaker
He was in tears. His son was in tears during the postgame, you know, with the fans. It did feel like something was relevant about all that. Yeah. After that, like all of this kind of hit me after the fact. I wasn't really. I obviously wasn't there watching the game, so I you know, I didn't really kind of the postgame stuff. I didn't see the TFO until I saw a picture of it.
00:09:25
Speaker
And obviously with kind of a centralized broadcasting crew, they're not going to have the nuance to kind of talk about things like that. Right. Um, even the most prepared analyst is probably not going to bring that up during a broadcast. Um, so when I like sat down to kind of write my column, I was like, Oh, whoa. Like that could be it.
00:09:52
Speaker
you know, that like, even even playoffs aside like that could be it, you know, hopefully it's not, you know, hopefully there is at least
00:10:04
Speaker
some form of a home playoff game. Well, they will get their guaranteed at least one home playoff game. And I guess we should maybe mention that there's been some miss. I think there's been some confusion around the way that the playoffs are this year. Every every team that finishes one through seven is guaranteed or actually one through eight is guaranteed a home playoff game in the first or and then in the first round, it's a three game series and it goes home away home. So even if you
00:10:34
Speaker
even if you don't have home field advantage in the first round, you still get a home game. But anyway, go ahead. Yeah. The spirit of like a home game, I guess. Well, I mean, it's a playoff game always is going to feel different, right? Yeah. Like you don't really want to do your goodbyes at a playoff game. And I guess the thing that like really kind of catch has caught me off guard is.
00:11:00
Speaker
I would I mean with what Spencer said obviously and kind of like the nuance of his like postgame experience on the field with fans and I think even you mentioned like he was telling fans goodbye kind of thing. Right. It's a little strange that the club hasn't like
00:11:20
Speaker
put momentum behind it, you know? And I think there's two thoughts behind that. It's a little sort of cringy. It's cringy on both sides, don't get me wrong, because anything like this can be interpreted poorly. But he's the greatest ever sounder to play for the team.
00:11:44
Speaker
the expectation is
00:12:01
Speaker
right if they win so it's like if you do the goodbye it's kind of like you go to a bar with a buddy you say goodbye and then you're actually walking to the bus stop together right exactly yeah yeah no it is it is sort of like that it is i agree it is it is kind of that way where
00:12:17
Speaker
And, you know, I suppose it could have been handled differently. Like my suspicion is that it's already been communicated by the team or by Ledero or maybe mutually that this is the last year of Ledero.
00:12:33
Speaker
Sounders now I suppose and and maybe there's not maybe maybe that's the problem Maybe they have not had this conversation and maybe there is a possibility but my suspicion is that both sides are well aware that this could and likely is the end and given that it wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world I suppose for the sounders to sort of be out in front of this although Then you get into the whole question of you know
00:13:01
Speaker
Like, for instance, when I think this is the trick, what makes this tricky is that I don't think Ledera was retiring. Uh, unlike Casey Keller, who centers had a big sendoff game for, he had announced in, even though they had playoff games after that, they had announced that this was going to be his last year. And so they had a big sendoff forum and it was a big event and it was a lot of fun and all that kind of stuff. And it would have been kind of cool if the centers could have done that.
00:13:32
Speaker
but I don't know I guess it's a little more weird maybe he didn't want it to be a big I don't I don't all know what what behind the scenes but the compare it like the kind of like analog situation in my mind is Diego Valerio send off with Portland
00:13:50
Speaker
where there was just a very kind of clear, like, he's no longer a starter. He's not the captain. Right. He's leaving at the end of the season. They end up going to Emma's Cup and losing. Right. And then he goes and plays another season. Yeah, he went back to an ounce. And how do you know that he played like not Wikipedia says he's played. He played nine games there. I don't know if they were.
00:14:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, so this is a very similar I guess it is kind of vaguely similar except for the I think well, no, I mean, it probably was similar in that I don't I don't I think there was some contention here to where it's it's not like Ledero has held his hand up and said like, you know, I would like to have a job share with Albert Rusnak. Yeah, I mean, and and you can kind of do all these things.
