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Sounders FC - SKC preview
94 Plays1 year ago
Jimmy Mack of KC Soccer Journal and No Other Pod joins us to provide some insight into Saturday's opponent, Sporting KC. Just like the last time these two teams faced, Sporting KC comes in on a 10-game winless run. Unlike last time, the underlying numbers suggest Sporting is just as bad as their record suggests.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sounders' MLS Cup Highlights
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
Previewing Sounders vs Sporting Kansas City
00:01:28
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of NOS Adiades. I am Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me today to help preview the Sounders Sporting Kansas City match is Jimmy Mack of KC Soccer Journal and No Other Pod. Welcome back to the show, Jimmy. It's been a while. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Always glad to be back and talk a little soccer between these two clubs.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah. So let's, let's start here. The last time we had you on, I think, I think this was the last time we had, certainly the last time Sanders played Kansas city, uh, a very similar situation, although maybe different, uh, sporting Kansas city. If you can remind way back to towards the start of minute, you know, little towards the start of last year, Kansas city was in the midst of a 10 game winless run to start the season. Things seem to be going very bad. They.
00:02:20
Speaker
You know, it looked like Peter Vermees was in real trouble at that point. Sounders had already beaten Kansas City in Kansas City. Kansas City comes into Seattle.
00:02:32
Speaker
Maybe a little healthier than they had been up to that point, but they, they were a pretty decisive two, one win. And that ends up sparking a complete turnaround in the season. They end up being probably the best, one of the best teams in the league from that point forward. They went up, they went a playoff round that one, two playoff rounds, right?
00:02:52
Speaker
I believe so, yeah. Were they in the playing game? No, they were in the playing game. They had won two. Yeah, they won two. Yeah. Yeah. So they won two rounds and got as far as the Sounders did in the playoffs. And then this season started out OK.
00:03:09
Speaker
Uh, maybe not gangbusters, but certainly not better than last year, better than last year. But all of a sudden as we come into this game, Kansas city in the midst of a seven game losing streak, another 10 game or yeah, seven game losing streak, 10 game winless run. I guess is this a, is it, is the situation different this year? Is it, is it worse? Is it maybe not as bad?
Sporting Kansas City's Current Challenges
00:03:34
Speaker
No, it's a great question. I would say that the feeling among the majority of the sporting Kansas City fan base, particularly the vocal portion of the sporting Kansas City fan base is is the situation is worse right now than it was last year. And I mean, if you look at objectively where sporting Kansas City is in standings in terms of points this year compared to last year.
00:03:55
Speaker
through 16 games. In 2023, Sporting Kansas City had 16 points. They had started to turn it around after they got three points to their first 10 games. They started to turn it around. 2024 through 16 games, they have 11 points. So five points worse than they were last year at this point. You mentioned winless in 10, seven game losing streak in league play. Over that winless streak, they are zero wins
00:04:21
Speaker
eight losses two draws compared to the zero when seven losses three draws they started 2023 with. What I would argue is the biggest difference and why
00:04:31
Speaker
Where there was hope at this point last year for sporting Kansas City, there is less hope at this point. Is sporting Casey started 2023 off with significant injuries. They had two designated players in Gotti Kinda, a midfielder and Alan Palito, the striker who had missed the entirety of the 2022 season.
00:04:51
Speaker
And we're, um, making their way back from injury to start 2023 and missed much of the first part of the season. So there was the built-in excuse of two of our best players have yet to come back. Johnny Russell is injured, et cetera. That wasn't really the situation this year. This team started off pretty healthy and there have been a couple injuries here and there, but they haven't been without two of their three designated players. They haven't really been without any of their designated players due to injury for the vast majority of this season. This team at this point,
00:05:21
Speaker
is what it is. There isn't a series of reinforcements that are on their way back from injury that are going to suddenly turn the tide of this team like happened last year. And for one reason or another, it would seem like a team that should be better than they are on paper seems to be less than the sum of its parts right now. Yeah. So if you kind of go back and you look at the way they started the season, they were two, one and three. I mean, that's,
00:05:50
Speaker
I would say that was almost going according to plan at that point. But where the you know, there were signs of maybe distress, I think you go back to that loss right against the galaxy, where they they blow a lead, they blow a lead in that one.
00:06:07
Speaker
I blow a two goal lead relatively late in the last 20 minutes of the match. Right. Last 20 minutes of the match. They lose that game three, two, and then, and then a couple of weeks later, they blow a three zero lead to the timbers at home. They have to settle for a tie on that one. And then they blew another lead right against inner Miami the following week. And the narrative at that point was something like.
