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Sounders FC - Philadephia Union preview
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Jonathan Tannenwald (aka @TheGoalkeeper) joins us on the podcast to give us a preview of the Philadelphia Union match on Saturday while also digging into some of the issues surrounding the referee labor dispute.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. 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!
Jonathan Tannewald's Achievements
00:00:52
Speaker
Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
00:01:28
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of NOS Adietes. I am Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me today, very special guest, Jonathan Tannewald of the Philadelphia Inquirer. You probably know him as the Goalkeeper on Twitter. He covers everything, Philadelphia soccer. Although I guess you, you just won like a, didn't you just win like a national beat writer, a national beat, yeah, a national beat writer award from the APSE or something, right?
00:01:55
Speaker
I did. Thank you. It's very kind of you. I was going to say, I haven't been on the show in a long time. Yeah. I don't know when the last time would have been. I was at Philadelphia very often. Well, I think it would have been one of the, was it one of the times that I was in Seattle and I went out to some restaurant and sat or was that sonar? But I would, Oh, that may have been sonar feed. Yeah. That they, that was a thing they did. Yes.
00:02:19
Speaker
Um,
Career Journey into Soccer Journalism
00:02:20
Speaker
it was some German restaurant, maybe years ago. Yeah, definitely. So on our feed. Yeah. Um, yeah, no. So I got a, uh, a top 10 honor from the AP sports editors. So a group, which is the national group of all the newspapers and other mainstream media outlets. They, they do top tens in a bunch of different categories.
00:02:41
Speaker
And they eventually pick a winner and it was, it's very cool. Um, not just to make it to the end of the national beat writing category, which is the most prestigious individual writing category, but to get there for soccer specifically, which obviously the mainstream media, as we all know, they're not always care so much about over the years. And now they do Michelle Kaufman of the Miami Herald was also honored for her work covering inter Miami, which was great to see. And the top 10, look, there's people who I'm sure, even if you're.
00:03:11
Speaker
Not, if you're only a soccer fan, I'm sure you might still have heard of, you know, Nicole Auerbach of the Athletic or John Wilder who does the Pac-12, you know, for the Bay Area News Group and that newsletter that gets circulated everywhere. And Jeff Passen of ESPN who does baseball and Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post, who's a feature writer, who's an old friend of mine. So that was very cool.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, congratulations on that. I know you've sort of bootstrapped this beat for yourself. It's very impressive. We were actually talking about this at Sounders Training, how you started off, I don't know how many people realize this, but you started off as sort of doing this literally as a labor of love, just sort of as a
00:03:55
Speaker
Approve it kind of thing and you've you've turned it into your your job. It's awesome So I love to see it, especially as someone who's in the soccer media space. It's it's great to see hard work rewarded So congratulations. Well, look, I appreciate that. You've known me for a long time we've obviously had our share of arguments over the years and you've you've you've the fun the amazing thing to me is
00:04:20
Speaker
is when I think about all of the people who've known me in soccer for a long time. And I'll take Steve Goff of the Washington Post as a classic example, because I grew up reading his stuff in the Washington Post. And people don't know, if you're listening to this and you don't know all that much about me, I grew up in DC. I grew up as a DC United fan in their supporters' clubs. And this is now 20 years ago, correct? When people say to me, what's your club? My answer is my club does not exist anymore.
00:04:47
Speaker
because it was the RFK stadium era of DC United, which, by the way, also produced and instilled a love of soccer in Paul Tenorio of the Athletic, Emily Olsen of the Athletic, Ian Quillen of Forbes, who I went to games with all the time, Sebastian Salazar of ESPN. A lot of us grew up there and in that environment, and it grew the love of soccer in us.
00:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's it. I remember that was one of the first soccer stories I read was about the streaming Eagles of DC United and how he right here in America we have a supporters group that looks and feel I'm sure Grant Wall probably wrote that story.
00:05:27
Speaker
Uh, but it was, uh, yeah, it's been, you've been doing, we've, we've been doing this now a long time and it's a pleasure to have you
Seattle vs Philadelphia Game Preview
00:05:34
Speaker
on the show. Thanks man. We're obviously here mainly to talk about this upcoming game between the Sounders and Philadelphia United. We don't get a lot of these. Uh, the last time the Sounders went to Philadelphia was pre pandemic.
