Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Nos Audietis, Episode 307: We just won MLS Cup, again.
61 Plays6 years ago
We won MLS Cup. Again. This time at home. It was an almost magical experience, all the way from the pregame scene at Occidental Square to the mood inside the stadium to the play on the field.
Don’t listen to what anyone else says, the Sounders absolutely deserved this. They’ve been the best team in the postseason and showed it again against Toronto FC.
Jeremiah and Aaron get into that as well as looking ahead to what this offseason might have in store.
(audio file replaced 11-14-19)
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 Sponsorship
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! Fulpel's unique writing styles apply to recipes like Leftover Thanksgiving, Turkey, Smaltziball Soup, and Pregnancy Nachos. This book can be purchased through Sasquatch Books.
Excitement of Morris' Goal
00:00:47
Speaker
Whoa! Morris runs right by him and sneaks in and slots him in for a goal. Fantastic for George Morris. Look at him, he did it! Oh, my God! Here's Morris! Morris! Oh, thank you, my dad! What do tigers dream of? They take a little tigers. Focus is cheap!
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.
Episode 307 Overview
00:01:35
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of NOS Adietta, sponsored by Fullpool Wines. This is episode 307, and we're recording on Monday, November 11th. I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan, and I'm joined by my co-host, Aaron Campo, and our engineer, Lickit.
Celebrating MLS Cup Victory
00:01:48
Speaker
We won MLS Cup again, this time at home. I hope you were there because it was seriously about as close to religious experiences as I've had at a sporting event and it immediately becomes one of my most cherished sporting memories. And I'm not going to go on with a longer intro than that because I want to know what your thoughts are right now, Aaron.
00:02:09
Speaker
I, they're all good, man. Um, it was, this is the first game I was able to go to this year for reasons that I think we've talked about and I'd rather not talk about anymore, but, uh, it was a hell of a first game of the year to go to. Um, and you got to go to one game this year. Yeah. One to go to.
00:02:27
Speaker
Not a bad way to make the debut. And yeah, I mean, just like the whole day was, I think what everybody has been dreaming of. I mean, it was perfect. Yeah, it was. The way it unfolded was perfect.
00:02:45
Speaker
The festivities were great. The atmosphere in the area was cool. People spilling out of T-Mobile on the way into the stadium was kind of bizarre, but weirdly cool. Yeah, it was just... The atmosphere was super fun. Nobody... It seems like every time I go to a big Sounders game, there's some sort of dramatic thing that happens
00:03:10
Speaker
that I see that is kind of a bummer. That didn't happen. Everybody seemed to be in a good mood.
00:03:18
Speaker
The way the game played out, I think, was perfect, where the Sounders can never seemingly do anything totally easily, but they still made it a memorable and pretty decisive win, even after giving the fans something to be on the edge of their seat about. They won it in a way that I think befits the season, befits the identity that they've created down the stretch this year. It was perfect.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's I don't want to say nothing's ever going to top that because, you know, you never know. You never know. But if nothing ever tops that, if that's the best sounders experience that I ever have, I think that's okay.
Emotional Connection to Sounders
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah. You know, I have been a
00:04:10
Speaker
sports fan my whole life essentially. And I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever experienced like a cathartic joy quite like that. Like I've seen my teams win Super Bowls and
00:04:27
Speaker
I guess I did see my team win a world series. I have to think about it a lot because it was a really long time ago. Um, but like I've put a lot, we've put a lot into this team in the last 10 years and
00:04:42
Speaker
11 years. I guess I haven't really been, I came in 2010, whatever, but we put a lot into, like I've, I've never put more time and energy into a team. Then I've put into the sounders and this was like better. Like, I don't know that I ever like thought, like sat there and thought like, Oh man, won't be great. If someday we host endless cup and we win at home and it would be like this thing. Like, I don't think I ever, frankly,
00:05:13
Speaker
gave myself the chance to think about it. That's not how I do things. But if I had, I think this is exactly what I would have pictured, how I would have drawn it up. Huge crowd out at Occidental Square. So big that you could barely move some musical act playing ideally with a link to the sounders.
00:05:42
Speaker
huge, massive swarm of people parading on the march of the match, coming into the stadium, filling every seat. I mean, it did seem like every seat was full, right? Like it was a... It's funny to me to think about, like I actually, I had a dream the other day that the sounders didn't actually, like there was like half the stadium was empty and it was like really kind of depressing that we thought this was a sellout and it really was like not really a sellout.
00:06:11
Speaker
I don't know, very weird dream, uh, to have, but it was, I mean, it was like, like every seat was full. Like there was so many people packed in there. It was like, there was this one moment where I was in the press box and I realized that I'm not used to seeing
00:06:31
Speaker
people in my periphery because the front of the 300s aren't really sold, I don't think, normally in the end zone. And I realized there were people there and it had this real sense of the people hanging over the seats and it felt so... What it made me feel like is I want this to be like this all the time. And I realized that's not going to happen.
00:06:58
Speaker
That's a very different like if you can I think you do some and that becomes an everyday thing in some ways. Maybe it like I don't know. Is that what Seahawks games are like or every week is they're not right. I don't know. I've never seen. I've been to one Seahawks game and it's when they were really bad. So I don't know. But I I.
00:07:16
Speaker
Seahawks
Atmosphere at Sounders Games
00:07:17
Speaker
fans, I mean, it's a lot of the same people, right? But there's like an organized chaos to Seahawks games that in Sounders games, I think is more just genuine chaos, if that makes sense. Like, it's a much more relaxed atmosphere, I would say.
00:07:36
Speaker
Hmm. Interesting. Well, I mean, I, I came down to the stands, uh, and said hi to you and you, when my wife were sitting together in the stands. And so I came down and said hi and I was going to go back. And then I realized like, wait, where am I going? Like, this is exactly where I want to be for like the intro. Like, so I stayed down there. I went down to like the front of the section and stayed down there for like the boom, boom, clap. And, um,
00:08:06
Speaker
and all the way through to the kick off. And I actually went upstairs right after kick off. Yeah, right at kick off. But it was powerful. Being in the stadium during boom, boom, clap and the whole intro and seeing the TIFO come out and realizing that it's this
00:08:32
Speaker
It's the whole state. Like I had heard that there was maybe going to be a whole full stadium TFO. But then when I looked out from the press box, it didn't look like there was anything in the seats aside from at the ends. And so I thought, oh, I guess maybe they didn't. They weren't able to do it. I don't know. And but it was I mean, it was like perfect. The TFO was perfect. Like there's some images, an image on Reddit that was, I think, taken from a drone like right outside the stadium that's like
00:08:59
Speaker
It's like it will like emotionally like it's like the whole stadium is is participating in this Or it's not and it wasn't like a card stunt that was paid by Bank of America or whatever It was like ECS members went around to every 69,000 seats and like put out tarps
00:09:19
Speaker
And they laid them out and they spelled out Seattle sounders and everyone in the state, like, I don't know. Did they, was there any direction? Did you just see what? Oh, like there's a tarp on my seat. I guess I, I hold it up.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, people seem to figure it out pretty quickly. The people sitting next to me didn't participate, but it was a weird vibe in our seats, I have to say. But yeah, but aside from that, like everybody just kind of seemed to know exactly what to do, which is in its own way, kind of remarkable. I mean, how many people there that were in like, clearly, there's all these people that don't go to games every week, right?
00:10:01
Speaker
And how many of them, I mean, ECS has never done this, where it's a whole stadium thing. And I think it's easy to take for granted that, like, well, everyone will just figure out that you pull it up and you do it, right? But almost everyone in the stadium did it. Like, that's remarkable. Yeah, it is. It totally is. And did it. They kind of just knew when to do it. Yeah. You know, without any direction and how to hold this stuff up. And like, yeah, it was super impressive.
00:10:29
Speaker
Like the more I think about it, the more I'm like blown away. Like I hadn't really thought about it that much, but it's like, it's kind of blowing me away when I saw the whole, I think when I saw like the images of like the whole stadium and realizing that it was executed, it wasn't, and it wasn't just like, well, if most people hold it up, you'll be able to figure out what it is.
Game Analysis and Playoff Performance
00:10:48
Speaker
It's like, no, you kind of need pretty close to everyone to do it for it to be able to read what's there. And, and they did.
00:10:56
Speaker
And weirdly, especially with the way the season is like, it would have been easier on our constitution. I think if the centers scored a couple of first half goals and then cruised the whole way, but, um, it's not, it's not like it was more fun that they didn't score until the 57th minute. Yeah. And it, and it was.
00:11:19
Speaker
And it was, it was better from a purely enjoying, like it's, and I, this is something else I thought about a lot right before the game. It's like you, I think we think about the game in the abstract and you like break it down and you say like, well, the centers are playing at home. Like.
