Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 336: We love Leagues Cup
71 Plays4 years ago
Say what you will about Leagues Cup but it's a final and we're in it. Let's go!
This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)
Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sponsor Highlight
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of No Sadietes is sponsored by Full Pool Wines, a Seattle-based wine seller who recently released their first book, 36 Bottles of Wine. The ethos of the book, a highly curated look at wine categories that provide exceptional value right now, should be familiar to full pool readers. But there's loads of fresh content, and since it's not trying to sell any wine through the book, there's a bit more of a sass factor.
00:00:21
Speaker
And there's food. Lots of it. Fulpul's unique writing style is applied to recipes like leftover Thanksgiving turkey, schmaltz-a-ball soup, and pregnancy nachos. This book can be purchased through Sasquatch Books.
Sounders' Victory and League's Cup Qualification
00:00:32
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to... There's no study at this. What? Hey, Ocean! Let's go! Jordan Morris getting in behind Florian Youngford. Jordan Morris! Scores!
00:00:50
Speaker
And how's this for a save from Steph and Fry? Here comes Roy Deers from the middle to crowd it to Seattle. What do the Tigers dream of? They take a little Tigers in. It's the Sounders and an S-Com. I feel a lot better than Bob.
00:01:18
Speaker
The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle And the hills the greenest green in Seattle Like a beautiful child growing up
00:01:35
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of NOS Adietes, sponsored by Full Pool Wines. This is episode 336 and we're recording on Thursday, September 16th, 2021. I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me as usual is Aaron Campo and our engineer, Lickit P.
00:01:50
Speaker
This season has been nothing if not full of talking points, and we have another. Another one after the Sanders beat Sanders Laguna on the 93rd minute roll. Rui Diaz goal to qualify for the League's Cup final that comes on the heels of a 10 win over Minnesota United that snapped a four game home winless run in League play. Combined, those two wins get the Sounders off to a strong start on what will be a 23 day stretch in which they'll play seven games.
Fixture Congestion and Player Rotation Strategy
00:02:15
Speaker
It's a lot of soccer with a lot of implications.
00:02:19
Speaker
Have you come around yet on the League's Cup and how worried are you about it interfering with what is a pretty tight Western Conference race?
00:02:29
Speaker
Um, I mean, I think I've come around on it as much as I'm going to come around on this version of it. Uh, it's fun, you know, that gaming at San Jose Laguna was a lot of fun. It was a lot more fun than I think the, the one nil late goal scoreline would, would indicate, um, two very good teams, you know, playing a pretty, pretty attractive, entertaining game. Um, it's, it's fun to watch, you know, it's fun to, um, you can tell the players are having fun. Uh, Raul has never attempted a rainbow flick in any other game that I can recall. So.
00:02:57
Speaker
Um, you know, and like, that's, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's been fun. Um, if we had lost that game, I would not have been particularly bothered, I don't think, but that's, and I feel the same way about the final, although if we're there, if we're, if we're going to the final, yeah, he might as well want it.
00:03:15
Speaker
You know, and I'm just I'm not particularly worried about the fixture congestion. I, you know, I think that Branch Messers are good at managing minutes. I think the way that he has approached League's Cup is about all you can ask for, where you know he's putting
00:03:32
Speaker
players out there that give the team a chance to win. He's, he's featuring, you know, players like Raul Ruidiaz and, you know, other first choice players, but he's definitely not putting out his A plus lineups. He's, he's wrestling guys that need the rest. Nico Ledera didn't play on Wednesday, you know, which I think is,
00:03:52
Speaker
Good. I would have been a little nervous if he had. So, um, or Tuesday, I guess that was, that was a weird Tuesday game, very weird Tuesday game. But in any case, you know, it's the, the team has been rotated pretty efficiently. Um, the, the team is pretty deep. There's, you know, some definitely quality in the depth. Uh, the team seems very fit. They do a very good job of man, uh, monitoring fitness levels and, and, you know, what, what's the term load?
00:04:22
Speaker
loading or whatever they want. Um, you know, so I, I'm just, I'm not super worried about it. If they had a ton of injuries, uh, and they were, you know, had, had had like a lot of, uh, nagging injuries this season, uh, the injuries have been less injuries that you tend to attribute to overuse, I would say, um, and just more. Bad luck kind of injuries. So no, I mean, it's, you know, it's,
00:04:48
Speaker
If they weren't playing in this game, I might feel slightly better about it, but they are, and I don't think it's a huge concern. Yeah, I think what makes me think that the concerns over the fixture congestion strike me as a little overblown for the most part is that
00:05:09
Speaker
They've managed their heavy load weeks really well up to this point. I think I shared a stat recently where there's something like nine, one and two or something like that in their four three game weeks. And so, and all of them, they've been able to, they've been able to rotate their lineups. They've been able to, you know, get guys rest when they need rest. You know, they've had two.
00:05:39
Speaker
They've had two nine point weeks, which is pretty amazing. And they just seem to understand, like they don't, they don't push guys. They seem to appreciate like who can go when and who, who needs to sit. And I, you know, I was looking at the lineups this week of what they could potentially do. They could fully rotate their lineup and against RSL and still put out what I would say is a, as a lineup, perfectly capable of, of winning that game.
00:06:08
Speaker
uh you know it might not be you know they might not be overwhelming favorites in it but you know you can start will brewing you can start uh you know let's see here here's the lineup that i that i came up with and let me know what you think of it you have will brewing
00:06:24
Speaker
up top, Leo Chu getting his first start, Nico Benizei, Jimmy Madranda as the left wing back, Christian Roldan in the middle with Danny Leyva, and Kellen Rowe as the right wing back, and then a center back trio of A.B. Sisoko, Shannon O'Neill, and Josh Apencio, maybe even give Steph Cleveland a shot there. I'd feel great about that lineup.
