Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 387: Preview of Sounders-Real Salt Lake
68 Plays2 years ago
Matt Montgomery of Wasatch Soccer Sentinel joined us to share his thoughts on Real Salt Lake, to explain why they call pop 'soda' and to talk badly about Pablo Mastroeni's tactics.
Sponsors
If you'd like to become a subscriber to our Substack, that can be found here.
Recommended
Transcript
Sponsor Spotlight: Full Pull Wines
00:00:00
Speaker
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 sounder supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction of Sounders Players
00:00:21
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to... There's no study at this. Here we go. Come on! Hey, Ocean! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS co-pointers! Here comes Ray D'Ace from the middle to crowd it! The vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations.
00:01:04
Speaker
Seattle Sounders, the greatest MLS team in history. This is a tiny f***ing doll.
00:01:34
Speaker
Is
Game Preview with Matt Montgomery
00:01:37
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of NOS Adiates. I am Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me today to help preview this weekend's game against Real Assault Lake is one of our favorite guests on the show, Matt Montgomery of Wasatch Soccer. How are things going in the brave new world of independent journalism?
00:01:42
Speaker
that why you young people call twerking?
00:01:57
Speaker
Um, they're, they're good. I, I've got to say, I really appreciate that you say the name of the podcast when you introduced me. Yeah. Uh, because I always forget how to say it and I look at it and I'm like, no, I would something and then I get a little lazy and I, I don't know. No, things are good over here. Uh, Ray off felt like it's not that good, but I am doing well. We're protecting a baby and I'm, you know, that's kind of ruling my life, I guess.
00:02:26
Speaker
Well, those are actually that's the my preferred situation for you is that you are personally doing well and RSL is not doing as well.
Challenges at Real Salt Lake Stadium
00:02:37
Speaker
But that's never seems to matter. It never seems to matter when the sounders go to
00:02:42
Speaker
What are we calling it? America First Field? I call it Rialso Lake Stadium. Rialso Lake Stadium. I like that better. It doesn't seem to matter what the form of these teams are. It's just always misery for the Sounders. You know, it's funny, I was thinking about how almost always when the Sounders go down there, it's always
00:03:04
Speaker
They're in some weird fixture congestion and I was thinking, oh, this will be straightforward. But then I forgot they were playing an open cup game yesterday. So of course it's not, it's never straightforward.
Real Salt Lake's Tactical Struggles
00:03:15
Speaker
No, of course not. How did the open cup go for you? You guys, you won your open cup game. Yeah, we won. We didn't score a goal until the like hundred sixth minute or so. Oh, that's the best time to score.
00:03:28
Speaker
But we did win 3-1, so that ending 15 minutes against one of the worst teams in the U.S.L. Fantastic. Yeah, probably that's around. But things have gone a little better in the MLS play recently. It was getting pretty dire there.
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we are slightly back from the cliff. We only lost four games in a row and not five, which was good. But we played Charlotte to break out of that, and is Charlotte any good? I don't think so. They didn't look particularly good. And RSL has a little bit of a problem of...
00:04:12
Speaker
not really having a tactical identity of note. Right. You know, it's exhausting. It really is. Well, what has gotten better, I guess? Because after the St. Louis, after the loss of St. Louis, it felt like maybe the wheels were going to be coming flying off. So I don't know if it's like players are more united and
00:04:42
Speaker
happier as people, problem has to rain. I mean, his whole philosophy is you have to support the individual and tactical doesn't matter. And he says things like tactics don't matter. And then, but he's clearly putting out teams to play in certain ways. So I don't think that's a literal statement from him, but I don't think- He doesn't want to talk tactics with you, Matt.
00:05:09
Speaker
Well, I mean, I never talked to him. Too much work. Well, to the reporters, he doesn't think the the people does. He doesn't want to put out a lineup graphic that has the actual line. So I don't think that was master any. So I saw three coaches of four coaches. I saw it started Pat Key.
00:05:30
Speaker
And people said, oh, Mike Petke doesn't want the graphic. And then it was, oh, it wasn't Petke, it was Laura Harvey at Utah Royals. And then it was, oh, it wasn't Laura Harvey, it's Freddie Juarez now. And then it was Master Rainey. And our director of soccer or VP of soccer operations left and suddenly started getting graphics again. So I think I know what happened there, but that's disappointing.
