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Episode 441: We may have underestimated the Sounders
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A few weeks ago, we were asked by a listener to project how well the Sounders would finish. We were thrilled to discover that we probably underestimated how good this team was still capable of being.
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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.
Seattle Sounders' MLS Cup Victory
00:00:20
Speaker
They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
Securing Number Two Seed and Playoffs Setup
00:01:26
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of NOS Adietta, sponsored by Full Pool Wines, Watson's Counter, and our subscribers. This is episode 441, and we're recording on Wednesday, October 25th, 2023. I am your host, Jeremiah Shan. Joining me today is my co-host, Aaron Campo, and our producer, Lickit.
00:01:42
Speaker
The Sounders put a cap on their regular season with a pretty thorough 2-0 win on the road against first place St. Louis City. The win coupled with LAFC's tie against the Whitecaps allowed the Sounders to claim the number two seed in the Western Conference to set up a best of three first round series against FC Dallas. Let's focus on the St. Louis game.
00:02:00
Speaker
The Sounders were under a bit of pressure in the first five minutes, but ended up kind of dictating the game from that point forward. By the time Albert Rusnak scored with a well-placed left-footed shot from a Christian Roldan cross, the Sounders had been in control for nearly 20 minutes. Reid Baker Whiting then forced an own goal about 10 minutes later, and the Sounders were able to sort of shut it down from there.
00:02:19
Speaker
I'd say they even had the better scoring chances the rest of the way, and they were a little unlucky not to get a third goal when Leochu beat Roman Berkey only for Tim Parker to clear the shot off the line. All in all, I think it gives the Sounders some solid momentum heading into the playoffs. But first of all, welcome back, Aaron. It's been a long time. Yes, it has, yeah. But what did you make of the St. Louis game?
Momentum and Form Ahead of Playoffs
00:02:42
Speaker
What do you make of the momentum that the Sounders seem to have going into the playoffs? I think that...
00:02:50
Speaker
momentum is one of those things where whether or not it's true is a constant, whether or not it's a real thing is like a constant. It feels true though. But it definitely feels true and I think for me,
00:03:05
Speaker
The thing that's been bothering me all season long and I think bothering everyone was, hey, we saw how good this team can be early in the season. And then they played like shit for three or four months. And now they have seemingly figured out that they can be good again. And so that's a proof of concept.
00:03:26
Speaker
It's not, you know, a guarantee that they're going to play that well going into the playoffs, but we know that they can do it again. They have recent proof that they can do it again. And, uh, you know, I think it's just a lot of it is some guys getting healthy, but I think more of it really is it's just kind of taken time to a figure out what the best combination of players is, you know, be those players to fully get used to each other.
Impact of Christian Roldan's Return
00:03:50
Speaker
I'd be lying if I said that.
00:03:52
Speaker
I remember the first part of the season and enough detail to say that this was the best performance of the year, but it was definitely much more in that caliber of performance that we saw early in the season than the rest of the season that they were in complete control of the game.
00:04:08
Speaker
in a way that they just, even when they were winning games in the middle of the season, and even when they were winning games more recently, they have not looked. And that's against the good St. Louis team. And I think if you want to be pessimistic, which I'm not judging anybody because God knows I want to be pessimistic a lot of the time.
00:04:27
Speaker
You could say, well, you know, St. Louis didn't really have anything to play for, but that was not a St. Louis team that looked like they did not want to win that game. I think that they were fully invested in that game. I think athletes, whether or not you and I believe momentum is a real thing or whoever, I think athletes definitely do. And they almost have to, to some degree. So you want to get a win going into the playoffs. I think that they probably want to do avenge, you know, the loss earlier in the year.
00:04:52
Speaker
I think they also, I think they really did want the expansion club points runner. Like I think that was a real thing for them. Uh, you know, I, I talked to the guys from flyover footy, uh, before the game and they definitely like the sense I got from them was that they were looking at this as a big game. Uh, yeah.
00:05:13
Speaker
So the idea that St. Louis just sort of packed it in and didn't really care. I mean, they go into the playoffs now having lost their last two games by a collective score of 5-0. No one wants to do that. I just think the Sounders match up well
Tactics Against Pressing Teams
00:05:30
Speaker
with St. Louis. I think that's what it really comes down to now.
00:05:33
Speaker
You know, and I think part of that is the sounders actually do, you know, maybe counter it intuitively. I don't know if that's the right way of putting it, but they don't seem super worried about the press. They handle pressing teams reasonably well. Where the sounders really struggle is in teams that are more likely to bunker.
00:05:52
Speaker
who are going to sit in a low block. And if teams want to play, the Sounders actually seem to thrive on that. And it'll be interesting, you know, we won't, we're not going to give a full preview of Dallas right now, but I do think it makes for an interesting matchup with Dallas because Dallas does, you know, some of both, you know, they play a similar style to the Sounders. They don't execute it necessarily the same, but it's based on similar principles.
