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Nos Audietis, Episode 269: Let’s talk about the 2018 season
62 Plays7 years ago
I’ll be totally honest, as of a few days ago we didn’t think we were going to try to squeeze in another episode before YachtCon Prime (by the way, it’s on Saturday and tickets are still available).
But it somehow just didn’t feel right to not record an episode before the start of the season, which … wow, it’s Thursday. That’s crazy.
So that’s what we did. I won’t sit here and try to act like I know anything about the opponent. What I can tell you about Santa Tecla is that they got here by winning back to back Salvadoran league titles. They’re currently in second, coming off a game on Sunday and will have to play another game on Friday. I have no idea how they’ll prioritize this game, but then we don’t really know who the Sounders are flying to El Salvador either.
This week's music: "Legend Has It" - L'Orchestra Cinematique, Perry Como - "Seattle", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia"
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
Introduction to Seattle Businesses
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Nos Adieres is sponsored by Full Pool Wines. Full Pool Wines are based in Seattle, owned and operated by Sanders fans, and have been sponsoring Nos Adieres 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.
00:00:23
Speaker
Two, you request bottles that sound appealing. And three, your wine arrives at their soda warehouse and is ready for pickup or shipping. Their soda tasting room is also open to the public. If you're interested in joining their mailing list or learning more about them, visit fullpaulwines.com.
00:00:42
Speaker
Verity is a local credit union and has been headquartered in Seattle since 1933. They have branches throughout the Puget Sound area and know what is important to you because they live here too. Verity is not for profit and puts any money they make into good rates, products and services for you, the members. They have credit cards with competitive rates, checking and savings accounts and loans for all sorts of things, even bicycles.
00:01:09
Speaker
Verity is federally insured by the NCUA and an equal housing opportunity lender. Anyone who lives, works, worships, or attends school in Washington State can become a member, and we would love to have you. Learn more and apply at veritycu.com.
Seattle Sounders Introduction
00:01:27
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.
00:01:43
Speaker
The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle And the hills the greenest green in Seattle
Episode Overview and Yacht-Con Preview
00:01:56
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of NOS Audio Disc, sponsored by Full Bowl Wines, Queen Anne Acupuncture, Verdi Credit Union, Designers Marble, and her broadcast partner Bootstrapper Studios. This is episode 269, nice, and we're recording on Tuesday, February 20th. I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan, and we're joined by my co-host, Aaron Campo.
00:02:17
Speaker
and our engineer Lickit, although I don't think we'll actually be hearing from Lickit today since this is a single, single segment episode. And I'll be totally honest, as of a few days ago, we really did not think we were going to squeeze in this episode before Yacht-Con Prime, which, by the way, is on Saturday and tickets are still available. But we'll talk about that a little bit more later. But somehow it just didn't feel right to not record an episode before the start of season, which
00:02:43
Speaker
Wow, that's Thursday, which is crazy. And so that's what we're doing. I won't sit here and try to act like I know anything about
Sounders' Game Against Santa Tecla Challenges
00:02:52
Speaker
the opponent. What I can tell you about Santa Tecla is that they got here by winning back-to-back self-doring league titles. They're currently in second, coming off a game on Sunday, and we'll have to play another game on Friday, which seems absolutely wild.
00:03:05
Speaker
I have no idea how they'll prioritize this game, but then we really don't know who the sounders are flying to El Salvador either, which I guess brings us to my usual question for you, Aaron. How are you feeling going into this game?
00:03:18
Speaker
Uh, CCL is always weird. Um, but I feel pretty good about it. I mean, the El Salvadoran league is not good. Uh, and I think that, you know, there, there was a fair amount of hand wringing, I think about, um, the lack of signings. Uh, that's, that's started to clear up, but at the time, you know, I kind of felt like, uh,
00:03:39
Speaker
If we, being the Sounders, could Pete and CCL trotting out Nate Jakewood and Alex Kasky and Terry Boss and guys like that, and pretty comfortably beat teams like this. That's basically the team that beat Monterey and Monterey. Let's not forget.
00:03:59
Speaker
True, true. Maybe not the best strategy against Mexican teams, especially now that they seem to kind of care. But yeah, I feel pretty comfortable with any team the Sounders could really put out there against Sense Tekla. I think the key whenever you're going to Central America is
00:04:19
Speaker
to get out of there without, you know, going down by multiple goals. If you can get an away goal, that's great. But as long as you're coming home, you know, and don't need to, yeah, I don't need to score more than a goal or two, you're in pretty good shape. So yeah, we'll see. You know, it's funny, I'm actually not going to be able to watch the game live because I'm going to see a podcast in a, you know, sort of,
00:04:45
Speaker
Strange, yeah, very meta. But, I mean, it doesn't sound like you can really watch it live anyway. Because this is, you know, apparently the most prestigious competition that the sounders compete in. So, yeah, that's kind of a bummer that, you know, you have to stream it through some service that like six people have to be able to watch it live. Supposedly it's on Go90.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, supposedly a lot of things. My experience with Go90 is that it will likely crash based on nothing other than the Sounders fans watching a lot of it.