00:14:48
Speaker
really well after the fact. And maybe that's just what they're doing. And also, if we're just thinking about it from a really practical situation, the sounders have put so much effort into a rebrand.
00:15:08
Speaker
Maybe they just literally don't have the manpower or the marketing power to say goodbye to their captain. I think it will be interesting to see how this plays out, I guess. But I am glad that there was at least an informal chance to sort of say goodbye. And in that way, I suppose it was good.
00:15:31
Speaker
But aside from that, there were other things that happened in this game, most notably the Sounders failing to score. They generated some decent chances, like I said, and they almost eked out a win. It would have been pretty amazing if Christian Roldan had scored a stoppage time winner twice in a week, which he came very close to doing, frankly.
00:15:56
Speaker
But I don't know, how much of a concern do you think it is? Because they aren't scoring a ton, but it does feel like ever since Christian has come back into the team, there's cohesive attacking ideas.
Optimal Sounders Lineup
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think I've mentioned on previous episodes, there's three main concerns that have existed in the last few months for the Sounders. They can't score,
00:16:23
Speaker
They make stupid mistakes and they don't have a clear best 11. Two of those three things have been solidified where you kind of know what your best team is and really kind of stupid defensive mistakes are not happening anymore. Like the Dallas goal, for instance. You can be relatively sure that a goal like that's not going to be scored.
00:16:51
Speaker
But then, of course, an LA Galaxy type goal can be scored where you just have like a cut, like a few small mistakes and a really good player. Yeah. I mean, that was, that was, you know, that was, that was definitely a preventable goal, but it wasn't like a, it wasn't a stupid goal. It was a good player making a good move and, you know, whatever it happens.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah. And so they're not scoring and that's obviously concerned because you cannot. I guess in the playoffs, you can technically win games without scoring, but you, you do at some point have to put the ball into the net, even if it's penalty kicks. Yeah, right. Especially this year's playoffs where every game is going to go to penalties if it's fine, but, but, or at least in the first round, anyway, go ahead. I think they just like have like a pretty solid foundation where like they're,
00:17:41
Speaker
They're also no longer easy to play against, which was a criticism I had. They're classically like stout now. Yeah, I would say it's fair. Which is good. I think that's okay. And I think you have to think about how few minutes this best 11 actually has together, even
00:18:06
Speaker
Well, let me, let me stop you there. Who do you think's in the best 11? Is it, I'm assuming I'm a, well, yeah. Is it, is it, why don't you just give me your best 11? I think the three positions you, the th the three position is who's the best left back. It's probably new who. Yeah.
00:18:27
Speaker
Who's the who's the best midfield partner for Jau Paulo? It's Joss Atencio. Yeah. And I guess it's actually four who starts at number 10? Yeah, Russ Nick. And then who starts at striker? It's Jordan Morris. Yeah. I think that those are the four questions you have to ask yourself. Yeah. And those are my four answers. Yeah, yeah, I think and I think that at the very least, I think there is solidity in
00:18:52
Speaker
And those are the question marks and there's basically two choices. Uh, for, you know, like, and so it's like, there's, I guess that in some ways that gives them some flexibility. Uh, I do think attention being in the starting 11 has been one of the key components of the improvement of this, of this team. Yeah. You're not, you're not going to.
00:19:19
Speaker
You're not going to find a bigger Joss at Tensio fan than myself. Yeah. And I, and I think that, that Reed Baker Whiting has sort of emerged as a legitimate, you know, a change of pace of nothing else at left back is a pretty big, uh, development in, and, you know, and I, I think, but the biggest question mark around this team or, or maybe the two biggest, cause I do think Lidero and, and Rusnak sort of like.
00:19:46
Speaker
are an interesting contrast because they play the position very differently. Like, Rustak is more likely to sort of make runs and not necessarily need the ball at his feet so much, whereas Lidero is more of a classic 10. And I think those two things can work against different kinds of opponents. Hopefully the centers use it that way. But the really big question, I think, is just going to be the health and availability of Raul Rui Diaz.