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So you're telling me that the lineup graphics, I'm out of date. You're telling me that your lineup graphics have actual formations now? Yeah. Yeah. They look good now. Oh, good. Well, I'm happy to hear that. Yeah, me too. I feel like that was... I feel like you guys were like the... For some reason, the market that first was being highlighted is why are you not doing this? It felt like it was maybe a Salt Lake person. Maybe it was someone from your site that was making a big deal out of it. Yeah, probably. We certainly weren't happy about it.
00:06:24
Speaker
Right. Well, all that said, things at RSL are as unpredictable as ever, it sounds like. Who is playing well? Who has helped this mild turnaround happen? Yeah. I mean, you can't look any further than Jefferson Savarino before you start to see a true sign there. And I think it's obvious to us in Salt Lake at least that he's a top one or two player on this team.
00:06:52
Speaker
And that's fine. That is what it is.
Key Players: Savarino & Gomez
00:06:55
Speaker
And I love him. And he scores fantastic goals when he's in good form. He does not make a team on his own. We're also starting to see Andres Gomez come into his own. He's an under-22 signing, came from Colombia, and is doing really well. But it's very early days. And when I say he's doing really well, he had good performances against San Jose and Charlotte.
00:07:23
Speaker
Does that mean a lot? I don't know. Paolo Ruiz is a player that sometimes looks good, sometimes looks kind of miserable. Jasper Lepelson, the same thing. He's a 25-year-old, second-year, out-of-college guy. And I think we're seeing that. And then we're seeing, you know, like...
00:07:43
Speaker
I'm kind of veering off topic here. I don't know if you expected that from me or not, but we have you on. Okay. Um, and then we're seeing, you know, like a backup right back, uh, in a Mecca and Nellie, who is also out of college, also like 23, 24. Uh, and was a forward in college, but is now just sort of slotting in as our backup right back.
00:08:07
Speaker
And all of this combines for a very confusing team. And it's hard to pinpoint what's going well and what's going poorly, because I don't think it's all individual. And there are individual mistakes we see and individual highlights we see. What are the common factors? And that's what I'm constantly trying to figure out. Like I said, it's exhausting.
00:08:31
Speaker
So one of the common factors, uh, seems to be the defense is, is, is had some, some rough outings, especially away from home, but even, even at home.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, losing 4-0 at home. There are a few things that feel worse than that as a soccer fan. 5-0 would have felt worse. 6-0, worse. Although it does start to be dulled once you get over three, I think. Like each goal...
00:09:05
Speaker
Right. Yeah. It's like you lose three zero. That's a pretty, that's a pretty solid gut punch. I don't know the four zero is that much worse than three zero. And I don't really don't know if five zero is anywhere from four zero. I think four for me is a lot worse than three because it goes from like we were outclassed to like we were completely outclassed. Yeah. Okay. No chance. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. Cause you know, a three and a loss is sort of the perfect, the perfect outcome in a game for the, for your team. Right.
00:09:34
Speaker
right anything anything more is gravy so i think that's true for the joy you experience from a victory right but i think that the pain of defeat grows even stronger okay that's fair that's a good point and less logarithmic yeah okay okay yeah but yeah so
Sounders' Midfield Advantage
00:09:52
Speaker
the defense is has been exposed a few times i guess was the
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah, you know what I think is exposing them? I honestly think that it's our midfield that's exposing our defense. And that's probably where you'll see the most joy. I know you've got one or two like reasonably good midfielders. So hopefully they're injured and don't play. That's my hope.
00:10:17
Speaker
Well, the bad news, I suppose, for you is it looks like Nico Ledero, Gio Paolo, and Albert Rusnak, a player that you, who actually, this is a good jumping off point. Yeah. How did you guys say his name? We said it Rusnak. Right. Rusnak.
