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Does the quality of performance matter when the results are all bad?
83 Plays1 year ago
What’s left to say about the Sounders’ start?
After falling 1-0 to the LA Galaxy, they are now 0-3-2 and sitting in last place in the Western Conference and just one point ahead of the New England Revolution in the Wooden Spoon race.
They’ve now tied their franchise record for worst-ever start.
I think they looked better on Saturday than they in possibly any other game, but that’s as much of an indictment of how bad they’ve been this year than a genuinely positive statement about their play.
I’m not going to sit here and say I think that the team is broken or won’t improve, but I also don’t think we can simply take that as a given.
They’re in the midst of what seems like a pretty soft part of their schedule and it’s concerning that they can’t pull out better results, regardless of how many injured players they have.
That’s really the most frustrating thing. This team has enough talent on the field to be a better team, but right now they’re undeniably bad.
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Transcript
Intro and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters.
Celebrating Sounders' Achievements
00:00:20
Speaker
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!
Episode Introduction
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
00:01:28
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Noce Adiata, sponsored by Fullpool Wines and our subscribers.
Seattle Sounders' Challenging Start
00:01:33
Speaker
We're recording on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024. I'm your host, Jeremiah Shan. Joining me today is my co-host, Aaron Campo, and our engineer, Lickit. What's left to say about this under start? After falling 1-0 to the LA galaxy, they are now 0-3 in 2 and sitting in last place in the Western Conference. Just one point ahead of the New England Revolution in the wooden spoon race. They've now tied their franchise record for worst ever start.
00:01:58
Speaker
I think they look better on Saturday than they have in possibly any other game, but that's not much of an... That's more of an indictment of how bad they've been this year than genuinely positive statement about their play. I'm not gonna sit here and say I think that the team is broken or won't improve, but I also don't think we can simply take that as a given.
00:02:16
Speaker
They're in the midst of what seems like a pretty soft spark part of their schedule and it's concerning that they can't pull out better results regardless of how many injured players they have. That's really the most frustrating thing. The team has good enough talent on the field to be better, but now they're undeniably bad.
Improvements Amidst Losses
00:02:34
Speaker
Aaron, what do you make of all this? I've spent a lot of time over the last few days asking myself the same question.
00:02:44
Speaker
On paper, there was maybe more to like about the San Jose game than the Galaxy game, because they scored twice, and one of them was not a penalty. But I was much more encouraged by the Galaxy game. Yes. And I think a lot of the things that felt like they had been missing, some dynamism and attack, some actual clear-cut chances,
00:03:10
Speaker
were present in that game in a way they haven't been in the past, and the defense was back to looking elite. I think that the thing that scared me... Outside of the five minutes. Sure, sure. But I think the thing that scared me the most about the San Jose game was that that looked like a team that was starting to fall apart, right? Because the defense has been rock solid for two years, and it looked extremely not rock solid against a bad team that's not good in the attack.
Impact of Injuries on Performance
00:03:39
Speaker
Um, I think that, you know, something you and I have been talking about a lot today and in recent days is that my expectations for where this team should be right now are not
00:03:52
Speaker
that high. They've had a ton of injuries that have hit position groups all at once. And I think it's unreasonable to expect a team that even in the version of this team that people thought was going to compete for a championship and compete for the shield was a team that was not going to blow people's doors off in the attack. They were going to score enough to win games and their defense was going to be rock solid. Their defense has mostly been rock solid.
00:04:19
Speaker
They haven't been scoring, but I don't think anyone was expecting them to score two or three goals a game with the absences they've had. But I think a reasonable expectation is you grind out the results that you need to get. You find a way to be Colorado at home. You find a way to be Dawson at home. You find a way not to give up three goals to San Jose on the road. And if you can play LAFC and a Galaxy team, that legitimately looks good for the first time in however long.
