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Episode 367: Sounders are playing "Highlife Soccer"
67 Plays2 years ago
The Sounders are off to one of their most exciting starts ever, improving to 2-0 after dispatching Real Salt Lake on Saturday. Jeremiah and Aaron are understandably pretty excited and love what they're seeing both in attack and on defense.
Aside from discussing some of the finer points of what makes "Highlife Soccer" they also weigh the possibility that this is the best midfield trio in MLS.
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This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)
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Transcript
Introduction & Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Fullpool Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Fullpool was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime sounder 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.
00:00:21
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to... There's no study at this. Come on! Hey, Ocean! Let's go! I want to say bye-bye! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup winners! And Portland can't say he's cheating! Here comes Rudy Diaz through the middle to crowd it for Seattle! They have climbed the mountain!
00:00:51
Speaker
And now our masters of all that they survey. Michael Odero leaves absolutely no doubt.
Seattle Sounders' Triumph
00:01:00
Speaker
The Sounders rule the region. Seattle Sounders, this can feel it. Seattle Sounders, the greatest MLS team in history. How does this one feel? This feels fucking awesome.
00:01:39
Speaker
I didn't know what it was. Is that what you young people call twerking? I have no idea. I don't know.
00:01:51
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of Nos Adietta, sponsored by Full Bowl Wines and Watson's Counter. This is episode 367 and we're recording on Tuesday, March 7th, 2023. I am your host, Jeremiah Shan. Joining me as usual is Aaron Campo and our engineer, Lickett.
00:02:06
Speaker
The Sounders are 2-0-0 and playing some of the best soccer they've ever played, and that's according to none other than Bryant Schmetzer. To be fair, I don't think that's actually remotely hyperbolic. Say what you will about the level of the competition, but the Sounders have looked absolutely amazing in outscoring the Rapids and RSL 6-0. They've been strained together passes, disrupting opponents, and scoring some really fun goals along the way.
00:02:30
Speaker
And all of a sudden looks in this team that is full of guys who a year ago, we said, Oh, this is like, these are all best 11 players. They're all playing like it too. I'm pretty pumped. Aaron. Yeah. And he was not to be like, this is, this is good stuff, right?
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think we talked about last week, like it's OK to be excited about one game as long as you don't get carried away. I think it's, you know, every every game that they play like this, there's a little bit less of a risk of getting carried away. Right. And, you know, maybe not a whole lot less after two games. But I think that.
00:03:05
Speaker
We were talking about this before we started. In a lot of ways, this game to me was more encouraging than the opening game. Obviously, 4-0 is a little better than 6-0.
00:03:18
Speaker
There was some luck in some of those chances. The ball fell pretty favorably to the Sounders on more than a few occasions. They put away some maybe lower percentage chances. In this game, they didn't get the benefit of that luck, and they still, I think where every bit is dominant, if not more dominant, easily could have been 4-0 in this game, just like it easily could have been 2-0 in the first game.
00:03:43
Speaker
But I think any time, and like you said, like the competition, obviously not the top of the heap, but if you win two games, six nil in this league, where we've seen the Sounders lose games like this, especially early in the season, they, I just kind of threw this off the cuff on, on Saturday night, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the data doesn't back me up here, but I really feel like games like this early in the season at home have been sort of.
00:04:09
Speaker
a little bit of a bugaboo for the Sounders in the past. And to see them just have zero trouble blowing away these mediocre, best teams is encouraging. That's all you can ask them to do. They can only play the teams in front
Tactical Analysis & Strategy
00:04:24
Speaker
of them. Things are going to start getting more difficult. That'll obviously be a little more predictive about how we can feel about the rest of the season.
00:04:33
Speaker
The Sounders talked last year. They talked after the RSL playoff loss in 2021. They talked in preseason and they talked after both of these games, multiple players, coaching staff, everybody, about the need to dominate teams at home and to make it a very difficult place to play because it hasn't been. And to set that precedent early, obviously a long way to go. Gonna keep throwing that caveat out there. But you can only do what you can do and they've done all you can ask for so far.
00:05:03
Speaker
I would agree with all that, and I'd add more than the opponents, I think, if there's a caveat to add, it's that the Sounders do look like a team who are closer to mid-season form than their opponents. And that's maybe something that
00:05:22
Speaker
I think they're probably benefiting from an earlier start to not necessarily their preseason, but how much farther ahead they knew they needed to be early in preseason. And so I guess maybe if you want to pick nits, it's that they look like a team that's more prepared right now, and maybe that's what they should be looking like. But hey,
00:05:45
Speaker
they should be looking like it and they are looking like it and that's okay too. I think the other thing that I find really encouraging is, like you said, starting the season strong has not always been a
00:06:01
Speaker
a given for the Sounders. I think this is only the fourth time that they've actually started 2-0, which is kind of wild to think about. Going into the 15th season, this is a team that has made the playoffs all but one year, has been very good. And strong starts are not something that have always been part of their MO. Even in 2021, when they got off to that great start, they tied their second game.
00:06:29
Speaker
There's no reason not to feel good about this. I mean, all we can do is feel good about what we're seeing. And there's, there's really nothing that they're doing at this point that I want to point out as bad. Like there are reasons to like cool our excitement, I suppose, but there's nothing that they're not doing well. They're defending well. They're, you know, okay, actually I take it back. If there's one area that they aren't
00:06:54
Speaker
looking perfect at it's that they're actually underperforming their xg which i think is pretty amazing to have six goals in two games and to be like yeah we probably left three or four goals out there and that's by xg that's not by the whole oh yeah um
00:07:12
Speaker
There's chances we didn't convert. Right. Yeah. If you if you were going to not hit the mark, I think that's that's a good way to do it. And yeah, I mean, it's every phase of the game has been good. They have not only in that they've like executed well, that they've defended. Well, they've created good chances. They've they've looked confident in possession. They've had a clear tactical plan game plan and gone out and executed it well.