Ruidiaz's Potential Impact
00:20:13
Speaker
And I think he provides a legitimate X factor for them, potentially, you know, even giving them some, some upside here where, you know, he's been hurt so much. He is not someone I think the centers can't afford to rely on, but if they can even get him to be an effective player over the, during the playoffs, that's a huge, huge boost to them because you like it.
00:20:38
Speaker
I know you don't, you're not obviously out of training, but every time I'm out of training and he looks healthy, he looks exactly like Raul Ruidias. Like today they were doing a finishing drill and it was just remarkable, the finishes that he's able to make still. And it's just like you're reminded like this is why they don't want to give up on him. Right. And I think you can kind of look at playoff games differently than you can kind of look at regular season games, because even until recently,
00:21:08
Speaker
the coaching staff was trying to use regular season games to like figure out what they wanted to do, which might be a little unfair. But like you can see they were trying to work something out in the last eight games or so. They kind of have worked that out. Yeah. And every time, you know, Raul is supposed to start one of those games. He couldn't start. He had to go. Right. Like, yeah, all of that's kind of a setback. But in a playoff game, you can just you can identify
00:21:36
Speaker
We're going to do a thing for 60 or 70 minutes and then completely change the thing we do to win the game. And you can kind of like micromanage each of those 15 minute intervals until you need to. Like imagine how awesome it would feel.
00:21:57
Speaker
stay with me because it's not going to feel awesome. But imagine how awesome it will fit. It would feel when the sounders need to win a game from the 70th minute. Let's say they're one zero down. And the three subs they can make is read read Baker Whiting on that left back. Niko Ladero into midfield and then Raul Rudy Diaz at striker. That completely changes the game. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:24
Speaker
No, I agree with you. I think it gives some hope that they can kind of figure out. And I think what allows them some of this is a defense that has legitimately regained its form. I think during that stretch that I referenced earlier, their defense was really struggling to shut teams down. And I think that even extended beyond that a little bit into this unbeaten streak.
00:22:53
Speaker
And I, I do, I feel good about the, where the defense is right now. Uh, you know, Jackson Reagan and Yemar are both as solid of a center back pairing as you're going to find gel Paulo, I think very much looks like himself in terms of, uh, in the defensive midfield and, you know, they, they are.
Defensive Form and Strategy
00:23:13
Speaker
There are very good defensive outfit right now, and that does give them that flexibility to sort of like if it's not working on offense, you can sort of do this like mini line change and and really alter the way that you are trying to break down an opponent. Yeah, I I.
00:23:32
Speaker
I see a lot of similarities to the end of this season as to the end of 2019. And the Sounders were just kind of like shipping goals all summer. Chad Marshall had like suddenly retired earlier in the year. They had brought in Ariaga. They were blowing leads, if I remember correctly, and you getting very upset about it.
00:23:55
Speaker
And they had like, they had something like, I don't know, it was like 10 or 15 games straight of not, of basically conceding and like conceding a lot of goals. Like I'm looking right here, they have a 4-1 to LAFC, they have a 3-2 to sporting Kansas City, a bunch of 2-1 losses, a 3-0 to New York City FC, a 2-3 to sporting Kansas City, a 3-3 with New England Revolution, a 4-3 that they ended up winning against the Galaxy.
00:24:25
Speaker
it was just like a lot like they could score a lot of goals that season they can't this season but they were also shipping a lot of goals that season they're so but that team kind of like came into form right around the playoff playoffs solidified by Roman Torres and Kim Kihei who you didn't think both of them would be starters earlier in the year but they ended up being that the like defensive foundation for the rest of
00:24:53
Speaker
for the rest of the playoffs that ended up being really good outside of that Dallas game, which I famously had to go into the bathroom or the press box and start screaming because it was driving me crazy. But then it like figured itself out and was the base of a really impressive playoff run.