00:04:49
Speaker
If you can lose by a goal in those games with the absences you have and but play well, which I think they did in both games, I think you feel great about that. But you have to grind out the other results and they haven't done that. And that's the tough part. And I still think I'm an optimist about this team still. I think that they have screwed themselves out of
00:05:10
Speaker
possibly competing for the shield, but I think that they could still finish pretty high up in the table in the Western Conference. I think they have a lot of talent. I think that once they start getting healthier and once they can kind of get out of their own heads in the final third a little bit, that they're going to be fine.
Attacking Challenges
00:05:26
Speaker
I think they'll make the playoffs pretty easily. But even with the encouraging things I saw against the galaxy, every result that they don't get
00:05:34
Speaker
I think that that becomes more and more difficult because I think the potential for a death spiral becomes more and more real. And so I think it's in a weird place right now because I don't know what to say. I mean, I feel not great, but still somehow weirdly optimistic that things will turn out okay, if not well.
00:05:58
Speaker
I would agree with most of that. I think the thing like you, what I found most encouraging from the Galaxy game wasn't so much anyone. It was just kind of the overall quality of play. Like they looked like a team. They looked like they knew what they were doing. They were, you know, they actually had some repeatable patterns that looked like they were trying to do something to
00:06:24
Speaker
the galaxy. And one of those patterns came out really good and almost was, you know, it's amazing how different I think we would be feeling about this game if Jordan Morris's chance there at the end had gone in and they'd just gotten a point from this game. They'd still be winless, but at least they'd had some momentum. At least they had generated a real goal from open play. But
00:06:48
Speaker
What was so frustrating about that play is they do so much right on it. Jordan makes this aggressive run. He makes a clever run into space. He makes a really nice pass to Dylan Tevez, and then he makes an aggressive run into the box. Tevez absolutely...
00:07:06
Speaker
puts in a perfect cross to him, sets it up for him, and he hits it wide on a shot that, you know, I think Albert Rosenach was being a little hyperbolic, but he, you know, after training on Tuesday, he said that's a chance he finishes 10 times out of 10 in training. I don't know if that's quite true, but I appreciate the sentiment.
00:07:27
Speaker
Which, and that was actually at least the second time that he had tried a very similar play. The other one was he made a pass to Albert Rusnak, who then sent a cross through the box that ended up not being very good. But he actually had, if he had looked for Morris, he had him almost in the exact same spot for an equally good chance. And there were probably four or five, you know, really good
00:07:53
Speaker
segments of play like that where they they looked like they were really picking apart the the galaxy defense and there were positive play there but the thing that strikes me is they aren't setting themselves up for genuinely easy chances either they're not really getting out in transition much
00:08:17
Speaker
They're not making enough danger on set pieces. They're not putting balls into the box that have a chance for rebounds, that kind of thing.
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think that specifically not getting out in transition has been a really frustrating thing for me this year. And I think especially against a team like the Galaxy, where the Sounders actually ended up having more possession in that game, which I hate to say that that's a bad thing necessarily, but they definitely were not playing like a team that was going to look for chances in behind. And that's, I mean,
00:08:56
Speaker
Leo Chiu obviously wasn't in the lineup and won't be for a little while, but they've had Leo and Jordan Morris both on the pitch this year and haven't looked for a lot of transition opportunities. When they've had those opportunities, I've been sort of beating this dead horse for the entire season. Jordan Morris, when he was playing as a striker and in this game as well, was making a lot of good runs into space behind and nobody was picking out those runs.
00:09:25
Speaker
Like the opportunities have been there, the runs have been there and nobody's finding them. And it's, it's super frustrating to see. But I think that when you're a team like the Sounders who are really stout defensively, who are really difficult to break down and score against, and you have, you don't have a ton of creative players, but you have right now with the absences they have obviously, but you have players that can make like a line breaking pass and behind into space.
00:09:54
Speaker
if they get enough opportunities to do it, that to me seems like what you should be trying to do against a team like the Galaxy. So I don't know, it's...
