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Episode 438: Thank Cristian, we’re back in the playoffs
84 Plays2 years ago
The Sounders got a massive win on Wednesday, beating the LA Galaxy on a 96th minute goal from Cristian Roldan that punched their ticket back to the playoffs. Jeremiah and Mark talk about how this win has helped revive their belief that this team might be capable of making a run.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
00:01:26
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of NOS Adiatus, sponsored by Full Pole Wines, Watson's Counter, and our subscribers. This is episode 438 and we're recording on Thursday, October 5th, 2023. I am your host, Jeremiah Shan. Joining me today is Mark Kastner and our engineer, Lickit. Aaron is, I don't know, watching wrestling or something.
Sounders' Playoffs and Roldan's Heroics
00:01:47
Speaker
Well, the Sounders are officially back in the playoffs. As it turned out, that was going to happen regardless of the outcome of Wednesday's game against the Galaxy. But thanks to some very late heroics from Christian Rodin, they got to celebrate in style. Rodin's 96-minute goal was actually the latest game winner in Loom & Field history, one whole second later than Kelvin Lierdom's winner against Vancouver in 2019.
00:02:10
Speaker
The win also pushes the center's unbeaten streak to seven games, puts them back into second place in the Western Conference, and makes me wonder, was all over T-nashing misplaced, Mark? Um, yes and no.
00:02:25
Speaker
I think it's just one of those moments where you just kind of go scoreboard and you, you end up looking at previous seasons where you thought, Hey, the Sounders have played really well.
Sounders' Season Analysis and Expectations
00:02:36
Speaker
Uh, and you know, you, you know, I, you know, I thought the Sounders played super well in 2019. They didn't qualify the for the playoffs until the late, the, like the last game and real ideas is stoppage time. Um,
00:02:53
Speaker
So it's kind of like one of those moments where it's like maybe we're not like incredibly pleased with the sounders performance overall this season, but it's all relative because turns out the rest of the West is a lot worse than where the sounders are at. So.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the sounders would be like tied for sixth in the Eastern Conference right now, which is actually better than it had been recently. But yeah, I mean, it's been it's funny, you know, I tweeted this out the other today, and there was this graph that we have access to through a
00:03:34
Speaker
I don't need
00:04:06
Speaker
And I think, and I don't know, maybe that's, that's, I'm sure to some degree that's, that's misremembering how bad it really felt at that time. But the point is, is that it felt pretty bad. And I think that's a lot of it is because of how last season went, which they obviously missed the playoffs for the first time. And so this was sort of seen as a continuation and.
00:04:28
Speaker
you know, the way this season started where they were five, one and one, and it felt like, oh, they're going to contend for the supporter shield. And it's been obvious for months now that they weren't going to contend for the supporter shield. So just to be fighting for a playoff spot felt sort of like a, a loss, uh, almost like, you know, like fighting for a playoff spot was almost as bad as literally missing the playoffs. Yeah. And I think like,
00:04:57
Speaker
I mean, the start of the season was great. They played so well and, you know, they had struggles for two or three months, depending on how you want to, um, five months. If you really, if you want to get into it, they've been, they've been kind of struggling for five months. I guess it depends on how you consider the last month, but yeah. And it's, and it's also just like,
Challenges and Key Matches
00:05:18
Speaker
And honestly, in like a lot of key moments, they just haven't showed up like against Portland, you know, and particularly that home game where Portland has just fired their head coach, you know, the coach, Gio Savarese has had Brian Spencer's number his entire like career. And then they go to up and it's just so like emotionally charged and it feels like here's the moment and then they just completely, you know, wet their bedsheets or whatever. And
00:05:48
Speaker
You know, I was doing some reflecting when we were talking about like recording this and it was like, I'm, I'm really struggling to find moments in sounders history where I felt worse about the team than after that Portland draw. Yeah. Partly because of it's like the way that it happened, but also just like the, like the overall vibes of like where they were at in that moment.
00:06:16
Speaker
was, were terrible, terrible. Like in, in, in, you know, looking back, yes, they were probably always going to qualify for the playoffs if they kind of kept that, but they also did such a good job of like wearing that hurdle, stumbling in the league's cup, stumbling again, when they got out of the league's cup and now they're seven unbeaten. And who knows what this team can do.
