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Episode 447: Sounders answered a lot of questions with win over Dallas
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It's probably still too early to say this season has been an unmitigated success, but by beating FC Dallas in the first round of the MLS Playoffs they showed that this season at least has some positives to take away. Jeremiah and Aaron give a bigger picture view on what this series told us about the Sounders and what they think could happen in the next round against LAFC.
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Transcript
Introduction to NOS Arietes Podcast
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.
Sponsorship by Full Pull Wines
00:00:06
Speaker
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?
00:01:26
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of NOS Adietes, sponsored by Full Pull Wines, Watson's Counter, and our subscribers.
Sounders vs FC Dallas Victory
00:01:33
Speaker
This is episode 447, and we're recording on Thursday, November 16th, 2023. I'm your host, Jeremiah Shan. Joining me today is my co-host, Aaron Campo, and our producer, Lickett.
00:01:44
Speaker
Well, it's been almost a week since the Sounders advanced to the Western Conference semifinals when they beat FC Dallas 1-0 to win the series 2-1. So we're going to do something a little different right now rather than spend a whole bunch of time dissecting that game. I wanted to ask you, Aaron, what were some of your broader takeaways?
Sounders' Defensive Analysis
00:02:04
Speaker
What do you think you learned about the Sounders during that series?
00:02:08
Speaker
I think that more than anything we learned that the sounders can control games.
00:02:15
Speaker
They played 270 minutes and I would say for maybe 25 of them, Dallas felt like they had the upper hand. They made the most of those 25 minutes. They did. Not to take too much away from them. I came away, it's not what you asked me, but I came away actually pretty impressed with Dallas.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, they're a good team. And I think that the Sounders beating them as soundly as they did in the two games that they beat them is a testament to how good the Sounders team could be. Dallas had, you know, in that last game, they had one shot, came extremely late, was not much of a shot. And it's not like they were putting all this pressure on and the Sounders were just, you know,
00:03:03
Speaker
cutting them out at the last minute. Dallas did not create anything in that game. The Sounders fully had their foot on the throat. I think that the Sounders team, when they have a game plan, when they can stay composed,
Brian Schmetzer's Game Plans
00:03:20
Speaker
It's really, really, really hard to sort of knock them off their game. It's really difficult to break them down. And they're just really good. I think Brian Schmetzer, you know, I don't think he gets enough credit for his game plans.
00:03:37
Speaker
And I feel like that's a different thing than X's and O's and tactics as they're typically spoken about. But I think Brian Spencer knows this is how we need to approach this game specifically and gets his players to buy into it really well. And the first leg, I think he felt like the sounders needed to come out and be aggressive and set the tone and they did that really effectively.
00:04:01
Speaker
In the second leg, I didn't have a problem with the way they approached that game. I just had a problem with some of the individual errors that they made, but I thought the approach was correct. They wanted to be aggressive. They just made bad mistakes in the course of doing that. In the last leg, totally the right approach. We are going to get a goal and we are going to completely take the error out of this game. And it worked to perfection. So I think that any concerns that I had about
00:04:28
Speaker
And the Sounders not being able to succeed because they weren't going to have the right approach. They weren't going to have the right players on the field. They, you know, whatever it may be, right? Like all that stuff that seemed like a real concern in like July and August. I don't feel that way anymore. I feel like if the Sounders can perform to their capability, they can beat everybody left and they can beat LAFC.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, but we also learned that sometimes they're not going to play up to their level of capability, which is not quite as rosy.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, I would say that the, I think the margins for the Sounders are pretty thin. Yes. When they are able to dominate sort of the dictate the play, they are really hard to beat. Yeah. Like they do have an, I think they have an elite defense. I think this defense is, and it's not just the four defenders that makes this elite defense. It's that everyone on the team is buying into defending.