00:05:46
Speaker
2019 a 0-0 tie where I think both I know the Sounders heavily rotated their lineup I feel like maybe even the Union heavily rotated their lineup and that it was a rather drawl affair if I remember correctly
00:06:01
Speaker
And this one probably gonna have a rotated union lineup as well. They're coming off a, they're in the middle of a two game series with Pachuca and the CONCACAF Champions Cup. The first game was last night on Tuesday. They used ostensibly their first choice lineup with a few exceptions that we'll get to. And then they've got another one next Tuesday. So presumably they're gonna, they're going into that game zero, zero. So presumably they're gonna wanna be fresh for that one.
00:06:29
Speaker
What can you tell us about how the game went last night? Who do you think, like, what do you think that means for Saturday's game?
Philadelphia Union's Lineup and Strategy
00:06:36
Speaker
Well, I think where we have to start is the fact that, you know, Philadelphia has effectively three starting caliber center backs and two of them were suspended last night. So the fact that it was a 0-0 tie, look, would it have been fun if they had won it? Sure. They had a couple of chances. They actually played a lot better than I thought they were.
00:06:54
Speaker
overall, which is a testament to the depth of the organization. The team that is obviously not one of the wealthiest or most star studded in MLS. Um, but they were down to center backs and one of their starting strikers who was injured. So they had to really cobble together a lineup and they did, and they played it out to a scoreless tie. And now they're going to go down to Pachuca at 8,000 feet of altitude and one of the best teams in Mexico and probably lose valiantly. And that's okay.
00:07:22
Speaker
because they played 51 games last year. They were exhausted at the end of the year. The Stounders know about this as well as anybody that it's great to go. Valiantly losing in big games seems to have unfortunately been a calling card of Philadelphia sports. It is. And some of those games, especially the open cup finals, it didn't need to be that way. But Chuka is probably
00:07:49
Speaker
the second best team they've ever played in that building in the official competition. The only better one was Club America and the Champions League a few years ago. That's how good Pachuk is. So it's fine. I think about it and we can get into this. We can get into the fixture congestion thing. Because boy do a lot of people like yelling you and me about that. Yes.
00:08:18
Speaker
It will benefit them for the rest of this year in terms of spacing out things. If they lose valiantly in the Champions League now, and that's that. If they win somehow, if they advance, and they can advance with a score draw, because it was 0-0, they can advance on a way to score draw. If they advance, they're going to get her Eddiano or Robin Hood, and then she should be able to win that series, and then they go to the semi-finals again.
00:08:44
Speaker
They've only ever gone to the semifinals of CONCACAP tournaments when they've been in. This is their third time. They reached the semis in the first two. So look, if you're going to do that, fine. If you're going to lose now, you're going to go out now of the tournament, then it's going to clear your schedule up. They're going to be able to rest guys through the year and be in much better shape come October than playoffs and so on.
Union's Talent Development Focus
00:09:09
Speaker
And so that said, what kind of lineup do you expect in this one?
00:09:15
Speaker
Well, I certainly expect Jack, Elliott, and Damien Lowe to be back. And I think they'll probably be the starters at center back. And then Elliott will play... I presume Elliott will then play the following Tuesday in Pachuca with Glassmans, which is their top two. You know, is Julian Carranza back?
00:09:44
Speaker
By then, I don't know. You can't, from the outside, try to guess a thigh muscle injury, you know? Yeah. And Julian Caronza has been their best offensive player for a couple of seasons now, right? He's very good. He will go down as one of the all-time heists in Major League Soccer history. Yeah, this was a... He was one of the casualties of the roster blow-up when they broke the rules.
00:10:12
Speaker
So the union got them for on loan initially and then $500,000 payout to buy them outright. Plus a sell on fee for down the road and all this other stuff, which is fine. I'm, I am not, you know, there are a lot of high principles that you can have in this world in sports. I'm not against hired guns on your soccer team.
00:10:36
Speaker
No. And so Holy Carranza is a hired gun and I'm good with that. Especially one who scored 18 goals in all competitions last year. Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. So it's fine. And it would have been great if they'd sold him this winter. He turned down some offers that he could have taken. Some people would say should have taken. He didn't want them because he didn't like the locations.
00:11:05
Speaker
I don't think it, I'm not quite convinced that it was entirely to do with the soccer. I think it was the weather a little bit. Just loves that Philly, that Philly summer. I think he likes the Italian and Spanish winters a little more than the Philly summer. Oh, okay. And that's fine, but none of the teams, none of those teams have money. Right. The only one that did was Olympiacos and when they came last summer, it wasn't the time to sell it.