00:07:40
Speaker
they have been able to coast effectively. They've been able to see out games. I mean, that was the last time I can recall an extended period where the Sounders just dominated teams over and over and over again. And they haven't done that yet, obviously. But that 2014 team,
00:08:01
Speaker
Would just come out, ram the ball down your throats and then keep play. Keep away the rest of the game. Yeah. And we've seen some signs of that this year. And that hasn't, I mean, last year the sounders were very fragile with leads. That was extremely uncharacteristic of them. I think that it was.
00:08:18
Speaker
maybe evidence that they just didn't have the legs that you would hope for just because of all the games they had to play last year and the injuries they had. But they've just been able to see out games very comfortably this year. They've been able to change their approach depending on the game state really effectively. Sometimes teams that come out as fast as the Sounders have in these two games, get goals on the board,
00:08:48
Speaker
They have trouble when they take their foot off the gas. They let teams back into the games. It has not felt like anything close to a possibility so
Offensive Strategies & Key Players
00:08:56
Speaker
far. Again, the caveat, it's going to be more difficult to do that on the road. It's going to be more difficult to do that against better competition. It's going to be more difficult to do that as the season goes along. And maybe, as you said, other teams start to catch up and look a little closer to mid-season form.
00:09:10
Speaker
But maybe it doesn't. I mean, maybe this is just what this team is capable of when they don't have 800 games when they're not going all over North and Central America to get the crap kicked out of them midweek and then have to come back and play them on the weekend. Maybe this is just what this team looks like at full strength.
00:09:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's certainly possible. And one of the things that I've really liked in these games is the way they've been able to extend possessions through a variety of means. You know, the the easiest way to extend possession, I suppose, easiest, that's made the wrong way, is through long passing sequences. And I want to say they lead the league in 20
00:09:53
Speaker
in 20 pass sequences that they've been able to complete 20 passes in one sequence. They lead the league in turning those long pass sequences into shots. But then they also lead the league in what are called direct attacks where it's usually fewer passes and it starts from your end and it's mostly forward passing. And so those are two,
00:10:20
Speaker
stringing together long possessions that lead to shots and then being able to hit teams quickly for chances. Those are like two encouraging things. But the other way, other than making passes, they've been able to extend possession is through picking up their own rebound on shots, being able to win a lot of second balls, and then counter pressing. This team, especially against RSL, their counter press was super effective.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, one of the things that Brian Schmetzer talked about sort of in the wake of last season is, in so many words, teams kind of figured out how to shut down the Sounders. And they do not appear to be giving teams the option to do that this year. And that's so important to being a dominant team and being able to be dominant for long stretches of time. You either have to be so good at the thing that you do that nobody can stop it no matter how well prepared they are for it. And that's really hard to do. And it'll lead with as much parity as MLS.
00:11:19
Speaker
Or you can just be dangerous in a lot of different ways. And I think the Sounders have taken a second approach. I think that's the better approach to take. And I think, especially as, like, Raul Rodriguez gets back to health and he's available to play, and then they've got two very effective but very different forwards that they can throw out there against teams.
00:11:39
Speaker
That's only gonna you know increase. They're only gonna become more difficult to plan for and Yeah, the counter pressing this year has been it's this style of counter pressing is selfishly I'm so excited to see it because I think it's so much fun to watch It's my favorite style to watch and and the sounders do it really well. I mean, it's it's not something they have Done a lot in the past and and so to see them doing it doing it this effectively
00:12:09
Speaker
has been has been a lot of fun and you know hopefully it encourages them to keep going because like i said it's it's really really fun to watch teams counter press and do it effectively and what's interesting about their counter press is it's not like they're throwing numbers forward where they just are playing like a super high line it's just that they are positioning themselves well
00:12:28
Speaker
they it's like you they are they're just setting they're they're like coming at it with a plan you know they they have they press out of a a 442 they let Nico and a bear just sort of like
00:12:40
Speaker
create chaos up front, but then they have this really strong block of four behind them that's able to pick up, you know, pick off second balls and do this other kind of stuff. And so they aren't. So even when that press gets broken, they're not scrambling to get back into position. They're able to like set a defense when they need to. And it's just, they're making it look very easy is really what they're doing, which is, it's obviously hard to do.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think making stuff look easy is actually the hardest thing to do in professional sports. I think to just so thoroughly dominate, and I think as Mark Castor put it, never get out of second gear, is really difficult to do. I don't care who you're playing. And I think the thing that is really encouraging, and we've kind of hammered on this a lot, is that it does seem repeatable. It does seem like they have a lot of tricks in the back to pull out. It does seem like they have a lot of different approaches they can take.
00:13:34
Speaker
And yeah, I'm loving it, man. It was not a fun season last season post May when the after glow started to fade, the off season was not a lot of fun for various reasons, but this team is fun as hell. And I feel really confident they can keep it up. I mean, I'd say these two games have probably been more fun than any two regular season games they played last year.
00:14:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I think then you might be able to go back. Well, maybe not too much farther back than that. But certainly I don't know that you would find two games where they were so comfortably dominant as they were in these first two. And by the way, one of those tricks that they haven't been able to really unleash is Raul Rui Diaz. He played 10 minutes against RSL. He nearly scored a goal on a really impressive little toe poke.
00:14:29
Speaker
But getting him back into the, all of a sudden getting him back on the field doesn't seem like a given. A bear has just been absolutely amazing. And at least putting himself in a lot of dangerous positions. He's finished too, but he's probably been in good position for four or five goals. I think he leads the league and missed big chances. He has something like five missed big chances, which I suppose isn't great.
00:14:55
Speaker
give me a guy who can get seven big chances every two games and I'll take my chances with how many of you finishes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, finishing is a numbers game. I think that the notion that finishing is not a skill has thankfully kind of gone by the wayside, but it's also not.