00:06:48
Speaker
And I think the only player that I would expect to end up playing in all three games between the two leagues cup games and the RSL game out of that or starting all three games would be Christian Roldan. And that's only because I think Christian Roldan strikes me as a player who
00:07:07
Speaker
Tan played that much. He didn't play a ton in the World Cup qualifying, so he doesn't have a ton of extra minutes on his legs. But if you really needed to, you could probably not start him too.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that that's, that's the key thing is that they do have players that can play a lot of minutes seemingly with, with little, you know, long term impact. And they they have players that have proven to be effective this year I mean they've had these injuries with, or these issues with injuries.
00:07:40
Speaker
pretty consistently all season, they've been missing guys. And, you know, everybody has stepped up to the degree that you could have expected them to. And, you know, they've been competitive. I mean, the whole meme of the first half of the season was that they are, you know, putting out just scrubs, guys, that nobody's ever heard of literal school children and they're getting results.
00:08:01
Speaker
And when you demonstrate the ability to do that, um, these problems become a lot easier to solve, I think, because you have guys you can trust, you have a model that you can fall back on for when you're missing certain players. Um, and they do, I mean, like
Debate on League's Cup Importance and Changes
00:08:16
Speaker
this, this team is really spoiled for choice at, at several different positions at center back at, at striker weirdly, which I don't think anybody necessarily expected.
00:08:24
Speaker
Um, you know, at the end of last season, um, they've got a lot of options. They've got been Isaiah's stuffed up and I think been really good for a guy that we got for, for functionally nothing. Um, Leo Chiu looks like he's ready to contribute. I don't think we can really say too much about what we're getting in him from his appearance, uh, against San Jose Laguna. I was signed from that past that's off the goal, which was, you know, misdefined, but.
00:08:52
Speaker
There was a great pass. I don't think he necessarily played great in that game. And I hope people don't take away from my projection of him being in the starting lineup that I think he's suddenly a starter for this team. But I think he's someone you could start in that game. Absolutely. And mainly for rotation purposes,
00:09:14
Speaker
And see what he's got. I think he showed some promise in that game. I think he also showed some nerves. But the pass was spectacular. Every time I watch it, when I originally watched it, I thought I didn't really think much of it. I just thought he kind of put a ball into space. But it was not an easy pass. He had to lead Rui Diaz in a way that allowed him to
00:09:40
Speaker
He had to find that middle ground between hitting it too hard and potentially letting the goalkeeper make a play on it and hitting it soft enough that he had to find the right weight on it. And it was not an easy pass. He made a great pass on it that he saw the pass I think was particularly telling. And I wouldn't mind letting him get 60, 70 minutes. And let's see what he does. Let's see what he does. Absolutely.
00:10:06
Speaker
One of my favorite stat right now for the Sounders is they have 23 players who have started at least two games. I love that. Like it's, you know, I think it speaks to their depth. It speaks to, you know, it speaks to how well, you know, that they can, they can rotate a lineup. Like I suspect they're going to do against RSL and no one they're putting in there other than maybe Leo Chu are unproven. Like all these guys have, have done well in the minutes that they've been given.
00:10:36
Speaker
Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's one of the, I guess the benefits of all the rotation that the Sounders had to do early on in the season is that, you know, guys were able to get nerves out of the way. You were able to see who could cut it at this level and who couldn't. You were able to see what combinations of players were better than others. And so now, you know, into the stretch run where you do have a fair number of, you know, a fair number of games in a short period of time. And there's a lot of,
00:11:05
Speaker
Miles on legs, this, this point in the season, you have a little bit better idea of what your depth can do for you and the best way to put them in positions to succeed. And that's a luxury that a lot of teams don't have where they get to this point of the year where injuries are piling up and they have to start managing minutes and thinking about the playoffs.
00:11:21
Speaker
They're having to figure out all that stuff out now, later in the game. And, you know, so it's, I don't know that it's like a huge ace up the sleeve kind of advantage for the Sounders, but I do think that it gives them an edge over teams that haven't had the ability to do that as of yet. Yeah. And, you know, that they might be able to get a cup as a, on the way.
00:11:43
Speaker
I, you know, say what you will about the importance of the league's cup. I think we can sometimes get a little bit lost in debating just how important this is. But I think we could probably agree that it's an impressive, if they win this, they'll have beaten three of what I would say are probably three of the 10 best teams in North America to win it now.
00:12:10
Speaker
Two of those would have been at home and the other was at neutral ground. Certainly you can devise tougher ways to do that, but it's an impressive achievement nonetheless. And by the way, they'd be the first MLS team to win a competition with Liga Ameci's opponents, which, hey, always fun to be the first to do something, right?
00:12:33
Speaker
Well, did the galaxies, whatever that thing was called, that predated the Champions League, did that not have Mexican teams in it? OK, fair enough. The CONCACAF Champions Cup, which I honestly did not go back and check that. But I'm thinking of mostly CONCACAF Champions League, Super Liga, and League's Cup. And I was not paying close enough attention to MLS at that point in time to really know
00:13:02
Speaker
how important that competition was, I would wager it was not quite as important as the League's Cup, which should probably tell you something. At any rate, I think you can care as much or as little about this tournament as you want to. I don't think anybody should be kidding themselves about what it actually is to either extreme. And I think I would say that there are
00:13:31
Speaker
At this stage of the game, there are many fewer people who are trying to make this out to be a bigger deal than it is, than there are people who want to be big time sticks in the mud about it. And, you know, like I've expressed skepticism about the League's Cup, and I stand by most of it. Like, I think it's kind of a silly tournament the way it's currently constructed.