00:06:40
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think part of it was they were coming off that big win against Austin coming into the timbers game. And it felt like all of a sudden this, we've been waiting sort of for this turnaround to happen. We, you know, uh, you know, you go back to the Vancouver game where they came back and won or they didn't come back and win, but they were, I guess they never drilled that game, but they won that game three, two.
00:07:04
Speaker
and what they wanted on the stoppage time winner and it felt like that was a point where this okay it's clicking it's gonna turn around and they're gonna sprint to the end and it's gonna be gravy and it's gonna be fun and it didn't it instead it went the exact opposite direction they struggled and it steamroll it's sort of like
00:07:23
Speaker
picked up in league's cup, just sort of like made everything feel worse. And then they come out of league's cup and they had that complete base plant against Atlanta. And at that point, it almost felt like the season was maybe going to completely unravel. And instead they kind of pull themselves back together. They get a couple of results. They go into the timbers game, they get to, they go up to zero and then the rug gets pulled out again and they have to settle for a draw on that one.
00:07:51
Speaker
And I think last week, we talked about this a little bit, but last week, the Nashville tie, even though it was a tie.
00:07:59
Speaker
It felt like for the first time they really controlled a match. They, they didn't get the result that they wanted, but it was a result that felt like a positive step forward. And then this game, I don't know. I guess you can be of two minds because you know, they get that first goal. They were dominant in the first half and then they give up the equalizer to Costa, but they were never really in danger of loot. I didn't really feel like they were in danger of losing this game.
00:08:28
Speaker
But then to pull it out at the end, it just maybe feels like, okay, maybe this is going back where we need it.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I didn't think they were going to lose, but I was kind of like, man, not again, you know, like a game that you're playing at home. Right. And I think it would have been if they didn't win that last night or if they didn't win on Wednesday night, that would have been the longest streak of not winning at home. Correct. Yeah. It would have been their fifth game across all competitions without a win at home. That would have been the first time they'd ever done that.
00:09:00
Speaker
I would imagine it would have probably also been the fourth league game. The first time they'd ever gone four league games in a row without winning. It had been three months since they won a home game. Yeah. The last home game they won, I was there. And I don't live in Seattle. So that's just to kind of put that in perspective. And I don't even live in the state. Oh, man, that was a game I got COVID. I forgot about that. Yeah, you're welcome, I guess.
00:09:30
Speaker
I am maybe the reason why you got COVID, but I didn't get it. Somehow that feels unlikely, but anyway, go ahead. Yeah, anyways, it kind of felt like, oh, here we go again. Good enough isn't good enough type of thing. Yes. Feeling sorry for yourselves, but Christian Roldan had other ideas, thank God.
00:09:51
Speaker
I would actually kind of say like for me personally, the vibes about like what this team is capable of and how they can actually play well actually started in the Colorado match, not the game. With the caveat that like Colorado, if it weren't for the dumpster fire that's happening in Toronto would be probably like one of the worst teams in MLS history.
00:10:20
Speaker
But still, you're going to Colorado on short rest. It is a bad place to play, facility-wise, the elevation, short rest, all of that. And they had a coherent, tactical game plan that had player synergy, incredible attacking patterns, and it was just all there. It was just there, and it looked great.
00:10:49
Speaker
Sure. Worst team in the league, whatever. Right. Definitely worst team in the last, but then to go to Nashville and complete like things didn't like look great in that game. You know, you could classify that game as boring, but everything in that match happened on the Sounders terms, which doesn't happen when you play in Nashville. So, um, so it's just one of those things where it's like,
00:11:19
Speaker
You got to start feeling better about this team. Maybe nothing happens. Maybe they bounce in the first round. I don't know. But it's a different team than the team that we dealt with for the middle 70% of the season, let's say. Yeah. I mean, I would agree with you there that it's at the very least I.