00:10:34
Speaker
Right. And commentators said it any number of ways. So this is an interesting, like you may know this, but like, so I, when we, he was first introduced here, he said his name was Rusnak, right? And he's, he's said that, he's verbalized that actually a couple of times since then. But then I found, then someone sent me audio of the official pronunciation where they, the players are
00:10:59
Speaker
like they send to broadcasters and he says Rusnak. So clearly he's like, there is some like Americanizing that he's doing here. And so, but like, no one actually says it the way that he originally pronounced it. They just say Rusnak. They don't kind of have that, you know, Eastern European vibe to it. But, uh, I don't know. This is an ongoing mystery.
00:11:22
Speaker
So I've done the rounds on this one a few times, actually. And I think the, what is that, a shorter U, the real snack with the U-ish sound? Yeah, exactly. So I went to hold down this weird train. Is he from, he's from Slovenia, right? Yeah. Or Slovenia. One of those two.
00:11:43
Speaker
I I need to check that because I think it's a little Slovakia. Wait. Yeah. Oh shit. It is Slovakia and So I went down this because he's got the accent over the you right? No, I was like, okay. What does that mean in in Slavic languages and whatever they speak in Slovakia and I think what I came to and this is me trying to pull from my memory banks is that with that accented you was that a sound
00:12:13
Speaker
But it's kind of between like a rough snack and a loose, loose knock. Right. It's like the rolling, the slight roll of the R I feel like is a key element to the OO to giving you the OO sound. But yeah, you got to have that right transition moment.
00:12:27
Speaker
Right. And so then, but then you start sounding like a silly, like you're over, you're overdoing it then. If you, if you're like, you save your one pronunciation for this one player because. So there's this, this, I don't know if you've ever spent much time in Utah.
00:12:45
Speaker
I haven't. Utah's great. I love Utah for a number of reasons. I don't love Utah for every reason. That said, so there's a stereotypical 20 to 30 year old man idea.
00:13:02
Speaker
who has recently been on a religious mission to a Spanish-speaking country, coming back and saying Spanish words with excellent Spanish pronunciation and transitioning back immediately to their Utah drawl.
00:13:22
Speaker
Right and it's very funny and if you're ever in line at like a taco stand in Salt Lake City And there's a great one if any Seattle supporters are coming to this game I don't know if you know any who are but any any of you. I hope someone listen to this podcast There so in the West no North North supporters lot There's a taco truck or a cart The name of which I forgot but there's only one
00:13:50
Speaker
excellent tacos just pop class probably my my favorite in the city and it's it's their every home game it's all that it's just funny but if you and so when you order the so what you're saying is like if you stand in line at this place you're going to hear some people oh yeah asking for carne asada and then saying and a coke
00:14:12
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. Easy. And by the way, is Utah a, a, uh, what's, how do you, what do you call soda in, in Utah? Is it soda Coke? It's generally soda. Yeah. We're, we're a soda state occasionally here pop. But I think I heard that more growing up in Southern Utah. Yeah. Um, but Coke is reserved specifically for Coke brand. Right. Okay. That's a Southern thing, I guess. Right. They call everything Coke. Yeah.
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah, so this is a funny little thing I learned after moving to Washington was that it used to be a pop state, but then as Californians basically took over the state, it became a soda state. But there are still pockets of the state where they say pop, but soda is definitely sort of the mainstream pronunciation. And that
00:15:04
Speaker
And for a long time, I guess soda was almost exclusively a California term, but because of television, it sort of branched out and became the dominant word.
00:15:16
Speaker
I mean, I prefer the term soda because it's the most accurate to what it is. Well, that's of course sodium bicarbonate making the sparkling stuff. Everyone knows that. But I've got a soda stream, which uses carbon dioxide, right, to carbonate it, but it's not. They call it a soda stream, but there's no sodium bicarbonate involved. It's very confusing to me.
00:15:42
Speaker
And if anyone wants to clear this up, I don't know, yell at me on your favorite social media site. I really, I appreciate your RSL takes, Matt, but I have to take issue with you. Yeah, I want this. This is what I need. Yeah. Like, I don't care about my RSL takes either. Right. Come at me for soda. So.
00:16:10
Speaker
While we have you, I may as well ask you a few more questions. Anything going, anything interesting, notable going on with the roster for this week that we should know about?