00:10:05
Speaker
It's tough because I think that there's this mentality that the Sounders have,
Strategic Critiques and Questions
00:10:09
Speaker
right? That's Brian's hole where the Seattle freaking Sounders thing that is really beneficial in some cases and not as much in others. And it feels like this is a team that should be being a little more pragmatic than they have at times this year, uh, because they want to play this possession style. They want to dominate games. And I just don't know that with the personnel with the horses they have right now, if that's really giving them the best chance to win.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, there was a chance in, I don't know, maybe the 65th minute, somewhere around there, where Christian was out on the break, and he had Rusnak at the far post, and he had Morris making the run down the center channel. And he had two options there. One, played on the ground to Morris, let him try to outrun a center back.
00:11:01
Speaker
or kind of try a more difficult pass but find Rusnak at the far wing who was effectively unmarked on the far wing. And instead of making either pass, he just sort of pulled it back and cycled possession a little bit. And I don't think anything really ever came from it.
00:11:18
Speaker
But I think it's that type of moment that they're missing. They are, you know, they're just a little late to like, maybe he didn't quite recognize the danger. Maybe he didn't think he had the angle or whatever, but they, they just aren't giving themselves a chance to. To potentially score, you know, uh, an easy goal if, if they're able to find the pass, right? I mean, it's not like a, and so.
00:11:44
Speaker
I don't know. I think that's one thing that they just need to be a little bit better about is looking for the runners that they, they just don't seem to be looking for always. And then I will say that's one thing that I appreciate about a Danny Leyva and the sounds a game was that.
00:12:00
Speaker
He seems to be looking for those runs, which is good. Josh Atencio will also make those runs, which he had a couple where he was able to break lines with the dribble and just push out. He's not necessarily the guy you want leaving the break, I don't think, but I appreciate the willingness. I think they just need a little bit more of that. They need guys that are willing to just really push the pace when the opportunity is there.
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think that it's frustrating to watch situations like the one you described, and it does seem to be kind of a plague with this team of
00:12:37
Speaker
pulling back the attack because the perfect opportunity isn't there. Like you're not seeing the perfect pass to make. You're not seeing the most high percentage pass to make and missing the opportunity to create some chaos, like you said, and like, put the ball into dangerous positions. But then to also at the same time, like they're, they're playing very conservatively in those situations, but then they're pumping in aerial balls into crowded boxes.
00:13:03
Speaker
With, you know, and I know that when teams can't score and they can't, they're having trouble breaking down defenses. That's almost what you kind of have to resort to, to some degree, but just the, it feels like the balance is off, right? Like.
00:13:17
Speaker
put the balls into the box when you're in transition, when you have runners, even if you don't have great vision or great lanes, just to see if something can happen. Because it's no riskier than across from
00:13:34
Speaker
from 10 feet outside the box with everybody in a set position. And speaking of set positions, I do kind of want to talk about set pieces. Yes. Because the sounder set pieces are driving me completely up the wall.
00:13:51
Speaker
Yeah. They're so uncreative. There's not a lot of movement. They don't really seem to have any scripted training ground stuff really that they're doing. It's just kind of throw the corner kick to the back pose kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, people complained about Nico's set pieces and definitely quite reasonably at a certain point,
00:14:15
Speaker
But I do think that he was putting the ball into dangerous areas or at least attempting to. And it just felt like there was more of an idea rather than, well, let's just try to find that big guy, you know? And when you're a team that is struggling to score as much as the Sounders are,
00:14:33
Speaker
you got to get a little more creative than they have been. It's such a low hanging fruit for an MLS, a league where parity is the key and the key to success is finding edges. It drives me crazy that no MLS team seemingly right now is willing to say, hey, why don't we try to get really good at set pieces? Why don't we try to go find a set piece coach to design set pieces and try to exploit that?