00:25:13
Speaker
I don't know if they have like the attacking power to kind of like blow teams away like they did in the playoffs that year. But there are a lot of similarities where we weren't sure about the team and it kind of rounded into a team that had three shutouts in their final four games against good teams and it
00:25:38
Speaker
It worked out really well, I think. It did work out pretty well if you remember correctly. The other thing I think that is worth pointing out and is worth hanging a degree of your hope on is the sounders
Roldan's Importance
00:25:54
Speaker
performance with and without Christian Roldan. And if we assume that Christian is going to be available, and at this point, there's no reason not to assume that, you know, with him starting these average 1.77 goals and 2.0 points per game, those are, you know, right around league leading numbers.
00:26:15
Speaker
You know, when he doesn't start, they only averaged 0.8 goals and 1.2, uh, in the points per game. Those are very much on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of, uh, where they would be in the, in the standings. But if, you know, and I think we've seen that play out during the recent games where if he's on the field, they have a chance. If he's starting, they look like a much more dangerous team. And when he's not, that's a big problem. That's a, that's an issue they probably need to address in the off season.
00:26:45
Speaker
But for now, you know, I suppose the half glass full look on this is he's rested and he should have playing legs for the playoffs. He's also motivated. He's also very motivated. Yeah, I know exactly. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, like it's just really that simple, like the team is a legitimate contender with him. And they're not without him and.
00:27:14
Speaker
He is healthy for now and like knock on wood, any superstition, obviously, and like concussions are super weird. I had to stop playing soccer because of concussions. So that's kind of like a, that's always kind of a scary thing, but he seems to be good. You know, he took the time to get it right.
00:27:35
Speaker
which is great and he seems right. And let's hope, you know, let's hope for the best in the playoffs with him. Because without him, I don't. No, without him, there's not really any point of like giving much like this is not a this is barely a playoff team, let alone a contender without without Christian. So I think our hopes really do revolve largely around his availability.
00:28:05
Speaker
All
End-of-Season Awards Teaser
00:28:06
Speaker
right. Well, that's probably a good place to call this a segment. We're going to come back and talk a bit about my, uh, end of season award ballot that I, I published or I should say, yeah, I, I published it yesterday. I'm going to have an explainer in Friday's, uh, sounder heart newsletter, but we'll talk about it today and, and, uh, we can kind of, you can poke holes in it or whatever you want, but, uh, yeah, you're listening to no study at this.
00:28:37
Speaker
Watson's counter wants to thank everyone for their patience, but now the wait is over.
Watson's Counter Reopening
00:28:41
Speaker
Located at 6420 24th Avenue, Northwest in Ballard, they've reopened in a brand new location with the same bomb ass coffee and the same dumb ass vibes. You can still expect their classics like the gochujang fried chicken sandwich and free pebbles, French toast alongside their new soft serve program and their world-class coffee. Make sure to follow them on Instagram for all the latest and greatest.
00:29:07
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adiatus.
MLS Awards Discussion
00:29:09
Speaker
So, all right, why don't we do it this way, Mark? I'm gonna read a award. I will give you who I gave it to, and you can tell me if you think I'm an idiot. How's that sound?
00:29:24
Speaker
Sure. Or why I'm an idiot, uh, more accurately. And I can, maybe I'll give you some explanation on each one, but, uh, so I'm just going to go through the ballot as it's presented. I'm not going to go through assistance and all that. Oh, I mean, referees and all that kind of stuff. I'm just going to focus on the stuff people care about. Uh, MLS defend of the year. I went with the earthquakes Rodriguez. And I'll be totally honest. If I was just going off of my memory of how team players did, I don't know that I would have picked him, but going through the stats.
00:29:53
Speaker
I kind of like this pick. He does really well in a lot of the sort of advanced metrics. And he does well in some of the non-advanced metrics, some of the more basic stats. But I can talk myself a couple different ways into this one.
00:30:12
Speaker
Robin Jonson, also from Orlando City, was another one that I considered. Stephen Marrera from Columbus was another one that I considered. Walker Zimmerman worked his way in there. Jackson Reagan, I thought, we'll get into this later, would have been my pick from the Sounders. He wasn't even nominated. The two Sounders nominees were Yaymar and New Who.