00:05:25
Speaker
And that's Jordan Morris, that's Christian Roldan, that's Albert Rusnak, that's everyone
Sounders' Roster and Offensive Struggles
00:05:31
Speaker
out there is doing their part defensively. And I think that's what really makes this a good defensive team. But, you know, they still are struggling to, like they're creating chances, they're getting the ball in good spots, but they still don't have like a clinical
00:05:52
Speaker
They're not, I don't expect them to put up five goals on anyone. Like you saw Columbus, for instance, sort of like roll through Atlanta's defense. And I don't know that the Sounders are going to do that to anyone. You know, they haven't, they got better offensively down the stretch, but they still, you know,
00:06:10
Speaker
if they got two goals, that was sort of, that was still, like they were getting two goals more often, but they weren't getting three very often. Like, I don't know if they got, I don't know if they don't think they scored three in any, in any game down the stretch. And so I think that's, that's kind of just who they are at this point. But it is, you know, it's, there's something to be said about Brian, the job that Brian Schmetzer has done, because I think if you look at the roster that they are putting out there,
00:06:40
Speaker
you'd have a hard time convincing me that this isn't the best roster in MLS. Like they might win MLS Cup. I don't think that's an outrageous
00:06:50
Speaker
aspiration, they might lose in this round too. But they could win MLS Cup and I still won't think that this is the absolute best roster in the league. It's got some good pieces. And I think Brian Schmetzer struggled a little bit to find the right combination of players. Yeah. But to his credit, he seems to have found it like whether or not it took him longer than we all wanted him to. This does seem like the right group at this point.
00:07:18
Speaker
For sure, I think absolutely. And I think that it's easy to say, easier to say in hindsight, that I don't think we gate, we, we being me and I mean other people as well, but I don't want to put this on you, but I don't think that we treated the decision to
00:07:39
Speaker
take the team away from Nico and put them on the bench, put Raul on the bench. That's a much tougher decision, I think, in hindsight than to make. I think I'll raise my hand with that too. I agree. I think that we sometimes treat it well, and I think that's sort of our job is like, we are supposed to say,
00:08:02
Speaker
this is what we think is the obvious answer. And we don't always worry about the ramifications of making that decision too early versus too late. But I think in hindsight, what we saw like
00:08:13
Speaker
It makes bringing Nico off the bench now way, way easier. When you can point to 25 starts and say, look, Nico, we weren't getting what we needed from you here. You can be mad at me, but you can't really argue that I didn't give you a fair chance. And I think the same goes for Raul is they gave him every opportunity to show that he could stay healthy.
00:08:40
Speaker
And he just couldn't. And, you know, I would hope that Raul, like, I still like to think that Raul is going to have a role to play down the stretch here, even if it's off the bench.
Lineup Changes and Player Contributions
00:08:51
Speaker
But they would be crazy to be going into every week thinking this is our story. We're only as good as Raul Rui Diaz can make us. Right.
00:08:59
Speaker
There were times when that was unquestionably the right decision, and it ended up paying off really well more than a few times. There's so much evidence that, like you said, that this is the group of players that you've got to ride with. To go back to something you said earlier,
00:09:21
Speaker
You're 100% right that when you look at the talent that the Sounders are putting out there, I mean, they're without their two of their DPs. They're two highest paid players. The players that have been key to everything they've done, you know, for the last four or five seasons and Nico's case much longer.
00:09:37
Speaker
And, you know, they're they're they have really talented players, right? Like, I think if you take this starting 11 and you make some tweaks to the to the depth and you add two designated players.
00:09:52
Speaker
maybe this is the most talented team in the league. Especially the two designated players, that's a big if, right? Like if you just added two of the best players and lead to the team. So it's like, I think you're totally right. And I do think that
00:10:10
Speaker
You have to give Ryan Schmetzer credit for how well they're playing, but you also have to give credit to guys like Josh Atencio and Jordan Morris, who have gotten this. Jordan obviously has started a ton of games this year, but it's different because it's like, okay, you're the guy now. You're the striker. You need to score goals because Raul ain't going to do it. He's taken that chance. Atencio has been lights out.
00:10:35
Speaker
And then, sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say, the thing about Morris is that he's just, I think the thing that kept him from getting the trust of the coaching staff to be the number nine was that he just didn't have that killer instinct. And I don't know that it's always been there, but I do feel like during this series, he played like a number nine. Like he played like he wanted the ball. He wanted to take chances. He wanted to be aggressive.