00:06:21
Speaker
But one of the things I did want to talk about before we get too into this game was six weeks ago, I guess six games ago, the sounder, one of our listeners, Fat Monk Foolhead, asked us on the show what we thought to project what we thought the sounders would finish with. And so again, the sounders were on 41 points at the time.
00:06:47
Speaker
They had six games left. These were the predictions. You said they'd get to 46. Fat Monk said they'd get to 48. I said 50. No one other than, but this was, and this was a, this part came on the Discord. Reelio, the guy who does the player ratings, predicted 53 points. So congratulations, Jeff. You are the prediction, the prediction champion on this one.
00:07:15
Speaker
But I bring it up because it's, you know, I, I think we were. You, I would say we're pretty skeptical of, of what the sounders are going to do. 46 points obviously is a pretty, uh, you know, that's, that's, uh, seven points off. Yeah. What now? What now?
00:07:40
Speaker
I want to give the caveat and say that people who listen to the episode should remember that I said, I don't think that it's actually going to be this bad, but I'm going to say it.
00:07:54
Speaker
because I think I actually was closer to you and agreed with you. I just think I wanted things to be interesting. But I sure as hell did not think they were getting anywhere close to 53 points. Yeah. I mean, they won a good run. They went 3-0 and 2 in their last five games. Yeah. I mean, that actually, I think, is their best five-game stretch of the season. Yeah. I'm over the moon. I mean, I'm fully back in on this team's chances to make a run. I think that,
00:08:24
Speaker
The West is pretty wide open this year, and I think the Sounders did a lot to differentiate themselves over the last month or so from a lot of the other teams in the West. I think that getting past St. Louis, LAFC, some of the teams that are, I hesitate to call them elite, but the better teams in the West, that's still going to be difficult. But I think they're clearly, they've shown over the past month or so that they're at least capable of being better than everyone else that's left Vancouver, Dallas, et cetera.
00:08:54
Speaker
And so, I mean, I feel great. And, you know, I thought there was always a chance that they were going to improve and get better. I just wasn't super optimistic because they had been playing really bad for quite some time. I think that the main things that have changed,
00:09:11
Speaker
the lineups have changed, the players that are involved in getting minutes have changed. And those players...
Key Players: Roldan and Rusnak
00:09:17
Speaker
Christian Roldan coming back. Christian Roldan... I will say this is a pretty important caveat is Roldan had not made his first start when we made this prediction. And I think there was still a lot of
00:09:33
Speaker
of the
00:09:47
Speaker
Like I don't know that we would have, we definitely were not predicting that he was going to start the last six games of the season, which he did. And he looked, and I think every week he looked more and more like himself. The most was, I thought he just, he really did look like the last couple of games, the last three games, I thought he really did look like himself.
00:10:06
Speaker
And it's stark. We've talked about this a few times, and yes, there is a problematic aspect of this. They probably are too reliant on... Their whole game plan seems maybe overly predicated on Christian Roldan being able to do Christian Roldan things.
00:10:30
Speaker
That said, when he plays, they play like a supporter shield team that's among the best scoring and best defending teams in the entire league. You know, they are eight, one, and five in his starts.
00:10:42
Speaker
And they've scored twice as many goals when he starts than when they don't start. And they've got a slightly better defense as well. I mean, like I said, they're a legitimate, if they played at that pace all year, they would be right there in the supportership race. And so maybe it is, maybe it's not crazy to call them an MLS cup contender.
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, the fact that they are that reliant on Christian is a problem, but it's Craig Weibold's problem and Brian Schmetzer's problem to solve in the off-season. Right now, he is healthy. He is available. Exactly. He's rested. That's like the knock-on is that he comes into this game having played basically, like he's in mid-season form in terms of like what his body's gone through.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah. And I think we saw last year, I think it was a big part of the difference between the Sounders making the playoffs and ultimately not making the playoffs. And I think again, this year, it's they're clearly just a different caliber of team with him. I don't think that Christian explains everything, but he explains a lot more of it than I think someone without that, you know, day to day watching this team level of insight would really be able to
00:11:51
Speaker
Reasonably expect, you know, the term talisman is kind of a cliche, but I think it's fair to say that he is the sounders talisman. And again, I would love that to not be as much the case going forward. It would be nice to feel like if he got hurt that they have some sort of
00:12:10
Speaker
Plan, which they try I mean to their credit. They tried a lot of different right pieces there It wasn't it wasn't for lack of of creativity, you know, they they tried rosenac out there They tried to lead arrow out there. They tried I think they tried Montero out there. They they tried Jordan out there a lot. He tried Obed Vargas out there at least off the bench a few times They tried Alex out there a few times. I believe
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, Alex, they tried a lot of things and none of them, none of them really worked. I think Roostnack was probably the closest thing to like a like for like replacement in terms of some of the stuff. And, you know, I guess that brings us to another.