00:15:00
Speaker
because I think they have a ton of success if they found the right person. And I would love that to be the sounders because what they've got going on now is really tough to watch for me.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yeah so I'm looking at the stats right now. The sounders are third to last in expected goals from set pieces. That's rough. 0.75 goals from set pieces. They've only managed to take 17 shots from, well, the 17 shots is not horrible but they are getting
00:15:34
Speaker
The average value of their shot is really, really bad. Yeah. Like the other teams that have, you know, a comparable number of shots are mostly
00:15:53
Speaker
much better xg they just are not creating dangerous they're just not creating dangerous chances from set pieces at all and it's yeah it's i would say that that's a concern you know they were missing you know albert russnack was their primary corner taker he you know he's only so he hasn't taken a lot of them because he missed the first
00:16:18
Speaker
two games entirely and then he's only played kind of spread. He played two games off the bench and then this was his first start. So I don't know. Maybe that's one thing, but I don't know. Rusnak hasn't necessarily been the best set piece guy either. It's a frustration. I agree with you. It's definitely a frustration.
00:16:36
Speaker
I think if they're creating goals from the run of play, who cares, right? But to watch them struggle to do that and also it feels to me like just leave opportunities on the table by having these uncreative set pieces is pretty frustrating.
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they, um, they, you know, and their open play XG is not great, but it's not nearly as bad. Uh, you know, it's, you know, it's in the bottom third of the league, but it's not, it's not quite so bringing up the tail end and, you know, the centers are last in the league in open play goals. They only have one open play goal.
00:17:18
Speaker
I don't know, the offense is struggling in all aspects, I guess is the picture that we're painting.
Positive Contributions and Sustainability
00:17:34
Speaker
I do think that the return of Rusnak is positive though. I think he made a big difference. If you actually look at some of the numbers that I think tell the story pretty well are just kind of final third entries. If you take from when he entered in San Jose through the Galaxy game, the Sounders are effectively tripling their opponent's final third entries, which is,
00:18:03
Speaker
one positive song at least. Like they are creating more dangerous possession. Yeah. At this point, any improvement, even if it's only theoretical, I'm all for it. I think that one of the things that does become really obvious when you look at some of the underlying numbers is that the sounders, I think it paints a pretty clear picture that the sounders have not been good in the attack.
00:18:30
Speaker
But they also have not been as completely impotent as they've looked. And, you know, they need to be a lot better. I don't think anybody would question that. But yes, you know, I think that.
00:18:43
Speaker
It's probably not as bad as it seemed. Just like this time last year, the question that we were probably ignoring was, is this sustainable, right? And it wasn't. And I feel like this is just as unsustainable as that. And this time, maybe the regression will be
00:19:03
Speaker
A little more pleasant, yeah. It's always nice to get a regression to the meme that doesn't hurt, right? A progression to the meme, I think, is what it could be called, right? Well, it's still a statistical regression, I guess. Oh, well, see, now I'm in over my head. Yeah, I am too. It's fine.
Lineup Consistency Issues
00:19:26
Speaker
Brian made a statement in the post game.
00:19:32
Speaker
where he said something like, everything is on the table when it comes to the lineup. And I kind of got the sense it was a little reluctantly that he made that statement.
00:19:42
Speaker
He kind of walked it back at training on Tuesday and he sort of alluded to, he gave a very strong impression that the lineup on Saturday is probably not going to be dramatically different than the one that they played against the galaxy with some probably notable exceptions. Like my expectation is that Christian's going to move back out to the right wing, that Alex is going to move out to the right, to right back. And probably the main change is going to be Obed Vargas,
00:20:10
Speaker
moving into central midfield alongside Joshua Tencio. Now, on paper, I can understand why people would be like, oh, this is just the same old thing, same old thing.
00:20:20
Speaker
But I will note that this would be the first time all year that the Sounders will have fielded a starting lineup where every player is in a position they actually have played extensively recently. Yeah. Which is a pretty crazy thing to realize that every game they've had at least one player who is effectively playing out of position or at least or playing a position they have not played extensively recently.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that that's kind of been borne out in some of the lack of cohesion and lack of shape at times. And I think that Rusnak being back is going to feel like a much bigger deal at home.