00:15:12
Speaker
as much of a skill as maybe people used to believe or still do in some cases. And I think the most important thing is getting yourself into lots of good positions. And Aver certainly does that. And I think it just takes so much pressure off the sounders too. I mean, you know, I think it's fair to say Raul has been pretty fragile over the last couple of years. And I think that there have been times that he's been rushed back.
00:15:35
Speaker
And they just don't have to do that as long as a bear can also stay healthy, obviously. And that's just such a luxury to have. And it will be interesting to see. I mean, they do play different styles. They do have different games. I don't think that there's anything tactically that a bear has been doing that rule can't replicate.
00:15:53
Speaker
But it will be interesting to see if they're as effective with Raoul or whether it's just some kind of secret sauce combination with Hebert. I suspect it's not. I suspect that the sounders are just systemically playing really well, that Jordan Morris is playing out of his mind, that they've found a shape that really works well.
00:16:12
Speaker
and that they're just clicking, and I think that's more of it. But it will be interesting to see if they do slip and aren't as effective when Raul walks back, or if not walks back into the starting lineup, but if he starts getting starts again, if they're able to keep that momentum or maybe even build on it. One of the little debates that is starting to crop up is, what do you do when Raul is fully fit? And I think the good news is that
00:16:40
Speaker
Well, I shouldn't say I, he is fully fed. I think the good news is though, that I don't think Schmetzer is going to feel any pressure to rush him back. Like I would fully expect a bear to start this week against FC Cincinnati and, and maybe we'll see Rudy Diaz get like 30 minutes or something.
00:16:56
Speaker
And if the sounders are ahead, I don't think we're going to see two forward sets. But where do you fall on that? To me, A-Bear is as good as he's been. He hasn't displaced Raul as the number one, all things being equal. I don't really see a formation here that when you're fully fit, makes sense to use two forwards in. But I suspect we will see them on the field together some.
00:17:25
Speaker
But I don't know. Do you have any is that is that all feel like very safe assumptions to you? Yeah, I think so. I think that as much as you can be guaranteed a chance to lose your spot role has earned that right. And I think that I just he's we have a lot of evidence that he is a better player than a bear. And I doubt that's going to I doubt that a bear is going to take that step forward at this stage in his career.
00:17:52
Speaker
If Raul has taken a step back and that's a permanent thing, then I think you can maybe be a little quicker to pull the trigger than you would have been otherwise, but I think Raul has every right and will get every opportunity to
00:18:06
Speaker
to keep his job, and I think you should. I mean, I think there's going to be plenty of minutes to go around for both guys as the year goes on. Being able to give Raul a day off here or there, or at least start him on the bench, is going to be really nice, I think, as the year goes on, and we get into more midweek games and things like that. And yeah, I don't think you can change the shape when it's working as well as it is. I mean, I think that...
00:18:33
Speaker
Formations are flexible and you can have a tactical approach in any different nomenclature or however you want to put it. But I do think having two out and out fours really alters what you're doing, especially because Jordan is really playing as a forward. He's not playing as a winger. So you're playing three strikers at that point, and that's just going to change so much of what you're doing in defense that it's a pretty radical departure from what's been working.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think there's maybe a way you can make that work if you sort of...
00:19:05
Speaker
If you are confident that you can get the pressing actions out of Jordan and a bear on the wings, I suppose maybe you can make a four, three, three work. Like there's ways to make that work. I think I just don't think that's what we're gonna, I don't think that's what we're going to see. Um, I'll add my, my only concern with Rudy Diaz is fitness. If he's able to stay healthy.
00:19:32
Speaker
I have no doubt that he'll be producing goals and, you know, somewhat
00:19:40
Speaker
Uh, it works out really well that one way to keep him healthy is to not ask him to play as much. And so if this turns into like a 60 30 type of deal where one guy's on 60 minutes, the other one's on 30 and they, and I wouldn't, I don't think they're going to do any sort of like full rotation, but you know, if there's two games in a week, there's no reason why you need to feel the need to start really isn't both of those. And otherwise it's, it's his job. And then, you know,
00:20:08
Speaker
if things are going how you want them to be, pull them off at 30. I just don't, or at 60 minutes. And I think that's a great balance. I think that holistically works out better. And frankly, there's a lot of guys right now that are pushing for more minutes. You know, Leo Chu has looked, came up with another strong game in this last one. You know, he was not as dangerous, but I thought he was effective
Squad Depth & Player Management
00:20:38
Speaker
again joshatencio i thought was effective again um there hasn't really been any there hasn't been any fall off really uh the other player that hasn't even gotten on the field of note there's maybe two kellin row hasn't gone on the field which i suppose is a good sign not because i don't want to see kellin row play but because it's a sign that his his uh contributions haven't been needed but Javier Arriaga
00:21:02
Speaker
I don't know what his future looks like right now because Jackson Reagan might actually be the better of the two center backs and Yeymar looks great too. Yeah, it's certainly a good problem to have. I mean, you don't want to
00:21:19
Speaker
make them out and out of a molehill, especially when the molehill is pretty nice to look at. But that's a really tortured analogy on what's going on there. Yeah, I don't know. Chop that one. Yeah, that's fine. That works. But wow, what a queen cup I like it.
00:21:40
Speaker
It is a good problem to have, but it, you do start to, to worry. And this is something I think about with a baron and rubble as well, where these are professionals that could start for plenty of teams in the league, plenty of teams elsewhere in the world. And, you know, if, if rubble's not getting the minutes, he thinks he should, is he, is he going to be happy about that? If a bear is saying, Hey, I'm squaring like crazy, getting into lots of good positions and I'm going back to the bench. Is that going to be a problem?