00:11:36
Speaker
You know, one of the things Brian Schmetzer went on about last night was his, his insistence that this team never quit. And I think that's probably true. Like as much as people have, as much as fans have oftentimes filled up my mention saying things like this team has no heart. I, I have never really believed that. And I think last night was sort of a good example of what, what it, like, I think sometimes the execution isn't there. And I think you can argue, you can, we can go.
00:12:07
Speaker
on and on about the reasons for that. But I do think the team has shown fight, you know, for the most part, you know, the, maybe the Atlanta game was a notable exception, but they've not been out of games is similar to what, frankly, last year, you know, they weren't really out of games last year either. It was just that they just didn't have the execution part of it.
00:12:27
Speaker
And say what you will about things like expected goals, but all the underlying metrics have insisted that the sounders are actually pretty good this year, even if the results haven't been there. And I think there's a metric that American soccer analysis keeps called expected points. And I think the sounders are second or maybe fourth. I think they're actually their fourth in expected points right now.
00:12:56
Speaker
It's just my, the point being that this is a team that does a lot of things, right? What they don't do really well right now is, is actually finish. And, you know, maybe it is, it's not that Christian Roldan is a great finisher, but he does sort of provide an X factor for the Sounders that does seem to be pretty real. You know, their record when he plays is seven, one, and six, you know, that's almost a two points per game average.
Roldan's Influence on Team Performance
00:13:24
Speaker
And when they don't play, they're averaging like 1.2 points per game. One of our readers actually put together a plot.
00:13:34
Speaker
where they a plot graph, I think is what they're called, right? And he basically put the plus minus for a player's XG and the plus minus for a player's actual goals on a graph. And based on that sort of metric, Christian Roldan is arguably the most important player
00:13:56
Speaker
in the league in terms of the way that the team performs when he's on the field and off the field. And I think this was just another example of how important he is. It wasn't just that he scored the goal. I'll also note that his pressure, him and Alex's pressure is what created the throw-in that led to the goal.
00:14:19
Speaker
And we see that sort of effort showing up in all sorts of little places. And it, I will say this, that if Christian is available and fully fit, I don't see any reason why this team can't make a serious run at MLS cup. And if he's not, they'll probably go in the first round. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, I, I hate being the type of guy, you know, cause you know, we always put a lot of thought into like,
00:14:47
Speaker
the analytics or, you know, like the narrative of a season, you know, we're trying to offer insight to people. And it's just so funny that it's like, it's Christian, hold on, it just is. And, you know,
00:15:05
Speaker
they're a good team when he plays and they're not good when he doesn't play and it is literally just that simple and uh you know like litigate i guess i don't know what are you gonna do yeah i mean it's the i'll say this for sure the west is so wide open we've said this so many times like if the centers can just get into the playoffs the west is so wide open that it it feels like they could go on a run
00:15:29
Speaker
And it should be said the centers can still finish theoretically as low as eighth in the table. I don't think I think realistically their floor is probably fourth at this point. Like I would be surprised if they drop below fourth, although it is theoretically possible. But if they win against Vancouver, they will literally be guaranteed a fourth and they'll probably be in line for a second or third seed.
00:15:56
Speaker
Of course that also there's also a very real possibility they're going to play the timbers in the first round, which I don't know. I have sort of mixed feelings about on one hand. I feel like it's a great opportunity to exercise some demons. I'm still not convinced that Portland is very good as much as they have the Sounders number.
00:16:13
Speaker
And so I think there's a decent chance the Sounders would win a series against them. But frankly, there's not a lot of teams I am dying to play and there's not a lot of teams I'm scared of playing in the first round or in the whole Western Conference. I don't know. I'm pretty scared of playing Portland. I'll go ahead and just say that.
00:16:33
Speaker
Man, I don't wanna deal with that. I don't know if it's, but are you scared or are you just over the, like, meta narrative? I'm scared of the Portland Timbers the same way I'm scared of the dishes in my sink. Okay, yeah, sure. I just don't wanna face that reality. Yeah, no, I can, I feel you there. I can definitely, I definitely am on the same page. And I just, I know I just gave, like, a clip to, like, Timbers fans or whatever, but that's fine.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah. Hey, if any timber spans want to clip that and like sort of promote the podcast, I'm willing to accept that as a, as a fair trade. Uh, but like the, the white caps are a pretty good matchup. I think this is, we're going to learn a lot, I think about this team on Saturday. Uh, if they handle the white caps.