00:11:37
Speaker
Brian Spencer, not gonna let his team lose. Stephen Fry is not gonna let his team lose. They have all these talented players, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you kind of talk yourself into thinking like, well, of course they're gonna win, right? Like, like, I can't really see a scenario in my head where they don't win them. That doesn't, that's the narrative doesn't make sense, right? But then, but why, but if you knew they were gonna win, that's, you don't show up for that, right? You don't, like, you're not there.
00:12:07
Speaker
on a champion, you're there to watch a sporting event. And the whole thing is like, there's a, you don't know what, what's going to happen. And, and I suppose if you end up running away with it, that's part of that is taken away. Like you're not, you're not on the edge of your seat and, uh, you're kind of relaxed the whole time. And it, and in some ways takes away from the realness of the, of the moment and getting that 57th minute goal, I think,
00:12:34
Speaker
is enough. It's early enough that you're not really stressing out and you're like kind of painfully suffering. Right. Right. Right. And then of course Victor's goal was the first I know when Victor scored that was the like the first moment I felt like I might I might cry like I like there was this tinge of like it's Victor scoring. It's a beautiful goal. It
00:12:59
Speaker
It now is like, it's, it's real. Like, this is happening. They're going to win this thing. And I mean, it was, and like, and then the, and I don't know if everything else was perfect. Like it was just, you could have choreographed it better. Like if you, like, uh, it was just, it was perfect.
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the only thing would be Josie not scoring would have been. Yeah, but no one even I don't know. Like in the press box, no one even noticed him. It was so late and it was so inconsequential. I didn't.
00:13:32
Speaker
It only pissed me off because nobody's ever won an MLS Cup by three goals. And I knew that. Fair enough. And I wanted that very badly. But yeah, I mean, but but you're right. I mean, it's from like a cathartic standpoint, it didn't it didn't really matter at all. But you're right from a there is a like his statistical relevance to
Comparing Sounders Teams
00:13:54
Speaker
it. And I guess the other thing I just realized is today. So the Sanders uses I think the stat that shows how
00:14:02
Speaker
how just bizarre this season was. So the Sounders were plus seven in the playoffs, obviously playing all playoff teams, including the best team in MLS history. They were plus seven goal difference. They were plus three in the regular season.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. But I mean, it's the team that we saw in the playoffs was the team that we saw in March. Right. I know. And that's the thing. It's like it's exactly like this is, you know, like the centers come up with it came up with this hashtag built for this. It could not have possibly been more appropriate. No, it could have gone terribly. But, you know, right. It could have. But as it turned out, it was
00:14:50
Speaker
Really appropriate. Yeah. The other thing I thought it was a kind of wild stat. The Sounders won their last three games by two goals each between like March 16th. And whenever the Dallas game was, they played 32 games in that span. And one time during those 32 games, they won by two goals.
00:15:13
Speaker
And then they did it three times in a row to close out the playoffs. It ends up being like one of the the great Post-season runs in MLS history. Like I think it was a much more impressive run than what they did in 2016 Which I didn't realize this at the time but When I first was looking at this but apparently the team that the team that posted the best goal difference in history of the playoffs was
00:15:42
Speaker
was TFC in 2016. They were plus 11 coming into the MLS cup. They lost. So, um, too bad. Yeah, it is. It's funny because we've absolutely ruined TFC is life like twice. You know, I know there's like, there's this other universe where they've just won, they, where they won three MLS cups and champions league instead of one MLS go.
00:16:11
Speaker
And they're an interesting team because like once they kind of figured it out, um, starting in like, what, I guess like 2015, 16 when they got, when they got Michael Bradley in 2015, they've, they've kind of been a lot like us, I think, um, where when they haven't been great, there've been pretty obvious explanations as to why they haven't been great. Um, and generally they've been really solid and, and you know, um, but you know, we've won twice and they've won once. So.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it is kind of funny because, you know, we'll, I don't know if I need to get into it right now, but there's, you know, kind of discussion of if this is a dynasty or not. And it probably isn't, but TFC would be.
00:16:58
Speaker
I think undeniably a dynasty, if the sounders weren't constantly shitting their cereal. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, if they definitely didn't deserve, I don't want to hear anything about them deserve it. Like they did not outplay the sounders in any meaningful way. So I don't want to hear that shit. Sorry.
00:17:16
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's not allowed on the show. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I do it all. You don't usually do it. I know. I'm kind of better about it than sorry, kids that I'm sure are listening. Yeah. I, uh, yeah. I mean, I, I thought that that.
00:17:32
Speaker
was one of the dumbest, like I was, I thought that I was hallucinating when I saw that that was like the takeaway a lot of people had was that, oh, you know, credit to the sounders for, you know, capitalizing on their chances, but TSC just dominated that. Are you kidding me?
00:17:48
Speaker
They didn't create shit.
Team Dynamics and Key Players
00:17:51
Speaker
I mean, it was exactly the same as the LAFC game in the first half, except the sounders were actually capable of converting one of their low-stakes chances against LAFC. Otherwise, it was pretty much the same. Well, and I would actually argue that the one really good chance the sounders had, which actually, I thought they had two pretty good looks in the first half. Yeah. Roman Torres had a really good look on a, I think it was on a set piece. It was. Let me skyd it.
00:18:18
Speaker
But the best look of the first half was Raul Rui Diaz's chance right at the end of the first half. And that was a better, I would say a better chance maybe than either of his goals against LAFC and it got saved.
00:18:34
Speaker
So like for all TFCs supposed to dominance, they, they didn't have any real, like the only decent chance they had was a really good shot by Nicholas Benizei that, that was kind of through traffic, but Fry made a great save on. Um, but really until.
00:18:53
Speaker
Until Altidore's goal, they didn't have what I thought was a great look. And Bobby Warshaw actually had a couple really good lines that I wanted to share because I thought that they were very good. But about Toronto's attack, he says, Toronto often looked like a team trying to chop down a tree with a blunt axe. It wasn't under the reach to bring it down through sheer effort, but it was going to be a long process. I think that's a very fair way of putting it.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah, they were they were hacking away at the bark in the sounders, but they were barely even denting it. And the sounders were just kind of sitting there waiting for TFC to kind of punch themselves out a little bit. But those two, the last two goals the sounders had were just.
00:19:39
Speaker
kind of classic sounders goals where they, their class essentially takes over. Um, the, the other line I wanted to read from Bobby, um, you know, we may as well give him a positive shout out to be nice. Right. But yeah, this is, this is, I thought it was also a pretty good line. He says, as we've learned time and
00:19:59
Speaker
time after time, after the Sounders in the last four years, as long as they have breath in their lungs and their best players on the field, they'll find a way to win the game. And that is, I think probably the best way, the most accurate way of telling the story of this season is that they found so many ways to win. And a lot of the time it was with
00:20:23
Speaker
Like it wasn't always with their best players on the field, but when their best players were on the field, they won almost every time, like almost literally every time. They ended up going 15-1 and two when Jordan Morris, Raul Rui-Diaz, and Nicholas Lidero-Stur. That's an amazing stat to me. 15-1 and two.
00:20:43
Speaker
They were the best team in the league, essentially, when those three players start. And I'm assuming every time they started, they probably, like, I could probably extrapolate that and say like, well, in all those starts, they also had X, Y, and Z players around them. But man, I mean, I look ahead to this. It's, you know, it is funny to me because we look at this team, I don't know, three months ago.
00:21:07
Speaker
And I think there was a lot of open questions like, how badly broken is this roster? Like how much turnover do they need in order to be competitive? And I think you and I were pretty good. And I think a lot of
00:21:22
Speaker
I mean, I think for the most part, not to give ourselves too much credit, but I think we were kind of reasonable. I mean, they're missing a lot of guys. Once they get their players, they're going to be decent and we can make a better assessment of how much work this roster really needs. But right now where we're sitting, if they brought back
00:21:46
Speaker
their top 16 players from this team, would you be upset? Like, would you feel like they are missing, like making a mistake? I don't think that's going to happen, but it's just to say they brought back their top 16 players. I mean, the risk obviously is keeping the band together too long. Yeah, absolutely. Because this isn't a young core, I wouldn't say. No, it's an old core. I mean, they're the oldest team in the league. They are.
00:22:15
Speaker
I don't think that they look like a team that's like on the precipice of just falling off a cliff, right? Like they... No, like their old players are like 32. Right, right. So no, I mean, I think that I would like to see them maybe start to turn over some of their
00:22:32
Speaker
some of their roster, but I mean, there were worse groups that have tried to put together one last run than the one they have, you know? So, no, I wouldn't be disappointed. I mean, I think it would be... I guess the only thing that would be disappointing about that would be you can't help but feel as though inevitably... Like some of those positions must be upgradable, right? Like I don't...