00:13:53
Speaker
Um, all things being equal, I would probably rather the sounders not be playing in it, but like, whatever move on, let go, like, let go of that. We are playing in it. We're beating Mexican teams. We have a chance to win a trophy. Uh, it's just, life is too short to like get pissed off about winning your team, winning a trophy. You know, that's just like the weirdest thing to me. And, uh,
00:14:15
Speaker
I don't know, man. It's nice to win things, and it's nice when the players look like they're having fun, which they definitely do when they think they're playing higher quality opponents. And the whole idea of going to Vegas is pretty fun. It's fun. It's fine. And if you win, it's a nice little bonus on the season.
00:14:36
Speaker
It doesn't have to be champions league. It doesn't have to be MLS cup. Now, and I, I think the key here is like, you know, we've kind of spoken about is that I don't think the Sounders are sacrificing a ton in MLS play right now. You know, it would be another thing if the season was sort of falling apart around them and they were, you know, they were, they were kind of like trying to hold this up as, as sort of a
00:15:03
Speaker
a way of salvaging the season, but that's not what we're talking about here. They've gone four and one since the start of League's Cup. The one loss, I don't think you can tie it all to League's Cup play because it was played on full rest and with a big chunk of time after it. So it wasn't like they were resting players for that game. It wasn't like they had players who were unduly fatigued for that game.
00:15:31
Speaker
didn't pull it out against the timbers. And if I started to interrupt, but if I recall correctly, the week after that League Cup game was when they went down to Portland in 162, correct? Yes. So, yeah.
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah, it was even the week after it was like a few days that right that same week, right that same week, exactly. So, you know, if anything, I think you can maybe say that League's Cup has sort of kickstarted the season or re reignited the season, if you will, because before the League's Cup, you might remember they had just come, they were coming out of a three game homestand where they only had one point. And it was actually that was a point at which the season was starting to look like maybe there were there, you know, wasn't going to go where we all thought it was going to go.
00:16:14
Speaker
So I've been really happy with the way that they've rotated. I think I've been really happy with the way that they've treated the tournament.
00:16:23
Speaker
And, uh, you know, and, and I think that, that Brian Spencer probably has the right attitude. And I think it's an attitude that, you know, maybe I'm guilty of not embracing in the way that he would have liked, but it's like, this is not a, he's, he's trying to not make it a MLS moment. He's not trying to make it MLS versus league. I'm equies. He's trying to just like, this is our team. This is our moment. We're enjoying it. If you don't want to be on the ride, that's fine. But this is like, our team is into this.
00:16:52
Speaker
we're doing this thing and we're trying to take care of our own business. So, you know, maybe we could all take a cue from him and just sort of like get on board. I definitely think the degree to which the players are very clearly into it and very clearly enjoying the games and the challenge.
00:17:12
Speaker
makes it a lot easier to enjoy it. And I do think seeing that and knowing that the players are taking it seriously and knowing that the coaching staff is taking it seriously and watching them try to pull the kind of shit that they've been trying in these games, I can't relate to someone that can look at that and still be a funny dirty about it. I don't know. It's a weird attitude.
00:17:38
Speaker
But as someone who has been a leagues cup skeptic in a broad sense, if not necessarily a specific sense of what the Sounders are going through, I'm curious, do you feel like that this tournament, broadly speaking, is something salvageable from a perspective of giving it some real sporting merit and it not just being a fun thing to watch?
00:18:05
Speaker
I think it would have to have some pretty fundamental changes. I think a version of this tournament that I really buy into has teams from outside of the US and Mexico. And it it has to even if you just keep it limited to the US and Mexico, it had to have to play some games in Mexico for it to really have. Yeah, I mean, it feels more like your Europa Europa League. Yeah, I mean, something where. It's.
00:18:35
Speaker
You're playing home and home and, you know, I, that to me is the biggest thing that makes it hard to take super seriously from a sporting merit perspective is that, yeah, I mean, there's a pretty huge advantage to being at home in a soccer tournament, especially, um,
00:18:55
Speaker
When you're talking about international, you know, crossing borders and MLS teams beat Mexican deems at home and CCL all the time. Right. And then they go to Mexico and lose seven nil or whatever. So.
00:19:10
Speaker
It's, you know, it's, that's not, I don't want to, like Leaks Cup is what it is. And the, the format is that they play all the games in the US. And so you can win what you can win. It was the same as when, you know, the Sounders won a bunch of open cups and everybody's like, will they play all the games at home? And it's like, well, yeah, that's the structure of the tournament. Like that's, you win the games that are on your schedule and you can't really do a whole lot more than that, but
00:19:37
Speaker
I think to really call it like a true feather in the cap kind of accomplishment to really make it into something bigger than, Hey, the Sounders won this like pretty fun tournament. It's got to have a home and home element to it for sure. At the very least.
00:19:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fair, at least from a from a sporting merit perspective. I'll take a different angle on it. I actually wonder if it would be worth doing something where you play this whole tournament over the span of a week, you put it all in Las Vegas, you go
00:20:09
Speaker
You know you start on a on a Saturday you play a Wednesday and then you play a final on a Saturday.
Open Cup vs League's Cup: Importance Debate
00:20:14
Speaker
I suppose that makes it feel even more like an exhibition in some ways, but I kind of feel like it could be a fun mid season interlude and or at least maybe you just put the semi finals in the finals in Vegas and and maybe it's a bigger field.
00:20:28
Speaker
that leads into that. But I really do like this idea of bringing Vegas into this and giving the final a bigger feel and something that separates it very clearly from the regular season.
00:20:49
Speaker
The only thing I don't like about, or not the only thing I don't like about this tournament, but the thing I think is a little bit of a bummer about this year's tournament is that the final is a week after the semi-final. So it's like, yeah, it looks like there's going to be a few hundred Sounders fans that take this trip. I imagine that they're marketing mostly to Las Vegas locals.
