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Nos Audietis, Episode 325: Moving on
65 Plays5 years ago
Well, we made it. A regular-season like none before and hopefully one we’ll never repeat is in the books. All things considered, I think this has to be considered pretty successful. The Sounders finished with their best-ever goal-difference, their best points per game since 2014 and put three players on Best XI. They’ll go into the playoffs among the favorites to go to a fourth MLS Cup final in five years. Yet it’s also been a very strange year that hasn’t felt as fulfilling as all this would suggest for obvious reasons.
Jeremiah and Aaron discuss the season as a whole, look forward to the LAFC playoff match and try to figure out an appropriate new nickname for Lumen Field.
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)
Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.
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Transcript
Full Pool Wines' Book Release
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of No Sadietes is sponsored by Full Pool Wines, a Seattle-based wine seller who recently released their first book, 36 Bottles of Wine. The ethos of the book, a highly curated look at wine categories that provide exceptional value right now, should be familiar to full pool readers. But there's loads of fresh content, and since it's not trying to sell any wine through the book, there's a bit more of a sass factor.
00:00:21
Speaker
And there's food. Lots of it. Fulpul's unique writing style is applied to recipes like leftover Thanksgiving turkey, schmaltz-a-ball soup, and pregnancy nachos. This book can be purchased through Sasquatch Books.
Podcast Introduction by Sounders Players
00:00:32
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. What? Hey, Ocean! Let's go! Jordan Morris getting in behind Florian Youngford. Jordan Morris! Scores!
00:00:50
Speaker
And how's this for a save from Steph and Fry? Here comes Roy Deers from the middle to crowd it to Seattle. What do the Tigers dream of? They take a little Tigers in. It's the Sounders and an S-Com. I feel a lot better than Bob.
00:01:18
Speaker
The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle And the hills the greenest green in Seattle Like a beautiful child growing up
00:01:35
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Nos Adietes, sponsored by Full Pool Wines. This is episode 325, and we're recording on Friday, November 20th, 2020.
Seattle Sounders' Successful Season
00:01:45
Speaker
I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me as usual is Aaron Campo and our engineer, Lickit P. Well, we made it. A regular season like none other before, and hopefully one we'll never see again, is finally in the books.
00:01:58
Speaker
All things considered, I think this has to be considered pretty successful. The centers finished with their best ever goal difference. Their best points per game since 2014 and they even put three players on best 11. They'll go into the playoffs among the favorites to go to a fourth MLS Cup final in five years. And it's also been a very strange year that hasn't felt as fulfilling as all those things would suggest for obvious reasons.
00:02:21
Speaker
So we record this episode effectively as our playoff preview, Aaron. How are you feeling about the season? How are you feeling going into the playoffs?
00:02:32
Speaker
I will, I think, until the end of time be pissed off that this team had to play this season. This team is so good. I think that a normal season with fans with a full schedule would have been so much fun. I think that they could have challenged for maybe some points records during the regular season. And I think the memory of this team would have been just
00:02:59
Speaker
So good. I think it would have been up there with the 2014 team, the last year's team without question. So it's bittersweet in that sense, but I think given the circumstances, you can't really ask for too much more out of the players.
Pandemic's Impact on the Season
00:03:16
Speaker
brutal situation to be in to have to get in the right frame of mind to play to travel to put yourself at that additional risk to understand the role you're playing in people's lives during, you know, what is a once in a lifetime nightmare of a situation for pretty much everyone on earth.
00:03:35
Speaker
So, yeah, it's hard to ask for more from a season like this. If it was not all, you know, roses and puppy dogs, I guess, like there were some rough patches of the season. The MLS's back tournament certainly did not go
00:03:50
Speaker
as well as people would have hoped. Down the stretch, you know, there were some hiccups. But overall, I mean, I think the team performed very well. I think that this has been one of the most fun teams to watch just from a purely aesthetic sample. Yeah. So yeah, it's, you know, I think that given the nightmare of what's happening just sort of in an existential sense, the sounders have been really one of the bright spots.
00:04:17
Speaker
And hopefully, you know, we've got a couple couple more weeks of that left. Yeah, you know, they they are four games away from potentially going to another MLS Cup. They open with LFC at home. Then they play the winner of Dallas, Portland at home. And then potentially they would might have to go on the road to play sport in Kansas City. And then who knows about MLS Cup?
00:04:43
Speaker
where that one would be played. But chances are that would be on the road if they were to get there just because most of the teams in the East at the top of the standings have a better record than the Sounders. But it's been, you know, I'm with you. I think this has been a really fun team. Like it's a fun collection of talent. And I think at its best, this was probably the most fun team to watch, you know, taking all the distractions aside from it.
00:05:10
Speaker
you know, Gio Paolo in the midfield completely transformed, I think, the way that this team is capable of playing. You know, when I would love to be able, like, I'm really excited about the potential of what this team could look like next year, assuming they're able to keep most of the key pieces together. But who knows what happens in the offseason? And it does feel a little bit like we wasted, in some ways, just a really, really fun team.