Impact of Miram-Shunya Shiki Trade
00:16:19
Speaker
Yes, it hasn't been announced officially by the club, but of course, Tom Boger broke it. So it's as good as gold. Yes. And that's the arrival of Andre Shunya Shiki in exchange for Justin Miram. Oh, has that not been announced? It has not been announced. Oh, I don't know if that'll take effect for Saturday. I don't know if RSL is just slow at announcing things. I don't know if there's a hang up. I don't know if it fell through, but all the players were wishing Justin Miram, you know, good luck and goodbye and all that. So.
00:16:49
Speaker
I assume it's a done deal But if it as as to whether that makes an difference on Saturday, I don't know The other thing to know is in that open cup game. We did have two center backs go out injured And Justin glad came out in the 60th minute we and he's not injured But he did take a little bit of a knock in the first half. So there's like this little nagging worry for me Yeah, I don't know. We'll see
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, Justin Gladd would seemingly be a notable. Yeah, to say the least.
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, I I was telling people I've been telling people a lot this the last couple days because the Sounders as you may or may not know the Sounders rolled out a very sort of like back end roster lineup in their open cup game and and I sort of have been going back and forth with people saying like look the worst case scenario in the open cup is not that you lose the game like you lose the game the season moves on no one
00:17:51
Speaker
Like, would I like to win the open cup? Absolutely. I think it's a fun tournament. But the worst case scenario is not you lose the game. The worst case scenario is that you get your star forward suspended and you get your other star forward injured and you spend three months losing every game that happens, which is something that actually happened to the Sounders, as you as you may well know. Yeah. Was that the Clint Dempsey incident? Yes, we call the red card wedding. And I think that's actually canon now.
00:18:20
Speaker
That's it. I love that. That's beautiful. That's one of my favorite American soccer moments, by the way. Oh, it's it. Thank you. It was, you know, in hindsight, I mean, it was even at the time, I think we said we were we were willing to make the sacrifice for the good of American soccer. Thank you, because it was such a compelling story that we were able to create a narrative around. But I'll tell you, the next three months really stretched our patience for that because the Sounders went from leading the supporters shield to barely making the playoffs.
00:18:48
Speaker
uh because their season was essentially torpedoed by that uh by that incident yeah i love it i'm sorry and i love it no it's great it in hindsight it makes for an even better story uh yeah it does
00:19:03
Speaker
And it honestly, it sort of paved the way for Ziggy Schmid to be fired and for Brian Trenster to extend to the Heights of Head Coach, which you know, it's actually, it was a real transformative moment for the organization. That's very interesting. I do have the injury update if you want that. Oh, absolutely. I'm glad I was able to stall long enough for you to
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah. So no starters listed is out. Andrew Brody's been playing it right back generally, but he's questionable. Anderson Julio, excellent goal scorer when he comes on as a sub. Weird starter. He is questionable. Our new left back is questionable. So there's that. And then I would count on not seeing Demir Krylic. He played 120 minutes in the US Open Cup after coming off an injury.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's maybe I don't know. Might be a question. Well. I'm not I'm not managing your team, but like Freddie Monteiro played 120 minutes for the Sounders yesterday, but. Probably wasn't going to play anyway against RSL. Yeah, I am. I am starting to suspect that that's the case with Demare Krylic as well and his his decline. I mean he was injured for the better part of a season with a back injury and it was a nerve issue.
00:20:24
Speaker
And, you know, late in his career, it's just, it's not a good combination. It's a combination for sadness. Well, that's, that's a bummer from a person that likes soccer and like the Muir Pro, it also seems like a great person.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yeah, he's generally regarded as the nicest person on the team, just outright. Everyone has a story about Demir Kralik, my deputy editor and our photo editor over at Wasatch Soccer Sentinel, Lucas Muller. Every time he takes photos of training or at a pre-season thing, Demir Kralik looks directly in the lens, gives him a smile and a thumbs up for a photo.
00:21:09
Speaker
It's very funny, but it's just sort of who Demir is, and it's great. I love having him on the team. Occupying a designated player spot and not playing regularly. I have a little more concern about that. Right. And so while we have you, I may as well also...