00:06:29
Speaker
Geez, blowing these multi-goal leads seems bad. And I remember Vermee is being asked about that and he was like, oh, I don't know. That doesn't seem, what's the big deal here? And I guess to their credit, they've stopped blowing leads, but they've also stopped getting leads, right?
00:06:49
Speaker
Right, yeah, so sporting Kansas City and I haven't looked at the updated numbers as of this week, but but they haven't had a lead at one point. They had as of at least a week or two ago. 17 points dropped right from not blowing multi goal leads. They've been blowing leads, just not multi goal leads.
00:07:04
Speaker
right seventeen points dropped from a winning position which was most in in the entire league and and quite honestly even though it started to really come to a head like you said with that that galaxy game at home um and then the timbers game in particular and the timbers game was especially egregious because they were up three zero they earned a penalty will you gotta strike that's right and make it a four zero game and ended up missing the penalty kick which you think okay well
00:07:31
Speaker
It's like the 60th minute. You got a three goal lead, four goals would be fun, but you know, chances are we're good. But even in the second game of the season, it was a one, one draw at home against the Philadelphia union. They gave up that goal ultimately to earn a draw at the death was literally the last blast action of the match before the whistle was blown.
00:07:53
Speaker
So this has been an issue for sporting Kansas City throughout the year, just mental errors, not seeing games out. And you're right. Every time we asked Peter Vermees about it in the post-game press conference, it was along the lines of we're doing things well, we're getting better. I'm not concerned. And my question always was, you say you're getting better, but objectively it continues to happen and the leads are getting larger and larger that are being blown. And then it really only, I can think of one press conference this year where he kind of
00:08:23
Speaker
actually showed a little fire and anger and he questioned the effort of the players on the team. And then he came back the next week and he said that the effort was there. We, we just, um, we ended up losing. So if the efforts there, but you're still losing, okay, well, then it's either the players aren't good enough or the system's not good enough. Something's not good
Defensive Struggles of Sporting Kansas City
00:08:40
Speaker
enough. If, if the efforts there and you're still consistently losing, then at what point do you start looking at the system or the person responsible for the makeup of the roster?
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah. And so last week was another one of those games where he said, I actually liked what I saw other than I think of the line was something along the lines, other than the three goals, I really liked what I saw. Right. And they lost three, one to Minnesota. Uh, that, you know, I guess it's on the road. Minnesota has been good. So I guess you can sort of, you know, if it's a vacuum, you don't get freaked out about it. But at some point.
00:09:17
Speaker
seven straight losses to be talking that, that, I mean, that's, I can only imagine what it must be like covering. I mean, Brian Schmetzer was sometimes drives us crazy, but he also isn't telling us that, no, actually I'm really happy with the team at, you know, uh, seven after the seven straight loss. Right. Yeah. He, he said, uh, yeah, other than the three goals, there was a lot of good stuff, which, you know, the, the.
00:09:41
Speaker
analogy I'm seeing a lot of people make is, you know, other than that, how was the play? Mrs. Lincoln. But it wasn't just that it was, he was asked, you know, what does this, which, you know, it's somewhat of a cliche question, but what does this team need to do to, you know, turn this streak around? And his answer was, well, you have to win games. You have to score more goals than the other team. And it's like, okay, well, thank you. There's not a lot of the feeling amongst a lot of sporting fans at this point, and it's only continuing to grow louder is,
00:10:11
Speaker
there doesn't seem to be a lot of adjustment. There doesn't seem to be a lot of tactical or strategic shifts that happen, particularly in game, if something is not going well. Over the last couple of weeks, interestingly enough, Peter has decided to change the starting lineup a bit, and it's been much more what you would consider
00:10:32
Speaker
secondary or bench players that have filtered into the starting lineup as opposed to Daniel Shallowy, Alan Polito, Johnny Russell, the people who you are probably familiar with. You're getting more of Steven Afrifa, Alanis Vargas, you know, names that your listeners are probably not on that. Unfamiliar with. I am unfamiliar with. So on one hand, I guess you could say, well, credit to Peter for trying something. But on the other hand, it's still not working.