00:22:09
Speaker
There's no indication of any of that. There's no indication that Ariaga is not perfectly willing to fight for his place. But at a certain point, that's probably going to have to give to some extent. And I just don't think there's any way you can take either of Ariaga or Yemar off the field right now. And there are going to be plenty of opportunities for whoever the third center back is to play.
00:22:39
Speaker
But is that going to be enough to keep somebody like a World Cup player like Ariaga happy? It's tough to say. I do think, though, you mentioned how good Leotu has looked, and I agree. And we know how good Jordan has looked. And that kind of made me think, I want to see what you think about this. Does it feel like the wider attacking players are being asked to do less defensively this season, and that they're
00:23:05
Speaker
Maybe some of that has been taken off their plate and that's helped them be more effective in attack. You know, I I don't I wouldn't say that that has.
00:23:19
Speaker
It hasn't jumped out at me. Now, maybe it would be interesting. Maybe it hasn't jumped out at me because I feel like there have been defensive plays that stick out of my mind, but maybe they aren't consistently dropping as deep as they were. That's interesting. I hadn't really given that a lot of thought. And now I'm curious about the data and going back and looking for that kind of stuff, because it would be interesting if that is part of it.
00:23:46
Speaker
And maybe the positional play helps there because they aren't being asked, it's because they're not being asked to defend as much. There's just, it's all more cohesive, I suppose. Or they're defending from the front more and. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, it's, I think just structurally the sounders have looked.
00:24:10
Speaker
a little more conservative along the back line. I mean, we talked about this in the last show and the season preview as well. Nuhu is obviously staying home more frequently. Alex is playing pretty aggressively, but Christian is not really not for the way Jordan is or the way Leo Chu is when he comes on. Absolutely. In fact, I think what we've seen is Alex is oftentimes farther up the field than Christian.
00:24:35
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting. This would be a nice time to have the average position maps that the MLS website used to have, and then took away for reasons that I don't fully comprehend. But yeah, I mean, it's I'd be lying if I said that it was something that has jumped out at me, like you said, but I do think it's worth paying attention to in the next game. I don't know to see because it
00:24:59
Speaker
I think it's entirely possible that Leo Chiu just took a big step forward because he's at the age where that can happen and that Jordan Morris is just feeling more confident. But I'm, you know, it's sort of in real time starting to wonder if maybe there is something tactically that's changed that's freed them up a little bit more.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I, I can't, I'm, I'm actually looking at the average position map on a sofa score, which still does have that. And lay out you believe it or not. I don't, he had almost all of his touches in the defensive half, which is well, that, I mean, that's interesting pretty much drives a stake in my heart. Well, although I don't know that's against RSL. So I don't know. Maybe, uh, maybe we would see something different there, but, um,
00:25:44
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we, we do, we, I will say that, that, um, a bear Nico and Morris are all very high. Those are the three highest players, which I suppose is what you would expect.
00:25:57
Speaker
You would. I know it felt a lot of the time like Jordan was doing way more defending than I wanted Jordan to be doing last year. Maybe it's confirmation bias or recency bias. I wouldn't give up on that one yet. I feel like there's something there potentially.
00:26:15
Speaker
I'm going to obsessively rewatch both games now and then pick some random games from next year. I'm not actually going to do that. Yeah, well, I guess that's probably a good place to call this a segment. We have a few more things. We have a few things we're going to get into in the next segment. New Who's extension, which still is not
00:26:35
Speaker
as of the recording of this has not been made official, but we've been able to confirm. We're gonna talk a little bit about the CCL action that's going on tonight. We'll talk about this stadium rankings list that came out. And yeah, we have it. And then we'll give a little bit of a preview against FC Cincinnati, and we'll be taking your questions. You're listening to NOS Adietes.
00:27:04
Speaker
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00:27:31
Speaker
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Sponsorship & Promotions
00:27:46
Speaker
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00:28:14
Speaker
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00:28:38
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adiata. So before we get into the questions, we have a few little topics I wanted to go over.
Contract Extensions & Player Updates
00:28:48
Speaker
Like I mentioned in the previous segment, it looks like New Who's gonna be getting an extension through 2026 at least. Do you have any reaction to that?
00:28:58
Speaker
I think it's great news, especially with the way he's been playing. I think that it probably means he's not likely to be making a big move to Europe anytime soon. I guess counterintuitively, these things always it makes it so this I mean, like, I don't know if it doesn't make it any less likely the sounders would accept a transfer for you, but it does make it a little harder for him. And if you really thought he could move to Europe, I would think he would not sign the extension. Yeah, I think that's true. And I think I mean, it does.
00:29:28
Speaker
protect the sounders for sure. I think if somebody wants to add enough, now they've got extra years of his contract they have to buy out. So that's good news.
00:29:38
Speaker
the way he's played so far this year. And it looks like they're playing in a system that really suits him well. And I think any other system that they play in is they're going to be able to find a way to make it work for him, whether it's, you know, three, it's back and he's played center back or what have you. And I, I mean, I think you want your good players under contract and you don't want to have, you want to have that consistency from year to year, especially in defense.
00:30:02
Speaker
And yeah, I think it's a good thing. And I can't imagine he's making so much money that it's gonna be an albatross of any kind. I mean, I would hope that he got a pretty decent raise over, he was making what, somewhere in the 300K? Yeah, 300, something like that. You know, which is obviously nothing to sneeze at, but when you've only got 15 years to make your money, it's a little more urgent to get top dollar, so. Yeah, like I would imagine he's somewhere in the four to 500 range now, like not a huge raise, but certainly more money.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think that the days where people would, you know, him and Haw about how underpaid he is are probably pretty far behind us at this point. And he's, I mean, he's absolutely earned it. Like he plays at a level that, you know, demands that kind of salary. And I'm glad I'm happy. I'm happy. And I would have to assume that who does not strike me as the kind of guy that
00:30:53
Speaker
that would sign an extension if he wasn't happy. He'd rather just let his deal run out. The vibe I've been getting from him is that he seems more comfortable with the idea that this is maybe where he's going to be.