00:21:10
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with that, but it's going to be, you know, like if they get 15 or 20,000 into the stadium, it's going to be like, that's going to be high end estimate. And only giving, and it's like not knowing who's going to play until a week before that just felt like it was maybe a little rushed.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that's fair. And I think like, I like the idea of leading into the Vegas thing in theory, but I think where it kind of comes apart a little bit is that kind of what you've mentioned with the short turnaround time and all that stuff, which maybe if you make it more of a like short
00:21:48
Speaker
period of time tournament, like you described, is less of a thing. But then I think you do really kind of have to start worrying about injuries and the toll that that's going to take on players. Yeah. And if you don't do it like that, then like,
00:22:04
Speaker
even if you're having the semifinal and final in Vegas, like what's the draw to neutral fans, right? Like that's if it were the CCL final and it was like, this is the best team in MLS and the best team in Mexico. And, you know, they've gotten, they've, they've battled all the way through these tournaments and, and we're going to have this, you know, final on this day. And it's always going to be a great game. Like you'll probably catch
00:22:30
Speaker
you know, a decent chunk of people that are just going to go to see the spectacle. Cause like Vegas is a place where people just go do stuff, right? Like, um, which is kind of the, but for like the, well, these teams were pretty good and, uh, they want a couple of games to get here.
00:22:46
Speaker
yeah and it's like the fourth most important trophy that they're playing for in any given year but you know like it should be a good game like that's i think less of a yeah i don't know we'll see i mean i i have a feeling that it's it's going to be around for a little while um i i think that this is and we'll probably see some different iterations of it too i think a long way yeah so you know it's uh
00:23:09
Speaker
They'll, they'll figure it out or they won't. I don't know, whatever. And we'll win it or we won't, we'll play in it or we won't. I'd rather not play in it, again, because that means we're not qualifying for CCL so. Right. No, that's a, and I think that that's a, you know, I kind of made a
00:23:26
Speaker
off the cuff statement today about uh you know talking and responding i think to someone who was uh saying how the sounders don't seem to care about the open cup anymore and i was like oh well you know you win four of six and you move on to bigger and better things um and i kind of said it flippantly and i don't know if i totally
00:23:43
Speaker
believe the things that I tweet all the time but it sounded good on paper but I was thinking yeah I think if the centers were to win four of six leagues cup trophies I probably would feel the same way like I would just like yeah we've done that but
00:23:59
Speaker
I don't know. I would like to think that there's never going to be a situation where you're able to win four of six League's Cup trophies, because hopefully you're interrupting League's Cup play with qualifying for Champions League a little bit more often, especially in this new expanded Champions League that we're going to be coming off in a few years. And the winner of League's Cup will go into that. So I don't know. I do like that.
00:24:27
Speaker
It's a tournament that doesn't have history. And so you can kind of play around with it a little bit more. And you don't have to be beholden to doing it a certain way. And I don't think, especially like this year, I think the debate over is it more important than Open Cup is
00:24:47
Speaker
obviously pointless because we're not there is no open cup this year uh i and i i even think you know and so it's like i don't know when when when you actually have to make that choice between open cup and league's cup maybe that's a debate i'm more interested in entertaining right but we don't even know what league's cup will look like we don't know what open cup's gonna look like in the future so yeah i wanted to i that that's i think the interesting question is what do you think
00:25:17
Speaker
I mean, I hope so. I think Open Cup serves a real purpose and I think that we want a competition that is pitting the various
00:25:32
Speaker
levels of the US pyramid to the degree that we have different levels of US pyramid against one another. I think there's value in that, I think, but we need to find a way to make it make sense. I think MLS teams need to be properly motivated to be in this thing. I don't have all the answers for that. I think that the Open Cup, unfortunately, is a really big deal for
00:25:59
Speaker
you know, the lower division teams, but it, it hasn't really been a big deal for MLS teams, especially early, early on. But those are also the points at which you kind of want the, you want the engagement because there's more interesting games. So I don't know. I do think that it would be good to see more games between MLS and lower division opponents. So, and let, and fewer early round games that are into MLS.
Upcoming Challenges and Fixture Impact
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think my thing with the Open Cup is that I love the Open Cup. I want to see it done in a way that honors its history and that does like where teams are invested in it and but it maintains some of the weirdness of a tournament like that. I just
00:26:49
Speaker
as long as the money is what it is with the open cup, I think that it's going to limit the amount of, you know, importance that it has for the teams that really have to be the commercial drivers for it. So I worry about its future. Yeah. I mean, my understanding is that there's something like a million dollar prize pool that the winning team is going to get for league's cup. And I would imagine that's a big part of why players are so motivated. Yeah.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah. And if we were putting that sort of money into the open cup, I think we would probably see similar levels of interest. So I don't know, US soccer get on that. Yeah. I mean, they're definitely very well known for being free with money. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So the one downside
00:27:40
Speaker
If there's one game that does concern me a little bit about this season, and it's going to be an interesting kind of meta.
00:27:51
Speaker
meta analysis going on. The Sounders are supposed to play or will be playing Sporting Kansas City on the other end of this League's Cup final. And Sporting Kansas City, of course, embarrassed themselves and bombed out to Lyon, the team the Sounders are going to be playing. In the first round of this League's Cup, the upside being that they could just focus on MLS play. It would be kind of a bummer if they
00:28:21
Speaker
if that kind of works in Sporting Kansas City's favor? It would. And I have a feeling that there are going to be people that are going to pounce all over that if it ends up happening. Yes. But I mean, ultimately, Sporting Kansas City is a really good team. I don't like saying that, but I think it's undeniable at this point. And you know, they're tough. They're always a tough team to play against. I feel like every Burmese team has been a nightmare for the Sounders.
