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Episode 433: Preview of Sounders - FC Dallas
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The Sounders travel to Frisco, Texas to play FC Dallas with a chance to solidify their place in the Western Conference standings. We talked to Buzz Carrick of 3rd Degree to get the lowdown. He thinks Alan Velasco is more likely to play than the injury report suggests, shares some insight on Seattle U's Nkosi Tafari and let's us know how Dallas has dramatically improved their attendance.
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Transcript
Introduction from Seattle Sounders FC
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
00:01:26
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of NOS Adietes, sponsored by Fullpool Wines and Watson's Counter.
Sounders FC vs. Dallas Match Preview
00:01:32
Speaker
I am Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me today to preview the upcoming Sounders FC Dallas match is Buzz Carrick of thirddegree.net. How's it going? Oh, good. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. So before we get too deep into this, I wanted to, because we are a newly independent site, I always like to talk about my fellow independent MLS
00:01:56
Speaker
Reporters and so I wanted to just sort of talk about what what you guys have going you were one of the maybe the longest tenured
00:02:04
Speaker
MLS reporters out there, certainly covering a specific team. Yeah. We, uh, I started third degree in, uh, October of 1997 following the end of the 1997 season. So, uh, this is the, I'm approaching the end of my 26th season covering FC Dallas. Um, I've been going to training and talking to coaches and stuff since, you know, 98 give or take, um, pretty much seen it all as you can imagine. We were independent.
00:02:30
Speaker
Uh, for, you know, most of our history, we did spend a couple of years working with ESPN Dallas, um, which doesn't really exist very much anymore. And then we spent about, uh, eight years or so with partner with the Dallas morning news, but we were independent before that and we've been independent since then. And you guys are basically on a Patreon model. Is that right?
00:02:48
Speaker
Patreon model, I jokingly call the PBS model where we put all our content out available and then say, hey, if you like what we do, give us a buck. We have a website and a podcast. The podcast is in its fifth year. And then we also put out news, of course, on social media and Twitter and things like that. But the primary structure is the podcast and the website.
00:03:09
Speaker
Well, nice. Yeah, it's a, you know, it's not so dissimilar from what the model that we're doing at Sounder Heart. And so I do think this is a, it's great to see something like this surviving as long as it has. But I guess you have a day job too, is that right?
History and Standards of thirddegree.net
00:03:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing is that this has always been a hobby for the most part. I mean, I work in professional media, you know, and television to be specific. And so I have a career and this this to my life allowed that it is not dependent on this. In fact, we didn't try and make any money on it at all until about five or six years ago. And the people that work with me are in businesses like radio or Internet development or, you know, so we're all media professionals and we bring
00:03:51
Speaker
We don't bring a fan point of view, we bring a professional media point of view. We have very high standards about who we allow to do stuff for us. We've been treated by as professional media people since the get-go from by both FC Dallas and Majorly Soccer. We try to follow all the ethical rules of professional journalism. We try not to make things emotional. We try to analyze things and report on things in a professional manner.
00:04:21
Speaker
It does make us a little bit different from other people. I will be honest about that. I don't think that we're the same as your average fan blog. You know, we occupy a different space than that.
Market Relevance of FC Dallas
00:04:31
Speaker
Well, along those lines, what's been your perspective on on Dallas as not necessarily on the field, but off the field, it does seem like and I don't know if this is it almost seems like it's an unremarked upon thing, but it does feel like
00:04:47
Speaker
FC Dallas has turned a corner in terms of its market relevancy. You look at the attendance numbers and they're consistently drawing 17, 18, 19,000 a game, which I assume means they're selling out pretty regularly. That's not always how it's been. Obviously, for a long time, Dallas really struggled in the marketplace, but what's it like now?
00:05:11
Speaker
Well, they've absolutely been lacking in impact in the marketplace here and awareness brand awareness here. They've even suffered, you know, in long term awareness to people like the Dallas sidekicks who've been around for considerably longer in an indoor game, even though that's a much nowadays a much, much lower level of play.
00:05:30
Speaker
But I will give them some credit. It starts with, believe it or not, the Austin FC coming into Texas and showing that you can actually draw big crowds in Texas. And I don't know that the people at FC Dallas would admit this, but it is 100% true that they noticed that it was doable.