00:30:36
Speaker
I think there's maybe a case to be made from that list that Yemor is. But yeah, I don't know. What do you think? I've been really impressed by him this season. And I'm going to be honest, I've probably watched one non-sounders earthquake game. So I've got a sample size of maybe three full matches. Yeah.
00:31:02
Speaker
And that's probably the caveat that's going to exist throughout this conversation. And to be fair, I fall on the same boat a little bit. I don't watch a ton of non-sounders. But he is good. He's also young for a central defender. He's only 26, basically. And it's his first full season as a starter. I think he came into the earthquakes last season. And there are also a team that, at times, plays
00:31:30
Speaker
like a suicidal high line because that's just Lucci Gonzalez's thing. It's different than previous earthquake managers who have played kind of suicidal defensive setups, but I think he's great. Like, I would like for him to be on the Sounders and for my criteria for Defender of the Year, yeah, I think that's perfectly fine. I think the Orlando guys probably gonna win it,
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's Johnson. Yeah, just because he kind of seems to have the classic like resume for this type of award and
00:32:09
Speaker
Which is fine. Uh, some like Orlando really good team needs to have a reason to be really good, really good central defender. He gets the award. That's the equation. That is kind of the, that is sort of the equation that oftentimes plays out. Uh, so goalkeeper of the year, I think has a few decent candidates. I went with Roman Berkey.
00:32:32
Speaker
What I like, I sort of look at Goalkeeper of the Year sort of as an MVP-esque award, which is to say that it's not just the guy with the best numbers.
Goalkeeper of the Year Choice
00:32:42
Speaker
It's someone that has an influence over their team. But really, when you dig into Berkey's numbers, they are pretty impressive. He had the second best goals.
00:32:54
Speaker
allowed to expected goals allowed stat. The number one was Daniel from earthquakes is another player who I considered. But what I really liked about Berkey was that he's involved in not just shot stopping, but he was a key part of their distribution. He also does a lot of work coming off of his line. I think he, you know, I do think he has a legitimate case for being in the MVP consideration. I don't think he has a legitimate case to actually win, but it's he's worth someone discussing.
00:33:23
Speaker
I think it should be Stefan Fry. Okay. I'm willing to hear you out on it. He's never won the award before. That's a good reason. It is. And we have one more game left this season as of recording. The last time the Sounders played
00:33:42
Speaker
St. Louis. He's going to ship three or more this time. Of course, the way I say that is going to be a shutout. And then if the Sounders have another shutout, he sets the franchise record for 14, right?
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah, you would. I mean, and 14 is only too shy of the MLS record, which is 16. And so I would imagine it's probably like a top 10 figure all time. I do think that Fry has a decent shout for it, not necessarily because he was the best goalkeeper this year, but I think there's a case to be made. If you look at his five-year resume,
00:34:16
Speaker
I don't think anyone has been as consistent over the last five years as he's been. And, you know, I suppose you can make a case that if you're going to give it to him, why not? You know, it's sort of the Casey Keller, how Casey Keller won in 2011, which was it wasn't so much that his 2011 was so great. It was sort of like now Casey Keller deserves to be MLS goalkeeper of the year at some point. Yeah, although the way that I kind of look at the Berkey situation in St. Louis,
00:34:46
Speaker
probably isn't fair, but he's like their highest paid player. Yes. That's true. He came from a champion, like, yeah, came from a champions league team. Yeah. And he should be this good. Yeah. I mean, there's, yeah, that's, that's where Stephen Fry was like, he spent some of last year injured. He's 37, which is, I'm pretty sure older than God. Um, and.
00:35:14
Speaker
It could potentially also be his last season, although it's probably not going to be. He's had a lot of setbacks. He commutes on a ferry. That does deserve to be included. I guess I haven't watched this video, but he said he shared on his socials today a video of orcas swimming in front of the ferry.
00:35:36
Speaker
which is by itself needs to be part of that conversation. There are no orcas in St. Louis. No, there certainly are not. So I think it should be Stephen Fry. Okay. All right. Newcomer of the year.
Top Goal Scorer Selection
00:35:50
Speaker
I went with George's jockamockies, the Atlanta striker, who on a, you know, the thing that really stands out to me, there's actually another one that has some good candidates.