00:11:03
Speaker
And he just looked like a different player. And frankly, he's looked kind of like a different player ever since he became a dad, which sounds super cliche and silly. But it does feel like he's played with a different sort of clarity in his game.
00:11:21
Speaker
I think that the finish that he had in Dallas, the chip on the goal that got called back, he does not try to do that two or three months ago. There's no way. Maybe not at any point in his career does he try that finish. It's never really been in his bag. He pulled it off. I think that speaks to the confidence he's playing with. Like you said, there's something different about the way he's approaching it.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, if he if he's playing that way, I think he gives the Sounders a huge, a real chance between him and Rusnik who I still I don't know. I don't I still am not going to I'm not going to say here and say he's their number 10 going forward.
00:12:00
Speaker
But he deserves a lot of credit too, I think. He's been willing to do basically whatever the team asks of him. He's done it ably. He never complains. He will say where he prefers to play, but he's never sulking. He's never showing up anybody on the field. And the situation he's in is not easy. He's got Nico Lidero there.
00:12:25
Speaker
who he's effectively displaced. And he's saying all the right stuff about how like, I don't know if I'm the starter, you know, like, I'm, I'm just here trying to, you know, do my job or whatever. And, and, you know, again, he's come on really, really strongly. He scored two goals in this one, one of them was a penalty sure.
00:12:47
Speaker
But the goal he had against in the third leg or in the, in game three was really well taken. Even the goal keeper. Yeah. I think that the.
00:13:00
Speaker
It hasn't always been pleasant, right? Like some of the stuff with Nico has been a real bummer. Yeah. But I think considering the realities of everything that's happened, right? Where it's just like Nico is benched. Raul is benched. The worst we've really had is Nico sort of letting on that he was a little frustrated with that and then being upset about the way the contract negotiations or left thereof were handled. That's not, I think that that does speak to the strength of
00:13:31
Speaker
Brian Schmetzer as a man manager and also just to the character of the people involved. It has to be really, really difficult for Nico Lodero to go from this being your team and you're the talisman and you're the club legend to a guy that's coming in off the bench and is sort of in a lame duck situation. That's got to be tough, but he's never done anything but play his ass off and done whatever is asked of him.
00:13:55
Speaker
And I'm sure he's not happy and I'm sure he doesn't feel like he's been, like he said, he doesn't necessarily feel like he's gotten the respect he deserves all the time, but it's still sort of held together. And I think that Brian deserves some credit for that. Yeah, I think you have to give him credit for that. I mean, I think that Brian is one of those managers, one of those coaches that
00:14:23
Speaker
Nobody is going to look at the way this team plays and say this man is a revolutionary, man is a visionary. But there are a lot of really, really, really good coaches that that's true of.
00:14:36
Speaker
And I think he has shown that he is like, he is willing to try different things. He's willing to be flexible. He's willing to do different things tactically the season, but I don't think anybody can question his ability to motivate the players, his ability to manage personalities. Yeah. And you know, this is just this, the last couple of months of this season has been, I think, vintage Schmetzler.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah, right, right. Where it's like, you're not quite sure what he he's doing, but it's working. Yep, you just got to let the man cook. And I think it wasn't that long ago where we were sort of almost resigned to him not coming back next year. And it's kind of crazy right now where we said right now, it's hard to imagine that scenario. Yeah, yep.
00:15:22
Speaker
And it's not, and that's, I think, regardless of what happens against LAFC, it's hard to imagine that scenario. I do think at some point, you know, he's going to want to start to transition, but he deserves the ability to sort of do that on his terms, I think. And he keeps showing why he gets the benefit of the doubt.
00:15:49
Speaker
I'm trying to, they, uh, I, I do also want to, I do want to point out one other thing from the, the game against Dallas. And it's the play of Jel Paolo, who just quietly seems to have regained, like he's back to what he was. Like, I think this series really showed me more than any other time that we've seen him this year. He really does look like the 2021 version of himself.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at his injury, he obviously came back from his injury, but it's not uncommon for players to take.