00:21:05
Speaker
I think that, and he's obviously, I mean, he's also still kind of rounding back into form and getting comfortable again. I was definitely somebody who thought playing Jordan as a nine made a lot of sense. I still think Jordan can be an effective nine on a very good team. I don't think he can be an effective nine right now on this team. And so I'm excited to see him playing out on the left again. I think that that's going to look good.
00:21:31
Speaker
Uh, I don't think Raoul has been as bad as maybe it feels like. I don't think he's been good by any stretch and he's certainly been well below what you'd expect from a DP. And I don't see any reason to think he's, he's getting it back to that level, but I don't, I don't think he's going to remain a total black hole from the run of play. Like I, he, he came pretty close to bagging that chance early against LA that, that I thought was not quite as good as the one that Jordan missed, but, but in, in that same. Yeah.
00:22:00
Speaker
you know, stress here in that same tier. And so he's he's getting into good positions. I definitely think he physically looks better than he did last year. But I would also I think Masavski the last couple of times out has looked good, has looked dangerous. He's he's great in the air. He feels like the most dangerous player the Sounders have had in the air since like Chad Barrett, maybe will will ruin was was good in the air. But Masavski feels maybe
00:22:29
Speaker
a little bit ahead of him. It does feel like every time he goes up for a header that you have an expectation that something good could happen. Yeah, and he gets into good positions. He you know, he feels it feels like his movement in the box is really good. He finds those spaces.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so I wouldn't be, I honestly would be okay with him getting the start as well. Uh, and I'd feel, you know, pretty good about that. I don't think I would feel any worse with him starting than I would. Uh, I would agree with that. Yeah. Kind of crazy to think about. Um, but yeah, I think that's, uh, I think that the, the injuries have taken more of a toll on the sounder's ability to create than I think.
Future Lineup and Performance
00:23:16
Speaker
I would have expected. And they're still not back or anywhere close to it all the way back to a point where I think we can expect them to really start humming on all cylinders. But I feel like they're kind of at a point now where they've got enough where they can at least put a goal or two up on Montreal. Yeah, you know, going back to Spencer's comment, he also said something along the lines of,
00:23:39
Speaker
If it doesn't work against Montreal, then we really need to give some serious consideration to almost like, he didn't say this, but the impression I got was we need to give some consideration to change for the sake of change. Yeah. And, and you know, you talk about the death spiral stuff and that's the danger where you start making change. Like, and I get where he's coming from because.
00:24:02
Speaker
I think at some point you just have to try something to change the, like you can't just keep rolling out the same lineup and saying, I know they're going to get better. Look at the underlying numbers. Like at some point that just won't, like that just doesn't work. And you have to, you know, we're in a results.
00:24:24
Speaker
oriented business here, right? If you're not getting results, something else, someone will be brought in that will try to do that. And that could be players, you know, that could be coaches. I don't, I don't think we're at a point now where anything too drastic is being considered, but we're not that far away from where drastic measures have to be considered.
00:24:46
Speaker
For sure. Yeah. And I think it's it's tough because I do think you're right. Like if they don't get the one against Montreal, especially if it's because they're not scoring, if they're still not scoring roles, if the defense, you know, falls apart again and they get a three, three draw, but the attack looks good. All right, whatever. But the most plausible outcome is they don't get a win because they they still have trouble scoring and creating good chances.
00:25:15
Speaker
And yeah, I think you probably do have to make some pretty drastic changes, but realistically, when you look at who's available, you look at who's on the roster, it feels like two of Jordan Morris, Raul Ruby Diaz, and Danny Masovsky have to play. But what else are you going to do? Who else are you? Are you going to put Jackson Reagan at the nine? There's just the limit to how much you can do without, I think, really making your chances even worse.