00:22:56
Speaker
Like, could you get a better, right? Like if you're going to spend close to a million dollars on right back, can you do better than Kelvin Leardham? Probably. If you're going to, if you're going to have, you know, close to, you know, what is it? Like $1.5 million invested in your left back because they've got two that are making, you know, combined about that. Can you do better than Brad Smith or Jovan Jones? Maybe. Like I would imagine you probably could if you like given a,
00:23:25
Speaker
selection of any one in that price range. That's not how it works, of course. So theoretically, I think they can upgrade at some positions. It's not that they're beyond upgrading, but I think you could make a pretty good case. If they brought back the top 16 players,
00:23:42
Speaker
went into like I think in the fact that like there is something like tempting I read a few quotes from like away logger way about how because Champions League is next year you're inclined to kind of bring back the same group because you know you you kind of need to hit the ground running and you don't want to
Preparing for Champions League
00:24:00
Speaker
have, you don't want to try to re, you don't want to kind of reinvent the wheel too much. And unlike 2016, when they were going into 2017, I think they knew they had, they just had to turn over a lot of the roster. Like they, they couldn't bring back all those veterans because they had a lot of guys that were very much on the end of their, like their trajectory. And
00:24:27
Speaker
They didn't have a lot of choices in terms of who to bring back and who not to bring back. And I think in. And so they like, I guess in 2000, they also didn't have Champions League.
00:24:39
Speaker
Right. That was the year they skipped the champions. They got skipped, right? That's true. Yeah, it is. I kind of forgotten about that until just literally right now. It was a very weird thing to do. It was fair. Yeah, it was. Cause they, they ended up getting that champions league spot ended up getting played before the 2018 season. Um, I just totally forgotten. That's how they got into champions in 2018 anyway. Um,
00:25:06
Speaker
they, so that was a very different off season. And I don't think they are in that same, like, I just don't think there's that many similarities between this team and that team. Like in 2016, I think that was a team that really kind of willed themselves across the finish line. And this year, I think it's, it's a really talented team. It's like they weren't
00:25:26
Speaker
They didn't, like the numbers might not say it was the best team ever because they were missing so many other key players and so many key moments for such large parts of the game of the season. But on a one-to-one basis, like I think you can make an argument that like on a talent level alone, this is the most talented team the centers have ever had.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's difficult to argue with that. I mean, relative to the rest of MLS is another conversation. I still probably lean towards this team over the 2014 team. On pure talent though, I don't think it's even close. I mean, I think that the team blows the 2014 team away. And I think
00:26:11
Speaker
Were the Sounders as good as LAFC over the course of the full season? They were not. Do I think that what this team did in LA to LAFC was a fluke or something that's not repeatable? I don't. I mean, I think that we kind of saw over the course of the playoffs, the Sounders played some of the best teams that MLS has to offer and they blew the doors off them. The FC Dallas game was close.
00:26:39
Speaker
Um, only because of, I would say some, some key and uncharacteristic mistakes that that shouldn't have been an especially close game, I don't think. And, and I think you play it nine times out of 10 and it plays out roughly the same way. I don't think it's an especially close game aside from that.
00:26:57
Speaker
He was the other way around. Well, of course he was, but that's, you know, that's fine. Honestly, not to get sidetracked, that's the hubris that I do think will... I hope that's the attitude that LAFC goes into this offseason with. I really do. I really hope that they are convinced that they don't need to do anything to their roster.
00:27:18
Speaker
and they come back and they just run it back next year and I hope and I would love to see I actually I would love to see that matchup I would love to see the Sounders and LFC just both run it back next year and let's see where it goes like I think the Sounders probably are worse off for that because I think they're gonna end up missing more players but like
00:27:38
Speaker
their best 11 against, or their best 14 against our best 14 right now. I'll take that. I'll take that. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think there was this idea going into that game and I bought into it. I think most people did that the gap between the Sounders and LAFC was just enormous and that it was going to take a miracle for the Sounders to win. And really it just took the Sounders having a good game plan and executing it well.
00:28:03
Speaker
Well, I think what we bought into was the idea that the body of work matters more than the talent on the field. And that's just not. And I think that was also kind of the trap that we almost fell into going into Toronto FC and going into this home game in some ways was like you convinced yourself that. That there's all these factors that aren't really like they're not like that's not really how it works.
00:28:30
Speaker
And that like, yeah, you look at it on paper and you go like, well, I have seen finished 15 points ahead of the sounders or whatever it was. Uh, 18 points. I don't know how I don't honestly remember. I think it was 15, but, um, they finished way ahead of the sounders. They had a 45 better goal difference, which is like a hilarious stat. Um,
00:28:53
Speaker
And then you kind of just like blow past the fact that LAFC won two of their last eight games and look pretty.
00:29:02
Speaker
like pretty bland for the last two months of the season and were not totally fit going into the game against the Sounders and just got kind of exposed against the Galaxy the week before, a really flawed Galaxy team by the way, and that the Sounders were at effectively full strength and that
Defining Success in Sports
00:29:24
Speaker
You know, you look at some of the underlying numbers of like what they did when they were at full strength and you kind of convince yourself that all this stuff, like it doesn't like you talk yourself into thinking that like somehow the body of work is going to have any influence on the game when it has zero influence in the game.
00:29:42
Speaker
Yeah. And I think if you're not taking into context all that other stuff, then maybe that's understandable because LAFC was insanely good this year. But I mean, ultimately they weren't that good when the Sounders played them and the Sounders were very good and they have a very good team. And I think it's just this
00:30:07
Speaker
I mean, we won, so who cares, right? But this just inability to accept that the Sounders actually have a very talented team and they beat other teams in the playoffs by understanding what their strengths were, playing to those strengths and executing well. That's not satisfactory, right? That's like not a fun explanation to people.
00:30:26
Speaker
So, they keep looking, but it really is that simple. I mean, Graf Wagerwe put together a hell of a roster. Branche Metzer understands that roster, understands the players and how to motivate them and how to set the team up tactically. The players are veterans. They know what's expected of them. They've executed and they won. And it's really that simple. And it's very fun to watch people sort of try to turn themselves into knots to try to figure it out when it really is just that straightforward.
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, um, it's a and I and it actually makes me you know, it it does make me kind of wonder if Yeah, if the supporter shield is a Like I guess it all depends on like what is it that we're doing here? Like are we creating entertainment or are we somehow trying to figure out? this
00:31:23
Speaker
Like who's the best team over the course of the season? Is it, it's like, I guess that's a, that's what you're trying to figure out, right? Who's the best team over the course of the season? But is it, is it not more entertaining to see who the best team is on a given day? And, um,
00:31:39
Speaker
So from an entertainment perspective and from an American perspective, like you look at this from an American sporting perspective, right? And I'm not going to twist the knife and talk about the 2000
00:31:54
Speaker
Uh, Mariners, but, uh, I will talk about like how many times did someone came into my mentions today is like, how many times do baseball players say like, you know, we got to second base more times than they did. We kind of deserved to win or, you know, um, we, we were really good between the red zones in football.
00:32:17
Speaker
or in basketball, you should see the quality of our shot quality was way better than the opponent. We took much higher percentage shots even though we lost the game. No one does that. That's not a thing that happens in other sports. It's just not a thing. Like, oh, you are horrible.
00:32:42
Speaker
You went one for 20 with runners in scoring position. You got 20 runners in scoring position. You sucked with runners in scoring position. And I don't know, maybe that's not the smartest way to look at it, but that's not the way that we talk about other sports. And I just think it's kind of funny that we'll sit here and say like, well, you know, Toronto FC was really the better team between the 18.
00:33:05
Speaker
outside of scoring and creating chances. If you're not creating chances, what do we do? What's the point of it? Who cares how much possession you add? That's 100% the thing. I love advanced statistics. I love advanced analysis. I love that stuff. It's interesting. It can tell you things about the game. Smart teams use it to inform their process. It's great, right?
00:33:32
Speaker
over the course of a... The result is what actually matters about the game. It's two very distinct sides of being a sports fan to me. And I mean, it's like...
Sports vs Movies: Entertainment and Quality
00:33:46
Speaker
There are movies that I love on artistic levels, and there are movies that I like because they make me laugh a lot. It's the same kind of thing where it's just like, look, I know Talladega Nights isn't the greatest movie ever made, but I'm going to laugh at it a lot more often than I am at Citizen Kane. You know what I mean? I don't know. You get more emotional. Yeah, I guess that's not a great
00:34:07
Speaker
No, that's a good one. Get more emotional return from from Talladega. Talladega Nights is a better mood in Citizen Kane. No, that's not. That's not. And I get it. It's a good take. I think it's a good take. That's the tagline of her new. That's what I'm going to go to bat for. Yeah, that's you know, to me, it's just like they're they're just very separate ways of engaging with the sport of soccer, right? Like
00:34:32
Speaker
Analysis is fun and understanding the game on a level that you don't observe with your eyes and understanding why certain shots are better than others. And that's all super cool, super interesting stuff. It doesn't matter for jack shit if you don't put the ball in the net more than the other team.