00:16:25
Speaker
about this long to really get back to their best. And I think especially, you know, when players are not in their early twenties or early mid twenties, it can take even a little longer, but he has looked fantastic. I think too that he looks like his vintage self, but he's also not being asked to do as much as he was. And that's true. Yeah. And so I think that that's, that is definitely part of it. Um,
00:16:48
Speaker
And, you know, but that's, I think that that's kind of the thing with this team and with the system is that everyone is being put into a position that plays to their strengths, right? Like Jordan Morris is really fast and can run all day. So they are going to put him into positions to get behind and put him and ask him to run at defenders all day long to both in attack and in defense, defending from the front.
00:17:12
Speaker
Joao Paulo, all the things he's being asked to do in his position are the things he's best at and the things that he excels at. And he's not being asked to do some of the things that make it harder for him to do those other things. Well, I think that's also what makes Josh Atencio such a good partner for him is that he can do a lot of the running that Joao can't at this point. And, you know, like,
Josh Atencio's Midfield Impact
00:17:35
Speaker
the pass that he made to Roastnack was just so, so sublime. It was, and that's like, if you
00:17:45
Speaker
He also had a couple decent looks at gold that he didn't finish, so maybe that's still the missing element from his game. But man, that pass was so good. He was dealing, he was intact. He's still as good in a tackle. Once he's in the tackle, he's as good as anyone at coming out of it with the ball.
00:18:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think the thing that I love about Atenzio's game as well is he does all of the hard work. He's a great 1v1 defender. He's a great tackler. He can run all day. He makes Joao Paulo's job so much easier in that way. But then he also has this really unique wrinkle to a skill set that guys with that skill set don't always have, which is he does have this really great creative vision as that pass through a snack.
00:18:33
Speaker
was really illustrated. He can create, and I think that a lot of the time, other teams aren't expecting him to be able to do those things, and it just makes him a really valuable player. Obviously, I think we'd all love to see him add goal scoring to his bag of tricks. That makes him even more valuable, but even without that, it's just...
00:18:53
Speaker
I think if there's one takeaway, we've talked about how, how valuable it was to learn something about this team this year. Um, but. I think if there's one thing that you point to and say, like, what is the unmitigated success from this year? It's that we found out what kind of player we have in Josh Tenzio. And it's a really, really good valuable player that I think is going to have a really good career.
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see he's currently with the U23s in their pre-Olympics camp. And this is the first time he's really been on the, like when he was first signing with the Defiance, he was sort of in the youth national team picture. And for whatever reason, he totally dropped off their radar. And so he hasn't gotten a youth national team call up since 2019. And
00:19:43
Speaker
It had sort of been accepted that he just wasn't really seen as a, like a high level prospect. And, you know, I think at various times I've said, you know, if there's one player who I think is going to spend 10 years in MLS or, you know, have a long MLS career, it's probably Joshua Tenzio. But, you know,
00:20:01
Speaker
If he, if he ends up making the Olympics, you could see how that changes his trajectory a lot. Like I don't think this camp is necessarily going to change it, but he, you know, if he ends up in the Olympics and, and who knows, I mean, he's, he is a, a player that has a skillset that I think is weirdly underappreciated. Like I've always thought that he had a real high ceiling, but I mean, he's got a great body. He's got, you know, he covers a lot of ground.
00:20:31
Speaker
creative, reasonably creative. If he starts scoring goals, which he hasn't done, but I think he had five shots in the first game, which was a reminder that this is a guy who can get into dangerous spots.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, even if you're not scoring goals, if you were taking shots and giving the defense something to think about as a midfielder who is, I don't want to say a defensive midfielder, but as somebody who I think is largely there for stuff outside of the 18. Absolutely. That's super valuable. And I do think, I mean, not to sell any of these other players short, but the Sounders have had all of these guys come up through the academy. Obed Vargas, Danny Leyva, I think are the ones that sort of spring immediately to mind.
00:21:16
Speaker
And then a tensio was always kind of like you alluded to, like, I don't want to say an afterthought, but definitely like the one that was sort of like, Oh, yeah, and we've got a tensio too. He'll be a great rotation guy or whatever. And I think at this point, I mean, I don't think. I think of all of the young guys to come up, you know, in the last few years, he's really surpassed them at this point, which is I think he's had more.