00:25:42
Speaker
Right. And I've seen a lot of people suggest things like, well, I want to see Cody Baker starting, or I want to see Paul Rothrock starting and I appreciate where these people are coming from. But is that what's going to spark the offense? Right. I'm skeptical. I like Cody Baker and I like Paul Rothrock and I do not. I think that if they are the thing that's going to make things better,
00:26:11
Speaker
you're in a much worse position than I think we're currently in. Well, I mean, I think Cody, Cody Baker, my you know, like, I think he could be a perfectly capable starting right back, but I don't think he's going to be the guy that.
00:26:23
Speaker
He's not unlocking the offense. He's not unlocking the offense is my point. And similarly with with Paul Rothrock is I think he can do some positive things. I think I would have liked to have seen him play more than he has played so far. I think you can even argue that he could have started some of these games and maybe they have some of these points that they dropped. But he's I'm also skeptical that he's going to like the delta between his product like he's going to suddenly turn this team into a
00:26:51
Speaker
a juggernaut of an offense, their best, their most talented players are like the guys that have like their highest upside. I think I still think are most of these players that have been playing. They just need to play better. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, it's I think that if the Sounders had
00:27:14
Speaker
a clear alternative on the bench that wasn't getting minutes, that would be one thing. I think that the desire to see Rothrock and to a lesser extent Baker, because I think that
00:27:30
Speaker
Alex's has looked pretty rough at times. I thought he looked good actually as a midfielder against. Yeah. And I think in the stats actually bore that out once again in Christian swap spots in the second half. The Sounders actually kind of dominated the second half of the galaxy. Yeah. But I like I think that that's the I want to see a change because I'm sick of seeing these guys and I want to see what somebody else can do. Right. And I'm not criticizing that I think that's a totally valid
00:27:56
Speaker
position. Yes. But I do think we have to be honest about what that position is, right? Like I am pissed off and I'm sick of watching these guys not be able to score. I want to see somebody else struggle. Somebody else not be able to score. Yeah. There's not, you know, there's just not that guy on the bench right now that that I feel like you can think with any level of confidence is going to dramatically improve things.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, is that is that a failure of the front office? Or is that just a a product of this, as Brian Spencer put it a week or two ago, catastrophic injuries?
00:28:33
Speaker
I think that any time a team is struggling this much, it is, there is enough. I think it's a bunch of little failures generally. Sure. I think there's a lot of bad luck, both in terms of injuries. I think I know that there are people that don't like to acknowledge the role that luck plays, but there's luck on the pitch. There's luck off the pitch in terms of injuries. And I think the Sounders have been unlucky in both ways.
00:28:58
Speaker
especially with the injuries right like the injuries have been extremely damaging to their ability to win games and I think it's dishonest to dismiss that out of hand as an excuse. I think that the players have been
Accountability and Systemic Issues
00:29:14
Speaker
below what we should reasonably expect of them. They've made some really dumb mistakes that have been costly. The red card against Colorado, there have been some really bad defensive gaffes that even though the defense has overall played exceptionally well,
00:29:33
Speaker
All three goals they gave up to San Jose and a couple of goals that they've given up elsewhere have been inexcusably bad mistakes that the defense has made. The goal against the Galaxy, that's the safe stuff has to make. I know that the conditions are bad. The ball sucks by him. Absolutely has to make that save.
00:29:51
Speaker
have to make that save, right? And so there's definitely a ton of blame to be had by the players. I think there's blame to be had by Brian Schmetzer. I think that, you know, we've kind of talked about the criticisms I have of him tactically so far this season, but I, you know, so I won't repeat them, but I think he has blame as well. And I do think that there's, you know, you can make criticisms of the front office. I think that you can say,
00:30:16
Speaker
It was a poor decision not to buy out Raul and try to go out and get another DP. I think that you can criticize having four starting caliber center backs on the roster that are taking up a decent amount of cap space and only having one left back who is a pretty one dimensional left back.