00:28:50
Speaker
Our record at Kansas City is not good. Yeah, it's not. It's a, it's a extremely difficult place to play. That game is tough. If you have two weeks off before it, like I don't, if anything, they've got a shorter flight, right? Cause they're probably not coming back here. Um, so it is going to be an extra day in Vegas train there or something.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah, I hope they get to enjoy Vegas. I do too. Not too much, but you know enough and they can they can go out the night before the final and then you know, whenever ill effects there are from being in Vegas, they'll you know be in the in the league cup final and not the KC game. But yeah, I.
00:29:32
Speaker
If they go to Kansas City and lose, people are going to go say see sporting Kansas City did the right thing and tanked this joke of a tournament and the Sounders took it seriously and look where they're at and that's a
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's a very convenient thing to have happened to bolster your, your preexisting beliefs. But, uh, that doesn't mean that either one of those things had anything to do with the other. Um, again, Sounders played a very tough game against T grace midweek, went to Portland and scored six goals. Like two days later had a whole week and a half off and lost at home to know to a Portland game that had played in midweek and suffered some injuries. So.
00:30:13
Speaker
You know, it's, it's all convenient when it works out in your favor, but it's, you know, I think that fitness is an aggregate thing, wear and tear is an aggregate thing. Short rest is a factor, but I think one of the more overblown phenomenons in sports most likely. So, you know, we'll see.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, it is, you know, it's, it's always magical to me the way that, you know, uh, these guys come out of their club seasons and then they managed to play six games in the world cup in the span of a month and, uh, or less than a month oftentimes. But anyway, uh, yes, I agree with you and, and it'll be nice to move into other things as well, but, uh,
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. I'm just, I'm enjoying this ride right now. And I think you got to have something to do. You know, we, we've talked about this many times over the years about how the supporter shield is a more enjoyable trophy than MLS cup, because it's means that you had, you know, eight or nine months of entertaining soccer to watch and not just
00:31:27
Speaker
not just whatever period the playoffs are taking place in. And I think this season in a way is making me appreciate a lot of that and League's Cup is another one of those things where it's just like something you can throw into the middle of the season and you can enjoy it for you. You get to enjoy that part.
00:31:44
Speaker
You know, this season has not been as anguish filled I think as a lot of other seasons. And I don't know. It's been a good ride I think. It has been the exact perfect kind of season I think to follow up last season.
00:32:02
Speaker
maybe coming out of COVID and like having things kind of getting back to normal where I don't really need another source of stress in my life. And so the team that I depend on for being a distraction and being fun and not causing me a lot of psychic damage coming through on that has been very nice and very helpful.
00:32:25
Speaker
Um, the non-mariners team in your life, the non-mariners. Yeah. Well, the mariners are not really in my life in any meaningful way, but that's, that's a long story. All right. Well, um, I think that's probably a good place to call the segment. We have a bunch of questions, uh, or a few questions anyway, that we're going to get into and, uh, we'll do that after the break.
00:32:48
Speaker
Full Pool Wines are based in Seattle, owned and operated by Sanders fans, and have been sponsoring Nos adieres since 2011. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest. Their model is simple. One, they email compelling offers.
00:33:08
Speaker
Two, you request bottles that sound appealing and three, your wine arrives at their soda warehouse and is ready for pickup or shipping. Their soda tasting room is also open to the public. If you're interested in joining their mailing list or learning more about them, visit fullpaulwines.com.
00:33:29
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Arieta. So Aaron, we have we have some questions, not a ton of questions, but as usual, it's not the.
Key Signings and Team Depth
00:33:39
Speaker
Quantity, it's the quality of the questions, right? That's right. Well, I got bad news on that front to Jeremiah just. Oh no, there's there's good questions in here. So the first one is from M Rathgibber 22. You can only have one next year fryer Cleveland as goalkeeper. I am assuming this is not a serious question,
00:33:59
Speaker
I don't know if it is serious or not, but I do think that I've come around on thinking that only one of them is going to be back next year. I suspect that that one is Stephen Fry. There might be a valid argument to be had if this season was tanking and we were worried about going into a rebuilding phase.
00:34:28
Speaker
which, you know, never seems to be like this was supposed to be a rebuilding year, but maybe you go with Cleveland, you save some money and you, you go for it. But like the reality is that Steph, Steph Fry is pretty, you know, like not particularly
00:34:45
Speaker
high, you know, he's not killing your cap. He's young enough that he probably has four or five good years left in him. Right now he's probably one of the two or three best goalkeepers in the league. I don't know any scenario why you would
00:35:03
Speaker
why you wouldn't bring him back. I do think that Stephen Cleveland might be too valuable to bring back, though. I have a feeling the Sounders are going to get a nice offer for him. And frankly, getting a chunk of allocation money for him might be pretty important in terms of being able to keep this team together. Because as we've talked about, I think, the salary cap isn't going up next year. And they have a whole bunch of players who are in line for raises.
00:35:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're right. Cleveland going on the run he did probably made the sounders quite a bit of money. And that's, that's always nice. That's always a nice little surprise. Yeah. I mean, I'd love for them both to be back, but I, I, I think they can probably weather that one.
00:35:51
Speaker
This one's from Bill Trumpet. Are we playing stylistically like a Liga Emekis team? I'm not saying we are or aren't good enough to play there, but our press style and our off the ball movement seem to be more akin to Liga Emekis than MLS this year.
00:36:06
Speaker
I think in the sense that you do see more teams in Mexico playing a style like this, that's probably true. But I think that this is just the style that's kind of in vogue right now. And it's a style that you have to have a talent edge to pull off. And the Sounders have a talent edge over most teams in MLS. Or at least you have to have very talented players in certain positions to pull it off and players that are committed and able to play the style.
00:36:32
Speaker
Um, but you know, like three in the back is very in vogue right now. The kind of pressing the sour sounders are doing is, is, is pretty in vogue right now. Um, there's definitely a major South and Central American influence in this team and stylistically and tactically with the players they have, some of the guys they've had that have sort of defined the style from a coaching perspective like Gonzo, um, I think is a huge part of, of the way that they play technically. Uh, and so I think that's, you know, that's, that's definitely.