00:34:50
Speaker
And the Sounders did that more often than all the teams they played in the playoffs because they're a good team. And, uh, and I should say they didn't just, and it's not just that they scored more goals. It's that they created better scoring chances. And I think that's the part that kills me is that people like XG to me is
00:35:09
Speaker
and a really interesting statistic in part because it's telling you who's creating the better scoring chances. It's not telling you who had the more impressive possession. It's telling you who's doing a better job of creating chances. And if LA, if Toronto had beat the Sounders on XG decisively and the Sounders won 3-1, maybe you'd go like, oh, well, Saunders, maybe they got a little lucky here. But that's not what happened.
00:35:37
Speaker
The sounders had those pretty solid edge. It was like a whole goal of XG, which is pretty significant edge. Exactly. And the sounders, for the most part, won XG, and I think they won XG in every game, I'm pretty sure, in the playoffs.
00:35:57
Speaker
Like I, so it's not, I don't think you could say that they got anything like lucky during this post-season and I think they earned it. And I think this is for me, their most impressive post-season run they've ever been on. Um, yeah. And, and I think it's like, it was a weird year. It was a really, really weird year for a lot of reasons. Oh, some of them were off the field. Some of them were on the field, but it was, I think at the end of the year, you have to feel very good about the process the sounders went through.
00:36:31
Speaker
It could have gone smoother, but ultimately, I think everything that Garth Lagerwey has talked about in terms of from a holistic perspective of building the roster and what they're placing an emphasis on, he delivered on that. And I think that it's pretty obvious that that's what he's being asked to deliver on and what the goals of ownership are.
00:36:51
Speaker
I don't...
Season Reflections and Lessons
00:36:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's...
00:36:54
Speaker
And I think that Brian Schmetzer has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has not just lucked into this.
00:37:01
Speaker
We've learned, I think, a lot about this team and I think we've learned a lot about the fan base and it's just been... In terms of sheer number of things happening, I think this season is just like by far and away, just like the most happened of any season in 2019, I think. And a lot of it was good and I think definitely the highest of the highest so far.
00:37:25
Speaker
I'll take that. Yeah. Well, we got a whole nother segment to do with Likit and we're going to take a bunch of your questions. But this was great. I feel very good about this conversation we've had, Aaron. Me too. Me too, Jeremiah.
00:37:47
Speaker
it was fun. Anyway, we're gonna take a break, come back and take your questions. You're listening to NOS Adiatus.
00:37:58
Speaker
Full Pool Wines are based in Seattle, owned and operated by Sanders fans, and have been sponsoring Nota Adieira 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.
00:38:18
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. Welcome back to Nos Adietes.
Sounders 2019 Season Highlights
00:38:40
Speaker
We have questions that I'm guessing are MLS Cup champions related. So
00:38:47
Speaker
Look at, why don't you just get us started? Yep. Uh, I almost didn't ask this question, but it's kind of a meme now. So we'll go with it. Nick Peyton asks, yes. Nick Peyton asks, is it time to panic? Oh, I mean, yeah. Panic.
00:39:06
Speaker
Panic on the streets of London, Pagan on the streets of Seattle. It's time to panic in a way. I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with that. Yeah. I mean, it is funny. I don't know. I wonder. I caught myself wondering, like, would I have rather gone through the season
00:39:29
Speaker
This way, no, but man, sure is satisfying, isn't it? It's kind of weird how much like we kind of talking about the it's time to panic thing. It's kind of weird how much we've gone to that, that sense, but like, look how good we've been. It's weird, weird to think about.
00:39:52
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it does make me, it makes me like really curious, like what it's going to be like when I go, I go, you gotta imagine like at some point we're going to have a really bad season, right? No, never. Maybe not. You know, this never happened. Yeah. I mean, it almost happened in 2016 and then they won an MLS Cup. So I don't know. I guess that's how it goes. Yep.
00:40:20
Speaker
Okay. Uh, let's see, firewood one, one three asks, nothing compares to winning your first championship, but did this one feel more special because it was at home? Yeah, this was a lot more fun to me. Um, I dunno, 2016, the season wasn't a whole lot of fun. The playoff run was obviously great, but, um,
00:40:41
Speaker
It just felt, it felt like we were getting away with something the whole time, I think. Um, yes. And then the game itself felt very similar to that. So, um, definitely a lot more fun for me. Yeah. I don't mean like 2016. I suppose if you were in the stands as a fan or like at a watch party or like, I suppose there's a way you could have experienced it that
00:41:07
Speaker
makes it more enjoyable than what you experienced like on an individual level this time. But I just don't see how you can, like, I don't, I don't know what would have to happen.
00:41:20
Speaker
Like what could happen next time to top this? Cause this felt like that's the kind of feels like the top feeling like it's, it can maybe equal it, but your first one at home, 69,000 plus in the stands, like just, you, you couldn't have drawn up a better, like everything about it was kind of perfect. I like this to me was way, way more enjoyable than 2016. Like I didn't mean. Yeah, I think.
00:41:46
Speaker
I think you've got to be clenching a supporter shield double. That's the only thing I think that could really put it over the top. And I think even then it feels better when you sit down there and think about the whole season, but the moment of the experience of going through that game, hard to talk.
00:42:14
Speaker
Okay. Uh, Tim the bear. Do you ask what celebrity who isn't directly connected to the team? So exclude the new owners should get a championship ring. Like when the Raptors gave one to Drake. Well, Chrissy Teigen definitely making a case for herself. Uh, but I'll say Sir mix a lot. I feel like that's the, that's the person who I wouldn't be most excited about like showing up at the parade tomorrow.
00:42:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. Mix is like, uh, that great like local celebrity status of somebody who everybody in the know world knows who they are, but only people from the area like love him.
Cultural Impact and Local Celebrities
00:42:52
Speaker
So it's like that kind of like that cult status that I think makes it. And he's like removed enough that his like pop culture status is like no longer, there's no, like no one's sitting here debating like how good of a lyricist
00:43:06
Speaker
Uh, mixes. It's just like, it's accepted that he is like a legend. Right. Exactly. Can I give one to Gary Payton for that type video? Uh, he did. Yeah. And I guess Ken Griffey, I rode the elevator with Ken Griffey, by the way. Oh, that's pretty cool. And Jimmy Conner, so it was me, not to like, so just me and Jimmy Conner and Ken Griffey and like some other people and Jimmy says, and it's like right after the kickoff and Jimmy's like, they were going to have a,
00:43:33
Speaker
corner and Jimmy says, don't score, don't score. And Griffey looks at him and is like, in baseball, we would, we would never, we would call that jinxing it. You just wouldn't do it. And Jimmy's like, yeah, that's probably, that was probably bad, but you know, I just don't want to miss a goal. Yeah. It's funny. That's a good, that's a good junior story.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah. And he made it all the way to the top of the elevator ride without falling asleep. So good. Oh boy. Okay. Uh huh. RWD Jr. 37 asks, where does the season sit when compared to other great sounder seasons?
Significance of 2019 Season
00:44:14
Speaker
Oh, nine, 11, 14, 16 are all note of note to me. God, that's a good question. I mean, right now it feels like the best in a way.
00:44:27
Speaker
because it's like 14 clearly, we, I remember in 14, we had a long discussion about this, how in, in a lot of ways it was more enjoyable on the aggregate because you enjoyed so much of the season. But the ending is so much a part of how you, like your last memory of the season is so tied into it.
00:44:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that 2014 was the course of 2014, but the highs were so much higher this year, I think.
00:45:06
Speaker
at home was amazing and it was a great memory, but it just can't compare it, I don't think, to the catharsis of winning the cup at home. It's just not the same stratosphere. And I think, I mean, for me, that kind of does it.
00:45:23
Speaker
I mean, it's hard for me from a personal perspective to really judge anything that's happened this year through a normal sort
Satisfaction: Sounders vs LAFC
00:45:32
Speaker
of lens. But I think just trying to remove myself as much from that as I can, it's hard for me to think that you can make a case as the one that people are going to remember. But I mean, it's so personal too, right? I mean, with so many people.