00:10:58
Speaker
So it's just it's it's a dispartening position for sporting fans to be in because it does not appear to be a light at the end of the tunnel. And there hasn't really been anything that sporting has shown that gives you any indication that change may be coming. There's talks about the transfer window, etc. But it
00:11:18
Speaker
That point, you know, too little too late. Yeah. I mean, as, as we are well aware here in Seattle, where we kind of have this similar, but not maybe at the same level of frustrations is, you know, every, you, you, we keep talking about the transfer window. Well, there's eight games after the transfer, like by the time the transfer window comes open,
00:11:38
Speaker
If you're in, if you're really in a bad place, there's not a lot of runway left to correct it. There's a league's cup and I suppose you can, you know, maybe make something happen in league's cup, but as far as league play goes, you don't have a lot of room left to go. So I'm sitting here looking at, you know, along the same lines of what you said, you know, where there's not a lot of reason for hope, you know,
00:12:01
Speaker
At least the narrative around Seattle has been, okay, well, they've been bad, but if you look at the underlying numbers, the number of underlying numbers are actually pretty encouraging.
00:12:10
Speaker
Well, if you look over at Kansas City, it is not the case. They are actually over performing their expected goals by something like 10 goals. Like they are, they, they're actually scoring really well, but the, the defense just seems to be an absolute tatters. They've allowed 31 goals. They're averaging basically two goals allowed a game here and.
00:12:35
Speaker
And I'm not sure that the underlying numbers give us any, give any real reason for hope. I mean, is there, I don't know how, is that a, how big of a narrative is that over there?
00:12:46
Speaker
It's, it's certainly a narrative. Um, I think so the attack started off decent to start the year. And then, I mean, I'm not really sure what happened, but suddenly, I don't know if age has finally got up to this team. I mean, I think it's the oldest, if not, um, one of the top two or three oldest average age starting lineups in the league. If you look at the, you know, what would be considered the first choice starting 11. Um,
00:13:12
Speaker
There is, Eric Tommy is the central tech and midfielder. He plays the number 10 position when he is either not on his game or unavailable. And his wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago, so he was unavailable for the birth of his first child, understandable, etc. And as soon as he leaves, Peter said himself, we don't have another natural number 10 on the roster. We lose that direct attack up the middle.
00:13:37
Speaker
Um, sportings, chances, quality chances that they create essentially vanish. And that's why you were correct when you mentioned they're, they're near the top of the league in terms of, um, goals scored to expect a goal scored. Um, but that's because.
00:13:54
Speaker
You look at a significant number of their goals, whether it be Jake Davis from the right back position or Johnny Russell, who just did this with a somewhat meaningless goal last week. They're scoring goals from five, six, seven yards outside the box that are our bangers, but they got individually, you know.
00:14:10
Speaker
0.01, 0.03 XG per attempt. This isn't a sustainable offensive attack over the long haul. And then on the defensive side, I would say it's a relatively athletic backline and they tend to make a lot of mental errors. There's a lot of miscommunication. There's a lot of missed marks.
00:14:30
Speaker
Particularly on set pieces, sporting has allowed well into the double digits of set piece goals this year. They are simply not good defending set pieces.
History Between Sounders and Sporting KC
00:14:41
Speaker
And it has been a problem, honestly, for a handful of years at Sporting Kansas City and nobody can seem to fix it. We've asked Peter, we've asked the players, we've asked Tamelya, the goalkeeper.
00:14:51
Speaker
It continues to happen. It happened last week. They got caught unaware on a quick throw in last week and then center back got muscled off the ball. There was a mental lapse. Nobody was in the box to guard a Minnesota player who ended up. Just getting an easy tapping in the goal so. Mental errors, there's a little bit of youth on the back line at times. Jake Davis is a converted midfielder who plays right back. Who's a solid player, but he's still learning the position.
00:15:21
Speaker
silly mental lapses along the back line that the athleticism unfortunately can't make up for. Yeah. And digging a little bit more into the, to the advanced analytics on here, you know, you also, you, you assume, you see these things, you sort of assume, Oh, there must be, they must have given up a whole bunch of penalties. No, not really. They've given up two penalties. One only one goal there. Uh, the post shot XG is 32. Mm-hmm.