00:05:37
Speaker
that had all the pieces that they needed to put together. And it would be a shame. No, I think if they win Emma's Cup, I don't think that detracts from kind of the big picture idea that this was, I think you can legitimately call this team a dynasty if they're able to actually push this across the finish line and win. And I don't think that the season that they achieved it in will detract from that.
00:06:06
Speaker
Like the big picture will be kind of a footnote when people talk about this team, but it does detract from our ability to enjoy this season. And we've talked about that a lot this year. But what are some of the things that you've really liked about this team? What are some of the things that you, you know, taking the distraction aside from it, what have, what has this team been able to do that maybe some of the other teams in the past happened to?
00:06:31
Speaker
I think a lot of it is just purely aesthetic, right? So it's not as much a
Sounders' Play Style
00:06:36
Speaker
judgment on the quality of the team, but it's just a, you know, from the standpoint of what do I want to watch all else being equal? And I think that some of the past very good, very competent sounders teams have been
00:06:51
Speaker
very technocratic in their approach, I guess you could say. They're very good. They're very professional. They execute very well. They are not always the most fun to watch. I mean, that's sort of been employed as a strategy at times of the 2015 team, I think, is a great example of this. When they were at their best, they kind of fell apart. But early in the season, we were talking about how dominant they were in possession and how they just kind of smothered teams to death. And that was all true.
00:07:21
Speaker
was fun to watch from the standpoint of, wow, these teams cannot keep up with us at all, but it, you know, could kind of put you to sleep at times. This team is not like that. They are very breakneck. They play very, very fast. They are not
00:07:40
Speaker
I think the hallmark of a great team that's very fun to watch is that when you look at the statistics, when you look at the number of goals they've allowed, they're eminently competent defensively. The Sounders are up there with the best teams in the league defensively, and it never feels that way watching the games at all. It always feels like it's on the verge of falling apart, but it never really seems to. I mean, yeah, there are individual mistakes.
00:08:08
Speaker
occasional breakdowns and that's going to happen to any team but even when the Sounders are fully in control it feels like they're very close to not being and that is fun I mean that is the essence of what is fun engaging aesthetically pleasing soccer and then the counterpoint to that is they're so good in transition
00:08:27
Speaker
that at any point you feel like a goal could be 15 seconds away. They are ruthless on the counter. But they also have a way of making, I feel like we kind of talked about this last week, they have a way of making
00:08:41
Speaker
just goals that come from possession almost feel like they're happening on a counter-attack. Just because they execute so quickly when they're clicking, that goals just come from nothing a lot of the time. They play with a swagger that I think is really endearing. They have a confidence about them. They have a sort of
00:09:07
Speaker
uh i guess i mean i guess swagger is really is really sort of encapsulates it where they
00:09:14
Speaker
They know that they are having fun. They know that they're fun to watch. They know that they're eminently capable, and they know that they can grind teams into dust when things are going well. And that's just really fun to watch. The 2014 team had that to a certain extent. And I think most people would say that's been the most fun team to watch in Sanders' history. And I think that's true, and that may still even be the case. But it was so much the Oba and Doof show.
00:09:43
Speaker
And so much of what made that team fun to watch was those two just screwing around. And this team, it's more of a holistic sort of, you know, they're designed to play that way to a man. They are built to take advantage of, you know, the unique strengths of all of their different attacking players in ways that that team wasn't. That team was just two of the best players in the league going out and being two of the best players in the league and overwhelming teams. And this team
00:10:13
Speaker
it's much more top to bottom. And I find that to be more enjoyable. And I find it to be more enjoyable that they're executing in a way that is designed to happen rather than just overwhelming teams with a talent gap. I think that that's just a lot more satisfying to watch.
00:10:29
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I think back to maybe the best example of the kind of goal and the kind of play that you're talking about was maybe not surprisingly, we was back in that San Jose game when they won seven to one and they had one goal that was a 32 pass sequence.
00:10:45
Speaker
And what's remarkable about that is not just that they completed 32 passes before scoring a goal, but that the goal actually comes from almost a transition moment. Like they're passing it, they recycle it, they move it back and forth, all 11 players on the pitch, touch the ball. And then, but yet the play that they score on
00:11:04
Speaker
is this quick moment where they work a couple quick passes and they have guys running at the goal with the defense kind of on their heels. And it wasn't like it was this slow lumbering buildup where a cross got put in and someone gets a header in. It's just like this kind of transition moment. And they were capable of that. When they were at their best, it felt like they were doing that kind of thing all the time, where they would have these long pass sequences
00:11:32
Speaker
that would suddenly result in a really good scoring opportunity. And it was just the intricate passing, the inclusion of the entire team. It wasn't just a ball that gets lumped into the midfield and then they get out on a break or something.
00:11:49
Speaker
But the thing is they were capable of scoring on goals like that too. The number of times Jel Paolo picked out a ball over the top to get someone running into space was pretty remarkable. And I think that's one of the hallmarks of this team was how many players they had who were looking for those line breaking passes. And it seemed like every line of players on a team
00:12:14
Speaker
Or like every, every line on the team had players capable of doing that. You had, you had, uh, Javier Ariaga.