00:45:50
Speaker
So much of what was fun about 2014 was the Dempsey and, and, and Oba. So if that hit with you in a certain way, then, uh, but for me, I think no question. This is the, this is the new pinnacle. So I, that's an interesting thing that I, it feels like a good place to discuss this. I contended on another podcast that sitting here today, if you could offer me
00:46:19
Speaker
LAFC season or our season, like right now, I kind of feel like I would take our season because we aren't left with that feeling of like letting down at the end. We get to have the parade. We get to celebrate the win. We got the, you know, we got to have the game. And I realized like on aggregate, LAFC had a better season and they had this historic campaign and it was amazing.
00:46:47
Speaker
But it also feels like it ends up in some ways, like a footnote, like you didn't get to like, like, I don't know. Like if I had to just a one for one trade, like I, I kind of feel like I would take this moment over the, like the, like the body of work that LAFC put together. Yeah. I mean, if one of the things that I think is, has kind of been clarified for me and MLS over the past few years, especially is that,
00:47:16
Speaker
If you, if you want to sit and have a debate about the best way it was the best team over the course of a season, um, the, the MLS cup final, the MLS cup playoffs are never going to be a satisfactory answer to that. Right. Like they're just not, I mean, but if you want to know who the champion of major league soccer is, um, it's the Seattle Sounders cause they won the championship game and it
00:47:42
Speaker
And because, I mean, an unbalanced schedule anymore, you know, we're never going to have that again. It just makes it clear what the trophy to win is and teams sort of base their G.
Championship vs Supporter's Shield
00:47:56
Speaker
They based a lot of key decisions about who to play, how quickly to bring players back from injury, blah, blah, blah, over, you know, trying to win the MLS Cup. And
00:48:08
Speaker
I mean, that's, that's just kind of the way it is. And I don't, I mean, flags fly forever, man. Like LAFC has nothing to be disappointed about, I think in their season. You know, they're going to have great memories of it. Just like, I'll always have great memories of the 2014 season, but you never trade a ring for anything. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the thing, right? You,
00:48:35
Speaker
That's the thing. It doesn't give me any joy. I think the supporter shield is an amazing accomplishment and I think it's an important thing and it would really make me sad if MLS moved into a world where that was further devalued.
00:48:54
Speaker
but it's not the championship. It just isn't. There's not a debate about that. It's just, that's just a fact that it's not the gym. And even I would say in some ways, I think what makes 2014 like even comparable is not just the shield, but it was also winning the open cup.
00:49:12
Speaker
And, and kind of doing it the way that they did it. And that being this big moment and it, and, and also that the supporter shield was one on the last day of the season against the team that was second in the standings made it feel like a cup final. And so you've got these two big moments that I don't think are as big as winning MLS cup at home, but they at least maybe you make that argument a little bit easier. Uh, and it was a fun season, blah, blah, blah, blah. But anyway. Yeah.
Cascadia Cup and MLS Cup Double
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's, it is the kind of thing where this was a lot more, um, gushing for me before we won an MLS cup. Yeah. Once you actually know what it feels like. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think that's true though. It's true. We even won a, uh, cascading cup this year too. We did. That was great.
00:50:07
Speaker
Are we the first cast team to ever win the Cascadia cup or MLS cup double? I think I saw that. We did it. And do we do in 2016 too? I think I saw something saying this was the first time. Oh, was it? Okay. Actually I want it in 2016. Okay.
Brian Schmetzer's Legacy
00:50:27
Speaker
Twemberly 23 asks the head coach team job is Smetchers as long as he wants it, right?
00:50:35
Speaker
that now. You would think so, but it's going to get into that point. Yeah. Uh, like, you know, we, and I think as, as we're as guilt, like, I don't think we're, maybe we're not as guilty as anyone, but I think we have ourselves been guilty of under playing
00:51:00
Speaker
the job that Spencer has done. And I think we've all been very big fans of his and we like him personally, and we are rooting for him. But I think we have like honestly given like shed some doubt on just what exactly is going on in those film sessions. And I feel like this playoff run probably puts to bed any serious concern. Like there's,
00:51:31
Speaker
Like it would be, I think it'd be silly to say like, there's no one in the world that you could get that could possibly be better than Ryan Spencer. But it is kind of hard to imagine anyone right now being a better fit, like on many levels. And I think one of those things, one of the things that makes him such a hard coach to feel like you can improve upon is that his ego is such that he's willing to bring in guys. Like if he's not, if he doesn't,
00:51:58
Speaker
Like he's honest about his own limitations, and if he doesn't feel like he's up to it tactically, he'll bring in...
00:52:05
Speaker
people who are more up to it tactically and will help him fill in any of those gaps. And, and, and I feel like Pineda is probably in triori to a certain degree and, and Preckie. I mean, I, I talked about this in a column before the, the game. How many coaches have the confidence to that, especially coaches that don't have that illustrious playing or frankly, coaching careers, uh,
00:52:30
Speaker
are willing to bring in a World Cup veteran, a Champions League winner, and the only person to have ever won MVP or the MLS MVP and the MLS Coach of the Year. Those are some big egos and big resumes that he brought in to be his assistant coaches. And in some ways, their resumes are more impressive than his in specific ways, and yet it all works. And I think that in a lot of ways,
00:52:58
Speaker
makes me more confident in him to be the guy who's leading the whole group. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a tendency and I've certainly fallen into this trap. I like to think I've done it less than some people, but I think there's a tendency to think of coaching
00:53:20
Speaker
and coaches and how good they are at what they do in very simple type. You look at who people consider to be the great coaches in the world and they're all generally considered to be tactical. If not geniuses, then extremely adept and innovative and things like that.
00:53:44
Speaker
And so that's the only lens we look at anything through. And to be the coach at one of the top clubs in the world, you have to be good at every single aspect of the job. You have to be elite at every single aspect of the job.
00:54:01
Speaker
want that from their coaches at, at every level. And there's like six guys in the world, if that arguably at a time that, that, you know, meet that standard. Um, but I think what, what's pretty obvious down the stretch this season, uh, and especially over the course of the playoffs is that anybody that still thinks Brian Schmetzer is some sort of tactical doofus, just rolling the ball out there and letting him play. And you know, he's, he's,
00:54:30
Speaker
running very rudimentary tactical systems and that he doesn't understand the game from a chalkboard perspective or kidding themselves and they're embarrassing themselves at this point. I'm not saying the guy is, you know, he's not Mark Opie Elsa, right? But he knows what he's doing in that phase of the game. And like you alluded to, you just can't convince me that there isn't anybody else in the world that understands
00:54:58
Speaker
what the Seattle Sounders are that understands what they mean to the commands, how to connect them to the fans, all of those things that are so intangible that matter. They matter so much and it's so tempting because we can't quantify it to say,
00:55:14
Speaker
That's, uh, but it, it very obviously does and his ability to motivate his ability to get guys to buy in. Um, it's, it's unlike anything, you know, I think that, that he is ever going to go in and super frustrating because, you know, I feel like he probably doesn't care that much about the credit. I think that he understands that the people that matter give him credit that his players respect him, that's respect him. But.
00:55:42
Speaker
I mean, it's so frustrating to me that so many other people don't. And I don't know how will you ever change those people's mind. And if it doesn't matter to him, I don't know why it matters to me, but... Yeah. Yeah. He's put it beyond doubt for me. I've been skeptical in the past, but he's put it and it's super frustrating and other people can't see it.
00:56:07
Speaker
Yeah. And I think it's, it's like with those, it's like that double-edged sword. Like on one hand, I think you're right. He doesn't, he doesn't need the credit, although I'm sure he would love it. But I think he, he does kind of like thrive a little bit on the, like, I don't want to say disrespect, but like the, yeah, kind of, I guess it's kind of disrespect. I do think he kind of thrives on it. And I think he,
00:56:34
Speaker
But I think he also knows that, like, I do wonder if, if he was being hailed as like a tactical genius right now. I wonder if that maybe diminishes his effectiveness though, because I wonder if like, I can't help, but feel like, you know, he won the last three games, essentially playing, having the Sanders play the same way where they didn't need the ball a ton. They only had the ball 40% of the time or so. They won all.
00:57:01
Speaker
They, they only gave up two goals in those three games. They, uh, they were more than happy to like trade possession for scoring chances and three co three opponents in a row, let them basically do that. And, and I wonder if that happens, if it's a coach who.
00:57:23
Speaker
other coaches think is that tactically like he's going to out coach them, you know? And I wonder if he kind of thrives in those spaces of being overlooked and knowing that they can senders might be able to get away with some stuff because opponents don't totally respect the way that he's preparing them. And I, and I also wonder if, if part of what makes him successful is like the way that his players, I think, you know, like one of the things that it was an interesting little element
00:57:52
Speaker
at our event, our pre-game event that we did when Bobby and Will were talking. And Bobby was kind of like, not like, begging on Schmetzer, but also kind of calling into question, like, how much, how tactically astute he really is. And Will really, like, rose to his defense and was like, no, that's not quite true. Like, we do some pretty intense film sessions and Gonzo is leading that and
00:58:22
Speaker
He definitely came to his coach's defense there. And I wonder if that also plays into the way the Sounders are able to, that Schmetzer is able to capitalize on that. The players do like him and it's like they know that it raises their level knowing that their coach isn't getting the respect of a Bob Bradley or something like that. I don't know.