00:05:46
Speaker
You know, and then the second thing that happened was this is mostly all post pandemic was that they, the Ricardo peppy sale allowed them to reinvest money. The hunts say, and we don't have a forensic accountant to really know, but they say that they don't take the money out of the club. They leave it in the club. And I will tell you for a fact that I know that almost everybody across the organization got raises post peppy sale. Every part of the budget was increased. They brought on new people in new positions, including like a VP of marketing, which they didn't have for a couple of years.
00:06:16
Speaker
you know, pretty key. Well, you know, they had had somebody and then in the pandemic, they had to do staff reductions. One of the things that had gotten the person that was in that job, to be fair, I think was probably in over their head a little bit. So they went out and I got a guy who'd been with the Mavericks for a time and then with, you know, professional big companies.
00:06:37
Speaker
doing marketing his name is Jerome and his last name is leaking out of my brain right the second but when you combine that position with the clear increase in budget in terms of everything that they do not just an advertiser but also for sure an advertising there's been a dramatic impact on the field and it's not just
00:06:55
Speaker
of the
00:07:14
Speaker
uh sales in terms of the capacity percentage they're one of the top 10 league in the leagues now in terms of percentage of capacity sold and not just that we all know in major league soccer the numbers announced are not the numbers actually there right what's in seats percentage has gone way up too so like when now when they're saying that it's a sellout or it's almost a sellout it really is
00:07:35
Speaker
Now that, of course, that doesn't get them anywhere near in the category of these big massive teams like you guys are used to in Seattle with your much, much larger crowds. But from where this team has been, it's a remarkable dramatic improvement. And for everybody in this market that is a soccer fan, it's really exciting to see them finally, I don't know, wake up, if you will, to the idea that it could be better and bigger than it
FC Dallas Attendance Success
00:07:55
Speaker
is. And for the hunts that change their ways a little bit in terms of what they're willing to spend.
00:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and I don't know, maybe people forget this now, but certainly when we first started covering the Sounders back in 08, 09, and even those up until probably 2015, 16 at least, it seemed like Dallas was struggling to even get to the five digits and to hear that they are selling out 50% of the games, I think is really, it is remarkable. And I don't know, it's funny because
00:08:28
Speaker
Dallas was for so long sort of like a
00:08:33
Speaker
Like a joke in terms of the people that would talk about how no one goes to the games. And now that they aren't, it's like people just accept it as like, Oh, that's just how it is. But it wasn't, it took a lot of work. And I think Dallas deserves a lot of credit for, for sort of turning this around and showing that it's not just expansion teams that, you know, have, they can see these attendance bumps at like, but an MLS original can sort of turn this around, even if they don't do it right away.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah, this is a massive, massive market. You know, it's one of the top five, six markets in the United States in terms of population. Yeah, they do not draw as they should in the entire market yet. But
00:09:14
Speaker
People like to also point out that Frisco, where the stadium is, is fairly far from downtown Dallas. But people also that if you're not from here, you don't understand that there's a massive population up around that stadium. So if you look at the 30-minute drive window, which is where most teams target their audience, there are more people around that stadium within that 30-mile drive or 30-minute drive or whatever it is than there are in about half the markets in the league.
00:09:40
Speaker
Right. So they should have done much better than this before. We should not ever give them the excuse of there not being enough people around that stadium because of where it is. That's ridiculous. There's plenty of people to outdraw.
00:09:54
Speaker
the bulk of this league if you do a good enough job and spend enough money. So that's the difference. They finally have started to do that. They finally started to make inroads. It's not where Austin is yet in terms of its awareness in that community, but it's a massive improvement lighten day over where they were. You know, they're now getting more coverage in the local media. You're now getting see more awareness around town and all phases, even like interaction with the other professional clubs in town on social medias or whatever else has jumped up.
00:10:24
Speaker
So again, in all phases, they're finally doing the things that are necessary to do, and we're seeing a reaction in numbers, and we're beginning to start to have to have conversations about what the next phase is. If they continue this current trajectory over the last two years, you're going to be looking at them selling out virtually every game.
00:10:42
Speaker
Now, most professional clubs will tell you that it's not bad to have that problem. You know, artificial scarcity, a high factor of man, it's tough to get tickets for that. But there is a point at which they're going to have to talk about what are they going to do to get a larger number of people? And with the World Cup coming, the Hans have been talking about.