00:31:07
Speaker
And, uh, you know, I, it's a, I think it's as a sounders fan, I'm happy about that. I'd love to see him spend a lot of his, you know, a lot of the rest of his career here. I can also understand how maybe that's not how he was hoping things shook out for him. And, and I'm sure he wanted to go play in Europe, but also none of my business. So, you know, and he still gets to somewhat scratch that itch. If he keeps, uh, doing well in international competitions, maybe playing, I mean, I don't know, maybe playing in the world cup was.
00:31:35
Speaker
Like, that's kind of the pinnacle, right? Right. I mean, I do think that for a lot of players, their motivations a lot of the time to move to bigger leagues are obviously more money and everything like that. But it's being able to do things like playing the World Cup. Well, if you can play in a World Cup and, you know, be a regular national team player without doing that and you're happy where you are and you're making, you know, the money you can make, then nothing wrong with that.
00:32:06
Speaker
Absolutely.
CCL Surprises & Upcoming Matches
00:32:07
Speaker
So there were a couple CCL games tonight. The not exciting one was Philadelphia Union going to Alianza and tying 0-0. But there was a rather hilarious result in the other one. Austin FC goes on the road against a Haitian team that is not playing in Haiti and loses 3-0.
00:32:32
Speaker
kind of an embarrassing result for Austin, maybe an embarrassing result for MLS in general. But really, just a reminder that Champions League's pretty tough. It is, it is. It shouldn't be that tough. But I think, I mean, I really do think teams see what teams like the Sounders and, you know, some of the other teams that have had some success in the CCL do, they see what they do in these early rounds and think, eh, it's like whatever, it can't be that hard.
00:33:02
Speaker
And it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be that hard to to beat a team from Haiti. There's no excuse for losing to 3-0 to a team from Haiti, but you have to take it seriously. And it just does not seem like Austin took it seriously at all. And that's very funny to me. I think it's entirely possible they come back for like two in Austin and they went by six and make it very comfortable.
00:33:26
Speaker
But that doesn't change the fact that they lost three now in the first leg. And that it's very funny. I'm increasingly just really don't like Austin very much. And I think. Yeah, that's understandable. A myriad of reasons, but they just, they don't know. They bugged me. Yeah, fair enough.
00:33:43
Speaker
Uh, so the Sounders have a game this weekend, biggest test of the season. I think we can say, uh, pretty safely, uh, FC Cincinnati. Uh, this is the center's first visit to TQL stadium. I guess this is the first time I've ever played Cincinnati on the road. Uh, they've played them twice before at home, I think.
00:34:06
Speaker
I think that's right. But yeah, FC Cincinnati is a pretty good team. Very attack heavy, Brandon Vasquez, Lucio Acosta, Brenner, a lot of talent they can throw at you in the offense. And I'm honestly, I'm really looking forward to just seeing how the Sounders match up with this one because I think it's going to give us a much better idea of how for real the Sounders are.
00:34:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think if the sounders can go on the road and win this game, you have to be...
00:34:41
Speaker
really beside yourself with how excited you are. And I think by the opposite side of the coin, I think if they go in and lose or even only get a point and maybe don't look great doing it, that's maybe some grounding that's better to happen now than a little further down the road. I'm not 100% sold on FC Cincinnati, but I do think that they're a good team.
00:35:08
Speaker
in a different caliber of RSL or Colorado. I'll say this. I think if I'm looking at this as a neutral, I think it's probably more of a test for FC Cincinnati than it is. Take the Sounders missing the playoffs out of it. The Sounders are playing very well right now. By most metrics, it looks like Cincinnati has been one of the top two or three teams as well.
00:35:38
Speaker
But this is a different kind of test for them. Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is the kind of game, if you want people to be sold on you, if you want people like me to be sold on you, I don't know why anybody would care about that. But if you do, this is the kind of game that you need to win, or at least make a good account of yourself in. And I think the sounders have a little less pressure on them. But I think also they've got to have a chip on their shoulder this season about missing the playoffs last year and wanting to show people they're for real. No, I think.
00:36:06
Speaker
I think there is a revenge tour aspect of this for the Sounders. We talked to Christian Roldan at training today, and he sort of alluded to that. He and Jordan especially, I think, feel like they have something to prove. They signed these big contract extensions. They were sort of
00:36:25
Speaker
They were sort of everyone's favorite whipping boy from the World Cup. And they finished the year really poorly. Both of them did and the Sounders. And so I think the Sounders generally are like look like a team with something to prove. And this is sort of the kind of game where you get to prove it a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. I think that.
00:36:48
Speaker
that these are, if the Sounders really are supporter shield contenders, these are the kind of games that they win against on the road, against maybe not the elite teams in the league, but against teams that are good and difficult to play against. I think, too, this is the first team with an actual attack that the Sounders will have played Colorado and RSL both just beyond anemic and attack. And I think that does make a difference, especially when you're at home, when you know that you don't have a lot to worry about.
00:37:18
Speaker
you know, in defense and you can maybe relax a little bit in that phase of the game, not going to be able to do that against the Cincinnati team. And I think that that's going to be a very good test. And I think we're really this might be the first opportunity to really see the different tactical approach that, you know, we sort of talked about and have sort of been waiting for and just really hadn't gotten the opportunity to see too much because the Sounders have been so dominant.