00:36:59
Speaker
got to have an influence and probably leads to some of that but I just, I do think that right now this is like the way a lot of good teams globally are playing and it makes sense that the Sounders would would do that as well. I will say I don't know enough about how it whether the Sounders are playing a league I'm actually style but I, I will say that I came away from
00:37:20
Speaker
the Santos Laguna game really impressed by Santos Laguna. The team speed that they have, their ability to recover, I felt like they were almost inviting the sounders to get out on the counter and they closed it down remarkably well. I don't know, there must've been five or six times where I thought for sure the sounders were gonna break into open space.
00:37:46
Speaker
for one reason or another, it just didn't happen. And, you know, Brian Schmittcher talked about how they just needed to be a little bit better and a little bit more, you know, a little quicker with their thinking. And I'm sure that's part of it. But I thought just Senator Seguna was putting on sort of a clinic of being able to both press and recover.
00:38:09
Speaker
Yeah, they're, they're a very fun team to watch. And it was a, it was an interesting stylistic, uh, stylistic matchup as well. It was fun game. Uh, that center back Doria was, I would love to see him in MLS. Yeah. I think that any like regular starter for Santos Laguna, um, would be pretty awesome to have on the Sanders. Yeah. Like they definitely were not playing their best lineup, but.
00:38:36
Speaker
Of the guys that were... Yeah, there were a lot of their frontline players were in that game. Next one is from drone637. How do you decide who was the best off-season signing to unexpected major contributor? It seems like everyone has been beyond solid and getting real play time. Yeah, I mean, I guess the thing is there weren't a ton of off-season signings really.
00:39:04
Speaker
Essentially, it's Freddie Monteiro, Kellen Rowe, and Spencer Richie. And I guess it's between Rowe and and Monteiro just because they've played so much more than Richie. But man, Richie as a third having that third goalkeeper ended up being really handy this year and and he's come up big and his two starts. I mean, I guess you gotta say Kellen Rowe just because he he's been more versatile. But man, Freddie Monteiro has.
00:39:35
Speaker
has scored some big goals and has been pretty important for the Sounders. It's kind of funny to think where the season would be without those three players when you consider that I don't know that there was much of a big deal made about any three of them and that all three of them have been, you know,
00:39:52
Speaker
pretty important throughout the season is pretty amazing. Pretty amazing bit of business that Garth Logaway pulled there. I think collectively they made less than $300,000.
Team Personalities and Interests
00:40:10
Speaker
Freddie looks like a completely different player than he was in Vancouver, like, and I think that part of that is Mark dos Santos is a butcher and a thief of joy and had no idea how to use him. But in part of it I'm sure is that he's he's motivated. He's, you know, he's, he's
00:40:29
Speaker
his minutes are being managed really well, but he just looks so completely invested. He's willing to, like he was playing more defense against Santo Seguna than I think I've ever seen him play. It's been, it's been a joy to watch. But I think, I think I would give the edge to Ro. I don't know. I think. Yeah. I mean, it just, he's, he has 17 starts. Yeah. He's, he's basically been,
00:40:55
Speaker
Like I want to say this in a way that is complimentary because that's how I mean it, but it sounds like it could be kind of ragging on him a little bit, but he's been like a like 90% Christian rule, Dan, you know, where
00:41:10
Speaker
He's playing everywhere. 90% is, I guess, pretty common country. But I was going to say JV Christian, and that's maybe a little less kind. But he's played everywhere. He's played different roles effectively. He's been a very good attacking player. He's been a good defensive player. He's been a good creator. He's been a good box-to-box guy. He's done pretty much everything that he's been asked.
00:41:35
Speaker
at least adequately and in some cases extremely well and he's just I think the extra flexibility he has over Freddie probably gives him the edge but yeah you know the I was kind of just digging into while we were talking digging into Freddie Montero's defensive stats because I was kind of curious and he's averaging you know
00:41:59
Speaker
Two tackles per 90, which for a forward is, is in the 95th percentile, even for attacking mids and wingers, it's in the 76 percentile. He's, you know, he's winning aerials. He's, uh, he's applying a fair amount of pressure and he's still doing all the other offensive stuff. You would guess, uh, you know, he they've used him just very, very effectively and very efficiently.
00:42:29
Speaker
And if you had told me that he was going to end up with, I mean, I guess I predicted that he would end up with something like 10 combined goals and assists. But I think I also assumed he'd probably end up having to play more to get to that. But he's basically there now while playing less than 1,000 minutes. Pretty remarkable. Yeah, definitely has been. So this one is from,
00:42:58
Speaker
Adam P 360. Who's the biggest nerd on the soccer ball kicking team from Seattle? I mean, I think the obvious answer is Ben is a pretty, pretty big nerd. I mean, he's a very specific kind of nerd. Like I don't, I don't know if he's like generally a nerd and or, or it's just like, he's just about anime, but it,
00:43:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. I think his openness with the thing he's nerdy about brings a lot of attention to that. But I suppose you could say Kellen Rowe is a little nerdy in his pursuit of becoming essentially a sommelier.
00:43:40
Speaker
And I guess Shane O'Neill is a burger. That's pretty nerdy. Yeah, I think that's more classically nerdy than being an anime guy. Yeah, I'm wondering if there's any like low, like I know Lamar Nagel used to be like,
00:43:55
Speaker
Really like he was like a book you'd like read all the Game of Thrones books I don't know if there's anyone that's like that sort of nerd on this team But there's definitely a few guys like I think that's what makes this You know, you got to have a few of those guys on every team Yeah, apparently will brewing fashions himself to be a pretty serious ping-pong player. Oh So that was it. Yeah, he seems like he seems like a hyper competitive guy in like yeah. Yeah. Yeah so
00:44:25
Speaker
And I don't know if ping pong is a nerdy thing.