00:11:32
Speaker
He wanted to sell them in the winter, and there were enough teams that came to the table with substantive offers that the union would have taken, and everybody would have been happy. And Carranza didn't want them. You're allowed to do that, but it's an odd dynamic. For a 23-year-old Argentine kid who, if he'd taken them, probably would have gone up the national team depth chart with a World Cup in the United States two years ago.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yeah. So he, so he's on unclear on him and then what's, what's going on in the midfield there? Uh, are you, you expect, like, I guess Bedoya now is coming off two straight games. I would imagine he's, he's out. I don't know if he was a starter necessarily anyway. Uh, what, what changes do you expect in the midfield? Well, so the guy is really good. The guys, you guys have been really playing a lot or Jack McGlynn and Jack McGlynn, sorry. And Quinn Sullivan. Mm-hmm.
00:12:27
Speaker
I think Sullivan's going to get a day off here. Maybe. Probably. At least not start. But Glenn probably won't start. But if he plays even as a second half substitute, I would tell you. If you're a U.S. national team fan listening to this, you want to watch him. He's one of my favorite players to watch.
MLS Referees Dispute
00:13:16
Speaker
How is that working out from a you know for
00:13:23
Speaker
It seems like it's good business. How is the whole process working from your perspective from a club or roster building perspective of bringing up young players and then selling them sort of before they hit their peak? Historically, it's worked very well. You had Brendan and Paxson Aronson, Mark McKenzie, et cetera. And Brendan Aronson really set the bar in terms of what this organization could do.
00:13:52
Speaker
And in a way, Mark, even though Mark McKenzie, you, Aronson was more money over time with all the salon fees and whatnot. McKenzie in a way has set the far the bar because gank came along and said, we like this guy. We're going to pay you $6 million right now. And the union probably would have kept Mackenzie for another year, but they took the money. Um, and now you have a situation where they've got guys in.
00:14:21
Speaker
McGlynn, Olivier and Biso, they're right back, who was on Cameroon's World Cup squad last year. Remember, Ambro is Iango many years ago. I mean, Nuhu is another example, I'm sure, also. Guys who, if there was any money in the French league right now, they'd have been gone by now for $3 million. Yeah, for sure. That's the kind of player they'd buy.
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah. Um, Carranza, as I mentioned, Leon Flack has had some interest in Germany because he's German-American. He used to play for St. Pauli. He's been injured, so he hasn't been able to show himself off as much. That's, you know, that, and then there are guys coming up in the pipeline. David Vasquez, CJ only, Kevin Sullivan, Neil Pierre. We're going to make this team a lot of money down the road. Um, but the interesting thing to me right now is.
00:15:12
Speaker
So the union, they went to the title game in 2022 and they ran it back last year. And the big question was, were they going to resign Kai Wagner and where are they going to resign Alejandro Bedoya? Right. Bedoya was the really big, Wagner was probably going to go to Europe and he didn't find any offers that were really close to the, frankly, the money he makes here. He wasn't finding the offers in Germany. So he comes back, signs a multi-year deal, finally commits here after
00:15:42
Speaker
staring off into the wilderness toward Europe for the last three off-seasons. He finally commits here long-term. Bedoya is 36, I believe. He's going to turn 37 later this year. I'll confirm that while I'm talking to you. And he's a guy who he's been there, captain for years. Yes, 36 now he turns 37, next one.
00:16:09
Speaker
He's been their captain for years, standout guy on and off the field, beloved by the players, beloved by the coach, but he's 36. Are they going to bring him back? Is Jim Gonna Curtin going to play him 2,500 minutes again this year as a 36 year old? When you have a bunch of guys in the pipeline, Sullivan, McGlynn, Flack, Jesus Waino, young Venezuelan guy, who I should add to the list of guys who might get sold at some point. He's blocking the pipeline.
00:16:38
Speaker
So they finally agreed with him with one year deal for this year. It'll be his last year. We almost certain last year. He's coming off the bench instead of starting. That's the way it should be. That's fine. Um, but you can't, if you're a team that prides itself on its development pipeline and moving players through in a league that does not take too well, they're running it back. Right. You know?