00:15:49
Speaker
They've given up 31 goals. I mean, they're like, Malia is actually slightly performing above what you would expect. He's actually preventing goals that you would be expecting. And yet they're still, you know, I mean, I say this as someone, like, I don't normally come into this thing. I'm always looking for, Oh, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, and it's like, you just look at these, all these numbers just scream like crisis. Right. And, and I think that's where, I mean,
00:16:19
Speaker
I said there haven't been tons of injuries and there haven't. If there's one line that's been depleted from injuries more than the others, it's been the midfield. Remy Voltaire is the number eight. He plays sort of that box-to-box position. Eric Tommy is the number 10. Tommy, I think he's maybe missed one game with a hamstring injury and then missed another one with
00:16:38
Speaker
Um, the birth of his child, as I mentioned, but, but still when one player and at most two players in the midfield, um, for just like a game or two go away and the entire team just shuts down, both, both offensively and diff and defensively. Um, then you start to wonder, okay, well,
00:16:56
Speaker
If there's truly no depth to the midfield, if there's nobody that can step in and stabilize the midfield and then the offense is on an island in the attack, they're not getting the ball. The defense isn't getting any support from the midfield. So they're stepping up higher and they're making more mistakes. They're trying to play the offside trap and getting caught.
00:17:15
Speaker
playing too high, wingers get behind them. I know Seattle has some speed that they can potentially get behind the back line with. And if you look back to when they last played in Kansas City, it was a 4-1 drubbing. Now, Ben Sweat got a red card, which didn't help things, but it was already 2-0 at that point. So... 2-1, I think, but yeah. Or was it 2-1? Yeah, I can say it actually took a lead in that one.
00:17:42
Speaker
That's right. Again, got a score right at the beginning. Yeah. Um, and then Jordan Morris and Leo Chu kind of took over the game. Um, so it's just there, like you said, the advanced stats don't show a lot of, um,
00:17:58
Speaker
room for hope. There isn't really an expectation for change strategically based on what fans have seen. And quite honestly, the ownership group has been pretty silent on everything.
00:18:13
Speaker
when when sporting fans saw this past week that Atlanta United fired their manager and Garth Lagerway who Seattle fans are very familiar with sent out a letter to Atlanta fans basically saying here's the expectation we set every single year we were not living up to that expectation we felt we needed to make a change so we're doing it sporting fans looked at that letter and said how hard is that to just communicate what is the expectation of the club
00:18:36
Speaker
And so the danger for sporting now is they're teetering on the edge for many people of shifting from anger and frustration to apathy. And that's where it gets really dangerous, right? Exactly. That's way more dangerous, especially when you have a team, I'm wearing it right now, the Kansas City Current over on the NWSL side, unbeaten, who have their brand new stadium and are just firing on all cylinders and they're selling out game after game after game. Sporting's not the only soccer team in town anymore.
00:19:05
Speaker
And fan width is a real thing. If sporting isn't gonna make it worth people's time and money to drive all the way out to the stadium in Kansas City, Kansas, they'll go down to the Riverfront Stadium in downtown Kansas City and watch a team that knows how to win.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to say, maybe if there's an explanation for all this, it might just be that Casey Courant has sucked out all the energy and this is like the most exciting team in North America right now, Casey Courant. They are just flying.
00:19:47
Speaker
So I don't know, maybe that if we were looking for explanations for all this, maybe that's a good one and a good plug for Casey Courant, who are absolutely balling right now. And I didn't realize that that was that stadium is that's like the stadium location that I'm sure in a if you were to play, if sporting in the city were to
00:20:10
Speaker
come into the picture now, that's probably exactly where they would want to put that stadium too, isn't it? Potentially, yeah, I mean, they had an opportunity to build a stadium way back when in Kansas City, Missouri, and then because of tax shenanigans, they ended up on the on the Kansas side. But yeah, I mean, but I do think there is an interesting parallel when you look at both of the teams, not just in terms of like, obviously, one's winning, and what's not, one's not, there's excitement around one, there's there's not around the other. But
00:20:36
Speaker
The current have dealt with their own injuries, you know, uh, be as an Arado, their, their new forward who's from Brazil this year, who's incredible. She missed four or five games with injury, but the current have a roster that's been built that has depth where if a star player goes down for four or five games, there's enough quality behind them. They can come in and continue to win and win in a different style. They won five to four, four to three in the first handful of games, and then they've won one zero grudge matches.