00:12:20
Speaker
would do that out of the back. You would have Gio Paolo doing it from kind of the defensive midfield. You would have Nico obviously doing it higher up the pitch, but then even like Jordan and Ruidias were capable of making passes like that. And when you have all these players who are looking for these line breaking passes, it just creates these fast attacking moments. And I thought that they were also much more effective in terms, like at times in the past,
00:12:51
Speaker
they would try to press and it didn't always feel like there was this systematic pressing. It was more like one or two guys that would chase down the ball in the defensive third. Now we see a little bit more of a systematic
00:13:07
Speaker
attempt to create turnovers deep in the other side of the you know deep in the in the opposition's uh side of the field and I don't know I just feel like that this team has figured out how to beat teams in lots of different ways clearly the the one challenge that they've had is when teams sit back and aren't willing to kind of play with the sounders it's been a little bit tougher for them to break teams down I don't think that that's
00:13:35
Speaker
a unique challenge to them. I mean, that's kind of the nature of teams that, you know, a lot of teams struggle to break down a set defense.
00:13:44
Speaker
But we did see them punish the White Caps, for instance, where a team that mostly sat back and the centers had no problem with the White Caps. The team they've had the most trouble with is the Timbers, and that might be who they end up facing in the conference semifinals. But is there anything about this team that worries you particularly about going up against an opponent that sits back a little bit?
00:14:12
Speaker
I think that as much as one of the hallmarks of this team has been the different ways that they can hurt you and different ways that they can score against you, I think when they do lose that credible threat of the counter attack, a lot of that goes away. And I think that that's just
00:14:30
Speaker
I mean that's that's going to be true of most teams right like teams sitting back against you taking away the counter counters are lead to a lot of good opportunities so but I think probably more than most teams. It changes the way that the sounders have to play because you can't break lines if the lines are all.
00:14:49
Speaker
six yards in front of goal. So yeah, I mean, it's concerning. I think the Sounders are capable of breaking down teams like that. But I think that when you force a team to
Defensive Concerns for Sounders
00:15:00
Speaker
so dramatically alter the way that they have to play, you create systemic problems. I think the Sounders become much more vulnerable to counter-attacks. And as good as their defense has been,
00:15:12
Speaker
When they get put into situations where they're forced to make quick decisions, that's kind of where the problems have come in. I think the Sounders defense has been extremely competent, clearly very talented collection of players, for the most part, that
00:15:31
Speaker
maybe doesn't always make the best decisions. And when they're not being forced to make a lot of decisions very quickly, that's not a huge problem. And I think that that's just a lot of that is because they've got some unexperienced players playing defensively. Some of that is just the nature of the way they play is inherently kind of risky. And so, you know, when you're pushing forward and dominating and not having any luck, you're just going to leave yourself open to counters. I think that's been the issue with the timbers. The timbers are
00:15:59
Speaker
say what you will about, you know, how enjoyable they are to watch. They're very, very good at what they do, especially against the Sounders. We've talked for a few years now about how the Timbers are just sort of a uniquely terrible matchup for the Sounders. It's been a few years now. Yeah. And so, you know, basically the entire Sabarisi era, I think we can say. Yeah, I think that that's fair. I think that's very fair to say. I think
00:16:20
Speaker
I think that Gio Savarizzi is a goofy looking dude. He's kind of just a goofy dude in general. He's basically Kurt Angle. But he's very good at what he does. And I think that Sanders fans could probably do a better job of giving him credit for that. It's funny because Caleb Porter was an insufferable prick.
00:16:42
Speaker
that nobody liked. And Sounders fans, I think, thought he was a much better coach than he actually turned out to be. I think Gail Porter has pretty firmly settled into, yeah, he's fine. He's no sucker genius. Yeah, he's not a genius. And I think Sounders fans treated him as this mythical genius for a long time.
00:17:03
Speaker
Savorise has gotten a lot more out of, I would say, a worse collection of talent relative to the league than Porter did. And I think he clearly, I don't want to say that he has dominated the Sounders or anything, but I think he's clearly figured out a way that his team can be in any game against the Sounders. I mean, I think there's an obvious talent mismatch there, and it never feels like it when the Sounders are playing the Timbers.
00:17:32
Speaker
Yeah, and I would say it's especially true on defense because I think offensively he's actually had some pretty good pieces at his disposal. But yeah, defensively, they really don't have anything like an elite defense and somehow against the Sounders.
00:17:48
Speaker
it seems like they do. And I think that's been kind of one of the ongoing frustrations is that you look at their center back duos and it's like guys who seem like you know a replacement level kind of pairing and you know they've never they haven't really had great goalkeepers and yet the Sounders consistently struggle to score against them. But
00:18:13
Speaker
Before looking ahead to the timbers, we should probably talk a little bit about LAFC, who is going
LAFC Challenges Against Sounders
00:18:20
Speaker
to be pretty short-handed in this one. As bad luck as it may have seemed for the Sounders to have players who are missing games for international duty,
00:18:33
Speaker
LAFC just got absolutely smashed when it comes to international duty on this one. And on top of that, so they were missing four players potentially. MLS had apparently had come up with this plan to get players back in time in order to participate in the playoffs by, I think the dubious assumption that if they could fly charter that, and we can get into this later,
00:19:04
Speaker
they'd come up with this plan that was gonna make it so teams could be pretty close to full strength. LAFC will not be full strength. All four of their internationals ended up testing positive for COVID, which I think speaks to why players shouldn't have been going on international duty in the first place, but also speaks to the challenges of trying to hold the playoffs during a pandemic. I don't know what to, LAFC probably is gonna come out and play the same style.