00:58:49
Speaker
Yeah, I thought the fervor with which Will seemed like this is my buddy and I'm annoyed at my buddy kind of thing, but he seemed genuinely annoyed that it's kind of the way. Yeah. And I think that tells you a lot for sure. Okay. Michael Leiper asks, who I know love from MLSSoccer.com for the sounders.
00:59:17
Speaker
Admittedly, I'd have not had a lot of time to go through all their content. But in the postgame, the sense I've gotten, and I watched some of their videos, I don't think that they were not giving the sounders any love. I felt like Aiko Parra was sitting there saying that he felt like the sounders had a reasonable claim at some sort of dynasty. The one piece I did see that made me maybe raise my eyebrows a little bit was when
00:59:47
Speaker
They were talking about the four coaches who have now won two MLS cups. It's Bruce, Siggy, Dom Keneer, or five now, Frank Yellup and Brian Spencer. And they asked Doyle, like, which one, where does he fit in that group of people? And like, I think it's fair to say that Bruce and Siggy are still pretty high up there. Although, I mean, I don't know, he's got as many as Siggy now, which is a funny thing to think about. But, uh,
01:00:14
Speaker
And he, he also just kind of clearly put Dom Canier on another level, which I frankly didn't understand. Uh, but he did, he compared him to Frank Yallop, who I think has the, is the coach who seems like he doesn't quite belong in that group. Uh, so that did seem a little like a dig, but I don't know. That's probably not going to change his, his opinion of Brian until he's got like six MLS cups. And even then he's going to be like unimpressed.
01:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, it was kind of what we were talking about with the whole people who only view coaching quality through a very specific lens, I think, might apply here.
Perceptions of Sounders' Success
01:00:53
Speaker
I thought actually Bobby Warshaw's take on the game was pretty solid, where I think he gave TFC a little bit too much credit for how quote unquote dominant they were in the first half.
01:01:06
Speaker
But in general, his take was TFC did a pretty good job anticipating what the Sounders wanted to do. They took away their ability to be really dangerous in the attack doing that in the first half. Brian Schmetzer made the correct adjustments in the second half, and that's what broke the game open. I thought that was a pretty astute observation by him. But in general, this has become a running joke on this show of
01:01:31
Speaker
the MLS soccer guys a lot of the time, uh, kind of have a bone to pick with the sounders because A, they think it's funny, uh, and B because frankly, the sounders don't need them to, to be relevant. And I think that bugs them. So. Yeah. The one thing that struck out to me is that they were talking about the whole dynasty thing. And I think Doyle was the one that was like, no, because you know, talk, talk to us again, when they win a CCL championship, it's like,
01:02:00
Speaker
But okay. I mean, I don't know. It's like the whole thing that nobody else has done. Right. Yeah. But I mean, I, and I, in his defense, and I don't know, maybe he's, I don't know that what he, where he's come down on like the whole dynasty thing, but I have heard it suggested that there's never been a true dynasty in MLS. And I, and if that's your perspective, I, I'm, I'm not here to kind of fight anyone over, over that. Then.
01:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, maybe the Sounders winning Champions League does push them into that like rarefied air of dynastic teams. But in terms of like, I kind of, I wrote a story today, well, I don't know, someone maybe has a question about dynasties. I don't need to get into it right now.
01:02:46
Speaker
Do they? Nope. Okay. So I'll get into it then. I wrote a story about dynasties and I don't know that I think the centers are clearly a dynasty right now, but I think that you can make the argument that at least since 2014, they've been the best team in the league. Like on the whole.
01:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's disingenuous to try to claim otherwise, I would say. Atlanta and LAFC have had higher peaks, obviously, but I don't know, man, it's two MLS cups, a supporter shield, an open cup, being in the mix every year, it's just really hard to argue with that resume, I think.
01:03:32
Speaker
Okay. Uh, coffee under her bikes asks, Chad definitely gets a ring, right? Oh God. Yeah. And you think, I think anyone who played on this team, I would think is going to get a ring. Ziggy got a ring in 2016. So I feel pretty confident in Chad getting one. Okay. Sugar toes asks, please give will, well, it's not a question, but it's more of a statement. Please give will a high five for me. Done. We'll do that. Okay.
01:04:02
Speaker
Jack Kirby FCS. Can we keep Victor now? I want to keep him now. Does Wingo still get a ring in metal? What is Brad's new job?
01:04:12
Speaker
Think we go is gonna get a metal to or not a metal but I think you'll probably get a the sense I got was the metals were a little more restrictive because MLS is giving those out and at least on the Postgame Chad made it sound like he stole no, which good for him. He deserves it But I don't think Henry was there to steal one. So he probably doesn't get a medal, but I think he's gonna get a ring What were the other parts of the question what is Brad's job? Yeah, I don't know I
01:04:40
Speaker
I hope he's guy. I would suspect that the sounders will bring him into the organization in some capacity. Like, and I think we've seen this a few times with various players where they bring them in, in a kind of like unclear role. And they say he's like an ambassador and then they find stuff for him to do. And then some people like, uh, Taylor Graham ended up becoming this,
01:05:09
Speaker
had a, you know, like the vice president of business and he's like, he's a, he's like very important part of the organization to the point that his playing resume is maybe even totally irrelevant.
Player Retention and Expansion Draft
01:05:22
Speaker
Like how Roger, Roger kind of went in as almost like an ambassador, right? Right. And then, right. Roger went in and that's another good example. Roger Leveque worked for the team and that's kind of found stuff for him to do and
01:05:35
Speaker
Eventually he left the organization to do something else. I think maybe briefly did that as well. His role I think was never any was never really clarified though. But then you have like a Steve zack wanting who the sense I got was he kind of just was in the organization.
01:05:55
Speaker
And then they found a place for him and then all of a sudden he kind of rose up. And so I think what they do is they bring people, these players into the organization. They let them kind of feel themselves around. And then if something really suits them, they're able to like go into that silo. Uh, and then if they doesn't, then they bought some time and they can go do something else, I suppose.
01:06:16
Speaker
I think the other question was about Victor and coming back, right? And the other part of the question. I mean, I think that if he comes back with a completely different expectation of his role, I think it's a win-win if he's okay with that. I mean, he's so good when he's able to play and if he's not under pressure to be
01:06:38
Speaker
a key cog, then maybe he's able to stay healthy and contribute more consistently. But if he's not okay with that, then that's understandable. You've only got so much time in your career, it's hard for me to see the sounders bringing him back as somebody that they're depending on, right? Yeah. And I really want
01:07:02
Speaker
Rodriguez to come back. But I, I say that also with this, I'm not crunching any numbers. I don't know what the budget looks like. I don't know how he would fit under the cap, but I think if you can bring him back in a way where you don't feel like if you don't get 25 games out of them, then you're in deep shit. Um,
01:07:20
Speaker
then you should bring him back because I think he showed in this game that he is so good in his moment. Like if you can get him at the right time, he can be a game changer. Like I don't know, I honestly don't know the Sounders win yesterday without Victor Rodriguez. I don't necessarily know that he's the MVP. Like I, my vote was Gustav Svensson for MVP, but I think you can make the argument that Victor Rodriguez
01:07:44
Speaker
going into that game. Well, let me put it this way. I don't think they win as easily as they won without Victor Rodriguez. They may be, I mean, they're winning one zero. They probably could have held on to that without him, but I think it would have been a much more stressful game without Victor Rodriguez and he completely changed the game when he came into the field. And I think that like that's to me, like if you want to win Champions League, you have to have players like him and you might need players like him coming off the bench and
01:08:11
Speaker
And so like, to me, that's a really good case. And like, if we had to pay him $750,000, if we had maybe even to pay a million dollars, like depending on what the salary gap looks like, I kind of think it might be worth it to bring it back. It'd be 31 next year. Yeah, something like that. So like, he's probably not going to get healthier, but maybe he could be less hurt. It might be good. It might be a good gamble.
01:08:40
Speaker
Okay. The desert Pope asks, who do the centers protect in the expansion draft? Who do they lose if anyone, well, do you have your list? I think Aaron, right? I'll let you kind of take first crack at this.