00:17:07
Speaker
running it back again is a big gamble. Yeah. And so I've been pleased this year that they've played some of the younger guys for serious minutes. Hasn't been perfect, no. But it's been good enough. More than good enough in enough situations. They'll be fine in the long run. And as I said, if they do lose to Pachuca and it clears up a lot of their schedule for a while, they're going to be a pain in the rear to a lot of teams for the rest of the season.
00:17:36
Speaker
So, but do you think, and I guess it seems like an understandably, as it should be, a lot of focus is on Pachuca right now. What kind of, like, what do you think the perspective is on this game against the Sounders? Is it just, let's get through it. Is there, I mean, they're, they're, they have two ties and two league games. So it's not like there's any, I went, can't imagine there's a huge sense of, of, uh,
00:18:02
Speaker
Like they, there's no, there's no gun to their head to start getting results or anything from your perspective. What do you think they look at this game? Is it, would they just as well? I'm sure they would probably just as well reschedule it. Right. Well, I mean, and, and they, they, they tried very hard to punt the game in Kansas city and they did so successfully. It was like game one, nothing. It would have been fine. And we can get to that too, which I'm sure we should. Uh, cause I think you and I have a lot to say about that. Um,
00:18:31
Speaker
I think they will try a little harder to win this one because it's a home game. But they won't try too hard. Right. Okay. Well, let's talk about this game in Kansas City. It wasn't the most entertaining game. They essentially, you know, Kansas City did their best to
00:18:51
Speaker
to dominate it. But at the end there, it was a one goal game. A ball deflects off of a Philadelphia player very clearly, by the way, like there's no question. There's no way to watch this replay and be confused as to what happened. Both the AR and the ref signal for a union ball. They go down. They went a corner.
00:19:12
Speaker
but Doya scores off the corner. And not two minutes later, it took them 17 seconds to go down the field and win the corner kick. Yeah. So it's not, look, should Kansas City have defended the corner kick better? Sure. Right. But to say that that blow and call was unrelated to the goal, no, it was absolutely right. Yeah, everybody, I was absolutely related and everybody knew it. So, yeah. So this is my thing.
00:19:39
Speaker
And because the AR is not looking at the play. He's looking ahead to the offside. And I ripped him for doing that. And everybody who's ever refereed an amateur game said, you're an idiot. The AR is always supposed to look at the offside. And I said, I've been called an idiot for 20 years. I can live with that. But you can't tell me that in a situation where you have VAR instead of in a youth game, the AR can look back a little sooner, know where the ball is, know it's not coming to him, and let VAR take care of the rest.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. They aren't good. The referees are not as good. They just aren't. Right. And I think this is the thing that comes down to me. It's not that a
00:20:31
Speaker
a pro union referee wouldn't make is incapable of making this type of mistake. But I think what we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of these sort of avoidable mistakes. And it's not any one call that you should get worked up for. It's the sort of accumulation of questionable call after questionable call after questionable call calls that are just wrong. And we saw it like there was this is a thing that happened
00:20:59
Speaker
this last week the same referee who looked at the the penalty in the Sounders game the first game 25 times to confirm a extremely obvious call then the next week refused to take the advice of Greg Barkey who runs the VAR.
00:21:16
Speaker
Uh, system, uh, his suggestion that there was supposed to be a penalty and he says, Nope, I'm going to stick with my call. And I almost wonder if like, what's going on here? These, yeah, I sort of admire it. I sort of admire selling barking off because one of the questions that I, and a lot of people I know in the refereeing world at this question, when the VAR is Greg Barkey or Mark Geiger who runs the whole shop. Right. And you're a replacement ref.
00:21:45
Speaker
And historically, for a good reason, the center ref gets to make the final say on the field. Yes. Do these guys feel empowered to tell the executive management of Pro that they're going to stick with their original decision? Yeah. I guess they do. And in a way, I admire that. And if you as a
00:22:10
Speaker
Security guards everywhere were really, really happy with that decision. They said, you give me an ounce of responsibility. I am going to take that ounce. If you are a fan, if you are a. I don't know if you're watching this. And again, you and I have been doing this for a long time. So it's when you and I say this wreck has lost control of the game. Yeah.
00:22:39
Speaker
There's no statistical quantifiable analysis number data that you hit the line, you go over the line and say, bang, the referees lost control of the game. Right. Yeah. No, it's more instinctive than that. It's more nuanced than that. Yeah. But almost all of them have lost control of the game at some point. And you can tell. And so that's why I wrote, after the Kansas City game, did I pound the guy? Yes, I pounded it. Should I have pounded that much? I don't know. But what I said was, what's it going to take?