00:12:55
Speaker
That maybe is a good transition into talking about Roosnak, who I don't think he has been spectacular playing as the 10. But it is interesting when he started like so as it turned out, he and Lidero both started three games at the 10 when Roll Dawn was in. So we're, you know, limiting it. It's a small sample size, I realize. But if you look at just the three games he started, the Sounders scored
00:13:26
Speaker
The Sounders scored 1.45 goals when Rusnak scored, or when Rusnak started at the 10, and only one goal a game, basically when Lidero scored, or started at the 10, and these are limiting it to just the six-roll dawn starts at the end of the season.
00:13:48
Speaker
And I bring that up because, you know, Rusnak did, you know, he had a couple goals in that time. There are somewhat similar goals in that he was a late arriving runner into the box. And, you know, one of them was a, like I said, a left footed finish from the top of the box. The other one was a header, but they were, and they were both from Christian Roldan crosses.
00:14:07
Speaker
But what I think what we saw consistently is Rusnak plays the number 10 role sort of like the Sounders envision that role, which is not so much a player who needs a ball at his feet 75, 80 times a game. It's someone who, you know, can facilitate the offense to a degree, but also is making runs and is stretching the defense more with his vertical mobility, not just his horizontal mobility, which is sort of more of what Ledero's game is. Right.
00:14:36
Speaker
You know, they, they do look like I'm not going to sit here and say that Rusnak is on fire or this amazing 10, but he does seem to fit what they need better right now. And that was another thing that they figured out during this, this last six games in a system like the one that the Sounders play. You can play with a player that plays like Nico Ledero at the 10.
00:15:01
Speaker
with that player has to be at an elite level and Niko is not at an elite level anymore. And you can adjust the way you want to play to better accommodate a player like Niko, or you can play with somebody who's maybe not
00:15:16
Speaker
Like, right now, if you were to say who is objectively the better player on Niko, Odero, or Rusnak, I think you could make a case that it's maybe still Niko. I don't know that I'd buy it, but I don't think that's a crazy thing to think. But who is the better player for the Sounders in 2023 right now to play in that role? I think it's clearly Rusnak, because when Niko is playing, everything goes through Niko. Everything has to go through Niko necessarily, because his style of play forces that.
00:15:45
Speaker
Because he is everywhere all at once. He's all over the field. He's getting involved all the time.
00:15:55
Speaker
that's, he's not playing at a level where you want everything going through him. And, and I think that that's, I mean, that's just a huge difference. I think he still has a role to play on this team. I think that he, there are a lot of situations where bringing him off the bench makes a ton of sense and he can be a really dangerous or really useful player. If you need to keep the ball late in games to protect a lead, I think he's a great player to bring in. I think if you're having trouble breaking down a defense, he's a great player to bring in, but 80% of the time in an even game state,
00:16:25
Speaker
I'm not sure they have Albert right now. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I would concur with you. I think, and that's my suspicion is that Russnak is probably going to get most of the starts in the playoffs.
00:16:37
Speaker
But I don't think Lidero will get his minutes. I have no doubt about that. And he might even get a start in this series against Dallas. But for game one, my expectation is fully that Roosnak is going to get that start. And it'll be interesting to see how it goes. Weirdly, Roosnak has not started a ton of games at home at the 10. But I don't know. I think that's more of a coincidence. But one of the other big developments, again,
Josh Atencio's Role in the Lineup
00:17:06
Speaker
staying on this theme of things the sounders finally figured out, is it does look like, you know, fingers crossed that Josh Atencio has finally been given the, has sort of moved ahead in the race to be Jau Paulo's partner in central midfield. And, you know, we've talked about it a lot on the show.
00:17:28
Speaker
We've been kind of beating this drum for a long time, but it does feel like the case has finally been made and it's his job to lose. And thank God, I mean, he does, like, I think Roldan's a bigger influence. I think, you know, there's other bigger influences, but I don't, I do think Josh Atencio's ascension into a starting spot is a significant development as well.
00:17:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think it absolutely is. I think it's another case of a player who just, whether or not you think one of the other options, any of the myriad other options for that position is a quote unquote better player. I think he's the perfect player for this role and for what the team needs right now.
00:18:11
Speaker
You know, we were screaming all year for him to get his chance. And he finally did. And he really took advantage of it. I think it's, you know, he hasn't been perfect by any stretch. But it's just it's clear to me from from watching the team how much better they are when he's in that role versus Obed or they just play so much faster. And, you know, he was he just is so much more active in terms of like hunting the ball and
00:18:41
Speaker
and disrupting the other team. And he just is constantly looking to get forward and to push the ball forward. And it's just very refreshing to see, you know, like one of the great illustrations of his contributions is actually on the first goal.
00:18:58
Speaker
where he gets, I think he may have even created the turnover, but he has, one of his touches is really the pass that unlocks the entire sequence. And it's his first time pass and it's sort of, it's forward and into the middle of the field. And it's the one that is, I think right before where Morris sort of cleans out the defender and feeds rolled on.