01:08:53
Speaker
So I think that there is an obvious sort of, so it's 12 players. We are assuming that Morris, AOC, Leyva, and Wanna are protected. And I think that's a safe assumption. We're assuming that Chichini has to be protected, which I think is a fair assumption. And I think, I mean, we might as well assume everybody wants to come back, right?
01:09:21
Speaker
Let's just work under that assumption at the very least. So I would say the obvious ones are Niko, Raul, Christian, Chachini, Ariaga, Fry. Those are the guys that I think everyone would agree, right, is have to be protected. So that's one, two, three, four, five, six. So you've got six more spots.
01:09:45
Speaker
And it gets a little tougher from there. Weirdum, Torres and Kim, I think I would protect all those guys. But there's a case to be made for not protecting them if you've got fallback options, especially one of Torres or Kim.
01:10:06
Speaker
maybe, you know, I would think he probably wants to come back after the way this season has gone. And I think the Sounders would probably love to have him back. But do you take the risk that, you know, at his age and maybe with his
01:10:18
Speaker
affinity for the Sounders and him saying, well, I'm not going to go play for another MLS team. Um, so if I get selected, I'll just go somewhere else. Um, so that's where it gets a little trickier. Um, I think I would, if Victor wants to come back, I think I'd protect him. If, if Torres wants to come back, I think I'd protect him. I think I'd protect Kim and Svensson as well. Um, Bruin, I think you kind of have to protect. So the sort of, I guess marginal guys would be like,
01:10:46
Speaker
Brad Smith. Brad Smith, who I think teams are probably going to not want to take some money that that would have to be like a renewed loan. That seems like a weird risk to take. Jovan Jones, I think is a it's hard for me to see a situation in which I would protect Jovan. Under under any circumstances, I think you have a spot. Do you have one spot left or what do you are you out of spots now?
01:11:15
Speaker
Uh, so let's see, I've got Nikko, Chachini, Raul, Nikko, Chachini, Raul, Christian, Ariaga, Fry, Lirdum, Torres, Kim, Bruin, Svensson, and Victor. So I'm out of spots.
01:11:31
Speaker
Okay, so yeah, so you're at a spot with like Smith Jones and who else you have left under protected? Knew who I think would be next on my list. Because I'm assuming that one of those guys that I would protect is not going to be back, right? Whether it's, I guess the Seahawks won, Jesus.
01:11:51
Speaker
Whether it's, you know, whether it's Kim, whether it's Torres, whether it's... Is any like beating someone in the background at fireworks? Jesus Christ. What is that? It's fireworks, right? The Seahawks game just ended and I guess our new neighbors behind us are joining me, set off fireworks for the Seahawks party. I guess that's a... Is that a thing? Oh yeah, that's a huge thing. I had no idea that was a thing. You kidding me? Yeah. Oh my god. You gotta get down to the south end a little more often. No kidding.
01:12:20
Speaker
I feel the poshy north end. No one's setting off fireworks for... Probably call him a SWAT team if somebody up there was setting off fireworks. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, yeah. So I think that one of those guys is probably going to be gone. And I think Nuhu would absolutely be next on my protect list. So it's really, for me, the guys you would be risking losing would be Jones, Smith,
01:12:43
Speaker
Um, the, the lamb, I guess could be a kind of a rough one. Um, it's, it's a tricky discussion though. I mean, it's, it's much more difficult, I think, than the last time around. Um, when the sounders just had a lot of, even if they were key players, sort of obvious candidates not to protect. Um, so yeah, it's, it's, it's tricky, but I think the odds of them losing at least one player that we'd all like to keep around are pretty high.
01:13:10
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it'll be interesting. I think you're, you're very much getting into, and I guess that's kind of all the, always the expansion draft game is like, you're trying to put yourself in the head of whoever's picking. And this is a, this is a tricky one because you've got two teams this year. And I don't think we really know what either one of those
01:13:32
Speaker
teams is going to, I mean, there are two very different teams. Inter Miami and Nashville SC are probably going to come at this from very different perspectives. Nashville is an existing
01:13:43
Speaker
They have an existing roster of players from the USL. They've already been pretty aggressive in bringing in like MLS quality talent. Whereas Inter does not have a bunch of players that are already kind of with them, but they have also made some kind of splashy international signings. And
01:14:07
Speaker
So they both come at it from very different perspectives. I think they're going to be looking for different kinds of players. I mean, my suspicion is that like, if Brad Smith is exposed, like one of those two teams could take him and maybe even take him on the, with the idea that even if you lose him for like, even if he goes back to Bournemouth that.
01:14:32
Speaker
you then have his MLS rights, but I suppose that you take the risk of like, like, I don't know. That's a pretty risky move. I suppose to bring in an international player that has no point of reference to you and thinking he's going to come. So I think, I don't know. I suspect Brad Smith is one of those players. The Sounders are going to take a chance on and expose. I think Roman Torres maybe is like,
01:14:57
Speaker
is a player who you can't really justify protecting if you have to expose a new who for instance like it's hard for me to imagine the centers exposing new who just because
01:15:09
Speaker
he's so likely to get picked. And it's like new who is like the profile of a player that any expansion team would probably be happy to pick because he's young, he has a high upside, he can do the job that you know what like if you draft a new you know what you're getting at the bare minimum. And that's a physically gifted stout defender.
01:15:34
Speaker
I don't know that he's guaranteed to be an MLS star, but, uh, yeah, I think there's some, there are some tough decisions in there and I think you're right that they're in that kind of lower end and they're going to expose some good players. I think Kim's and like, it's crazy to me to think that you could potentially expose, maybe, maybe you do, maybe you gamble this way. You expose both Kim and Torres and you say,
01:16:03
Speaker
If one of those guys gets selected, I guess that just makes it easy for us to bring back the other one. Even though you don't necessarily want to lose either one, but I also have a hard time seeing both of them come back. Um, and so maybe you take that gamble and I suppose maybe you take a similar gamble with like Smith and Jones where you, you leave them both exposed and.
01:16:27
Speaker
and shrug your shoulders and go, well, I guess if one of them gets taken, that just makes our decision easier on who to bring back next year. I think they have to bring back. Jones is guaranteed, I'm sure. But if he gets selected, then all of a sudden, maybe you can justify the price to bring back Smith makes more sense.
01:16:54
Speaker
And so maybe there's some of that kind of gamesmanship where they, this kind of like, we have more players here than we actually, like we have, we have too many good left backs in some ways. And we don't feel like we that's good use of resources going into 2020. We have too many, you know, starting caliber center backs and, you know, maybe this is an easy way to make that choice or whatever. Like we have, like they have a lot of money wrapped up in, like in those two positions.
01:17:24
Speaker
in center back and left back, they have six, or they have five TAM players and six players who are plausibly starters. Maybe that's overkill in terms of like, maybe it's not, I mean, clearly it worked. So in, in all those players played significant roles in getting the sounders to this point. But anyway, like Jordy Delam, there's another guy, we didn't even mention him as potentially being like, I think if you, like,
01:17:52
Speaker
I mean, maybe that's your sacrificial lamb. Like, if you expose, like, I think, like that's like, that's prime, prime, like expansion fodder. Like if you, if you see Jordy Dilem exposed,
01:18:08
Speaker
put all side, all these high priced players that you're protecting. Give me joy dilemma at 50 grand or 75 grand or whatever he's going to make next year, a hundred grand. He's going to probably be making whatever the league minimum is next year. And he can a hundred percent start for either one of those teams, I would think.
01:18:24
Speaker
And I would be bummed to lose him. I would be really bummed to lose him. But if you're bringing back Spenson, Roldan, Sichine, maybe Dilham is not really, like maybe his future is not really very secure here. Yeah.
01:18:42
Speaker
I would say he's kind of like a better version of Michael Azir when we lost him in the expansion draft, right? Right. I think that's a very bad comparison. And, you know, I would be thrilled to get him if I'm an expansion team. Okay. Most important question of the night.
01:19:04
Speaker
Not a question, but I want to publicly think like, if we're getting taco time to open up for the match as an out of town or exceeded all my expectations, I'm hooked. Sorry. That wasn't a question. Wanted to brag. Yeah. Did you, that was you, huh? I don't, I don't think it was me, but I, did you get taco time during the game for after all that work? Did you actually, Oh, you did. How was it? Was it up to the storefront standards? Exactly what I wanted to get.
01:19:31
Speaker
You know, that's what I wanted to experience in the stadium. Stocko time. Good. I'm happy to hear that. Uh, next question, McNarnia. Get ready. Hey, friend of the show. Friend of the show. Number one, how offsides was Josie, not just physically, but spiritually. And two, what does it say about Michael Bradley that his teams always blame external sources when they disappoint everyone who ever believed in them?