00:30:39
Speaker
But again, as you kind of reminded me before we started recording, I think that the expectation was that Reed Baker Whiting would be able to be that attacking left back and he's been injured. So, while we're on that subject, I almost wonder if John, it would be interesting to see if
00:30:54
Speaker
I'm just curious where John Bell is a guy they picked up in the offseason, who I thought looked okay, at least in preseason. He seems like he's, he's been okay. And where I've seen him at training, I wonder, almost wonder if he's someone if he's gonna end up factoring into this as well. But yeah, yeah, yeah, I just I think that's everyone has their share of blame. It's whatever percentages you want to portion out. I think that
00:31:23
Speaker
And when I say the front office, I mean the front office. I don't mean Craig Weibel because I think Craig Weibel, I'm not going to say he's made every decision correctly. He's made the best decision, but I think he is the avatar in a lot of people's minds for the front office. Yeah, sure. He doesn't set the budget. Right. He's not the one that made the decision. I feel pretty confident in saying that he's not the one that made the decision not to buy out Raul.
00:31:48
Speaker
That seems like a logical conclusion to me as well. Yeah. And so it's the front office as a whole. I think you can criticize certain things, certain priorities, certain decisions he's made. Sure.
00:32:01
Speaker
where the depth has been apportioned, I think that's all fair. But I think it's holistically the front office. And it's all interconnected too, right? Some decisions that were maybe not optimal but shouldn't have been catastrophic have ended up being kind of catastrophic because of the position groups all getting hit in one spot. I think any time you have a team that was not unanimously but close to unanimously considered
00:32:28
Speaker
favorites for the West, potential favorites for the Sport or Shield, potential favorites for the MLS Cup, who after five games have four points and can't score a goal. It's not any one thing. It's a lot of systemic issues that are interconnected and exacerbating each other. Yeah. No, I totally agree with all that. Yeah. I don't, I don't know if I have much more to add. I feel like that's, that's a pretty good
00:32:57
Speaker
Summation of where we are right now. Sounders need a win on Montreal. This Montreal game is about as close to a must-win game as you get in game six, right? Things can really spiral. If they don't get this win, I think there is a real danger of some spiraling that could be...
00:33:20
Speaker
could have big lasting impacts. Yeah. I feel like any time there's a slide like this and there's been, I looked, I went back and looked at this the other day, pretty much every season of the Sounders history aside MLS history, aside from 2014, there's been a run that's this bad, but it's only one other time has come at the beginning of the season. Right. And more often than not, they've gotten to this point where it's like, all right, they need to get a result now or
00:33:50
Speaker
blank, right? Like, or it's going to spiral or people's jobs are on the line or what have you. And, you know, the vast majority of the time they've managed to turn it around. But, you know, that hasn't been 100% of the time and there's no guarantee that it will. There's no guarantee that it will ever be. So, yeah. It's the gambler's fallacy, right? Like. Right. I mean, they're due. Yeah.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yeah, they do. And they're not, they're not nobody's do anything, right? Like you've got to, you've got to beat the other team. So here's hoping.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. All right. Well, I think that's a, that's a good place to call this. Uh, we're going to have another show, uh, the mailbag show going to come out tomorrow. Uh, I think we're going to have will doing an episode of bear bear with us later this week as well. And then just a programming note, I am going to be taking a vacation and I'm leaving town on Friday. So I'm not even going to be here to cover the Montreal game. Uh, Aaron, I guess we know.
00:34:54
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, you got to stay. You got to stay there. Which I'm sure you hate. Right. Exactly. And then so I think you and Mark are going to do a do the show next week, right? That's the plan.
00:35:06
Speaker
All right, well, so now our listeners are all caught up. Yeah, I know they can skip the next one now, so. I hope they don't. I do too. I would hope not about that. I know, I would too. But anyway, I'm Jeremiah Shannon, signing off for Aaron Campo and Lick It. This is No Study Yetis. Remember, you'll never be alone.
00:36:27
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!