00:19:24
Speaker
Uh, but it's, it's just a really good illustration of, no, he's not going to get a bunch of assists. He might not score a bunch of goals, but it's all these little things that he does in terms of the passes that he's picking out and the defensive plays that he's making that make him so valuable and so useful. And it does sort of free up Jal Paulo to be a little bit more of a distributor. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if you are losing some of what Nico brings in that regard, because you, you're.
00:19:54
Speaker
You have to make that trade-off to maybe facilitate the kind of system you want to play and other areas of the pitch. It's nice to have that a little further back. And I think the key word you said, the sounders play faster with the tensio in there. And I think Joao Paulo being able to...
00:20:11
Speaker
be more of a distributor, be more of a creator from deeper facilitates that verticality that we've seen that's been really effective and that sort of getting from front to back pretty quickly without just punting the ball.
Evolution of Sounders' Playstyle
00:20:23
Speaker
I'm having a lot of fun watching the Sounders play again, and it's nice. It's been a while. Yeah, it has. It has. And it's much different than the other great, I'm not going to call this a great Sounders team yet, but the great Sounders teams that we've seen under Brian Spencer,
00:20:40
Speaker
This has a different quality and so did the Sounders when they were playing well earlier this year. They're not as methodical. They're not as possession oriented. They just have a really, really, really good defense and they can go from back to front really quickly. They have players that can be effective one on one. It's a much more
00:21:01
Speaker
I feel like modern way of playing is an oversimplification, because plenty of teams still do play that technical, slow, methodical style. But it's definitely more in vogue, I think, now. It's fun to watch. And what's funny is that the book on the Sounders seems to be that this is a team, and we see it mentioned on basically every broadcast, is, oh, this is a team that likes to build up, and they connect a lot of passes. And that's true. That's what the numbers will tell you, because they spent a lot of the season
00:21:30
Speaker
playing that way. But if you watch them over, especially the last six games, I think you'll see that it's not quite, it isn't quite like they're getting a lot more transition opportunities. They're getting more numbers into the box. They are pressing the action much more than they had been.
00:21:47
Speaker
And it's not necessarily leading to mountains and mountains of goals, but, you know, given where this team was, where they were really struggling to score at all, I think they have multiple goals and in five of eight games now, which is, you know, that's real progress and they're creating chances. Again, one of the other things I really loved about that first goal with that Russ next scored was.
00:22:10
Speaker
Like Christian Roldan literally had five passing options all in the box. Yeah. And that's what you want, right? You want, because that's where it starts to get really hard to defend is when, when defenses are having to track, you know, not one, not two, but like three, four or five runners into the box. Like someone's got an open look there if you can find them. Yeah. And, uh, when you have a player like Christian Roldan, chances are you're going to find it. But, uh, you did mention the defense.
00:22:37
Speaker
It can't be overstated. The defense is the best in the league. That's what all the numbers say. They tied for the fewest goals allowed, but then you start folding in the expected goals and all these other things, and those numbers all really like the Sanders as well.
00:22:57
Speaker
Uh, you know, and Stephen Fry, a lot of that, you know, he has a lot, I feel he has a lot of shutouts where he barely had to do anything, but this was the game where he actually looked pretty good.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's had such an interesting season because he's looked pretty much the same all year to me. And the difference between the perception of how he's playing now and the perception of how he was playing back in April or May is night and day. But I think he's been really solid. He looked really good in this game. I feel super confident going into the playoffs with him as the keeper. And this defense is, I think,
00:23:34
Speaker
I think because so much of the season, the offense was so inept and so impotent and capable of scoring that I didn't fully appreciate how good this defense has been. Now that the offense is actually capable of doing a little bit again, you really appreciate it because you just, you don't have to be an offensive dynamo if you have a defense like that. A goal or two a game is plenty.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah, my suspicion is that when you're only getting one or zero goals, every single mistake the defense makes, whether it leads to a goal or not, feels like the end of the world. But when you're getting goals,
00:24:16
Speaker
you don't get so hyper focused on like every defense makes mistakes. That's the entire game of soccer is basically predicated around defenses making mistakes. Right. So it's gonna happen. But when you when they're when they're actually playing from ahead, like they have been playing from ahead so much more recently, you just don't have to be so stressed out about every little, you know, rotation,
00:24:40
Speaker
you know, were there a little slow to rotate or a shot gets taken where it wasn't necessarily from a dangerous spot, but it was open and, you know, all these kinds of things. And I do think we've been able to appreciate just how good the defense has been lately. Jackson Reagan and Jaymar are both getting a lot of national plaudits. I think that's both that's very, very well deserved. And it's been it's it has been really fun to watch.