00:37:45
Speaker
This is a game where I think that fluidity between attack and defense and shape change and all that good stuff is most likely to to be there in full force. And I'm I'm excited about it. It's going to be interesting to watch. Yeah, I am, too. I don't I don't know if I get excited about like I mostly I feel like most of the time I go into games like this nervous, but I'm I'm like kind of like just
00:38:14
Speaker
Looking forward to watching this one. Okay. Yeah. It's nice to have the sounders have started. Well, they've got two wins under the belt. So even if they lose this game, okay, maybe you're not as excited about the team, but you're still in very good shape. But it's also still very early in the year. If you lose, it's not a big deal. It's not gonna do that much damage to your chances for anything. It feels mostly upside. Yeah. House money. House money in this game.
00:38:40
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, so the final thing I wanted to talk about before we get into the questions is something
Stadium Rankings Debate
00:38:46
Speaker
rather silly. We don't do a lot of this on the show where we sort of like pick a thing that we saw and we talk about it, but I don't know. Maybe this will be a new feature of the show. Pick a thing that's on. We'll talk about it. Uh, that's what we'll call this the segment. Um, a guy that goes by Alex chief, Alex chief, uh, on Twitter created a,
00:39:07
Speaker
he's like nobody really like he's it's not like he's a famous person i don't know somehow this came across my twitter feed in it and maybe it's my fault it blew up but uh he did a subjective quote unquote subjective
00:39:21
Speaker
ranking of stadiums, but then he attached numbers to various categories, and that's where you start to get in trouble. I once did this way back in my early blogging days, and I found out this is a very hard thing to pull off. But he did this thing where he picked four categories, and he assigned a 1 through 10 value
00:39:43
Speaker
to every team in one of these same categories. And then he added up their scores and he ranked them. And Providence Park ranks at the top with the best score. And the four categories are, is the stadium in an interesting neighborhood? Are there things to do nearby? Portland gets a 10 there. Is the stadium easily reachable by different modes of transportation? Portland gets a 9 there. Is the building well-designed for playing and watching soccer?
00:40:13
Speaker
Portland gets an eight there and is the fan atmosphere exciting they get a 10 there and The last two categories feel like they're just make way for the first two categories which are presented sort of like in a I like a walk score kind of way like you could just take a walk score and and come up with the modes of transportation thing that doesn't seem to be what he did though because
00:40:40
Speaker
The Sounders, the Seattle on the other hand, ends up with an 8-4 neighborhood. They end up with a 9 for modes of transportation. Then they get a, what is it, a 5.
00:40:55
Speaker
for is the building well-designed for watching soccer. And then they get an eight for atmosphere, which I don't know, whatever. I think you could probably give tens, frankly, across the board for the sounders in these categories. I'm not actually arguing for that. And I get it. Loom and Field has drawbacks.
00:41:21
Speaker
It's maybe it's too big. Maybe on TV, it doesn't present as intimate as a lot of these other stadiums. But let me tell you, as someone who's been to a few of these places, there's not many stadiums that are more comfortable to watch a game in. The atmosphere is always, frankly, very good. And the location of the stadium could literally not be better.
00:41:48
Speaker
It's clearly designed for soccer. That's the one that pissed me off. And he got real salty with people calling him on that. He was like, well, I gave it a better score than the other NFL stadiums. Well, yeah, better than Soldier Field. Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining. What people mean? Also, by the way, he gave Mercedes Benz a six. Right.
00:42:15
Speaker
Mercedes Benz is much worse for soccer. And like, look, my opinion on stadiums like this is that PC plays got a six, by the way. Very. Yeah. So the thing I think that he was sort of like trying to defend himself with was like, well, you know, the sight lines or whatever are fine, but like the turf and yada, yada, yada. Which, yeah, the turf sucks. But but you can't say PC places better.
00:42:42
Speaker
There's no world that BC places a better stadium than for soccer than than Moominfield. Ultimately, yes, having multi-purpose stadiums makes the experience for soccer slightly worse, I guess, at the best case scenario alternative. But if you want to build stuff in the middle of a city,
00:43:05
Speaker
You usually have to like pick one. You can either have a perfect soccer stadium or you can have it in the middle of the city. But if you have an NFL team, like you're probably not going to have both because real estate in the middle of cities tends to be pretty expensive.
00:43:23
Speaker
And there tends to not be a lot of available space. And it's good to build stuff in the middle of the city, and it's also good to not dedicate a bunch of central city infrastructure to sports stadiums. There's already two in downtown Seattle.
00:43:38
Speaker
Anyway, that's beside the point. I think. I mean, it's a silly thing to get worked up about. We fully admit that. But I think the biggest thing that's annoying to this about this is you kind of you mentioned this at the top, but you just like Providence Park, right? That's fine. Providence Park is a cool stadium.
00:43:59
Speaker
If you care more about vibes than just maybe the most comfortable fan experience, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. People love Fenway Park, and it has all of the same problems Providence Park has. And there's nothing wrong with any of that. But
00:44:21
Speaker
don't like don't tell me that a stadium that's like 90% obstructed you seats that was designed and I know Portland fans hate this and it is sort of misused sometimes, but it was not designed to for soccer. It was designed. It's a baseball stadium that got turned into all sorts of different things and eventually became soccer stadium.
00:44:41
Speaker
If we want to be technical, I think it's a dog track that got re... And you can make too much of that. It's clearly been redesigned to be a soccer stadium, but that doesn't erase a lot of the infrastructure that hasn't been touched. Right. It is no more inherently well-suited for soccer than Lumen.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yeah. But the seats are closer. I guess the stands are steeper. And that's again, that's it's fine to like those things, but don't tell me it makes it a more well-designed stadium for playing and watching soccer. Yeah. I mean, here's what I will say is that when it comes to as a working journalist, I feel very confident in saying that and obviously no one cares about this, but I will say that I don't know that you could possibly design a better
00:45:33
Speaker
experience in it, then you get it looming in terms of like, it's like everything you want as a journalist is, is very, uh, very easy there.