Utah Royals' New Coach: Amy Rodriguez
00:21:26
Speaker
You guys also just announced a head coach for the Reborn. Are they going to be called the Utah Royals? Yeah. Utah Royals, their new logo. Looks good. Pretty excited.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah. Amy Rodriguez, who is a former rain player, although I don't know if she actually made any appearances for the rain, but she definitely was on the roster here. Yeah. Yeah. It's an exciting thing. And it's her first head coach gig. She's obviously a legendary player in American soccer. She was great for the Royals when she was here. Will she be a great coach? I have no clue.
00:22:00
Speaker
The bar is very low for being a satisfactory coach in NWSL, unfortunately. Yeah, it's gotten that way. And I'm glad that we have a coach that we can be 99.9% sure is not tied up in any of the nonsense that has gone on throughout the league and went on at Utah Royals in the past. So it's nice to be
00:22:28
Speaker
free of that, even if it means we're going to learn on the job. I think that's that's an acceptable thing. NWSL is not so mature a league that it can't happen. So you know, I'm excited about it. Well, I'm happy to I'm happy to hear that. I was I was I thought it was an intriguing hire. I was I like Amy's story was when she was one of those players who she took the year off
00:22:56
Speaker
when she was originally with the rain because she was having her first child, I believe. Oh, yeah. And then they traded her and she wasn't super stoked about that. But then she beat the rain in two straight finals. So she got she got her she got her revenge. And she also was a great story of a sort of working mom in the league. And she's
00:23:22
Speaker
It seems like a really interesting person. So I was stoked to see that. Yeah, me too. Well, Matt, I think that's a good place to call this. Thank you so much. People can read you over at Wasatch Soccer Sentinel. They can listen to you on off the crossbar. Anywhere else people should be looking for your stuff. Yeah, so I've got a board game newsletter. I know we've talked about that a lot on there. We didn't get to do that today, but that's all right. It's Don't Eat the Meeples. It's on Subsac. You can find it in my profile on Twitter.
00:23:52
Speaker
And if you're not on Twitter, I'm on Mastodon at tabletop.social. I think it's just Matt at tabletop.social, so you can do that. No one's invited me to Blue Sky yet, which is fine. I don't, everyone's talking about Blue Sky, but. Today, Blue Sky kind of seemed like it blew up. I don't know what, did something happen today? I think people are just starting to get invites. Oh, okay.
00:24:14
Speaker
And then I've got a couple other newsletters I play with, and we'll see where those go. But writing about speculative fiction, you'll find links for those.
00:24:27
Speaker
What's your Twitter handle again? The crossbar RSL.
The Story Behind Matt's Twitter Handle
00:24:30
Speaker
I don't know if I ever told you the story behind that. I don't know if you have, why don't you tell us? Uh, so when I first started going regularly to rails, all late games, I was in the north end and about five, six rows up. And, uh, to, to see the game, I had to duck to look under the crossbar. So.
00:24:52
Speaker
And then the name of the podcast off the crossbar, uh, came in because we started a podcast in 2014. And the last gray also like thing that had happened was, uh, Lavelle Palmer's smashing the ball off the crossbar as we lost the MLS cap. So, you know, pain all around.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah, panel around. Well, Matt, thank you again for doing this. I was worried we were going to have to do this a lot more times this year, but we do at least have one more time because we have a League's Cup game on the docket. Yeah, and we're in the same sector. Yeah, we might be playing in the Open Cup too. I would like that.
00:25:34
Speaker
Yeah, that would mean that we beat Portland. So I mean, yeah. Hey, yeah, we'll take that. Absolutely. I hope we I hope. Yeah. All right. So we've got at least four or five more times we play each other. Right. And then we'll play three times in the playoffs. That sounds. Oh, wow.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, this is the Ridiculous League. I just can't. I know, I know. It's rather silly. But, well, thank you, Matt, for joining me today. Thanks to our sponsors, Full Poll Wines and Watson's Counter. Of course, thank you to our Substack subscribers. If you want to become a subscriber, you can find us at nosadiettis.substack.com. I am Jeremiah Shan, joining, and this is Nosadiettis.
00:26:42
Speaker
and we'll catch you next time.
00:26:54
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!