00:25:09
Speaker
I don't really have anything to add too much about the defense, other than it has been also neat to see the emergence of Reed Baker Whiting, who I don't think has supplanted either Alex Roldan or Nuhu as a starter right now. But if he is back with the Sounders, assuming he doesn't get sold in the offseason, I would fully expect him to be contending for, you know, pushing for starters minutes next year.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, I fully understand why he's not getting starters minutes now, but
00:25:43
Speaker
It's easy for me to say, but I do feel like he would be getting starters minutes if I were the one making that decision. Yeah, I think that he's been that good. I mean, he has played, I think, in every match during this run, he's started four of them and he's barely put a foot wrong. And that's offense and defense.
00:26:07
Speaker
You know, he didn't get the goal in this one, but he did make a nice play to force the own goal. And I'll tell you, I watched that replay of it a bunch. I'm kind of convinced if that didn't get deflected off Tim Parker that he had Jordan Morris at the back post. So I'm counting that in my emotionally as an assist, which all, frankly, all you should always get an assist on an own goal. I still I don't understand that.
00:26:34
Speaker
I agree. I think that it's a clear example of if you make aggressive runs and you make smart runs and you get in the box and you put balls in dangerous areas, good things happen. It's easy to believe that every assist is the perfectly cutout pass, but a lot of the time people are just putting the ball in a good spot, and sometimes somebody's there and sometimes somebody's not. This time it was a defender.
00:27:00
Speaker
And that's more times than not. I feel like the assists are mostly just a player putting it to a spot. And because they're expecting a runner to be there, not because they know that they see a runner and they pick them out, but whatever. We don't need to get too much into that.
00:27:20
Speaker
Well, that's probably a good place to call this a segment. We're going to come back and there was some
Nico Ledero's Departure
00:27:24
Speaker
big news this week. We talked about it on Soundbites, which is the mini podcast that subscribers get access to, but I won't talk about a little bit more with you on here, but essentially Nico Ledero announced that this is going to be his last season with the Sounders. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about, you know, Stephen Fry has also alluded to his contract situation.
00:27:44
Speaker
get into that a little bit as well. And we'll do a little bit of a preview for FC Dallas. You're listening to No Study at This. Watson's calendar wants to thank everyone for their patience, but now the wait is over. Located at 6420 24th Avenue Northwest in Ballard,
00:28:02
Speaker
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00:28:24
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adiatus. Well, Aaron, I'm sure you saw this. It was a rather big piece of news over the weekend. Nico Moreno, who's a colleague of ours that writes sometimes for Sounder at Heart, got an exclusive interview with Nico Ledero. As it turned out, Nico Ledero announced after the game on Saturday on its Instagram, he basically said, this is my last season with the Sounders.
00:28:49
Speaker
Let's go win another cup. And as it turned out, Nico Moreno had talked to him on Friday and gotten a little bit more insight into that. And then on Tuesday, when the Sanders returned to training,
00:29:05
Speaker
Nico talked to the entire press corps. Craig Weibel talked, Brian Schmenzer talked, and we got a little bit more of a full picture of maybe what's going on there. But I guess I'll just start with this. What was your initial reaction to this whole thing coming out? In a way, I didn't feel like it was a huge surprise. A lot of people, Nico included, seemed to treat the Vancouver game sort of like as a farewell match. But I don't know, what was your reaction to this whole thing?
00:29:34
Speaker
It's one of those things that happens in sports that's always a huge bummer because I understand how Nico feels. I think that if you have done what he's done for this club, some clarity on what you can expect going forward is a reasonable request. I also completely understand the position of the Sounders to say, look, we're making these decisions in the off season.
00:30:00
Speaker
We were not sure what this team is going to look like and we're just waiting to make those decisions. I think that one of the things Nico said was he was willing to accept a reduced role.
00:30:16
Speaker
I think it's reasonable to say that maybe the signals he's given about having to accept a reduced role at times have been mixed mix. Yeah. And that's I mean, that is completely his prerogative. Right. Yeah. Nobody's the bad guy in the situation. I understand the desire to make someone the bad guy because it sucks. It's an unpleasant situation. I think that they're you know, they're hurt feelings. I'm sure in on Nico side. Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:44
Speaker
And that sucks, you know, it sucks. But I don't think he's being treated unfairly. You know, I think that this is just a difficult business. It's a difficult decision to make. If I were in charge of the Sounders, I don't think I'd want to commit to bringing Nico back either. Well, I think that to me, that's the big thing. And I suppose if I'm to parse what Nico was saying is that he felt like he deserved a yes or no answer. Yeah. And
00:31:11
Speaker
the sounders weren't ready to say. They definitely were. They made it very clear, both, I think, to, from what it sounds like, they made it clear to Nico, and they made it pretty clear, I thought, to the press as well, that if they are forced to give an answer, it's not yes, right? Like, they are not, they, and that's not, it's not just about money. It's about what's the role that Nico Ledero is gonna play for us next year. And I'll be honest, you know, Nico,
00:31:40
Speaker
showed a little bit of his, showed some of his cards when he was talking about how he's been frustrated with the way he's been used this year. They, you know, he was talking about how they asked me to play a different role and how, you know, they wanted him to be a more, you know, have more disciplined movement and all this kind of stuff and he's like, well, that's not my game.