00:17:23
Speaker
You know, the Whitecaps, to me, are pretty emblematic of the Western Conference right now. On their day, they look great. And there are still games where they look like absolute trash. And if the Sounders can manage that game and actually look good,
00:17:40
Speaker
I would love, like, I don't really, I would love to not care that much about what happens in the St. Louis game, you know? And I feel like if the Sounders win on, on Saturday, they'll be on 52 points. And at that point, frankly, I'm willing to let it fall. If they, if they beat the, it would be nice to have 55. Like there's a, there's a, uh,
00:18:00
Speaker
a roundness to 55 points that very, I find very pleasing. And I think that would be a wonderful point total to end the season on, but I'm not, I don't feel like 55. There's nothing magical about 55 points, right? Other than it's a 54%, uh, other than it's claiming 54% of the, the available points and which, and 55 burgers, 55 fries, 55 pizzas, 55,
00:18:24
Speaker
Exactly. And that's an illusion. I'm teasing the second segment where we're going to talk about Jerry DiPoto's comments about the 54% winning percentage and how that relates to the sounders. So there's your teaser for the second segment. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I feel
00:18:47
Speaker
I realize it's a little convenient to do this, but I don't know, that win does make me feel a lot more comfortable with the state of affairs. Yeah, and I will say, you know, I was probably more pessimistic for most of the year than you were. Is that, would you say, a fair assessment? Yeah, I mean, I think it was like two weeks ago that you were telling me that this team was completely unwatchable.
00:19:15
Speaker
Uh, yes, I was doing that. I was definitely doing that after the Dallas game. Um, and that was less than two weeks ago. I think you said they were the worst team in MLS or something like that to me. I said, they're the easiest to play against. Oh, there you go. That's a really important qualifier.
00:19:36
Speaker
And I don't know how to prove it. Yeah. Um, but I was wrong and it's great. I'm a new person here today to talk about how great they are. Um, it is like, it really is a, I think people like me and I don't want to speak for every fan that has had negative opinions because I don't want to put, I don't want to be responsible for a lot of people in that camp. Yeah. So I'll just say.
00:20:05
Speaker
people that were kind of worried for most of the season, which I was, and people who, you know, they spend their time and their money watching this team. Yeah, they were bored and they were frustrated. Fairly. I think totally fairly. People like that. I'll just say because I was one of those people, you know,
00:20:26
Speaker
Last night's game kicked off at 9 39 PM local time. That's very late for a Wednesday. Yeah. Um, we wanted it like a moment to hang our hats on. We needed something. And that's why I think I was so disappointed after the Portland game, because I wanted that to be the thing that I could be like, this is worthy of my investment of emotion and time and money. And it wasn't at that point. However,
00:20:54
Speaker
It's too late in the season to really know if this kind of galaxy moment, Krishna Roldan's goal was that, but it can be if they do something special with it. And I remember I was on a show kind of after the league's cup debacle, I think Aaron was hosting. And I just said, I want the team to show me, give me something because this is probably the last time that this group is together as its thing, you know?
00:21:24
Speaker
And it just took a month later. And they kind of gave me that. Now, I'm not going to be irresponsible, but they could. It could be more than just this. It could be more than just a nice winner against the galaxy and watch Greg Vanny look like he just saw a ghost, which rocks, by the way. I love seeing him look like a ghost at Lumen Fever.
00:21:53
Speaker
It happens a lot. It sure does. If I had a nickel for every time that happened, I'd have probably six nickels, which isn't a lot of nickels, but it sure is. Sure is satisfying. It is an interesting amount of nickels to have. Yeah, I mean, I'm fired up. I'm ready to go. I want to see this team do something. They might probably won't, I don't know, but it'll be cool.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, I, yeah, I don't know. I honestly, I would feel very reluctant. I'm very reluctant to make any bold predictions about where this is going to go.