00:45:43
Speaker
I think that Lumen is a great example of the way that we should be using land in the middle of a city. If you're going to build a sports stadium in the middle of the city, you should try to get as many sports in there as you can so that you don't have to do it other places and you don't have to build it in the suburbs and you should make the right compromises between the two and I think Lumen does a great job of that.
00:46:06
Speaker
Yeah. Would I rather watch a game at like Stamford Bridge or whatever? Yeah. Like, yeah, I guess. But, you know, that's not the reality. And I would certainly whether rather watch a game at the shittiest football stadium in the middle of the city, then truck my ass out to Tukwila or whatever to watch the game at like a soccer specific stadium. I will say that I when I do see the one thing I'll admit, like.
00:46:32
Speaker
St. Louis City, that atmosphere, and that's basically in downtown St. Louis. I'm a little jealous of that kind of stuff. It would be kind of cool, but the trade-offs I feel like are worth it. I love how easy it is to get to Lumenfield.
00:46:50
Speaker
You can get there like I've I've biked there. I've taken light rail there. I've taken the bus there. I've driven there obviously It's it's a it's I I don't know. I I really I really love Lumen and if the centers end up leaving at some point I'll be kind of bummed but I and I especially now that I don't live in Seattle
00:47:10
Speaker
It's so nice to have it where it is instead of like getting to downtown Seattle from Tacoma is no sweat getting to anywhere else in the metro from Tacoma and or from Bellevue or from Kirk wherever Because everything is designed to go to downtown Seattle You know, so yeah. Yep. Well, we do have a few
Lineup Decisions: Raul vs. A-Bear
00:47:33
Speaker
questions. So let's let's go ahead and get to those and
00:47:35
Speaker
Yeah, the first one is from Josh on the Sound. I see Jmo is still listed on the roster site as a homegrown after signing a new contract. If he is in a senior roster slot, are they getting any salary cap relief for that? What does him retaining that designation in a senior slot actually mean? Rules aren't clear about this.
00:47:50
Speaker
Yeah, so best I can tell, I don't think there's really any benefit to the Sounders classifying him on a day-to-day, certainly not on a day-to-day basis. His salary hits the cap at the full amount. They have to pay, they have to use TAM to buy him down and all that kind of stuff.
00:48:12
Speaker
I suppose if they transferred him, I think they would get to keep all the transfer fee. I don't know how likely that is to happen at this point. I think he has to be protected in the expansion draft if memory serves. So there's not a lot of benefits to it. I kind of think it's more of a designation that's there to just say, hey, don't forget this guy is a homegrown player. Yeah. Which is nice in its own way.
00:48:39
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. This one's from Bill Jones Trumpet. If it does roll, walk back into the starting 11. Schmetz made it sound like he wasn't sure himself.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yeah, we kind of touched on this in the first segment, but I think there's a little more ground to cover. I think Schmetz is a really good politician with stuff like this. And I think you have to be. You can never close yourself off to possibilities as a coach or make declarative statements, I don't think. But I think that Ra will...
00:49:12
Speaker
is going to have to lose the job. But I do think that they're going to be able to have a little bit longer of a leash, or shorter of a leash, I guess, however you want to put it. They're not going to have to rush them back. And I think that it does allow Schmetz to play a little fast and loose with
00:49:32
Speaker
when Raoul is ready to start again, because there's no pressure. And I think that you can phase it that way of like, oh, we'd like to see him get a little more fitness back to make it less about, no, this is a bear's job and more about Raoul's job. But, you know, he's, he has to get back to full fitness and we have to feel comfortable that he's fully healed and all that good stuff. But I just don't see a world in which
00:49:57
Speaker
You can you can Wally pip roll here. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have anything to add there. All right. Next one is from D
Greatest Sounders Midfield?
00:50:07
Speaker
underscore height. Is this the best midfield we've ever had?
00:50:10
Speaker
You know, I'm inclined to say yes. I suppose the same midfield we had last year, so that would be the caveat. But I do think that this is a better, depending on how you define the midfield, I suppose if it's just the three between Nico Joutt-Palo and Albert Rusnak, there's maybe room to argue that those three were
00:50:33
Speaker
better at their peak last year, but I don't think they ever played better together than they are playing right now. So yeah, I do think this is probably the best. You know, I'm going to I'm going to say that even if Joe Paulo is slightly diminished from what he was before his injury, I'm inclined to say that as a trio, they are better. Nico looks more fit. Albert looks more comfortable.
00:51:00
Speaker
I like it. I think this is a great midfield. Yeah, I think on talent, just straight up talent, I think it's the best midfield without any caveats or questions. I think relative to the rest of the league, which is always, I think, a way you have to sort of couch these conversations. The only midfield, I think, that really would come close would be Svensson, Rolldown, and Ozzy.
00:51:29
Speaker
But I don't, I think Ozzy was just like too, was past it at that point, you know, um, to, to where he just wasn't the caliber player. And then Ladero obviously is the unchanged factor there. I just, they're so dominant. They're dominating games so much in a way that I just haven't seen a Sounders midfield do. The question that I think might be more interesting and is not answerable yet, I think is, is this the best midfield trio in MLS? Yeah.
00:51:59
Speaker
And what's funny is that I don't remember seeing the Sounders mentioned on many people's top five lists when they were talking about best midfields. But I suspect that's going to change. Like if we were to do a poll about that in a few weeks, I think that if they're all fit and they're all playing well,
00:52:21
Speaker
I really like this trio a lot. Yeah. I wouldn't trade it for anyone else's, I don't think. Yeah, that's it. Maybe somebody else's is better, but I feel pretty good with what we've got. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We're going to close out with a question from Derek Young, and this is this is a good one.
Culinary Chat: Skyline Chili
00:52:41
Speaker
In honor of Cincinnati Week, chilean spaghetti yay or nay?