00:23:07
Speaker
Is it going to take the league office overturning Mark Delgado second yellow card. Where the ref bit on the flop by Sergio boost gets Delgado gets sent off in Miami scores. It's that what it's going to take. Right. Is it going to take a referee assigned to the Miami Orlando game which is not a no such of a rivalry and be the only time all year messies playing for Miami on big Fox.
00:23:33
Speaker
Is it going to take a photo of him coming up in a Miami Jersey last year to cook out with a bunch of his friends and he gets dismissed from the game three hours before kickoff for conflict of interest? Is that what it's going to take?
00:23:44
Speaker
Or is it going to take somebody getting hurt? And what if that somebody is Lionel Messi? How about we not get to that point? Yeah, it's it there does seem in the thing that's wild about this whole thing. Obviously, we're talking about at this point now, the dispute between Pro and PSRA. And the thing that's wild about it is it does feel like Pro slash MLS just sort of wants to win the argument.
Pro vs PSRA Disagreement
00:24:09
Speaker
There's not really I don't think there is a
00:24:12
Speaker
There is a dollar figure attached to this, but we're talking about what comes down to about $100,000 per team per year. And that's to give PSRA literally everything that they're asking for. I'm not even suggesting that. I'm sure there's a solution to be found that something short of literally everything that PSRA is asking for.
00:24:33
Speaker
And this is not necessarily about how good or bad the referees at PSRA are. These are literally the most qualified referees that we have in this country. They are the most trained. They are the most experienced. This is the best pool of referees we have. There's no question about it. And so if you want the best pool of referees possible, just pay them.
00:24:57
Speaker
get this thing over with, and you know, whatever, I don't know, I mean, I don't even know what principle pro slash MLS is standing on in fighting over this. It seems to be just money. Is there something else here that- I think they're standing, yeah, sorry to cut you off. No, that's okay. I think they're standing on what is by now a familiar principle, which is we're gonna take our toys out of the sandbox and go home if you don't like. Right, yes. And I think that
00:25:29
Speaker
If you look at, you made a very good point there, one that I haven't made on social media enough because I am a little bit tired of getting beaten to a pulp every time I bring the subject up. If I watch a game with the elite refs, and one of them makes a mistake later this year and I get screamed at, my response is going to be, I didn't say the elite refs are infallible. But I know that they are the best refs that we have in the country and the best refs that you can put on the game. And here's how I know.
00:25:59
Speaker
because I know how much work you have to do to get to that level. I know as some of the, I think, I don't want to exactly put words in people's mouth, but I think it might've been Corey Rockwell, the veteran official assistant referee in particular who's done this for a long time.
00:26:21
Speaker
who said that the replacement refs have not had to undergo the same fitness testing as the unionized refs. That, if you're watching at home, that should set off all manner of alarm bells for you. Because there is actually a lot of work required. And you've seen, perhaps some of your listeners have seen the videos that FIFA puts out of the World Cup of the fitness sessions that the referees do. And I went to one of the protests in New York on the opening day of the season.
00:26:50
Speaker
And I was speaking to the officials there about how much time do they put in, not just one day to fly to Seattle, a day to wrap the game and a day to fly home. How much time do they put in all week with fitness training and so on? That is working time. And game film. They watch game film and they have workshops. They could sit on their couch.
00:27:17
Speaker
And watch prime time TV or whatever during the week after they get home from their normal jobs because they don't make enough money so that officiating is all they do. I put the numbers out. I think the assistant referees make something like $35,000 a year.
00:27:39
Speaker
for 40 hours, it's not for 20 hours of work a week, because the fitness work should, we should count the fitness work in the time that you're taking. So, you know, it's, if you're, if you're at an elite level at it, like Catherine Nesbitt who lives in Philadelphia, who's normally an AR, she doesn't, she's not in the middle all that much, makes enough money to do this full time, because she's at the cockpit Catherine FIFA level.
00:28:08
Speaker
Somebody who is not at that level yet is not making enough money to have this be a full-time profession. The players are full-time. They're watching what they eat all year and they're working out everything else. So people are good with the referees being off full-time.