00:21:43
Speaker
more first team performances that rate really highly than any like
00:21:52
Speaker
a lot of these guys have shown their competence. I mean, he's also three years older than a lot of these guys. So maybe it's unfair. But if you look at his five best games, I guarantee those five best games are better than any of the other, you know, Leyva, Baker Whiting, Obed, you go down the list. I think his, you know, and that's fine, you know.
00:22:17
Speaker
I mean, he's a player to me that the Sounders should be trying to build around next year. And I think that alone, being able to say that about a Reed Baker Whiting or a Josh Atencio alone makes something real to come out of this season. Yes, absolutely. You throw in, maybe Jordan Morris is a nine.
00:22:42
Speaker
You know, maybe, you know, maybe we do know the position that, you know, like we have a way forward with Albert Rusnak. You know, there's a lot, like, there's, there's some real positives, I think, to come out of, out of this. But I think maybe that's a good place to call it a break. We'll come back, talk a bit more about this LAFC series. And yeah, you're listening to No Saudi at This.
00:23:10
Speaker
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00:23:39
Speaker
Welcome back to Nos Ariates.
Upcoming Match Against LAFC
00:23:41
Speaker
So the big game that is coming up is November 26th. That's the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So, you know, we're still we're still 10 days away, which I guess is one of the flaws of this this current playoff system is it's broken up by an international break. Not really much to be done about that. I don't know. Before we get into the series,
00:24:06
Speaker
or the match against LAFC. Now that we've seen the first round, we've seen this best of three, do you still hate it as much as you thought you were going to? I don't hate the best of three, but I never hated the best of three. I hate the... I think best of three actually is... I never hated it. I like it now. And I really wish that the next round was best of three as well. Right. Okay. That's always really been my thing is that
00:24:34
Speaker
Why, why does the first round, the round where, you know, I don't know, why, why is the first round? Why do you care about not having a fluke result in that round, but a fluke result in the other rounds are fine. I just, it doesn't make sense to me. I don't, I don't like it, but you know, I mean, it is what it is. Right. Like you.
00:24:54
Speaker
I'm especially pissed off that this game is a one-off because I'm going to be at the Pech Mode concert, so I will be able to watch it. I know a lot of people go into this. Jovana is also going to the Pech Mode concert. When I saw that they were, that's when the game was going to be, or when it was going to be that weekend, I was like, oh, it's definitely going to be on the Sunday.
00:25:16
Speaker
Hey, maybe I can, you know, maybe I was hopeful that they would have had like a four o'clock kickoff. Perfect. I know. I know. Uh, yeah, maybe you'll, you'll see Jovana there, but, uh, it's been, yeah, I think the best to me, one of the things.
00:25:34
Speaker
that I think some people have missed about the best of three is I saw this a lot is a lot of people came away saying like, well, we ended up getting the result we would have had if it was just a two legged series. And yes, actually, if all of these series, the way they stood at, at the end of the second leg, ended up being what were we finished. So I guess there's some truth in that. But if you look historically,
00:26:03
Speaker
seven of the eight top seeds made it out of this round. That's a 83% conversion rate for top seeds. Historically, during you know, we had a lot of data on two legged series in MLS a lot, there was like 75 series, only 54% of the top seed, it was basically a coin toss.
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah. And this is, you know, these are, uh, you know, this is includes a lot of miss theoretically mismatched opponents. Right.
00:26:34
Speaker
Like the two legged series to me is like not is really bad in that way. A two legged series is great in a cup competition. Like in something like the Champions League or Champions Cup. I think it's the perfect system. Yes. But in a playoff system, I mean, were they doing away goals? Some of them. Because, well, in MLS last the last time they had the two legs. Right. I think they had stopped using away goals. They had stopped using them. So.
00:27:04
Speaker
Seattle Dallas would have gone to penalties in Dallas, right? Well, no, because the Sounders had one away goal, so they would have gone. Well, oh, you're right. Yes. Yeah. Without absent. Yes, you're right. Absent away goals. That would have gone to penalties. You're right.