Coaching Styles: Ted Lasso vs Brian Schmetzer
00:44:28
Speaker
I think it's I mean, it's nerdy in the same way that word adjacent. Yeah, it's nerdy in the same way. Something like pinball is nerdy. You know, yeah, it's it's a dorky record kind of thing.
00:44:39
Speaker
Great transition to this next question. Yeah. So this one is from Dave Clark. Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, Legolas, Robin Hood, Green Arrow, Hank the Ranger, or Leo Chu, who wins? Well, first of all, I think, full disclosure, I had to look up who a few of these people were. But I think we were able to gather that they're all archers or people that work with bows and arrows and
00:45:08
Speaker
I don't have, I mean, Leo Chu is the only one I think that's a soccer player. As far as I know, I don't know enough about the backstory of all these various fictional characters to know if they- I mean, Robin Hood's from England, so it's probably- Yeah, good point. That's a really astute observation. Good point.
00:45:29
Speaker
But yeah, other than that, I don't know. I mean, I don't know, Green Arrow maybe has some, like he might, I could see him being like a soccer guy. I know for sure Hawkeye is not a soccer guy. That seems very unlikely. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going with the guy that lit the Barcelona Olympic torch. What's his name? I don't know. Just the guy. He shot an arrow at a cauldron and it burst into him. That's pretty cool.
00:45:58
Speaker
Yeah. Well, this is a good one to end on. And I'm glad that we set it up so that it goes to you. It's coming from Nick in Seattle. And he says, Ted Lasso, the character, honestly reminds me of Brian Spencer turned up to 11. Relentlessly positive, truly believes in his players, wants the best for everyone, et cetera. Why aren't more coaches like that? And more importantly, why won't Aaron Campo watch the show? So I'll answer the first part.
00:46:26
Speaker
about why coaches or more coaches learn like that first and say that I think that a lot of it is that the people making decisions about sports teams tend to be kind of stupid and don't actually care about the things that make teams win and care about the things that they think are important. And so they pick assholes because most people rich enough in sports teams are assholes and they're like other assholes. And, you know, there's just that like sort of
00:46:56
Speaker
toughness, masculinity thing that's very heavily leaned on in the sports world. And so I think that's a big part of it. Before you go to your second part, I wanted to add to that. I obviously have not done a thorough breakdown of this, but I'm just thinking in my head, like the coaches who are known as being sort of like, I guess these guys get oftentimes labeled as players coaches, but I think that's too
00:47:25
Speaker
that's too kind or it's not too it's too like flip uh it's missing the point it's missing the point i think but you you think of guys who are known as being like empathetic to their players and i don't i don't remember a lot of them being awful but man there are a lot of awful assholes like
00:47:47
Speaker
The coaching world is littered with coaches who were just overtly jerks and no one likes, and somehow they keep getting hired. I don't want to say good guys, but people that understand the human condition oftentimes
00:48:06
Speaker
Because that's the way I think it is. It's not even being a nice guy. It's just being understanding what motivates people. And a lot of people are like, sure, some people are motivated by nagging, essentially. But a lot more people are motivated by positivity. And if you can create a workplace people want to be a part of, that's a pretty powerful tool. Yeah, no, I think that that's true. And I think that you have to
00:48:34
Speaker
You have to understand what you're doing and be committed to it in a way that I think like people with the more
00:48:42
Speaker
typical coach personality tend to, I think like that's just the more standard. Like I'm a guy that's obsessed with my job and my work and it's, I live it and breathe it and, and I yell at people and scream because I care so much. And that's also like, they're going to be really invested in like understanding tactics and understanding psychology and blah, blah, blah, and all that shit. Whereas like, you know, more easygoing people, maybe stereotypically at least are not as much that way. And so people see them as unserious or whatever, but.
00:49:12
Speaker
I think a huge part of making a team, a club, an attractive destination is creating a culture that people care about and want to be a part of and are excited to be a part of and are willing to take huge pay cuts to be a part of, which we've seen pay off based on the answer to our last couple of questions with guys like Freddie and Kellen Rowe coming here and wanting to come here and taking less money to come here.
00:49:40
Speaker
Yeah, and I do think that Branch Metzer and his personality and all of that's a big part of that. And I think it's interesting to note that every team has hometown players who aren't dying to go back to the hometown. And I think what's kind of been impressive about the Sounders is that it seems like no matter what, very few players seem to leave on truly bad terms,
00:50:11
Speaker
because so many of them are willing to come back and they want to come back. And I don't, you know, like obviously you hear grumblings about guys who are unhappy, who don't feel like they're getting treated right for whatever reason. But yet, like the evidence suggests that there's a lot more players who are more than happy to get back and kind of realize after they leave that, you know,
00:50:36
Speaker
things were pretty good here. And I think Brian Spencer is a huge, huge part of that. Whatever you say about him, I think he's created in an environment where people want to be. And that's pretty important. But the second part, let's get to the second part. So there's two answers to this question.
00:50:52
Speaker
And the first answer is probably the more viscerally honest answer and the answer that I would give to someone that I was just talking about this with in a bar that was not a fan of the show. And I'm not going to give that answer. The second answer is the one that is a little more self-aware and probably closer to the truth. And that is that,
00:51:21
Speaker
So I'm almost 40 years old. I have watched an really unhealthy amount of TV consumed a lot of media in my life. And so I know pretty early on from seeing a clip of something, hearing people talk about something, whether or not it's for me.