00:28:22
Speaker
and not having time to work out and stay fit and in shape and whatever else and study the game film as you said and do all these things and then they get crammed into economy class for a flight from Seattle to Atlanta on four hours of sleep or whatever coming home. I know notice by the way also that's the other thing that yes a lot of these assignments aren't coming out until a week or sometimes even less before
00:28:45
Speaker
And so it's like, they're having to pick up and, and none of, almost none of these refs have local assignments where, you know, even if they live in Seattle, maybe they'll do one or two games in Seattle or they live in Philadelphia. They might do a couple of games in Philadelphia, but most of these guys in part, because they aren't being paid full-time wages live in the, in the Dakotas or they live in Oklahoma. Yeah. Right. They live wherever they can afford to live.
00:29:10
Speaker
And so they're flying all over the country. I mean, it's just, I, I think we need to be a little bit, I'm amazed at how many people are just more than happy to jump into the dimensions and say stuff like, I don't notice anything different. Let the refs, you know, walk. And the other, the other hilarious suggestion I've seen is let's just replace pro.
00:29:31
Speaker
Let's replace pro. What are we replacing pro with? What do you think pro was? Who do you think created pro? Who do you think? What do you think the entire point of pro was? People need to sort of take a step back and understand that whether or not you love the referees and I'm not again.
00:29:49
Speaker
to the
00:30:04
Speaker
The relative quality of the referees to the players is closer in MLS than it is in probably any league in the world. You want to find the biggest gap between referees and players in terms of relative quality? Don't stay in Seattle the day after an MLS scan. You'll find your answer.
00:30:21
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Uh, it's you, you go to, like, there are a lot of leagues in the world that are struggling to find qualified referees and, uh, luckily pro and, and we're, we're very lucky that we have a organization that has actually invested a lot of money in, in training referees. And, and their best resource right now is all these referees that they've spent the last 10 years training up and making better and,
00:30:50
Speaker
and turning into elite referees, frankly. And to your points, for anybody who didn't get the quasi joke I just made, the gap between quality and referees and the end of players and refs and the NWSL was very large, as we know. That was the point. Well, yeah, that's the point. We're trying to make it by coming back to Seattle the next day after Sanders' game, because the rain might be playing. No, but I...
00:31:13
Speaker
I look at it as, as I said before, we know these are the best referees in this country. If you mass import them from Europe where nobody likes the referees and you're nobody likes the referees period, right? And any American sport or any European soccer league, nobody likes the rest. They know this. It's what they signed up for. But you're not going to develop just as you're not going to develop players. If you don't put the pathway down, you're not going to develop referees in this country. If you don't have a pathway to do it by blocking them by importing a bunch of refs from Europe or wherever.
00:31:43
Speaker
And not for nothing do a half dozen American referees go to every World Cup now.
00:31:53
Speaker
Right. At the top level. And people look at it. Ishmael, Fathrotori, Penso, whoever, and say, how did they get that good all of a sudden? I used to dislike them. No, they were always that good. Maybe your players are being assholes. Pardon my language. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to curse on this. You're very much so. Don't worry. You know, maybe it's your players are all surrounding the rich because they're complaining about something when the VAR is already looking at it. Yeah.
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah, well, I don't know. Hopefully this thing gets resolved. I don't know. I haven't been, I haven't been paying super. I don't, you know, I haven't been following this as a beat. Do you have any sense that we're nearing a resolution? I just saw the last thing I guess last week was PSRA basically slid their original offer across the table and pro slid it back.
00:32:41
Speaker
said, we'll stick with our offer, too. So I don't know that there's any movement going on here, although I guess pro has threatened to start making worse offers. Well, because they did because they can. That's what they do. Right. And look, I'm I'm in a
00:33:02
Speaker
I'm in a labor union. I believe you were for amount of time. So you and I have some experience with the dynamics of this. Somebody said to me, why did they vote? I think with Don Garber, in fact, also said in some of his interviews, why did they vote down the contract? And the answer is that's a common practice in labor unions.
00:33:24
Speaker
Yeah, especially once the negotiations stop moving that's what you do you vote on the contract and you send a message This isn't good enough. Thank you. And so the last thing that I saw Was today is Tuesday Monday Afternoon in Eastern time Jeff Carlisle Reported it's been a bit quieter the last few days which it has been and
00:33:51
Speaker
And he wondered aloud if the federal mediator had told everybody to finally shut up and stop talking. And maybe that means that the mediator is having some impact in the negotiating room. Let's hope so. Yeah. And you say one other thing, by the way, that I wanted to go back to the people who said to been pro. For what? Right. To have the US Soccer Federation administer it? Well, okay. Is that the same US Soccer Federation you're trying to get to throw MLS in the trashcan over the open cup? Right. So who's going to do it?