00:27:20
Speaker
So, so yeah, I mean, I think, and I think anybody who saw the first two legs would have said, man, the sounders losing on penalties here is really unfair to the way the series is played out. So that's a good point. I like best of three. I really do. I wish that the rest of the playoffs were best of three. I understand why.
00:27:43
Speaker
I understand the logic better. I will say, I'll give you this. I understand their logic better, right? Of like, we don't want as many fluke-ish upsets in the first round because more fluke-ish upsets happen, you know, in a one-off game.
00:28:00
Speaker
So I, I get that they're trying to correct for that in the first round, but then going back to the flukage, that's, that's really my issue. And they did, I think we may have discussed this, but they sort of did try to sort of split the baby and they ended up with like, uh, I, I do think the best of three concept is sort of unfairly maligned. I think a lot of people are sort of like.
00:28:25
Speaker
Cracking on it just because it's not used in other leagues, but it's maybe When it's a play like the playoffs are different than a color like you said like they're just fundamentally different than a cup competition because you're not like the whole thing about a Two-legged tie is that you're trying to eliminate home field advantage, right? and that's not what you want to do in this sort of format, but That said
00:28:52
Speaker
We are now through and we're looking at LAFC. They had a relatively easy time with Vancouver, although I think some people are maybe overstating just how easy it is.
LAFC's Performance Analysis
00:29:05
Speaker
They were tied 2-2 at the end of the first half and then sort of like boat raced Vancouver in the second half of their home leg. And then they won the second leg on a really, really, really questionable penalty. I don't know, LAFC to me,
00:29:23
Speaker
Like, they have a lot of talent. And by that, I mean, Dennis Bwanga is really, really good. Yeah. And other than that, like, I don't I think if you in the end so far in the two times that the centers have faced LFC, they were able to neutralize Bwanga. And if they're able to neutralize them in this one, there's every reason to think they can they can win this.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I feel like we're kind of repeating ourselves a lot with this, but I just... LAFC could absolutely win this game.
00:29:59
Speaker
Yes, I'm not sitting. I'm not going to sit here and tell you like I am really confident that the Sounders are going to win this game because I'm not like I think it's I put it at slightly better than a coin flip odds for the Sounders. And that's that's mostly just down to home field advantage. But there's nothing about LFC that makes me think. Oh.
00:30:18
Speaker
we're in real trouble here. You know, they're just like every other team in the Western Conference. It's like, yeah, they're pretty good. You know, right. I mean, looking ahead, not not in the sense that I want to be disrespectful of LAFC, but it's like, sounders get through this, they're playing Houston or Kansas City. And that's another couple of teams. It's like, yeah, they're fine. I mean, Kansas. Right.
00:30:41
Speaker
But, you know, but you know what I mean. But then they, like, Kansas City has been the best team in the Western Conference since like May. Yeah. So it's just like, you know, yeah, like any of these teams could be the Sounders, but also the Sounders could be any of these teams. I mean, I do not remember.
00:31:00
Speaker
a Western conference that, like, there have definitely been times where it's like all the teams at the top are really good. 2014 is one that stands out. Like, the Sounders and the Galaxy were 1A and 1B all year long. This year, it's like everybody is like three, you know? Like, there's just not, there's not a great team left. Yeah. But everybody has something about them that makes you a little nervous. And in L.A.F.C.'s case, yeah, it's definitely Blanca.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah, you know, so doing a quick glance at LAFC's record, they had a bunch of games that they just blew the doors off the opponents. But I think it's worth looking at who those opponents were. They blew the doors off Vancouver at home. Vancouver was not a very particularly good defensive team.
00:31:49
Speaker
Their one road win recently was they beat Austin 4-2. This was like a dead team walking that they beat. Then they beat Minnesota 5-1.
00:32:00
Speaker
Minnesota was melting down at that point. That ended up getting Adrian Heath fired. They beat the Galaxy 4-2. But most of their tough defenses they've played, they tied St. Louis 0-0 on the road. They tied Philadelphia 0-0 on the road. They lost at home to Rial Salt Lake. The tough defenses they've faced have mostly handled them.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah. LAFC is a team that can get a lot of downhill momentum, right? Because if you were trying to.