Sounders' Playoff Prospects
00:22:29
Speaker
But I do feel like at the very least that if this is the last hurrah for this core group of players, that at least they're going to go down.
00:22:39
Speaker
with some positive, you know, it's not going to just be like backing into the playoffs going out early and it will be good night. Like, I mean, they could still go out early, but I at least think they gave us a reason to be optimistic. And given where this
00:22:57
Speaker
season was as recently as like a month ago. I have to consider that a little bit of a win. Uh, you know, there was a lot of the things that we've been frustrated by all year that happened again last night. You know, the, the centers took 18 shots. Way too few of those shots were dangerous. Uh, you know, uh, we saw ever get into dangerous spots again and not really even come close to finishing. We saw, you know, uh,
00:23:26
Speaker
You know, we, there was a lot there, you know, we saw a good start foiled by a flat second half, you know, there was like, you can go through the list of things that have been going wrong all year and weren't, and we're going wrong again last night. And yet they figured out a way to win. And that for some reason gives me hope that they can maybe put this together. And I don't even think they're going to start reeling off.
00:23:51
Speaker
big wins over people. Like I think that ship has probably sailed where we can, like, I'm not, I'm definitely not going into the whitecaps game thinking like, Oh, we got a three zero win in our pocket. And that's gonna, like, it's probably going to be a grindy two, one win or something. Right. But I'll take it. Uh, and, and frankly, you can, you can grind your way to MLS cup, especially from the Western conference. And if that's how this ends,
00:24:18
Speaker
Great. Like I got, and if it doesn't in that way, I guess I'm sort of at peace with that too. Yeah. And I think like what I meant when I was talking about this team was too easy to play against is when their thing didn't work, it just didn't work and nothing would come after that. The reason why I'm so encouraged after these last two games or three games now is
00:24:43
Speaker
When the one thing doesn't work, in which the one thing most of the season has been just Leo Chu dribbling really fast, getting to the byline, cutting it across towards the penalty area, hopefully somebody's there, hopefully somebody scores.
00:24:59
Speaker
That hasn't been working because, frankly, the last two games, Leo two hasn't been playing very well, but they've still looked good because they have other ideas. They can do different things with the ball. And yeah, they don't look incredibly dangerous.
00:25:15
Speaker
especially with just like taking a lot of shots outside of the box, which is like a thing I never liked to see. But it's it is something and it's and it's like if there's this kind of confidence that exists with this team that didn't exist a few months ago where it's like they get the ball in dangerous spots.
00:25:35
Speaker
and they know they'll be back. They know in a couple of minutes, 30 seconds, whatever, they'll have another opportunity to create something. And when this team was at its worst, they would get into those areas and kind of tense up and then perform poorly in those spots because it's like, when am I gonna get this opportunity again? They trust themselves that even down to the 96th minute, from a,
00:26:02
Speaker
throw in that was a poor back heel from the galaxy, which happened twice, by the way. Again, with the Nichols analogy, it's weird that that happened twice. They will have an opportunity to score it. They might not. And Brian's Metro was very sort of, he kind of was at pains to say, I still don't think we've played really well. And we don't always play very well, but we don't quit. Yeah.
00:26:30
Speaker
Yeah, no, I, I would agree with all that. I think that's a good, a good way of sort of looking at it, that it's, that there is sort of a, you know, I will say the other thing I've noticed in their wins or at least in the games where they, they look good is there are times when this team looks old and tired and then there are a game like against Atlanta, they looked old and tired. I think that was probably a
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah. And, and I think kind of what that comes down to is like, who's in the starting lineup. And the team looks old and tired when Nicholas Ledero and Raul Rui Dias start, but they don't look old and tired when those two players don't start, be it either they're unavailable because they have a mysterious back injury, or it just kind of seems like.
00:27:23
Speaker
the best 11 now for the Sounders doesn't involve legaro in it. And that's true. They are, those two players are old and tired. Yeah, I mean, and yeah, I don't, I guess the other thing, the other thing I was going, well, the other element of that is I, the, the. Alternately old and tired is they do a good job of counter pressing. They do a good job of winning second balls. And we saw that on both goals where, you know, they essentially one second balls to keep the play alive.