00:34:20
Speaker
Right. Right. All these, all these, also, by the way, who do you think the referees that US soccer is hiring are? Like, it's the same referees. Right. And they'll be more than happy to do a labor agreement because they've been doing labor agreements for decades. Right. Exactly. Yeah. It's been, I don't know, this thing has been, it does feel like MLS this year, especially MLS is intent on both
00:35:04
Speaker
both throwing its weight
00:35:05
Speaker
I'm sympathetic to the idea that the Open Cup needed to change and that maybe it is too much of a pain in the ass for every MLS team to participate.
MLS Public Relations Critique
00:35:19
Speaker
But just the way that MLS has tried to unilaterally make decisions
00:35:24
Speaker
is just so inelegant. It's so it's such a bad look and they are almost seemingly addicted to taking PR hits when they should be collecting PR wins. Because there's a lot of PR wins for them to collect if they want to do it. Yes, you probably saw the piece I wrote at the start of the season. On this subject, the word I use was petty. Yes, petty is a good word for it. And and they just they're there. This is a league that is 29 years old.
00:35:54
Speaker
now that ought to be able to act its age, but is as insecure as it's ever been. And it's really disappointing because as you say, they should be able to have a lot of wins. They have Messi in the league. They are developing young Americans and selling them abroad for profit. They are developing young players from other countries and selling them abroad for even bigger profits. This is how you get recognized on the global stages of soccer league. This is exactly the way that you get recognized because then you can
00:36:23
Speaker
It would be nice if they have a few more afternoon kickoff so the people in Europe could watch the games more. But you know, this is how you go onto the world stage and say, yeah, you should watch us because we have players that your club is going to want to buy. Right. This is how the Fresh League has done it in recent years. It's a great success. And now, you know, the finances of the world game are such that everybody is subservient to England. But even then,
00:36:53
Speaker
Germany is still the first port of call correctly for most of the young American players who go to Europe because the German clubs actually know what they're doing and care about the player in this regard and help them get on the right foot and play well for a few years and then go somewhere else. There are a great many wins to have for the league and they are not having them because they are doing all of this other stuff that is just so petty and
00:37:22
Speaker
You know, if it's about, I've said this to a lot of people at the league and elsewhere. And when I wrote that column, I had, I had told some people at the league, it was coming. Cause I said to them, I'm writing this. You're not really going to be able to stop me, but I want to make sure I have my facts straight and they helped me out with it because I've known a lot of people there for a long time. So it was easier to do. Yeah. And they gave me some background information that I used some of it to make sure that my facts were correct.
00:37:51
Speaker
But the, the pettiness of it is so bad because people are angry enough as is. I know. And you just don't, you don't need this. You just don't. Yeah, it's very disappointing, especially as someone who would love to see the league collect, you know,
Speculation on Refereeing Media Coverage
00:38:14
Speaker
collect wins and get and be on a on a positive news cycle. I have a theory. I don't know if I if how how interested you are in humoring this theory, but there is a story that ran in my old at my old employers website in which it claimed no one is talking about the refs because I saw that.
00:38:37
Speaker
because no one cares. And there was a piece of information in there that struck me as very curious. They said that they had sort of surveyed the various markets in MLS and they hadn't found any stories that were critical of the referees or was particularly calling out the referees. Well, they don't read the Philadelphia Inquirer. That's right.
00:38:56
Speaker
I don't know where they were researching this, but I was more skeptical that the writer actually did the research themselves. And it felt to me a little bit like maybe someone in the league office did that work and shared their findings. Is that too conspiratorial? All I will say is that I called somebody I know in the league's PR office. And I've known for a long, long time. Yeah.
00:39:24
Speaker
Who said it wasn't us? Okay. All right. So I don't know. Your former employer in question, this one in particular, has long had a habit, I think even going back to when you were there, of having its bylines be aliases sometimes and not just names.
00:39:47
Speaker
Well, this was, yeah, I had never really clocked that as a concern, but this was not a byline I recognized. This was some sort of mysterious byline. So I don't know who actually wrote it. It's a username. Yeah, it's a username. I have never heard of this person. I don't know who they are. I can't vouch for their credibility. It might be sort of like a virtual pen name, but it was very odd.