00:21:02
Speaker
They can adapt in different ways when they need to, depending on the personnel that they have on the field. With sporting, it feels so much like they have their 4-3-3 sporting fit, possession-based system that plays like a pseudo high press. And regardless of the talent on the field, whether that is best suited for who's there,
00:21:23
Speaker
that's the system. And I think I could argue that sporting doesn't have, especially on the frontline in the midfield, the speed or athleticism to play the way they once did. And, and Peter hasn't really adapted the system to fit the unique talents of his players at this point. So in your estimation, how, like, is this a big game specifically is like, I know from just a, a narrative perspective or is, is, is Peter so
00:21:51
Speaker
Teflon for lack of a better term that it's like one game really. It's not about one any one game. It's really about some larger issue.
Peter Vermees' Tenure and Team Management Issues
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah, I have no indication that
00:22:05
Speaker
ownership is preparing to make a move anytime soon. I would guess that at minimum, since sporting Kansas City is in the quarter finals for the US Open Cup, that they're not going to make a move as long as there's still a chance for a trophy in front of them. They win three more games and they have a home field advantage for at least a quarter and semi-finals, should they defeat FC Dallas in the quarter-finals.
00:22:31
Speaker
They'll then host the semifinal game. I don't think they're going to make, you know, a foundation shattering move until at minimum they're out of the US Open Cup. The other thing that makes this hard, and this is again sort of ownership shooting themselves in the foot a little bit, is before the 2023 season,
00:22:48
Speaker
They signed Peter Vermees to a contract extension through 2028. Oh, he has four and a half more years on his contract. As of right now, four and a half years, four and a half through the 2028. Wow. We're in 2024. That's still gotta get through 25, 26, 27, 28. And then he's out of contract.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's some security. So maybe that explains, I guess that would kind of explain a guy who's not too worried about his job security. Like even, I mean, he's got four years, he's owed four more years. Right. And he doesn't have a sporting director or a technical director or anybody that he answers to, even when they did the weird eight day period where they hired Gavin Wilkinson as a sporting director, which was, oh man, I forgot a whole podcast on that.
00:23:37
Speaker
Gavin Wilkinson as the sporting director was going to report to Peter Vermees. Peter Vermees was still going to be the highest person. So they say they're still looking for a sporting director. And I could argue that the biggest thing Peter, Peter could still potentially be a successful coach. If he can focus on being a coach, I would say his roster building and his contract decisions that he's made are his biggest flaw at this point that haven't aged well.
00:24:04
Speaker
But what sporting director out there is going to want to have to report up through the head coach, knowing that that's not typically how MLS clubs are run anymore. If you look at the successful sports now, it's not how it works. Yeah. So you're basically looking to hire an assistant GM to report to the coach, uh, who also reports to himself. Exactly. Peter is the highest soccer official.
00:24:30
Speaker
For the club, there is a president of sporting Kansas city. It's great. He just runs the business side of things. He has nothing to do with the technical or sporting side of the game. So in the club for the last 10, 12 years, more than a decade has been built from the academy up.
Fan Disconnect and Communication Blunders
00:24:48
Speaker
in the image of Peter Vermees. And so how you know, I wasn't planning on getting into this. But since you bring it up, I am just curious. Has there been any long term fallout from the Gavin Wilkinson thing? I mean, that was an amazing week of, of kind of the news seemed to come out of nowhere. And then it was, you guys are crazy. What are you doing here? Why are you questioning this to like, a couple days later, like, Oh, yeah, we fired that guy. Of course we did. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:15
Speaker
Functionally, I would say, no, there hasn't been. And quite honestly,
00:25:23
Speaker
You know, there were a number of us in who cover the team who continue to try to ask about it. But we are the vast majority of us independent media who do not have large media companies behind us. We don't have the resources to push and push and push. So when we ask the questions and there was a press conference that was the next day after they announced that they had parties.
00:25:45
Speaker
and three of us asked three times in a row three different ways what the deal was and we basically got told we're not going to talk about that we've issued the statement that's the last we're going to talk about it and we can end the press conference right now if you want to keep talking about that and so at us at a certain point the club didn't want to play ball they didn't want to answer anything now what i will say even though functionally it hasn't
00:26:07
Speaker
really impacted the day-to-day operations of the club. I do see more and more fans when they're talking about, does ownership even care about the club? What made this team successful, especially after the rebrand, was they really connected with the fan base and with the city. And there is more and more of a narrative saying they've lost sight of what once made this club so great, which was that connection and the mutual respect for the fans.