00:32:40
Speaker
play from behind against them, they are extremely dangerous. And that's, I mean, that's the worry, right? Is giving up an early goal and trying to have to play from underneath. Although like the, the sentence, I mean, that's kind of what happened to them. Well, it is what happened to them when they played at LAFC, they gave up that like first minute goal and then, and then that was it. Right.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah. So it's, I mean, I think that, uh, I'm not necessarily worried about LAFC blowing the doors off the Sounders for that reason, right? Like if you're a mediocre defensive team and you find yourself needing a goal, it can get tough for you. But the Sounders, I mean, and we talked about this a lot over the last couple of months, but I think especially in the context of the Dallas series, the Sounders are a team that doesn't need to
00:33:30
Speaker
They're not at their best trying to score when they're throwing everyone forward. They're at their best trying to score when they're trying to spring counter-attacks. And so they don't have to sell out as much as maybe some other teams do to try to get those goals back.
00:33:43
Speaker
Uh, you know, so I, I just, I don't expect LA to come in here and put up four goals. I just, I don't, I don't see it. No, I don't think that's the, I think like this is a game, like if the centers lose, it'll probably be like two one or one zero or something like that, which would be, you know, which is definitely well within the realm of possibility, but I could also see the sounders, you know, winning this one one or two zero or, uh, like I, I, and I, I like that would probably be the more to me. More likely outcome. Uh, yeah.
00:34:14
Speaker
It'll also be interesting to see just like how many minutes Boonga plays when he's with Gabon in African Cup or African World Cup qualifying. Although they everyone's going to have plenty of rest when they get back. So I don't know how much the international duty will play.
Lumen Field's Home Advantage
00:34:32
Speaker
But I think this will be a fun game. I'm looking forward to it. I think it's a good test. If the Sounders get past this one, I really like their chances to go to MLS Cup.
00:34:42
Speaker
against either you know they'll face either Canada they'll host either Kansas City or Houston if they if they win so that's the you know I like I like these I like these chances I if you had told me at the beginning of the year that the Sounders will be hosting LA FC and they'll have home field advantage through the Western Conference playoffs I don't know how do you
00:35:04
Speaker
Wouldn't turn that down. No, no. And I think too, it's something we haven't mentioned, but I think is worth noting is that Lumen actually does feel like an advantage again. It does. The Sounders haven't lost at home since August, August 20th to Atlanta. Feels like a lifetime ago. It feels like a totally different team. Yeah. Kind of was a totally different team if we're being honest. Yeah. And I really think, especially against Dallas,
00:35:28
Speaker
you could really feel the sounder's home field advantage. And it's nice in a way that I haven't felt in quite a while. Yeah. And even like the galaxy in Vancouver, the Vancouver game ended zero zero. But like all four of their last four home games, I think, have all felt like, yeah, like you could feel the energy in the stadium. Feel distorted for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:51
Speaker
All right, well, I think that's probably a good place to call this. We are going to do a mailbag episode for the subscribers later in the week. So if you want to get that now is a good time as I need to get on the get on the.
00:36:06
Speaker
the subscriber train and support. It is what it is that we're doing here, which has been really gratifying to see this kind of playing out and everything.
Closing Remarks and Acknowledgments
00:36:18
Speaker
You know, one of this, I'll give a little bit of a plug to a story I broke this week that Stephen Fry has signed it to your extension with the Sounders. It's that kind of stuff that you're only going to get from Sounder at Heart.
00:36:31
Speaker
I think we have been actually cited as a source in the Seattle Times more times than like the last few months than we probably had been in the last several years. So I don't know. I'm going to draw that up directly connected to our independence. But joking aside,
00:36:52
Speaker
wanted to say thank you to everyone who's been a subscriber. This has been a really fun year for us. And, yeah, I don't know. That's one day to end with that. But thank you to our sponsors, of course, full pool wines and Watson's counter. I am Jeremiah Shan signing off for Aaron Campo and Lickett. This is no sadiatis. Remember, you will never get alone.
00:37:52
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!