00:51:40
Speaker
I can say with a pretty high level of certainty that the show is not for me. Ted Lesso is not for me. And there's a functionally unlimited amount of media in the world to consume. And I don't have enough time to watch a bunch of stuff that I want to watch, that I have been wanting to watch or read or whatever. So I'm just not going to spend time on something I'm almost positive I wouldn't like. And I have actually heard
00:52:09
Speaker
recently in the last couple weeks, like I've seen a couple clips from the show and heard some people talk about the show. And that has done nothing but further, you know, my belief that the show is not for me. But the part of this that's like the self-reflective
00:52:28
Speaker
sort of honest part of this is that that's like, I think that like, I don't like shows like this because there's something wrong with me. Like it's, this isn't a problem with me because I'm a very nihilistic person. I don't like positive things. I don't like positivity. I don't like, that's not, that's not entirely true, but like in the media I consume, especially in like things that are supposed to be comedic.
00:52:52
Speaker
like I don't want it to have a heart of gold. And if it does, I want it to surprise me or I want it to stand in contrast with like a lot of darkness or nihilism. And like, that's why shows like King of the Hill are I love so much. Like King of the Hill is ultimately like a very sweet show, but it's like sweet in a way that's like very ironic and like sort of winky in itself.
00:53:18
Speaker
I think Ted Lasso was just nice, just like generally nice. I think, I think, I do think as someone who's watched all of it and is, and is up to date on it, I think you might be underestimating it a little. Like I think that the first season was what caught me by surprise. And I do think that's one of the challenges now is that.
00:53:39
Speaker
I think what a lot of people liked about it early on was, here's a show based on a pretty forgettable series of commercials. Right. And, and, like, is this really fodder for a season worth of television.
00:53:58
Speaker
You just go into it with really low expectations and it blows those low expectations out of the water. And the second season has been interesting because I think they're on episode eight, something like that.
00:54:10
Speaker
And the first, you know, two thirds of the season I thought were kind of saccharine and borderline, like exactly what you're describing. Like just positive for positivity's sake. There didn't seem to be a lot of narrative through lines that were connecting in important ways, but they were sort of like hinting at some things that in the last couple of episodes have
00:54:37
Speaker
given a little bit more life to the show that have given it a little bit more of an edge. Edge is the wrong word, but like kind of surprised you a little bit and tackled some issues that I think were interesting to be addressed in a new way. So I got, I, I, I wouldn't, I'm not going to sit here and say that you have to watch it because you don't like it. And I'm not going to, to be clear, I'm not going to watch it. Right. And, but I'm just saying like, it doesn't have to be for everyone. And I think that,
00:55:07
Speaker
like the relentless push for I think people in soccer especially to be convinced to watch the show I think is a little because it's really not a I don't think it's a particularly good soccer show like with you like strip down all the other stuff and say like but is the soccer interesting and I think the answer is no.
00:55:29
Speaker
And so I wouldn't really come at it from that angle. And I don't think I'll try to convince you to watch it at all. I'll just defend the show a little bit in that I think my suspicion is that if you did watch it, you might be surprised at your
00:55:45
Speaker
takeaways from it because I think it has a little bit more intellectual heft than you might assume. It's not even that though. It's just that I think that the style of humor, what's being laughed at, what the sort of through lines of the show, like I've heard, like I've seen enough clips and stuff from it to have what I feel like is a pretty good. And I think you hit on something that I think has like
00:56:15
Speaker
we've really kind of lost it this ability like we we don't understand that like something can be good and not for everyone and not for everyone yeah there's lots of stuff that i love deeply where if somebody was like i don't like that or i don't want to watch that where it's like yeah i don't
00:56:32
Speaker
I completely understand that, you know, I still think this is good and we'll defend it on its merits. And I think like we've gotten to this point with culture where if you say like, I don't like that, it's not for me. It's it's treated as though you were saying, I think that that is bad art or whatever. Right. And I don't know that it's that it's only looked at as being contrarian and not honest merits of saying like things can not be for you. Like it's so it's OK. It really is. And I think we can probably find a lot of pieces of media
00:57:02
Speaker
that, you know, like I know I got into some debates with some people about like The Witcher, which people, like I think there was two camps of people. There were people that like thought of it as pure camp. And I thought that that was underestimating it greatly because I actually thought it was an interesting show. Like, like it was not in Zena. You know, it was something that was actually pretty interesting. But anyway, we don't have to go too deep into that.
00:57:29
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I think, I think that's one. I would be. I feel like too much of the conversation around Ted Lasso has been either you like it.
00:57:42
Speaker
or you have to not like it and point out why it's actually bad. And it's okay to just not be into it. I think we need to be more comfortable with that idea that things can be objectively good and not be my thing. There are a lot of things like that in the world that I think we'd all be happier if we could accept that. And also, then we could have honest conversations about things that actually suck ass.
00:58:10
Speaker
And we don't have like, I miss, I miss that like exactly. But yeah, I just, I miss being able to say like, this sucks on the merits. And I'll tell you why. Uh, because we're not allowed to say that about anything anymore. Cause there's no, no station we have because we're all on Twitter. I know this is terrible. I know Twitter has, I, I have, I have to admit that like I,
00:58:35
Speaker
Like I've been able to get off Facebook and I don't see an off-ramp for Twitter, but there is definitely a lot about the discourse that I think Twitter has ruined and made our lives worse in significant ways. But anyway, that's the show I think. And on that up note. Yeah. If you ever want to hear the real answer, you just got to get me drunk.
00:59:01
Speaker
There you go. Well, I'll have to, that'll be my next goal is to get the real answer from you. Uh, but yeah, uh, thanks to football wines or, or, or, uh, relentless sponsor.
00:59:14
Speaker
I am Jeremiah O'Shan, signing off on behalf of Aaron Campo and the Kapee. This is No Study at This, and remember, you'll never get alone.
00:59:37
Speaker
Roll on, Columbia, roll on. Roll on, Columbia, roll on. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn. Roll on, Columbia, roll on. We love you. Let's win another one!