00:36:01
Speaker
What stood out to me though is he's got 0.79 goals per 90, which ranks as the non penalty goals per 90, which is the best figure in MLS. He has 15 goals. Uh, just a very good player. I think he's, you know, this is exactly the kind of Garth log away signing that, uh, I'm sure the sounders would have loved to have been able to make, but yeah, I,
00:36:26
Speaker
Edward Louvin is the other one who I think is going to get a lot of attention, maybe end up winning. He's the St. Louis city midfielder, but he missed a bunch of games. So that to me knocked him down a little bit. Uh, didn't Miami sign a guy?
00:36:41
Speaker
Yeah, they did sign a few guys in fact. Yeah, but I don't know when do and I suppose messy is gonna get so he might end up the funniest thing messy probably will end up winning this you're you're right. But he only had like I think a goal and to assist in MLS play. It would be pretty hilarious if you went like you can make a broad case but it's not on his MLS play.
00:37:04
Speaker
No, it's not. I agree. I was a little bit almost like he shouldn't have been allowed to be nominated because any award he gets nominated for, he's going to get votes for that he doesn't deserve. But I'm going to I'm going to like I agree. It's the Atlanta guy. I'm not going to try to pronounce his name because he's such a classic Garth signing. Yeah. And every time I watch Atlanta, I am pretty impressed by like his hold up pay. Hold up player. Yeah, he's great.
00:37:34
Speaker
The, the one that I'm going to throw out there is, is that, and he's not going to win. So this is just like a long shot is bossy with, with Houston. He, he is at the center of like the, the Ben Olson revolution in Houston. Yeah. And he's great. He's just like. Fantastic. Um, probably not going to win. I'm pretty sure like all of his goals are penalties.
00:37:57
Speaker
He does have a lot of penalties, yeah. And he set the record at the beginning of the season with like four or five straight or something like that? Yeah, I think his first five MLS goals were all penalties, I think. Yeah. But outside of his penalty-taking ability, he's just great. He's like a really kind of like crafty French right-winger type player. Very like...
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah, he's great. He's not going to win. But if I were voting, I would just pick him because I like somebody. Yeah. On some level, I kind of feel like you have to have some of those in these things. You can't take it too, too seriously. I will say I don't want to miss this chance. In my write up on Giacomache's, I called him the Greek God of Goals, which I hope I have coined. This is a very distant reference to
00:38:49
Speaker
Moneyball, where Kevin Eucalyx was called the Greek god of walks, but Greek god of goals just rolls off the tongue. So I hope that sticks. You know, hopefully that's kind of like the the peace treaty you and the city of Atlanta need. Right. Exactly. I give you I give you this nickname. Not only are you the reason why their entire club is successful, but right. I give them this great nickname. Yeah.
00:39:19
Speaker
All right, uh, young player of the year.
Young Player of the Year
00:39:21
Speaker
So this was the award that used to be rookie of the year. And they got rid of the rookie of the year in part because so many, uh, players were assigned as like.
00:39:33
Speaker
16 year olds or 17 year olds and didn't really come into their own until they were 19 or 20, which was still younger than technical rookies. And so they, they replaced this award. The flip side to that change though, is you get a player like Thiago Almada, who is eligible, who doesn't, it doesn't seem like he should really be eligible. It feels like he's sort of a cheat, but he is eligible. I don't know how you don't pick him. He he's an MVP. He's a legitimate MVP contender.
00:40:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think the way you don't pick him is you just don't pick him.
00:40:05
Speaker
I mean, I guess, but that just feels like if he's eligible for the, for the award, how do you, he's 21 years old. And he costs a bunch of money is probably going to be sold for a league record in the next year. Yeah. It's gotta, it's gotta be him. Plus he's like legitimately great. Uh, I like John Tolkien from Red Bulls. Duncan McGuire also eligible for this award. He's a more classic. He would be the winner in a previous version of this reward.
00:40:32
Speaker
But yeah, it's going to be a Vienna guy.