00:27:52
Speaker
The first one was a perfect example of Joe Paulo just sort of like unwilling to give up on a play and in winning a ball, you know, winning probably two balls. He didn't really have a lot of business winning and then, you know, having the class to put in a first time cross to Morris who had a really good header. I love that Jordan Morris scored on his first game back after having given his wife gave birth and
00:28:17
Speaker
That's almost been a lost part of the narrative when there was many times that would have been the entire story. His celebration was for Taylor Swift, right? Right. Why don't we call this a segment? We're going to come back. We're going to talk a little bit about Megan Rapinoe's final game. We're going to talk about Jerry DiPoto's comments and how that relates to the Sounders. We're going to tie it all together in a nice little bow. You're listening to No Suddy at This.
00:28:48
Speaker
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00:29:18
Speaker
Welcome back to no study at this. Uh, so we have a few sort of off topic topic things. We may as well start Megan Rapinoe's last game or last regular season game with the rain or less regular season game period, I guess is on Friday should be a record, hopefully a record crowd going to be there. They've already sold over 31,000 tickets. They need to get over 32,000 to set the NWSL record should be a pretty amazing atmosphere. If you don't have tickets.
00:29:48
Speaker
You can get them for as cheap as $15 sitting GA. So I would try to be there. It's going to be a historic night, but I don't know. Do you have any, any Megan Rapinoe observations you want to share? It's been, I always think the thing I always love about Megan Rapinoe.
00:30:07
Speaker
is the insistence on some people is that she's driving people away from soccer, when while she has ascended to levels of stardom that I don't know that any soccer player, no, certainly no woman soccer player has ever achieved, and the game is more popular now than it's ever been, and somehow we're to believe that she's holding the game back from being more popular.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's just kind of idiotic. It's just like the like the most bad face argument that you could probably come up with. Right. I don't like it. I mean, it's like, I'll give you this analogy. You can hate like, I don't think I'm going to be shocking anyone when I say I oppose basically everything that Donald Trump stands for, right?
00:30:52
Speaker
I will admit that more people have voted during the Trump era than ever before. That's just an undeniable fact. You can't argue that Donald Trump drives people to not care about politics. For better or for worse, they care. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but I guess in a similar way, you cannot say that Megan Rapinoe is making soccer unpopular. It's an insane thing to say.
00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah, I will share just like one little like, this is my, this is my like, Megan Rapinoe tidbit that nobody else has, which I don't know if that's important or not.
00:31:31
Speaker
I very briefly worked for, back then it was called the Seattle Rain.
Megan Rapinoe's Media Engagement and Influence
00:31:37
Speaker
And Megan Rapinoe was obviously a player on the team, worked for the team. And I was kind of tasked with like, getting quotes and stuff after the game. And I just remember like,
00:31:49
Speaker
having to pull this superstar aside and being like, hey, can you answer my silly questions? And not only did she give me the time out of obligation, but she was very, very engaged with telling the story of this game that I'm pretty sure they lost. I think they lost 2-1 to Washington Spirit, if I remember correctly. And she was just so like, I thought I was gonna get
00:32:20
Speaker
90 seconds, three questions, but we sat there probably 15 minutes and you know she kind of helped me like craft the narrative around everything she said and um she was just like really incredible and she didn't have to do that especially because we were standing outside of a like a 90 year old locker room in Memorial Stadium or whatever it was and it was dingy and wet and it was gross and it was dark it was late it was cold very cold
00:32:46
Speaker
And, you know, she was just like, she didn't know who I was she and she probably doesn't know who I am still. And it's just kind of like, that just seems like who she is as a person that it doesn't matter if it's, you know, like,
00:33:05
Speaker
ABC News or something doing a segment or CNN or whatever, or just like team employee getting quotes. She gives that time, gives that energy because she loves the sport and she loves people knowing about women's soccer, I think.