00:10:59
Speaker
adding on to that stadium or renovating that stadium again with a hotel and a new stands on either side and trying to bump that number it can hold up to the next phase whatever that would be and if you've watched this team long enough that's incredible for this club which was
00:11:15
Speaker
Averaging what they might have claimed 15, but really it was like 10, 12 people sitting in the stadium to be like, we're actually filling the stadium all the time and having these conversations about what are they going to do over the next decade now that these numbers are approaching real sustainability and this club looks like probably it's actually breaking even or making money. It's crazy from where we were. Yeah. What kind of crowd are they expecting on Saturday for the Sanders?
00:11:42
Speaker
Oh, I mean, I honestly don't know. They haven't mentioned anything to me about what they're expecting, but everything this season so far has either been a sellout or within a grand or two of sellout. You know, school has started again and it is football season now and this is football country. So obviously high school, college and pro football can massively impact what you're doing in the stands. So you'll probably see
00:12:02
Speaker
a drop off from where it has been earlier in the season. But I think if you're a fan from Seattle that has watched your team play here before, I think you'll see more than you're used to seeing. So I would imagine it'll be over 15 K, but that's just a pure guess on my part. I don't think you'll see a sellout because it is now football season and school has started.
FC Dallas Season Analysis
00:12:21
Speaker
And so on the field, it seems like it's been an up and down season, a strong start, six, three, and three, but they've only won, it looks like three or 14 games over the last few months. What would you say the feeling is around the actual on-field performances?
00:12:39
Speaker
Just injuries, uh, the in the summer they had a massive glut of injuries the most at one time the club's ever seen its entire history And 80 of them all came in one position, uh in the central midfield So that was catastrophic in terms of performance and then you combine that with Jesus for era being gone for the gold cup. Uh, this is a team that
00:13:01
Speaker
has a very low goals against number. They're one of the best defensive teams around, but they're very low offensive team in terms of goals scored. They're one of the bottom teams in the West in terms of goal scored, but. 8090% of those goals are Jesus Ferreira. So when he's gone and all those injuries are have injuries are happening, this team was trash and there's no question that it was trash, but now everybody is healthy and Jesus is back. So as long as he's not. Whitting on the team, which I can't imagine he would be because he's trying to go to Europe.
00:13:32
Speaker
You know, you're looking at one would hope and what the team expects is the performance that you saw in the first. Third or even first half of the season. So everyone here is relatively optimistic that you'll see a turnaround in the fortunes that'll look like the beginning of the year, you know, and they're in a position to control their own destiny, a sense that they're currently in the playoffs. And if they take care of their business, they'll be fine. They're actually facing a bunch of teams that they compete against for that spot. So it's all on them and all in their hands to do it. And they have the most important pieces back. So, um, I think they feel, they feel probably good about it.
Jesus Ferreira's Transfer Rumors
00:14:02
Speaker
So I saw that there was some chatter about Jesus for potentially making a move to Europe as early as this year. It sounds like that sort of quieted down and his absence the other day.
00:14:13
Speaker
was not actually about a potential move as much as he was dealing with injury. Oh, yeah, COVID. Yeah, for like the fourth or fifth time. Oh, no, ridiculous. Yeah, so Jesus has a contract that is relatively high, certainly for a homegrown, you know, he's in the neck. I don't know, it's not in front of me, but it's something like 1.5 going towards $2 million.
00:14:36
Speaker
Um, the club because of his value and to them they're probably looking for a deal that is at least 10 Maybe going up towards 15 this club here particularly is interested in salon percentages You know, so that number will float depending on how much salon and somebody wants to do but here's the thing There are clubs calling that are very interested, but they never received a concrete offer for Jesus. No one came in with an actual number
00:15:00
Speaker
Um, so part of that, of course, is that because of the expectation for what the club would want and the amount of money he makes, that actually really limits the places that he can go to the clubs that can afford him. There are not as many clubs in the world that can afford that kind of salary or that kind of buy price. As you might think, you're looking top five league in the world and probably other than England top half or top third of those leagues even can afford him. And that's about it.
00:15:25
Speaker
so the kid has ambition he also has a lot of ambition to win something here and do more than his dad did you know so that he's not looking to go like right this minute but he absolutely wants to go sometime in the next year or two i'm sure and if the right offer came in now
00:15:41
Speaker
He would jump on it, you know, so would the club if the right offer comes in. If they had sold him this summer though, they would have been hosed and they know it because there's nobody else here that can score goals that anywhere close to the kind of rate he's scoring at. They would be in trouble if they'd have sold him this summer.