00:19:31
Speaker
such a different roster than the one that beat the Saunders 3-1 down in LA. They are going to have Carlos Vela back. It's still a dangerous team. Their midfield is as good as anyone else's, I'd say, even without these players that they'll be missing. But I don't know, what's your expectation going into this game? I think that we've played LA when they were missing guys before, and it was not easy. I think it's a good way to look at it. I mean,
00:20:00
Speaker
Normally I find the, you know, I want to beat this team at full strength. I don't want to win that. I find that to be pretty annoying. You know, it's like, you know, connect your prizes for that. No, but I, I think there's a little more to it this year just because it is so ridiculous that teams remain asked to let their players go for meaningless international games.
00:20:24
Speaker
And, you know, I have a measure of empathy for LAFC that I don't normally have for players or for teams missing players. So, you know, it's, I don't think it takes anything away from the Sounders winning if they manage to do that because Sounders had to send players off for international duty too. They'd miss Roel for a couple of games because of COVID. You know, they've lost players because of quarantine and it's, everybody has to deal with it.
00:20:53
Speaker
I think it sort of underscores how this season
00:21:00
Speaker
It's not meaningless, certainly. There's still a lot to play for. It's still important in some ways. It's more difficult than other years, but it is not the same because of this kind of shit. With that being said, I think LAFC is still going to be an extremely difficult team to beat, but I've given up trying to figure out what the sounders are going to do against LAFC. I mean, we've had games where
00:21:24
Speaker
because of players LAFC was missing or because of circumstances early in the game. You know like what was it they they lost like two players to injury like 20 minutes in and we still ended up losing down there and like uh that was like yeah I mean it's been it's been a weird every game has I mean like I know the first I want to say the first meeting the Sounders got two penalties uh they've had
00:21:49
Speaker
Um, you know, just some, some weird, they really, the only competitive game that they've played was the one in LA where the Sounders ended up losing three, one. And I think the Sounders rightfully could leave that game feeling like they had created the better chances and in some ways were the better team. And yet they lost that game three, one in all three chances.
00:22:11
Speaker
that they gave up were pretty frustrating chances. But they created plenty of their own chances. They just didn't finish any of them. And of course, the one goal they had in that game was an absolutely remarkable free kick from Nico Ledero. But it's just been, yeah, it's been a really weird matchup. In some ways, I think the Sounders match up really well with LAFC. In other ways, it's, you know, I think Ariaga is one of the players that's been key to their success against LAFC. And he's not going to be in this game.
00:22:42
Speaker
So it's, it's a hard game to predict. I think the center should feel like they're the favorites. It's at home. You know, it's, it's funny. Even there was a lot of talk at the beginning of the season about how much of an impact these, like, if like MLS has traditionally had one of the most, if not the most home field advantage in all of soccer in terms of like the comparison to home and road performances. And.
00:23:10
Speaker
And there was a lot of expectation that that would be diminished significantly this year because there's no fans, they're gonna be flying charter instead of having to sit on commercial, but then they got rid of most of the long trips, so maybe that was less of a factor. But in any case, you add it all up and
00:23:28
Speaker
And home field advantage has still been really important in MLS during the regular season. So you've got to like the center's chances, but you're crazy if you just write off LAFC. I mean, this is a team that still has a lot of really talented players, even with the talent that they're missing.
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think what we've learned is that from playing LAFC this year and last year as well, is that if they're at full strength, if they're missing guys, who knows what kind of game it's going to be. This is turning into a pretty fun rivalry. I would certainly, all things being equal and certainly not celebrating any of their players having COVID, I would certainly rather be facing them without those players. But I don't think that it's,
00:24:25
Speaker
you know, necessarily makes the Sounders huge locks. I think that the Sounders could very easily lay an egg in this game because that's just kind of the way it goes against LAFC. As much as I don't like him, Bob Bradley's pretty good at his job. He's got a lot of good players still, you know, so we'll see. I'm sure that they would love to get some measure of revenge for last season, you know, having their coronation disrupted and everything. So
00:24:51
Speaker
We'll see. I feel probably as about as optimistic as you could going into a game featuring Carlos Melo on the other team. And that's not super optimistic at home.
00:25:03
Speaker
It is funny, they definitely don't feel like a seven seed, that's for sure. I think the gap between the best in the West and certainly the number seven seed at least, if not even more, even all the way down to eight feels smaller than it ever has before.