00:52:45
Speaker
So people are going to hate this. I think it's fine. I don't, it's not something I'll do, but like it was a thing we ate when I was a kid. I guess the real quick, and I don't know, maybe he meant it this way, but are we talking Cincinnati Chili, Skyline Chili, or are we just talking any chili on. Yeah, people are going to hate this even more, but I think Skyline Chili is fine too. I don't know.
00:53:07
Speaker
I think that any food that gains that level of regional popularity, it's fine. And people just like to whine about it. And people especially like to get whiny about things like chili and barbecue. It's not like my preferred way of eating chili. If you gave me, whined me up a bunch of bowls of different styles of chili, I'm probably going for the skyline towards the bottom, but it still tastes good. And yeah, I think the skyline has like chocolate in it or something like that.
00:53:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's got chocolate. It's got cinnamon. It's like a loose manwich consistency. It's got a sweetness to it that some people don't love, but it's fine. I think it's one of those things where people get mad because it's called chili and they have a very narrow definition of what defines chili. I just think you got to grow up if you care about that stuff, man. I really do.
00:54:04
Speaker
Let me ask you this. Have you been to Mike's Chili Partler in Ballard recently? I have not. I think that I may have gone a very long time ago, but I still lived in Ballard, but I have not. This is the place that's next to the Trader Joe's, right next to the Ballard Bridge. I went there right after I moved to Seattle.
00:54:26
Speaker
And it had just been on like diners, drive-ins and dives, I think. And I actually, you might even be able to find this on the internet. I haven't looked and I'm not looking now, but I once had a food blog and I wrote a review of it. And I think I said it was pretty good.
00:54:45
Speaker
I'll stand by that in my mind. I don't think that's a skyline chili, though. I think they do more of like a like a chili would be like a more straightforward chili with beans and they throw it on spaghetti if you want. But yeah, I don't think it's a strictly Cincinnati.
00:55:04
Speaker
chili or Cincinnati style. I think, uh, yeah. And the spaghetti thing is people make fun of it, but what's wrong with that? I don't understand. It's a starch that you're putting a big deal. Maybe it's because I'm like barely eating carbs right now, but I would absolutely demolish a plate of that right now. If you put it on, if you're going to put chili on a baked potato or you're going to put chili on rice, I don't see what the problem with putting it on spaghetti is. I don't have no issue with that at all. It's the least, the least of my issues.
00:55:32
Speaker
If you were going to get mad about a Midwestern food, I think St. Louis pizza is the one to get mad about. You know, it was funny. I don't know if you remember this, but back when we, we first had Will Bruin. I don't know if it was the first time we had him when we did the, the yacht ones episode with him, we asked him about St. Louis pizza and he refused to acknowledge that it was even a thing. If I remember correctly that there, I think there are like two,
00:56:01
Speaker
two opinions about St. Louis pizza from people from that area and that it's either that it's great and you're a jerk for, you know, that you're in denial if you don't think it's great or that it's not really a thing. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's one. I know I just said that any like regional foods that are popular are probably fine, but that's one. I just can't get on board. And I don't know if it's even that popular.
00:56:25
Speaker
I mean, I think that it's definitely the kind of thing that you can get a lot of places in St. Louis. And I remember in Memphis, there were places that like specialized in it. We got it a few times when I was a kid and I was like, I don't want this. I want to go back to Pizza Hut or whatever. But you know what, if you like it,
00:56:46
Speaker
that you should continue liking it. It's fine, but I don't think it's not good to me. But Cincinnati Chili, I'll actually stand
Podcast Updates & Call to Support
00:56:55
Speaker
up for. Well, that's probably a good note to close on. I will offer one more thing. You may have noticed that our podcast feed has gotten a lot more crowded.
00:57:08
Speaker
And I think that's probably going to be how it is. We're not getting a lot of complaints about it. And so hopefully you like that you're getting more content, but we're putting more different types of content. Our hope is to do this show like once a week and we're going to hopefully have more
00:57:25
Speaker
Co hosts on and introducing you to more voices but we're gonna start bringing in doing more interview episodes and more preview episodes and and things like that and and hopefully that inspires you to
00:57:40
Speaker
to subscribe to our sub-stack where we are creating now some content that is for paid subscribers only. We did an extended cut of the Craig Weibull interview. Next week, we're going to do a similar thing with a Casey Keller interview that I actually recorded today. I think you guys are going to really like that, but we'll put out part of that on the free feed and then we'll do a full extended cut.
00:58:05
Speaker
for paid subscribers. We also have a detailed injury report that we'll be updating regularly. We have a tactical, kind of like, what would you call that? A tactical recap. It's like a short, you know, like a paragraph worth of like tactical notes. Yeah. It's very handy for trying to remember how game went. Yeah, exactly. That's the overview.
00:58:28
Speaker
Yeah, and then we're gonna do an organizational jet We have an organizational depth chart in which we're gonna try to like mine down a little bit below the the first team And give people some insight into who those players are and whatnot. So we're gonna keep adding content Hopefully people find value in that but our hope is to sort of Expand our idea of independent soccer media and and hopefully you want to support that and we we appreciate it But we're always gonna keep doing some free stuff. So
00:58:59
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you too. I also want to give a big shout out to Full Pull Wines who this week basically agreed to double what they were spending on their sponsorship to basically sponsor more shows. We're also happy to have Watson's Counter sponsoring shows, so support those businesses. If you are interested in supporting us as a business, we also would love to hear from you.
00:59:26
Speaker
So that's a long way of saying, thanks for listening. I'm Jeremiah Shands, heading off for Aaron Campo and Lick It. This is No Study Yet This. Remember, you'll never get alone. Green Douglas, where were the waters cut through? Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew. Canadian Northwest to the ocean so blue. It's roll on, Columbia roll on.
00:59:54
Speaker
Roll on, Columbia, roll on Roll on, Columbia, roll on Your power is turning our darkness to dawn Roll on, Columbia, roll on We love you! Let's win another one!