00:31:56
Speaker
My game is running around all over the field and finding the ball and doing these special things. And to his defense, he's clearly got the engine for it still. He's had one of his healthiest seasons ever. And his movement is there, but what he doesn't seem to have is that little extra sharpness that makes all that movement worthwhile.
00:32:18
Speaker
Like it's not enough just to be able to run all over the field. You got to do something with it. And that's the part where he just isn't, he isn't as good at that anymore. You know, I looked it up for the story, but he's only got two goals from open play, meaning not penalties and not free kicks in his last 59 games.
00:32:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's a lot. He's got or no, he's got four goals from open play. I'm sorry. He's got and then he of his, you know, he's got 10 assists. There's been a lot, you know, there's, you know, he got 10 assists this year. That's great. Five of those are secondary assists. I don't want to totally discount those, but they are not, you know, traditional. So that's not a traditional soccer assist. But even of the other five assists, three of them are off free kicks. Yeah. So I bring this all up as
00:33:07
Speaker
He's just not as effective from open play. He's not, he's not effective enough. It's not even that he's not as effective. It's like, you can't have your number 10, not scoring and only, you know, rarely assisting from open play. That's just not a functional offense.
00:33:23
Speaker
especially when your number 10 is as involved in everything as he is. And that's the thing, right? Like with as much as he touches the ball, you would expect him to have way more secondary assists. And I just, I think that athletes coming to terms with their own
00:33:41
Speaker
Mortality, I guess in a career sense, right? Yeah, sporting mortality, athletic mortality, athletic mortality. That's, that's nothing new. It's difficult for, for a lot of players. I think a lot of the time what happens, what happens is they move on and realize that maybe there was something to what, what my old club was saying. Right. Go ahead. I was going to say, I think it's, it's possible that he goes someplace next year.
00:34:11
Speaker
And he thrives. And good for him. And I suppose there is a scenario, I think, that he ends up in Seattle, even though he said the doors closed. A player has never gone until they've signed that new contract. There's always a chance. Who knows, when he goes into the open market, maybe he's not seeing what he wants to see.
00:34:34
Speaker
But like there's plenty of teams that could use an equal Adero and he probably would. And frankly, I think this is the other thing is that I think it's a little easier to say, I'll take any role in any amount of money when you've already decided you're not coming back. Yeah.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I guarantee he's not opening the negotiations with, uh, I just want to be here. Right. I just want to know you want me. Right. And even though if that's what, and look, I, I can understand the emotional part of it. I get like, it sucks to like have Nico Ledero standing up there and saying like, I don't want to, this is my last year here. Like it doesn't feel good. Yeah. And it doesn't, you know, in, in his, from his perspective, I fully understand. And I also, I don't even blame him.
00:35:20
Speaker
for coming out and making it public. I, I don't think that Brian Schmetzer wanted that, but I do think there is some truth to what Brian said, which is it does lift a cloud, you know, it sort of removes the cloud. We don't have to talk about this anymore. It's now out in the open. It is what it is. He's, you know, we know that he was saying this stuff to his teammates and now it can just be, you know, focus on having us great run. And if you go on a great run, maybe something changes, but
00:35:50
Speaker
It doesn't have to, and we can just sort of do this. Yeah, I think it's, it's always going to be sad to some degree when a player leaves with a player as important to the club as Nico has been leaves. And you always want it to be this very emotional, but mutual love fest. And that just doesn't happen that often.
00:36:13
Speaker
You know very rarely unless a player is retiring or you know something like that's the thing like how many players like we always talk about wouldn't it be great if this player's last game was The championship game and like how many times does that really happen? Like it it just doesn't it's you know, yeah, it's not often. Yeah Players always think they got a year left in them
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes they do, you know, and they go nicely. Do Nico could go to a team that's more suited to his skill set and thrive. Like you said, he could go to a league that's that's maybe a step below MLS and thrive or he could not, you know, we'll see. But I think this sucks now and feels unpleasant now. But I think if you look back at.
00:36:57
Speaker
You know, Steve Zaccuani got traded to the Timbers. Brad Evans asked for a trade to Sporting KC, or signed with Sporting KC, and said some not super complimentary things after leaving. Right. Ozzie Alonzo was pretty upset when he left. And you know, these things just kind of time heals all wounds. Things have been more acrimonious than this, I think, in the past.
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah, this is not only with other clubs and things tend to get sorted out. Yeah, I would like to think I mean my on newest genuine hope is that the centers figure out a way for their 50th anniversary to include Nico and some of the festivities. It would be real shame to me. He is legit. He is the most important player that's ever played for the centers. Yeah.