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's just a little tightness. I actually would not call him out. I would call him
00:16:14
Speaker
You know, the, the injury report for what it's worth. The injury report is out, but I don't know. That's interesting. I mean, I saw him Wednesday. Uh, I would not call him out. I would say there's a chance he actually plays. Yeah. Listen, these reports are, you know, they're, they're kind of not necessarily like written in stone. There's been many times where a guy out has played or guy not out has hasn't played. Right.
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah, so I would call the guy day to day. It's not like he was walking around in a cast. He was doing some work on the side. So I would not assume that he's not playing. I would not predict he's playing either. But you know, you're going to flip a coin and see what happens on the day of the other one to note on that list is Giovanni J Zeus. They're starting right back. Blue is ACL on Wednesday and training. So he's done for the year. So that one is legit out.
00:17:00
Speaker
And I can't remember who, oh, Camungo, Bernie Camungo, who's done really well, 21-year-old, 22-year-old kid they brought out. I'm through North Texas. That's the kid they found in an open tryout. He's a Tanzanian refugee. It's a great story.
00:17:16
Speaker
I think he scored five or six goals this year. He's a high rate of game winners, oddly enough. He's a young kid. He has a separated or strained his ligament in his shoulder, like a collarbone kind of thing. So that's probably like a that he won't be available. That's a five or six weeks, but not the end of the season like Giovanni. And so, you know, all these outs are different. You know, so I wouldn't write off on Glasgow completely.
00:17:42
Speaker
So speaking of Velasco, this seems like, you know, I know he came into the league with a fair amount of hype. He was a player who, uh, I think he's still probably the, the record fee that FC Dallas has paid for somebody. Uh, but it also feels like he's playing a slightly different role than when he originally
Alan Velasco's Role Evolution
00:17:59
Speaker
came in. What, how has his game evolved?
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah, he was the record's bye for this club. Well, he first came in as a winger here. Now he's capable. Always been capable of playing in the center in terms of his ability, but the coach here started him on the wing because he didn't feel the Allen was ready. You know,
00:18:18
Speaker
Emotionally mentally for the the weight of being inside and in particular being surrounded constantly as you know when you play on the wing The sideline is your friend in a sense. You're only everything's in front of you, right? You only have to deal with half of your sort of awareness when you're in the middle You have to have 360 degree awareness and play in a 360 degree way. So he wasn't quite up for that
00:18:39
Speaker
This year they've been wanting to try and implement that more and they use the league's cup to do that. Starting at the beginning of the league's cup, they just moved him inside and made him, well, no one really plays with a 10 anymore. We call it a free eight, like a De Bruyne style, advanced eight. Alan has done a really good job since he got here on his defensive side. He's a very tenacious tracker in terms of getting back and nipping balls off of people.
00:19:02
Speaker
But what he has done since he moved inside is he's become the sort of dynamic eight that crashes the box and makes penetrating passes in. And it's been the player that we sort of are expecting all along and then that play that he's done, you know, over the six or seven games that include these cup.
00:19:19
Speaker
He kept Dallas going without Jesus and that play was recognized. I think it's what got him called up to the national team. So he trained with the senior team and then he played and scrimmage with the U23s. The U23s used him inside in that same role. So there's obviously recognition that his game has transitioned and that's the new paradigm for him is going to be inside.
00:19:39
Speaker
So another player who on the other side of the field, FC Dallas, like you mentioned, has been pretty good defensively.
Kosi Tafari's Development
00:19:46
Speaker
And at least it seems like sort of the breakout player there has been, Kosi Tafari, who actually is a Seattle U product, or at least he played a senior year at Seattle U. What's his season been like? I know it's not exactly a rise from nowhere, but what's he do well and what should people know about him?
00:20:04
Speaker
Yeah, he's he's been coming on the last couple of years and this year he's basically become the man. It's like if he's the now the defensive leader of this team, the whole thing revolves around him when it's him and somebody else when you're filling out the lineup card. Unless of course the load is really heavy with like it is coming up for Dallas. He's become very mature, very much a leader, very demonstrative. You'll see him, you know, doing things on the field to sort of galvanize the team in the defense.
00:20:30
Speaker
He's very rangy, very athletic, powerful kind of player. His passing is not elite yet, but it's not bad. One on one, he can keep up with anybody. He could close down a lot of space. He's a very aggressive defender. He's not a guy that's gonna sit deep and react like Tim Reem. He's gonna come out on you and hit you.
00:20:51
Speaker
Very physical, you know when he's played with Martin paired with Martinez Martinez is the one who sort of sits and reads more as more static, whereas if he's with Ibiaga, both of those guys are pretty aggressive and will read and chase and try and proactively attack the game. So we reached the point here where.