00:25:21
Speaker
And I don't know if that's, I think you can maybe argue that the best of the best is in the East, but the West seems really deep this year, at least as far as the playoff field goes. I think that the fact that the good teams with tons of talent in the West have all been beating up on each other. Yes. And the Philadelphia Union are the best team in the league. I mean, we'll see, come playoffs, right? I don't want to take anything away from them, but I'm skeptical, obviously, about that.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's that's a fair way of putting it. All right, well, we're gonna go to break and we are going to take your questions after that. You're listening to this.
00:26:01
Speaker
Full Pool Wines are based in Seattle, owned and operated by Sanders fans, and have been sponsoring Nota Adieira since 2011. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest. Their model is simple. One, they email compelling offers.
00:26:21
Speaker
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00:26:41
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adietta. So we have some questions. It's just going to be me and Aaron doing them this week. So go ahead and you can start off, Aaron. All right. So the first one is from Daniel Bagby. Anything important to come out at the annual business meeting?
00:26:57
Speaker
You know it was an interesting thing usually the annual business meeting is not a lot of news if you've been paying attention. And I don't think that this was any exception. The big news of the day happened before the annual business meeting and they actually didn't.
00:27:14
Speaker
make a big deal out of it, I was a little surprised, but Kevin Griffey Jr. is now one of the, now, I guess there's like 17 ownerships, 17 shares of ownership shared within the Sounders. Ken Griffey Jr., which is a cool name to add to the roster, but I don't know that we have,
00:27:37
Speaker
I don't know that we can expect much from that other than maybe he'll make a few more appearances. I guess his wife has pretty deep ties to Seattle and is a big soccer fan. And you may remember that that Griffey did the
00:27:52
Speaker
did the scarves up Seattle at MLS cup, which my suspicion is that he was already kind of like on in the process of joining the ownership group at that point. I was able to confirm that his ownership stake did not what's the term devalue. That's not the right word, but it came out of Joe Roth's original stake and not from the existing stake. So no one has less percentage than they did before.
00:28:21
Speaker
But other than that, the other kind of interesting thing I thought from the from the annual business meeting was Adrian Hanauer not like I thought this was the most the most positive he has ever spoken about like he's always liked the idea I think of having a fan ownership.
00:28:41
Speaker
But he spoke pretty highly of the potential of that actually happening. He seems to think that rules are changing in MLS that might eventually allow fans to have an ownership stake. Now, what that actually means, very much open to question. We obviously experimented with this at S2.
00:29:04
Speaker
Theoretically, I guess there's still a fan ownership component of the Defiance. We have not heard almost anything about this, which I think speaks to really the failure of that project. I don't know if it's on the sounders or if fans need to take ownership of that, that we just haven't been as active as we could have been.
00:29:26
Speaker
But it's been a mess one way or the other. And I would think that the sounders have learned from that. And so whatever shortcomings there were from that, I'd like to think would get fixed if there was a fan ownership component. I don't have very high expectations of fans having a larger voice in the team than they had before. I would think it's going to be mostly ceremonial.
00:29:48
Speaker
But it's a thing people would probably be into, I guess. So that's kind of fun. I don't know. Did you have it? Did you pay attention to the ABM this year? Not beyond just kind of catching the highlights. I think on the fan ownership thing that
00:30:03
Speaker
There's the concept of fan ownership that exists in Germany and sort of a lot of countries in central Europe. And then there's the kind of fan ownership that exists with like the Green Bay Packers or Manchester United or what have you.
00:30:19
Speaker
would expect that it's going to be much closer to the latter. I don't, you know, I would love this idea of like a truly, you know, the fans on 51% of the team and they get to say who's on the board and blah, blah, blah. That sounds great. I'm just really skeptical that that's going to happen. And it doesn't seem to really work with the, with like kind of the way MLS is running. Yeah, I think that that's true. And I think too, like,
00:30:45
Speaker
All this stuff that's cool in sports is stuff that existed before sports were a huge business. Any league, any structure that has been put in place since that time is just not going to allow that kind of cool stuff to happen for the most part because it's a huge business. There's a lot of money to be made and people are going to make a lot of money instead of
00:31:12
Speaker
you know, allowing fans to have a lot of say in the team. That's just kind of the way it is. I can't hear you. Sorry about that.
00:31:36
Speaker
So this one is from Michael Leaper. I apologize in advance if I butchered your name, but what do you want to see? Shane O'Neill or Roman Torres to start against LA? I think long time listeners of the show could probably guess what I have to say here. I would much rather see Roman.
00:31:55
Speaker
I mean, we haven't seen a lot of him really since he got back. So it's possible that he just fell off a cliff in Miami. And that's why he didn't really work out there and hasn't seen a ton of time. He might not be fully fit. But I mean, if he's anything like he was towards the end of last year, I think that that's a pretty clear decision. But I would expect to see Shane O'Neill just because I think
00:32:19
Speaker
A, there's a very good chance that there is something we just don't really have this ability to with Ramon's condition or fitness or whatever. But B, I feel like coaches in general can be expected to stick with what they've stuck with for the most part when you get to this time of the year. And I don't really see any reason to think that Brian Schmetzer is going to be any different in that respect.