00:40:19
Speaker
Certainly in my professional career, my name is going on everything I've ever written. You know, so I, that's the first tell. And as I said, there's nothing new about this with the outlet question. It's been doing it this way for a long time that if somebody wanted to write under an alias, they were able to do. Um, yeah. It's not, it doesn't help anybody. And it, it, it doesn't, you know, am I a,
00:40:49
Speaker
Am I a liberal piece, Nick, who doesn't know the value of a dollar? Yeah, maybe. Have I lost a little of my edge over the years? Well, yeah, I'm a little older and I lived through a global disease pandemic who killed a lot of people and it puts some things in perspective. This stuff is so...
00:41:15
Speaker
Simple. And also you'll understand this again. You've known me for a very long time. Especially in this day and age that we're in, a lot of people would like me to be as angry as they are.
00:41:26
Speaker
Yeah, and they would like me to be as reactionary as they are. Oh, yeah. I and and a journalist's job in a way is to is the one way to phrase it is to is to journey that a journalist job is to not be reactionary. It's and I've, you know, I'm no moderate, per se, in much of my life. But the journalist's job is to moderate
00:41:52
Speaker
things tone wise a little bit. So I said the journalist's job is to not be reactionary. A more direct way to put it is that a journalist's job is to be not reactionary. Whatever the opposite of reactionary is, the journalist's job is to be that.
00:42:12
Speaker
Am I allowed to have opinions a little more now in my writing than I used to? Yes, I am. It's nice. I get to say a few things. I appreciate my bosses giving me that latitude after a very long time. But still, I try to not be reactionary. I try again, see, to be not reactionary. That is my place on the landscape. There are other people whose place it is, perhaps, to be more reactionary than I am.
00:42:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I agree. But let's hope, let's hope a decent solution is found here. Let's hope, you know, for what it's worth, I would love to see the Union to switch back to the Union. I'd love to see them go on a Champions League run. It seems like
00:43:03
Speaker
It would be fun. Like, but you're right. If you're going to go out, you may as well go out in the quarters instead of the semis or the finals, save yourself the right save yourself the trouble. I'd like to see them. I would have really liked to see them win an open cup. I still really want to see them win an open cup. Yeah. Like it won't be this year. No, it would be a trophy. Oh, right. They're not in it. This year would be a trophy will be a second trophy in team history. It would be a trophy. And you probably remember this from when Seattle played Philly years ago, which was the first time they made the open.
00:43:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's so much history of the Open Cup in Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania specifically. Yeah, that for the Union to join that history by winning it I think would be very good. Are they still they're not they they totally scrapped Bethlehem Steel? Yeah, they're not using that name anymore. They're not using the name anymore because they moved the team out of Bethlehem. OK, because they were they were playing at a college football stadium that had grass. Perfectly served very nice grass to perfectly serviceable serviceable.
00:44:02
Speaker
pitch but they couldn't put lights at the stadium so they couldn't play night games. Oh that's it was it was a one double a football stadium in a in up in Lehigh University in Bethlehem Pennsylvania. If Colin Lamont still listens to the show he'll know where it is because he's from this neck of the woods.
00:44:28
Speaker
It's a fairly quiet college town. There's enough residential around the stadium that if they put permanent floodlights up, it would have gone so well. So they moved the team back down here. That was the end of the Bethlehem branding and now they're just called Union 2. Okay.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yeah, the sounders left Tacoma, but weren't quite willing to give up Tacoma to find steam. Yeah, well.
00:44:57
Speaker
Although that's much to the degree of plenty of people in the market, but we'll see whatever happens with that. But Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us. This was a fun conversation. Yes. It went in directions I wasn't necessarily anticipating, but that's great. They always do. That's the fun of this. So yeah, if you want to listen to or you want to follow Jonathan, he's on Twitter, the goalkeeper, you can read him on the Philadelphia Inquirer. Anything else you want to plug?
00:45:28
Speaker
No, I would like to get back to Seattle one of these days, even just for vacation. I don't think I'm going to make it this year, unfortunately. It is a beautiful city. You and your longtime listeners, I'm sure, know that I've been out there many, many times. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I always love it and hope to be back there again one of these years. All right. Well, thank you so much, Jonathan. I'm Jeremiah Shan, signing off for No Society Yet This, and we will catch you next time.
00:46:29
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!