00:21:08
Speaker
We, we talk about in the coach even talks about, um, Nicosia Tafari being one of the, you know, elite defenders in this league. And coach says his next step is to push him up to where he's an All-Star caliber player. Uh, and he's not there yet, but he is, he definitely is Dallas's best defender at this point by a pretty good margin.
00:21:29
Speaker
You happen to know the story of how he ended up at Seattle. He's obviously a he's an East Coast kid. He went to Yukon and then spent his senior year at Seattle. He's that he's someone that like when he got drafted. It's like oh I not not a player who was on my radar, but he's obviously worked out very well.
00:21:46
Speaker
I don't know what the personal connection was that got him there. I do know that he left UConn because he wasn't getting, you know, the opportunity he felt he deserved and the chance to play that he felt like he deserved. Uh, and when he went, you know, to the West coast, he was able, he was obviously walked in the door better than they're used to having and became a, you know, a stalwart in their defense. And part of like Dallas drafted him.
00:22:10
Speaker
other than the obvious athletic profile, was his ability to hit pretty long, accurate passes there. He was a really good passer out of the back for then.
00:22:19
Speaker
Now he's carried that forward, but MLS is obviously much more difficult. So, you know, he's not an elite like, you know, us national team caliber, Chris Richard style elite passer, but he's still pretty good. And he does attempt these long passes out of the back. I'm sure you'll see some of them Dallas as a team likes to, um, stifle the game. Part of their defensive plan is that they will sit in the mid to low block. They don't necessarily want the ball.
00:22:42
Speaker
When they get the ball, being dynamic in transition is their game. It's not a counter attack. It's just rapid transition ball when they get it. They want to catch you before you've recovered and get ready. And they can score really quickly on you if you're not always paying attention, always ready for transition. That's their best game. If they have to dribble it around and pass it around and build up, they're not going to be good. They're going to want only like 40% possession.
00:23:07
Speaker
So part of that is when they, when they do recover, even if it's deep, they're instantly looking to break out with you with mid to long passing and get at you before you're ready. So that's, that's a key part of his game is that, you know, you're not looking for him to dribble and go by a guy or make some little progression moves and these little ticky tacky passes they're going to go. And so that's where he's at his best ones. Once they win it from you.
00:23:28
Speaker
And anyone else on Dallas that is worth really paying attention to?
Key Players in FC Dallas
00:23:33
Speaker
Obviously, Dallas has produced quite a few U.S. national team players. They've been among the most aggressive teams in terms of pushing players to Europe. Well, Paul Ariel was healthy again. Martin Pausing goal is a big part of why their defense is pretty good.
00:23:50
Speaker
um they've got a brand new player that they got from Spain whose name is um last year E.R. Amendi he played uh you know like 140 games in La Liga including a couple years with Real Madrid so he's legitimately like a phenomenally cultured player like if you see him play uh and he may or may not because he's only been here a little period of time but if you see him play you'll see how
00:24:12
Speaker
seriously quality his touch and passing is in his game reading is well above the MLS standard. Now he's in his low 30s. You can't quite move like he used to be able to, but you're talking about a guy who was capable of starting for Real Madrid and these high powered Spanish clubs. So the quality is there. I'm hoping that he's rapidly going to become a starter here because he is so talented. So if he gets in,
00:24:35
Speaker
Uh, that's a guy to look for. And of course the other options in midfield are Sebastian Lajet and Paxton Pomekal, both of whom have been in or around the national team over the last three or four years, a bit, whether it be more used up for Paxton or senior team for Lajet. Now he's probably not going to be involved anymore, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a pretty good player at one point. Absolutely.
Third Degree Contact Information
00:24:52
Speaker
Well, Buzz, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people follow you? Uh, what's the, what's.
00:24:58
Speaker
We're going to keep track of what's going on with Third Degree. Third Degree.net is the website. The podcast is called Third Degree the Podcast. On any social media, you can find us under the name Third Degree. If you search for Third Degree in FC Dallas, I'm sure you'll find us in many locations. We've been around long enough that our brand is pretty seen across soccer platforms. It shouldn't be hard to find us. Third Degree.net is the main website.
00:25:21
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, thank you for joining us. Uh, it's looking forward to a good game on, on Saturday. And, uh, yeah, uh, I'm Jeremiah Shan signing off for nos adiates. We will catch you next time.
00:26:30
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!