00:32:44
Speaker
I'm not as down on Shane O'Neill as you are, but I definitely, like his last game was a pretty bad performance. And, you know, I understand the doubts for sure. I don't know why Roman Torres hasn't gotten more minutes. It might just be that,
00:33:11
Speaker
that Brian really has a higher opinion of Shane O'Neill than either of us. I mean, he clearly has a higher opinion of Shane O'Neill than us. And it could just be he's made that assessment. But yeah, I'm with you. I expect to see Shane. I think I would probably be using Torres at this point, giving him his first start of the year in the playoff game would be
00:33:33
Speaker
unlikely I suppose there's a chance that the centers start Gustav Svensson there but he hasn't played center back at all this year like literally I don't think even as late in the game I don't think he's moved to center back if he has I'm not remembering it but yeah it feels like Shane O'Neill is gonna be the guy.
00:33:53
Speaker
So the next one's from Bill Jones TRPT. What is the official new nickname for our stadium now? I've heard one decent suggestion, but hoping to hear better. It has the last 13 years. Yeah, you know, it's funny. We wrote a story very similar to this when it went from
00:34:11
Speaker
Century Link, or from Quest to Century Link. And I, at the time, had thought that Quest might actually stick, if only because it was easy and it was kind of inoffensive. That clearly was not how it went down. I don't think anyone has called it. People probably have forgotten that it was ever called Quest. It ended up being a very forgettable name, even though it was the first name of the stadium when the sounders moved into it.
00:34:39
Speaker
Lumen Field doesn't sound awful to me.
00:34:43
Speaker
I assume we will call it something else. I got into a kind of playful argument on Twitter with Jackson Felts of Sanders Weekly. He was kind of saying that it will be called the Lou whether we like it or not, and there's nothing we can do about it. I disagree. I think we can do something about it. We don't have to choose to call it the Lou. I think the Lou is a pretty lame name, frankly.
00:35:10
Speaker
And it's not just because it's the name of a toilet in British talk, but because it's the derivative of St. Louis, which is not currently the home of the Rams, but it's also like, I think that's relevant that it's taking a nickname of a former rival's hometown. I think also that St. Louis is probably like in civic terms,
00:35:35
Speaker
the opposite of Seattle. Yeah. Like it's like it could not be a more of a different city and many ways pretty much everywhere. Yeah.
00:35:45
Speaker
Um, we won't get into those, but I, you know, I, yeah, I agree. Um, I think the assertion that most people don't know that Lou means toilet is no offense to Jackson who I love, but it's a frankly bizarre. I think that pretty much everyone has seen Austin powers. Um, yeah, that was a layered take. So I, yeah, I, I think that fans of other teams will call it the Lou. Yes. Yes. But I, you know, I, I think.
00:36:13
Speaker
that I will call it the stadium. I'm going to the stadium. When I go to a game, I don't tell my wife, okay, hon, I'm leaving to go to Century Link Field. I say, oh, I'm heading to the game or I'm heading downtown. They will call it Loom & Field on the broadcasts. That's fine. I just
00:36:34
Speaker
I don't know, man. Corporate name stadiums suck. They're here to stay. It's pointless to care about, really, but I'm not going to try to give Lumen technologies whatever the hell that is, any free advertising or whatever by coming up with something to call it.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, I'll say, I agree with all that. I'll add that the one thing I like about Lumenfield is that it does lend itself to some fun nicknames, I think. Just anything around light, I think, is fun. You know, Likit, I saw
00:37:12
Speaker
suggested just calling it the light, which I think is, which would be fine. The Lighthouse is a good one, and I think it has a lot of fun connotations. I was jokingly saying we could call it the Stadium of Light, which is obviously the name of of Sunderland Stadium, but there's a lot of fun to have there. I think that ultimately it's going to end up being an organic thing. You know, I think enough people called CenturyLink Clink that it kind of has some like
00:37:43
Speaker
clearly people started to call it something. And I think there's like a relevant discussion to be had about it. I thought it was kind of a fun, it was a fun shitpost to put together and people came up with a lot of ideas. I mean, I think ECS is gonna continue to call it Royal Brown Park for better or for worse. I don't have a problem with that. I saw someone say, I'm gonna still call it CenturyLink Field, which I thought was,
00:38:08
Speaker
an interesting line in the sand. I'm going to call it the third corporate name, but to each their own. Yeah, people can call it whatever they want to, but as long as it's not the loop, we're not doing that. We're not going to get on that train, that's for sure. This one's from muffin top model. He says, how are the Schmetz contract conversations going?
00:38:37
Speaker
who's interviewing for what and what are the chances we keep this together? So you're obviously going to have a lot more insight into the specifics of this question, I would say, but I'll just say, I think the odds that we're going to be able to keep Gonzalo Pineda as an assistant coach, if he's getting real concrete offers to be a head coach are very slim, I guess. And I don't think,
00:39:06
Speaker
I would love to have Gonzo here, but I think it's the
Optimism for Brian Schmetzer's Return
00:39:10
Speaker
same with letting players leave when they want to leave, because you never know when they might want to come back, and you just want to be seen as a destination that's going to treat people right. Gonzo has contributed a ton to this team's success. I think he's a huge part of the center's tactical success. I think that he clearly seems to have an eye for how to set the team up.