00:33:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a great observation. I guess on the other side of that coin, the one frustration I have during the sort of the Megan Rapinoe era, which is literally the entirety of the
00:33:39
Speaker
reign's existence is that somehow she's just not more synonymous with the rain. Like to me, you know, this is a player who spent effectively 10 years playing in Seattle and way too many sports fans don't realize that Megan Rapinoe, probably the world's most famous soccer player, plays soccer here. And I don't think that's Rapinoe's fault. I think that's a failure of the rain to sort of maximize their
00:34:09
Speaker
You know, uh, marketing dollars. And I suppose on some level that was a conscientious choice that they, you know, they didn't want to force Megan into doing more press than she did. And a lot of people wanted her attention, but. And so I'm not necessarily trying to blame anyone for this. I just think it's, it's too bad that we're having to wait until literally her last game.
00:34:32
Speaker
to see a crowd that she's probably deserved for most of her career to be out here. There's going to be 32,000, 33,000 people probably out at Lumen Field. It's going to be an electric atmosphere. They had a pretty good crowd two years ago when they had the double header.
00:34:50
Speaker
But that should have really been, I can't help but feel like that should have been the norm or it should have been closer to the norm. And so it's, it's just kind of too bad that, you know, we had this great window of 10 years where Rapinoe was here, where the rain were really competitive. And for whatever reason,
00:35:10
Speaker
you know, the rain have not been able to get to the mainstream of Seattle sports consciousness. And that's, I guess I'm just kind of bummed about that, but also hopeful that we can send her off in style. Yeah. And I think there's, there's plenty of time to kind of do the introspection as like Seattle sports fans. And then also like, hopefully, you know, the team gets more popular. Um, but yeah, I mean, as a player, there aren't,
00:35:39
Speaker
men or women in Seattle sports have not accomplished anything close to Megan Rapinoe.
Rapinoe's Legacy and Career
00:35:47
Speaker
Besides maybe her partner. Absolutely amazing player at her best was absolutely must watch.
00:35:57
Speaker
And I feel very lucky that we were able to have her here. And it's funny to think that at one point she was playing for Sounders Women on an amateur team with a star studded amateur team, which was kind of a funny little footnote to all this.
00:36:16
Speaker
The other kind of a broad Seattle story I wanted to talk about was these comments that Jerry DiPoto, the Mariners GM made about how Mariners fans should be happy that the team's goal is to win 54% of the games every year because that sort of maximizes the potential for eventually winning a World Series. I didn't quite follow the logic there, but I can only imagine, you know,
00:36:44
Speaker
The thing that struck me about that so much is I think there's some truth in what he said, but the way he delivered it was so amazingly tone deaf. I can't even imagine the sounders trying to get away with telling fans, look, we make the playoffs every year, and that should be enough. Yeah.
00:37:08
Speaker
I'm a Mariners fan, you are not. Um, you are like broadly a Seattle sports fan, I think. Sure. Yeah. You know, like, I think you got like a little caught up in the playoff run last year and whatnot. Yeah. So I'm not saying you're like anti Mariners, but the thing about this is.
00:37:30
Speaker
I've just been thinking about like, what would this do in the, like the sounders context? If everything's equal, right? Like, let's imagine Craig Weibel or Adrian Hanow or even Brian Spencer comes out and just like.
00:37:43
Speaker
Hey, we fell short, but think of all the good times. To some varying degree, the Sounders have had to come out and say stuff like that in the past. The Sounders have been to nine finals where they could win trophies and they won seven of them. That is above 54%. But even then, if you kind of look at their
Sounders vs Mariners: Success and Management Approach
00:38:07
Speaker
like regular season play, they've been about at 54%, more or less. For the sake of conversation, they qualified for the playoffs every year but won. The one year they didn't qualify for the playoffs, they won a trophy. No other MLS team has ever won or ever will because now it's a different trophy.
00:38:30
Speaker
And it's just like it is a decent and good base of expectation that Sounders fans have built up for
00:38:40
Speaker
15 years and it's great. And, you know, other fan bases make fun of us because we're spoiled, but that's sport. That's the point. Like you're supposed to win or try to win. You're supposed to try to win. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you're Minnesota sports and you fail in like really spectacular ways when you're supposed to win. But to come out and say, especially to Mariners fans, that 54% is
00:39:10
Speaker
like good and you should be thankful because we're running a sustainable business and we have a good stadium is like total crap because the Mariners did win 55% of their games for a decade and didn't even sniff a World Series in that time. So
00:39:31
Speaker
It's just like the, it's just, it's sports fans are not stupid. Like everybody wants to say sports fans are stupid because they like watching men run around in different colored pajamas and kick hit or grab a ball. They're not stupid. They understand that sports is a business. You don't like, like they get it. They get that like businesses that aren't owned by like mega billionaires have to be sustainable.