01:19:59
Speaker
Uh, that's good. True, man. I mean, it's very good, very astute observation. Nerns. Um,
Criticism of Michael Bradley
01:20:07
Speaker
yeah. I mean, Michael Bradley is a real whiny sack of shit. He's tall. Yeah, you can do that. He is tall. I walked past him. He looked really upset, but he was very, I was surprised. He looks like Dana Carvey from the master of this guys.
01:20:28
Speaker
I didn't get that reference until just now. That was good. I saw your tweets about it. That is what it looks like. Josie was offside. I don't think we were winning that game, but
01:20:44
Speaker
I think that that was a significantly more egregious no call than the one from the game yesterday. And, uh, you know, I didn't really hear a whole lot of bitching about it. And in fact, I remember a few people kind of bitching about it and just getting like, let it down by the entire sounder span community of like, are you kidding me? Like we got shit house in that game. So, um,
01:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, for the record, the foul that all those doofuses are whining about, because they're losers, was not a foul. If it was, it was a very marginal foul. They had about 45 seconds between the foul and the goal to do something about it. And they didn't because they're losers. So what are you going to do? Yeah. The foul is the one where Roel Dan gets bundled into, right? Yeah.
01:21:33
Speaker
Mourners into. That was not a fail. I also thought it was hilarious that like. So apparently what happened was the reporters went into the locker room and they. Like, I don't know. This is the thing is like it was such an income. Like it's hard for me to imagine that. And I don't know. I don't know exactly. I wasn't there. I don't know how this went down, but it's it's kind of an inconsequential play from a. Like a like if I was watching the game.
01:22:03
Speaker
I, it would be pretty weird to think of that play that was 30 seconds before to the center's goal and think like, I'm going to ask that the players about this and see what they think. Cause like it struck me as like an agree, just no call. Like there was nothing about it. Like I, I, I had honestly, no, I, when I first heard them complaining about that, I had no idea what it was. So my suspicion is that one of some player.
01:22:27
Speaker
brought it up on their own. And then this, and then the press started going and asking everyone about it. Right. And there's a story in the, in like the, one of the Toronto papers where they say like all the players said it wasn't, they didn't want to like focus on the call, but all of them went on the record. Like every person, like four or five consequential players on the team go on the record.
01:22:49
Speaker
Talk about how bad the referee call, how bad the calls were and all this stuff. And it's like, look, if you don't want to talk about it, no one's got a gun to your head. You don't, you're not on your oath. You could just say, I don't, we're not going to blame the ref. And then that's, that's that like, you don't have to like, so don't, you can't have it both ways. You can't say, we're not going to complain about the ref. And then play about the ref.
01:23:15
Speaker
Like whatever. I mean, and if you are going to do that, just knowing that that's what you're doing. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Don't have it both ways. Right. Like just like, yeah, we don't think we deserve to lose that game because of one call that made it one zero and not the two other goals that we allowed.
Team Performance and Missed Opportunities
01:23:34
Speaker
Like not all the missed opportunity, like not that we had 60% of possession and had like no good looks until the game was three zero.
01:23:48
Speaker
Okay. Last question. Kallosaurus Rex asks, so is it socially acceptable to pull your pants and your underwear to your ankles while using a public urinal as an adult asking for a friend? I seriously could not believe that shit. I could not believe it.
01:24:07
Speaker
I hadn't I hadn't heard the story before. And I had I mean, anybody that saw me during the thing knows that I did not have a whole lot of energy on Friday night. And I was losing I was losing my mind. It was like the last little bit of energy I had to like
01:24:24
Speaker
fully appreciate how hilarious that was. That story was just, it's, it's, it's so perfect. And the kicker of the story obviously is not just that. Hold on. Where do you hear this story? You, if you, you can go back to the previous episode of our very podcast or on the, on our feed, the, actually it was the, I guess the Will Bruin smorgasbord podcast where we had every
01:24:53
Speaker
person under the sun that I thought was worth bringing in to come on the show. So it was a lot of fun. But yeah, so I would go back and listen to that story. And I'll just remind in case you haven't done that, the kicker of that story was how mad Michael Bradley got about
End of Season Reflections and Plans
01:25:11
Speaker
it. No, that's absolutely the funniest part. Yeah, that's absolutely like,
01:25:16
Speaker
I mean, if people can make fun of my dad, I'll join in. Of course, your dad's a nerd, he's your dad. Yeah, exactly. How could you get mad about that? Right. Exactly. Exactly. That's the thing. It's really... And I have to admit, on some level, I think Jimmy knew that he was telling an embarrassing story. He made it sound like, I just told this innocuous story and I didn't think anyone would care.
01:26:02
Speaker
I think he knew what he was doing.
01:26:04
Speaker
unless you were like lying about my dad that I would get mad about. Like if you were like, Oh yeah, Aaron's dad killed a bunch of people or something. Like, yeah, I would probably get pretty pissed off about that. Um, assuming he didn't, I mean, I don't know. He's, he's got secrets like anybody else, but, um, yeah, I mean, like something he actually did, if somebody was like, yeah, he actually did this thing and be like, Oh, man, he shouldn't have done that. That's really embarrassing. Yeah. You know, not like get pissed off about it. That's the family though. Apparently.
01:26:35
Speaker
All right. That's all. Well, that was a good place to end it. Um, I have a feeling this will be a more, I don't know. I just have this feeling. I don't, I'm not going to promise anything, but my feeling is that we will be a little bit more active this off season, uh, than we have been previous offices. Cause I don't feel burnt out on.
01:26:57
Speaker
this year. I think part of it is the pace of record. Like we didn't record as many episodes this year as you could probably tell. Uh, but I don't feel like at the end of it, like the last four years I've just been like fried at this point. Um,
01:27:16
Speaker
And I don't I don't necessarily feel that way, even though there were times at the middle of the year where I keep doing another episode. But right now I feel pretty good. So one way or another, I think we're going to record a few times during the offseason. So
01:27:33
Speaker
I'm not going to, there might be, there might also be some interesting changes coming. Maybe. Yeah, exactly. And that's the, and that's another thing. There might be some interesting changes coming. So, uh, yeah, like that's a thing to be on the lookout for. Um, I,
01:27:49
Speaker
suspect that I will talk to you many, we'll be talking to you many times between now and then. But as of right now, I think our intention is to do another Yacht Con. I don't think it's going to be a preseason event the way that we've done it recently, but we might do it early in the season next year because the Sounders have kind of requested that we schedule it in a way that isn't quite as stressful for them. And I'm inclined to especially with Champions League that could get pretty gnarly. Um,
01:28:17
Speaker
just going to be coming up fast. Champions League's like three months away. I guess it's a, I will say this. I really, right, right now I love that this season ended a month earlier than it's so good. It's so good. Oh man. Yeah. Like that's
01:28:36
Speaker
Cause I think part of it is every year it's like the season ends and then the holidays start right away. And then the holidays are over. It's like, oh, trading camp starts tomorrow. So we've got like a month where we don't have to do anything. It's great. Right. Exactly. Uh, so anyway, I'm not going to do my customary end of season thing where I talk about everything. I'm just going to say it's been a great year. Uh, I'm, it's been a tumultuous year for,
01:29:04
Speaker
us in a lot of ways. Aaron, you've been given, you're through the worst part of this as far as we know, right? Yeah, as far as we know. I mean, it's, you know, I'm not trying to spike the football before I get into the end zone, but the worst is hopefully over or will be soon.
01:29:27
Speaker
I feel like a new man. Good. I'm very happy to hear that. And I'm sure our listeners are as well. And Lickit, I think you outdid yourself this year, especially picking up another podcast in the Will Bruin show. Bear with us.
01:29:50
Speaker
Yeah. There's so many demands from that one. Geez. I know real taskmaster. Yeah. Run in that one. So anyway, let's get called great season. Congratulations. Everybody. We won. It was cup at home. That was spectacular. All right. Uh, thanks for response. I should say this. Thanks for as much as football wines who
01:30:16
Speaker
somehow keeps sending us checks every month. Hopefully he's not listening and is like, oh shit, I forgot to cancel this. Forgot to cancel it. I ran into Paul before the game yesterday and he was very happy to see me and seemed to acknowledge that he was still writing checks. Well, that's good. He's a good man. He's a good man, Paul. Yeah. If you like wine and you don't
01:30:47
Speaker
go work there. You don't buy wine from them. Why are you listening to this podcast? Seriously. What are you doing? What are you doing with yourself? Anyway, I'm Jeremiah Chan, setting off for Aaron Campo and Lick It. This is No Study Yet This. Remember, you'll never get alone.
01:31:08
Speaker
Green Douglas spur where the waters cut through. Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew. Canadian Northwest to the ocean so blue. It's Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn. Roll On, Columbia Roll On.
01:31:45
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!