00:39:30
Speaker
And, you know, if he's getting an opportunity to take the next step in his career and the sounders are in a position where they can offer him the same opportunity. It's going to be best for everyone to let him go maybe not in the short term for the sounders but
00:39:43
Speaker
in the long term, I think for sure. And it certainly seems like he's probably going to get an offer. You know, I know when Schmetz was Sigi's top assistant, it seemed like he was interviewing for other jobs pretty regularly, but I don't know that he ever got concrete offers. I think Gonza was pretty widely regarded as a rising star and somebody that, you know, could be with a team and part of their identity for a very long time. So I think it's going to be tough to keep him. But if he's still in the league, when Schmetz is ready to hang him up, you know, I think that that's a
00:40:14
Speaker
that door is probably gonna be open if we allow it to go and pursue the next thing, so. And I think my suspicion is that Brian Schmidtzer will be back next year. I think it's gonna end up being sort of much ado about nothing. And I think to the degree that there's been real questions, I think he has been probably trying to get as good of a deal for his assistance as possible. But I think you have to keep in mind,
00:40:42
Speaker
The number of coaches who turn down head coaching, like, assistants just don't turn down head coaching opportunities. That's just not usually how it goes. And whether it's Jimmy, whether it's Gonzo, whether it's Preckie, you know, whoever it is, if someone comes to them and offers them a full, you know, a head coaching gig,
00:41:02
Speaker
They're probably going to take it just because there's not a lot of those opportunities and you never know when you're going to get one again. And so I don't know how much the Sounders can really do or whether they should even be trying to stand in the way of stopping that from happening. And I think you can maybe argue that DC United, which is the team that is most closely tied to
00:41:25
Speaker
Pineda in terms of he's apparently a finalist for that job along with Ezra Hendrickson is another one and Chris Armist from the Red Bulls is supposedly the other finalist for that job. And I think you can argue that Pineda is the best candidate. I think if he gets offered, he'll probably take it. I suppose you can argue that that's not the best place for him personally, like he might want to hold out for a better gig, but I don't think that's how
00:41:50
Speaker
I just don't think that's how most coaches think, like they don't look for the perfect opportunity, especially when they're looking for their first job. And he's maybe already turned down some jobs like at Pumas and potentially other places. So I don't know. I wish him the best if that's what he does. I won't be surprised. And like you said,
00:42:11
Speaker
I think the best thing the Sounders can do is put themselves in a position where when Schmetzer inevitably leaves, whenever that is, that someone like Pineda would want to come back. Because I think he is, in a lot of ways, the ideal replacement for Schmetzer whenever the time is right.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah. And like maybe not to not to talk, you know, keep talking about this too long, but I think maybe there's a chance where they work out some sort of Jalen O'Conan O'Brien thing where Schmetzer is like, I want to come back for two more years. I want to see out the core of this team. Right. And then I'm going to hang it up and the job is yours. But I just, that doesn't like Schmetzer does not seem interested in retiring into years. I mean, I don't get that vibe. So I don't either. And, and I wrote about this earlier, but.
00:42:57
Speaker
You know, he's at an age where he's not old, like he's not at retirement. He's not, he's like 50, 15. He's in his fifties. He's in his mid to late fifties. I can't remember exactly all these, but that's like, he's old in a sense, but he's not.
00:43:13
Speaker
Bruce Arena, he's not as old as even Ziggy Schmid was. I mean, he's probably got at least four or five years, at least, of at an age where he was gonna wanna be a head coach because he's relatively young. And he's a really young in his coaching career. I mean, he's only been an MLS head coach for, this is only his fifth season. So of course, I would fully expect him to wanna stick around for quite a few more years.
00:43:41
Speaker
Unless they're offering them some sort of upstairs position, which none of the upstairs positions are as cool as that coach, unless you're like the GM, which I don't think is offering them that job. No, I don't think so either. All right, so next one is from Jay Tabiason. Is it really the rule that teams could charter players home to avoid quarantine? That the risk factor of the league is worried about is 12 hours of travel versus a week surrounded closely by other people from around the world?
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, apparently. It's very stupid. I agree. I don't, when I heard about this, it made no sense. I mean, I guess like they found some, you know, public health specialists that apparently were willing to sign off on this plan that, you know, the biggest risks factor that these players faced was on their flights home under the auspice that they were in a controlled environment when they were with their national team camps.
00:44:42
Speaker
There was numerous infections inside the National Game Camp. So I don't know how much you can really argue that those were really controlled environments. You know, I think you can vaguely argue that
00:44:56
Speaker
that Gustav Svensson was in a relatively low risk when you consider that the only infection they had was with their head coach. And it may have actually been before the players were even there. And so he never really got exposed. There were at least no known exposures. So it feels, if you fly him via charter,
00:45:20
Speaker
that's probably a relatively low risk. I think it would have been crazy to try to get Ariaga onto the team when they had an outbreak in the Ecuador national team. So clearly he was exposed. Hopefully he'd never test positive, but everything we know is that these positive tests can come up days later, if you're a week, even later.