00:39:56
Speaker
But don't tell them to their face that they're so, they're so ungrateful for the experiences the Mariners have given us over the last eight years. Cause that's when Jerry was hired as president or GM or what, like he's had like eight different positions or whatever. But it's like, you can't say that that's the, that's the ceiling. You gotta provide.
00:40:22
Speaker
You've got to provide fans more than that. And I think the Sounders are the antithesis to the Mariners and they just play across the street. It's where expectation is not only met, but exceeded. And that raises the expectation year over year. And there's no reason why the Mariners cannot be the baseball version of the Sounders.
00:40:47
Speaker
The sounders are a sustainable business. They don't own a TV channel or the stadium they play in. The Mariners have that benefit. I think it's actually owned by the city, but whatever.
00:41:00
Speaker
That's way too specific of an argument to try to get into right now. The Mariners have every opportunity to be the baseball version of the Sounders, but they're too stupid and too arrogant to be able to do it because they think just being fine is fine. And it isn't. It just isn't. They're the only team in Major League Baseball that has not gone to a World Series. How is that okay?
00:41:26
Speaker
That's a wild stat. It's insane. When you start getting into this stuff, it will drive you crazy. It will drive you absolutely crazy. And it has driven people crazy, and that's why they're not Mariners fans anymore. And I don't blame them. I don't blame them. Because look, you can't just say, oh, the only way to win isn't,
00:41:50
Speaker
You know, you can't, there's not only one way to win in Major League Baseball. There isn't, but you don't do any of them. So what's the point? What are you trying to like, spend a little bit of money, try, try and see what happens. And I think the reason why
00:42:07
Speaker
I think this is important to talk about on a sounders podcast is because not only does this team play across the street. They play roughly the same time of year as, as, as the Mariners, but we have it, like we have an ownership group.
00:42:23
Speaker
and employees of the team that get the sounders and they get the culture and they get the fans. And I hope to never take that for granted. And I think what's really important and I'll shut up right after this point is we went one year without making the playoffs.
Sounders' Culture and Resilience
00:42:41
Speaker
Something incredible happened in that year, but something the worst thing to ever happen to the team also happened in that year where they didn't make the playoffs. And a lot of people wanted
00:42:53
Speaker
roster turn or maybe a new head coach or we ended up getting a new GM anyways, like they wanted change. But because the organization and the club and the fans and every part of it, you know, the Brian Spencer always says the club is connection between the players and the fans.
00:43:13
Speaker
Because of that culture, we are able to respond one year later and cruise into the playoffs and have a chance to do something, even though, you know, we just spent 45 minutes or whatever talking about how it might not happen. So with that said,
00:43:31
Speaker
what you just got to try and the sounders try so hard and it's so refreshing to have that and I hope we never get rid of like that special connection where the team is connected with the fans in such a way where everybody is moving in the same direction. Yeah, well, I think you said it well.
00:43:55
Speaker
I think it's probably a good place to call this a show. Mark, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been good to hear you and to have you on. Thank
Closing and Acknowledgments
00:44:07
Speaker
you to our sponsors, Watson Counter and Full Pool Wines, as well as our subscribers. If you don't know,
00:44:16
Speaker
You can become a subscriber to Sound or Art for as little as $19 a year. In addition to these shows, we also do a mini podcast, at least once or twice a week, called Sound Bites. That's available only to subscribers. We also do a mailbag episode that's only available to subscribers. We haven't done one of those for a little bit, but we'll be doing one again soon. And so with all that said, thank you for listening. I'm Jeremiah Shan, signing off for No Study at This.
00:44:46
Speaker
And remember, you will never get alone.
00:45:45
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!