00:37:45
Speaker
You look at the Sounders record of achievements before he got here and after he got here. And yes, they won four open cups and they won the supporter shield. Those are great achievements, but they were kind of known as a team that couldn't quite get it done in MLS.
00:38:03
Speaker
And that just changed effectively overnight. You know, they won more. This is a funny stat. They won more playoff series or more playoff rounds in his first season here, or they won the same number of playoff rounds his first season here than they had won in the entire seven years before he got here. You know, he walked, you know, this is the.
00:38:25
Speaker
He comes into this postseason, the Sounders have won 13 rounds of playoffs with him here. That's a lot of successful playoff soccer, and he's a huge reason why he has eight goals, 10 assists in that time. He's been very good in Champions League. He obviously was a huge part of them winning Champions League last year.
00:38:44
Speaker
You know, there's nothing he's done everything and more you could have ever imagined or ever hoped for when he, when he came here. But I think for the sounder's sake, they need to be able to move on next year. Like whether or not he was here, they needed to be able to have a different focus. Yes. He cannot be the guy that a championship caliber club has built around anymore. And I think it's sometimes it's easier for a player who has been the cornerstone of a team to accept that reduced role somewhere else, where there's not all that baggage.
00:39:13
Speaker
Whether that's somewhere else in MLS, God I hope not, but so be it. Yeah, I'm definitely girding myself for that one. Yeah, it will be painful. Hopefully it'll be somewhere in the Eastern Conference or potentially somewhere in South America. That would feel better to me.
00:39:30
Speaker
I love Nico and always will, and I hope he goes on to have great success wherever he ends up next. But I can't blame the Sounders for their position on this. I just can't. I think most people have probably... Well, maybe not most, but a lot of people who have been fortunate enough to do so have been in a situation where they put down an ultimatum to their employer of like, this is what I need. And if you can't give it to me, I'm going somewhere else.
00:40:00
Speaker
But your fake email job is not the same. There's not the same emotional investment and not the same. So it's a lot like that, but there's all of this emotional weight in it that makes it much more difficult. But I think at its core, it's a pretty relatable problem and position that he goes in and also that the sounders are in sometimes just, you know, the fit's not there anymore.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yeah.
Future Plans Without Ledero
00:40:25
Speaker
Uh, and yet I say all that I am really like Stephen Fry isn't effectively the same contract situation. He sort of he sort of I wouldn't even say alluded to it. He
00:40:37
Speaker
talked about it during the post game, the last game, and basically said, I feel like I've done everything I can to show that I both want to be here and I deserve to be here. And I kind of agree with him. Like, I don't know what the number he's looking for next year is. But I can't imagine it's a unfeasible number. And
00:40:57
Speaker
I don't think they need to trim down their first team goalkeeping roster. But if it's up to me, I want to see Steph Fry, Andrew Thomas, and Jacob Castro next year. And I want to see Castro and Thomas competing for that backup spot and maybe getting some spot starts every now and then. But I still feel like Fry is
00:41:20
Speaker
You know, he's got a few, I mean, he's, he's a goalkeeper. So their careers tend to be longer, but he's not showing any signs of, of like wear and tear. Uh, you know, he's, he's been remark, you know, he's been, I guess he wasn't healthy all year this year, but he's, he looks good. He he's making the saves. You expect him. He's not a perfect goalkeeper, but it's tough. Like you don't find the perfect goalkeeper on that. That's not like, I don't know. It seems like it's one of the tougher.
00:41:51
Speaker
Tougher spots to fill, and you are really sort of taking a big gamble if you bring in a player who's not as proven. Yeah, I think too that in Nico's case, you can functionally replace it. I mean, theoretically, you can replace him with any player in the world, right? He's a designated player, you can pay a transfer fee, you can go out and get the perfect guy.
00:42:17
Speaker
And you can't really do that with a goalkeeper unless you're going to use a DP spot on a goalkeeper, which I do not think the sounders are going to do. So you have to ask yourself, how much better really can we do at this position? Yes, exactly. I think very conservatively Steph is a top 10 in MLS goalkeeper. Yes, very conservatively. Very conservatively, right? I think he's probably top five. That would be what I'd say, yeah.
00:42:42
Speaker
I can't imagine that he's asking for the moon. I think he's probably asking for what he's worth on the market because he would definitely be a free agent. Yes, for sure. But I doubt that the number he's going to be asking for is that far out of stuff with what he's making now. I can't imagine he's asking for five guaranteed years. Right, exactly. He's on 650 now.