00:26:31
Speaker
They showed it with the Gavin Wilkinson thing. They're showing it with the way that they've treated pricing and whatnot, and it's just causing fans to be disillusioned and apathetic. And that, who we said before, that's where I think they get into real danger. Well, maybe this was an effort to change around that apathy, but one of the funnier things today was
00:26:58
Speaker
a reporter who covers the team here stumbled across this, this line and it's in the lead. It's a, it's a by the numbers story on the sporting Kansas city website. And the lead is one of major league soccer's most unlikable teams will visit children's diversity park. And it was just like,
00:27:14
Speaker
When they were just catching strays, I have never really, I mean, I shouldn't say I'd never, there was a time up until about 2016 where I felt like there was a general, a genuine on-field rivalry between the Sounders and Sporting Kansas City that was mostly fueled by, you know, they were both very competitive at that point. They were, you know, they were, they were both competing for trophies. They had met in the US Open Cup final. They, you know, 2016 obviously was the, uh,
00:27:41
Speaker
the year the Sanders went on a run, but it was sparked by a somewhat controversial win over sporting Kansas City in the first round of that. And they had all these.
00:27:51
Speaker
tightly contested matches, but really on the field since then, there have been some flashpoints, but they've been mostly sounders aggrieved by them. You know, there was, which I don't even know if you guys even remember this, but, you know, Stefan Fry getting called for a penalty when he was punching, uh, a ball out and Dom, on Dom, do I remember this or not? And, uh, so that, but you know, this morning, Kansas City comes out on top of that one. And then there's the Tim Malia, a rock bottom on Christian Roldan. Again, sounders fans feel aggrieved over it. Kansas City.
00:28:21
Speaker
They got all, you know, whatever best, you know, they, they, they won the game. They, they, they went onto the playoffs. No, no harm there. And I'm just, where did this come from? Is this just a,
00:28:32
Speaker
just see it from an official, you know, like an official source like this just like stuns you a little bit. Yeah, it's a little, it caught me off guard too. This is not the type of thing. So they put out this by the numbers article where it's basically supposed to get like, Hey, this is how it's gone the last few times in terms of play. This is where they ranked statistically, et cetera. They've messed with st. Louis city a bit in these because that's an actual legitimate rivalry that has continued to grow over the last couple of years since st. Louis came into the league.
00:29:00
Speaker
I don't know why they took a shot at Seattle now of all times. I mean, I know it's, it's, um, you know, communication staff members who write this stuff and they're typically written like more along the lines of press releases and such. But I mean, if I'm being generous, you know, I think about, you know, as somebody who has a podcast that covers sporting Kansas city every week and we go to the press conferences and ask the same questions and get the same answers. And I've said many a time this year, there's only so many times you can say the same thing. Right. You got bored.
00:29:29
Speaker
And they were like, I don't know. I'll spice something up a little bit. Maybe I'll try to invigorate the sporting fans a little bit. Come watch the most unlikable team and sort of make Seattle the villain. And yeah, historically Seattle is one of the most successful clubs in the league. It's just, it's a funny year to pick it because Seattle's been having their struggles even though they're doing better than sporting this year.
00:29:52
Speaker
I don't think it's going to land and I haven't seen it land with sporting fans in a way that's like rallying. It's more just like, uh, okay. Not, not now. Right. This is not what we need. So it's, it's different. I haven't seen that before. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have thought that this was the week to pull that one out of the hat. Right. Yeah, exactly. For a playoff game. Hey, no, no.
00:30:15
Speaker
no animal, you know, whatever. Like you got to do what you got to do. But this, this just felt very, uh, you know, okay, sure. Why not weird? Whatever. I mean, if anything, I would be concerned. Okay. You just gave Seattle bullets and bored material. Right. Why are we doing that? It was funny. Uh, we asked Brian Schmetzer about it today and he was like, well, I know Peter from ease wouldn't say that.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, it is a good question. I do wonder because, you know, they have changed their communication strategies before at the request of Peter. They changed when they put the lineup graphic out until really or kickoff now, because it used to be that they would put it out an hour before. Yeah. And they just do a list of names because Peter doesn't want to give any of a tactical information away when surprise is going to be a four three three. That's the same and it's always been. Uh, so I wouldn't be surprised if, if maybe he was like, Hey, let's not, but I don't know.
00:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's, um, I always get a kick out of the, the line of graphic thing. Like the sounders have been pretty consistent about, about that. And it was funny the other day, actually Brian was giving the communication staff a hard time because they, he wanted it to be a surprise that, you know, Obed Vargas was playing on the right instead of in the middle. And they put it in the graphic that he was playing on the right. And, uh,
00:31:27
Speaker
And he was like, oh, and they won the game. Which is like, of course, like it makes it like as if that was a right. Anyway, but I always just think it's funny the way that that teams get all up in their feelings about especially like line of graphics. But Jimmy, I feel like we need to end on some sort of like positive note because I don't like I don't intend to come in here and just dunk on on anyone, especially since
00:31:53
Speaker
Like this is like at the end of the day, this is MLS. I would not be at all surprised to see Kansas City win this game. Let's cast it this way. If this goes the way Kansas City wants it to, what happens? What's the scenario you imagine where this comes out with the Kansas City win?
00:32:14
Speaker
It starts with Eric Tommy in the middle of the fields and him back there at the number 10 being that creative force in the midfield. Peter said the thing that's lacking in the attack is a direct attack up the middle. We cannot just simply rely on hoping Daniel Shallow your Johnny Russell out on the wings can just whip in crosses and hope that somebody gets ahead to it. It just simply won't work.
00:32:37
Speaker
Uh, so if, if Eric Tommy can get in there and play his game and be, um, that, that creative spark in the midfield and. I mean, Alan Pledo is getting paid three point something million dollars a year to be a designated player striker. He's got this skill. He's just been.
00:32:52
Speaker
in such poor form all year. He and Tommy together can play off each other very well. So, uh, sporting would need to score two or three goals. Um, and then, yeah, they probably would still give up a goal somewhere probably later in the match if, if things were going, um, about as well as they could. But, uh,
00:33:11
Speaker
If everything went perfectly for sporting, you're looking at best case scenario, probably a two, one or three, one victory. Um, but that's sort of in the story of this club in order for them to win things have to go perfect.
Strategies for Sporting KC to Win Against Sounders
00:33:23
Speaker
And it's not a realistic expectation to go perfect every week. Um, the only silver lining, I guess you could say of this season, even beyond this game for sporting fans is sort of that transfer window. Hope that somebody can come in, but like you said, um, there's just not a lot of games after the transfer window.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And just real quick, are there any notable absences for this game? I know it's during an international break, which normally would be a time when I would expect both of these teams to be missing a few pieces. The Sounders not really like knew who was the only projected starter who is away on international duty.
00:34:00
Speaker
Yeah, Remy Voltaire. He's the box to box midfielder. He's been out for a couple of games. He did not practice today. We don't have the official injury report as of yet. He would be the big one who would be missed. Danny Rosero is a starting center back. He did not practice today, but Peter Vermees just said he was quotes fatigued, so they expect him to play, but Remy Voltaire. He would be the only one. However, I will say even if he can't go,
00:34:29
Speaker
Sporting's really only addition last year was Memo Rodriguez, who's a midfielder who played largely with Houston Dynamo in his career. He's actually been pretty good for sporting this year. So if he can slot in and play that eight behind or alongside Eric Tommy at the 10 should be fine. But Remy Voltaire is the one to keep an eye out for.
00:34:50
Speaker
Good stuff, Jimmy. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I don't know. I would imagine it gets a little old talking about some of this stuff, but I appreciate you informing us and letting us know what's going on. Obviously Kansas City, I don't know. It's hard for me to call Kansas City a rival. Everyone at this point feels like there's a reason to be rivals with if you're a Sounders fan and you've been around long enough. But I do think Kansas City still has a special place.
00:35:17
Speaker
in sounders plays for antipathy. Yeah. And I think if, if sporting were to somehow win this game against Seattle, I mean, sporting fans would, would love to beat Seattle. There, there is, I mean, there is a history, even if it hasn't been there as vibrantly over the past couple of years, it's always fun to beat Seattle if you're a sporting fan. And I'm sure after some of the shenanigans recently, it's always fun to put, put sporting in their place. If you're a sounders fan.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, very true, very true. But I do want to give people a recommendation to go check out Casey Sarkar, Sarkar journal like sounder art. They are also kind of plotting this post SB nation path forward. It's great to see that you guys are going strong. No other pod is you can listen to you guys as well. Jimmy, thank you so much for doing this. And, you know,
00:36:08
Speaker
May, may everything may, may the world give you something interesting to talk about. Yeah. Well, last time I did this, like you said it, we were on our 10 game windlass streak and I know we went into lumen and one. So maybe I need to do this again to break the curse now. Exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you so much. Uh, I'm Jeremiah Shan and this is Noah's audio test and we will catch you next time.
00:37:26
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!