00:45:43
Speaker
I think it's wise that Ariaga is, appears to not be eligible, but yeah, I mean, I was confused too. I didn't really find the logic in the, in the rule. Yeah. It's, it's so much of, um, there's, there's, uh, same sort of in the academic world and, and, and whatnot, and sort of in my professional life as well, that, uh, once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be
00:46:10
Speaker
good measure and I think that this is kind of the territory we're in where it's like well you know we have this window and but if they're not like going through airports and stuff like that and technically they're not in that window and and just like all common sense goes out the window that yeah I don't it doesn't make any sense at all but a lot of the things that we're doing to to try to avoid doing the right thing in this situation is
00:46:38
Speaker
would be in that category. That's very stupid. But I'm glad the sounders seem to be applying a little bit more common sense than it leads to official guidelines.
Post-Vaccination Activities
00:46:47
Speaker
Yep. So last one is from West Coast Brian. And this is kind of ending on a hopefully positive note. First thing you're going to do after you finish your vaccine injections? I think the spirit of the question is once everybody's got the vaccine and we also don't have to keep social distancing and stuff. Right. Yeah.
00:47:09
Speaker
I'm going to play pinball. It's been so long since I played pinball and I didn't really get to do it a lot last year either because I was doing chemo and going to the bar and hanging out and not being able to drink was not the most fun thing in the world.
00:47:23
Speaker
Um, I've, you know, it's something I used to do a lot and the past two years I've, I've really been able to do it at all. So that's, that's going to be very high up on the list that and, you know, going out to, going out to a restaurant or the top two things. Cause I haven't really done anything to go to the grocery store since February, late February. So. Yeah. Uh, I, I mean, I'd like to just have like a relaxed dinner with friends, frankly. Uh, you know, and I, and I guess I've.
00:47:51
Speaker
at times been able to have something vaguely like that where we had outdoor gatherings with a couple people and we were reasonably distanced. And so it's not like I've been completely cut off from friends and family. I think you've probably done a better job, frankly, of that than I have. But just being able to, I think, breathe. And I think one of the other things I'm looking at, just things like every time I have a cold or something that feels like a cold, not being,
00:48:19
Speaker
definitely afraid that I have COVID will be nice, and I guess I'm not definitely afraid of it, but I think there's just a general anxiety level that I'm looking forward to tamping down. But yeah, I think I would just want to, I don't have any big, one big activity, I think I'd
00:48:37
Speaker
You know, like maybe going vacation would be one like on a real vacation. Yeah, there were three different vacations that we were planning on this year that we've had to do because again, like not to make, you know, a sob story, but like I couldn't do any of that stuff last year because of treatment. And so, um, you know, like we're going to go to LA, we were going to go back to Charleston because that was the last place who went when I was, when I was still really sick and couldn't really enjoy it. Um, so yeah, traveling is a big one. I haven't seen my nephews and.
00:49:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of maybe I'll take my nephews to play them all. There you go. One stone, you know, so. Yeah. How old are your nephews? Eight and four. Oh, very similar age to my kids. Interesting. Yeah. Well, Isaac was born like three or four months before Emmy, I think. Okay. And Gabe. I'm not actually, I might be wrong about Gabe.
00:49:35
Speaker
I'm second guessing myself now. This is horrible. Didn't mean to put you on the spot there. No, it's fine. It's fine. I should know when my nephews are born. It's fine. I deserve this embarrassment. But yeah, so they're, you know, they're, they're, they're an age where they can actually do things and enjoy them now, which is nice. Cause like when Gabe was a baby, it was like, well, we could go do this, but he's not going to know what the hell's going on. So, so that'll be, that'll be fun. They'll be little people now. Um, and they weren't really as much less than I saw them. So.
00:50:02
Speaker
All right. Well, uh, yeah, that's, that's that. That's the show. Um, so
00:50:09
Speaker
Good note, I think, to end on. One thing that I will add is we are tentatively still planning to do Yacht-Con. I think the plan is to do it remotely. We're trying to come up with a format that will feel special still. That won't just be us talking into a Zoom camera. So stay tuned for details on that. But if everything goes to plan, we'll hopefully be doing that.
00:50:36
Speaker
around the same time that we did last year. It will be socially distanced. I don't have any illusions about being able to do an in-person event, but I think we can still hopefully do something that is interesting. So put that on your radar if you are listening to this.
00:50:54
Speaker
want to obviously give another huge shout out to full pool wines, who I guess have been doing okay during this whole time. Apparently people are still drinking wine and doing it in a kind of mail order format. It's not quite mail order, but their format apparently sets up well for the current times we're in. So I'm happy to hear that. And hopefully if you're a listener of this show, you've at least checked them out at some point.
00:51:23
Speaker
wanted to thank them for doing that. Otherwise, I'm Jeremiah Shan, signing off for Aaron Campo and Lick It. This is Noah's Adi at This. Remember, we'll never get along. Green, Douglas, where were the waters cut through? Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew. Canadian Northwest through the ocean so blue. It's roll on, philosophy roll on.
00:51:51
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!