00:43:06
Speaker
I'm sure he's, he's looking for at least two guaranteed years. If that's, if he's asking for 650, if he's asking to not take a pay cut and you're like going to nickel and dime him to say, Oh no, we want you on 500 and we only want to give you one guaranteed year. Like, yeah, he should walk, but I should walk. Like if I was him, I would walk if that was what the offer was. And I would be pissed about it if that happened. Right. And that's the thing is that it's like,
00:43:33
Speaker
This is not an amount of money that you should get nickel. You should not be nickel and diet. It's like, look, if it's 650 or if it's 500, it's not that that's not an irrelevant amount of money, but it's definitely not an amount of money to get like, right. Dig your heels in. And I don't know. I don't know that these are the numbers they're talking about. I'm just saying that I hope they figure this out because it is.
00:43:56
Speaker
It's not necessarily about money with Nico Ledero. It's more about, does he fit with what you're trying to do? And you cannot tell me that Steph Fry does not fit with what you're trying to do. Yeah, absolutely. I think too that you can make a case for moving on from Steph. Yeah, sure, totally. But the case is also we are tearing this thing down and we are going fully in on a new era of the team.
00:44:24
Speaker
And that's just not the way the Sounders have ever done anything. And I don't think that they're like, I guess you could say they have all this. They do have a lot of flexibility going into this off season. Yeah. But yeah, like you said, like, unless you're really like just.
00:44:40
Speaker
Like this is a full blown rebuild project. Right. Which they don't have, it would be like an, like they have, they have too many good players under contract. Like the players they have under contract are still forming the core of a very good roster. So most of their starters are still under contract for next year.
00:44:58
Speaker
I don't know why you would undergo more of a rebuild than you need to go under because they still can be very competitive next year, especially if they get some of these big signings right. I mean, that's the thing.
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's I guess that's I don't know. That's what that's what we have to say. Is there anything else we need to get into on this? Yeah, I mean, we didn't talk about F.C. Dallas, but yes, we do have. Yeah, we have a whole preview show of F.C. Dallas. We don't need to talk about F.C. You have anything you want to say about F.C. Dallas? I'm not scared of F.C. Dallas. You know, I think I said after the St. Louis game that I think I feel really good about the Sounders going into the playoffs. They could also shift to bed in the first round. Totally possible. Right. But I feel as confident as I
00:45:42
Speaker
you know, have felt in a while, you know, about about the team's chances in these upcoming games. The playoffs are a different animal, but they just I think F.C. Dallas is a pretty mediocre MLS team. I don't definitely haven't done anything to they have the same. They have a nine game unbeaten streak and but they have only two wins. One of those where it was in the season finale.
00:46:06
Speaker
which I guess is not so different than what the Sounders have been doing, but they had a much softer schedule. They, I know that they, you know, they've had a much, they've had an even harder time scoring recently than the Sounders had. Right. They did put four past LA in the last game, but I mean. They did. They did put four past LA. That LA, not good LA.
00:46:27
Speaker
Well, an L.A. team that had really fully checked out at that point. Yeah. And also gave up 67. Jesus Christ. 67 goals. That is a lot of goals to give up. That is almost to a game. That's pretty bad. Yeah, that's that's hard to win an MLS when you're giving up that many goals. And yeah, and they had a hard time winning. Yeah.
00:46:47
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, it was interesting. I talked to John Arnold to preview this. He runs the getting CONCACAF newsletter as well as he also is one of the commentators on the FC Dallas radio team. And he said kind of the same thing, which was like, we're reasonably confident. We feel like we match up okay with the Sounders. And I don't think that's displaced.
00:47:11
Speaker
But I don't know, I see the way the Sounders played those two games that they played Dallas. And even though they were both ties, the Sounders were the better team in both of them. Yeah. And I this to me feels like a series that Sounders absolutely should win. Right. I think that if they don't, it'll be hugely disappointing. I would not be shocked if.
00:47:36
Speaker
people have not changed their opinions about the sounders too much over the last month or so. And I don't blame anybody for that. I mean, it's impossible to watch all the games, right? But I think that if you watch the sounders closely, you know, as closely as we do, you can tell that they're playing a much different, they're just better. They're just a lot better than they were.
00:47:58
Speaker
Yep, yep, that's probably a good place to call it. Well, thank you to our sponsors football wines, Watson's counter. We are going to be doing a a viewing party with Watson's counter. But if you're not on the discord, you might not be able to
00:48:19
Speaker
get into it. It's a pretty small space. But we'll have if you're on the discord, definitely go look for that. And it'll be a little get together that we're going to do for the the away leg for FC Dallas. But otherwise, thank you to our sponsors for making our our subscribers. We had a absolutely bonkers weekend after everyone wanted to read Nico Moreno story and
00:48:42
Speaker
That was really, really encouraging. We are trending very positively going into the offseason here. So thank you to everyone who has been showing their support and making this all possible. It's been a lot of fun. It's been, you know, I'm looking forward to coming up with some new,
00:49:01
Speaker
new ways to show, subscribe, to add value to the subscriptions. So, uh, anyway, signing off for Aaron Campo and Lickit, I'm Jeremiah O'Shan. This is No Saudi Yetis. Remember, you won't never get a loan.
00:50:11
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!