00:05:28
Speaker
holding out hope, fingers crossed that we'll be able to actually watch a stream here. But it was a funny pre-season, like you are off-season, pre-season, pre-season, which you kind of alluded to.
Sounders' Roster Changes and Depth Analysis
00:05:40
Speaker
Most of the Sounders moves came pretty late in the pre-season. There was the Wayland-Francis deal, which I believe is the only transaction that we actually discussed in our last podcast.
00:05:54
Speaker
But since then, they've went out and signed Norwegian Magnus Wolf, Ikram. They have signed against all seemingly all odds. I think of all like I definitely did not expect to see Lamar Nagel back. But today, seemingly out of the blue, Lamar Nagel was re-signed. A guy named Callie Brown is going to be their third goalkeeper. They, of course, they signed first round draft pick, Alex Roldan. They signed homegrown player, Honda Wallabwana.
00:06:25
Speaker
And I know, I feel like there's one or two other veterans that I'm missing. Am I? Or is that really it? Well, there's McCreary, I think. Oh, yeah. Jordan McCreary, I guess, is the maybe. Yeah. And he'll probably be starting against. Right. So I guess that's a particularly notable signing.
00:06:40
Speaker
I don't know, I guess I'll ask you, that's a good one to get into. Where do you fall on the, there seemed to be at least a little bit of hand wringing over the decision to trade O'Neill Fisher, which was coincidentally followed almost immediately by
00:06:57
Speaker
kelvin leerim getting hurt but then they went out and signed jordan mccrary and every indication i've gotten from the sounders is that they basically felt like onil fisher was uh was not much of an upgrade over jordan mccrary if not an upgrade at all potentially and that they just felt like
00:07:16
Speaker
that McCrary was as good or better of an option, plus they got $50,000 in allocation for their trouble. I don't know if you've seen enough of McCrary to have much of an opinion on him, but I'm inclined to just kind of trust the sounders in this case. Yeah, I'm definitely willing to trust the talent evaluators here. And I think that the key thing to keep in mind is that, you know, O'Neill Fisher is not a guy that they were necessarily depending on. I think that
00:07:46
Speaker
I think that framing it as I can't believe we downgraded our right back depth from Fisher to McCreary is really the wrong way to look at it. I think for what you're expecting out of O'Neill Fisher, there's not going to be much of a hit at all because it's safe to assume McCreary is kind of a replacement-ish level player. Even if Fisher is a little better, they're just going to get so few minutes that, or you would hope they get so few minutes, that it's probably going to be kind of a wash.
00:08:16
Speaker
And if you can do the right thing by O'Neill Fisher, who I'm sure would like some more playing time, if you can pick up a little allocation money, all the better. But I think that being concerned about right back depth is totally reasonable. I just think that feeling really comfortable going into CCL play with Fisher and not feeling comfortable with McCrary is not necessarily the most rational. I get that it's
00:08:42
Speaker
you know better the devil you know right and and O'Neill Fisher did have some great games he's you know he's an international for Jamaica um and you know people I think would rather go with someone that they know that they have a level of expectation right I don't want to know if they know they can trust O'Neill Fisher as a right way to put it because you know there were definitely some times where uh
00:09:04
Speaker
He did things that wouldn't garner a lot of trust, but I don't think the performance that they're going to get from McCreary is really going to be appreciably different. But I would feel a lot better with some better right-backed ups. That's for sure. We know that we have players that can adequately play it right back.
00:09:27
Speaker
But one of them is Christian Roldan, and there's no sense in moving Christian Roldan out of central midfield if you can avoid it. Gustave Svensson. Eventually, well, Osvaldo Alonso was hurt. Yeah, absolutely. By the way, we haven't seen Osvaldo Alonso has not suited up for a single game in preseason yet, although he has been around. Best I can tell, the various rumors of him leaving are there's nothing to them, but it is very fair to wonder how healthy he's going to be this year.
CCL Competition Challenges
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah. And so, I mean, that's going to be crucial, you know, because Roldan, I think, is when Ozzy is out, he plays much differently and he kind of has to play much differently. As good as Gustav Svensson is, he just doesn't cover the same kind of ground. He's not the same kind of player. And Roldan can give you an approximation of that. But, you know, Svensson is another player who maybe he's not everybody's ideal dream right back. Fill in because he is the kind of player he is. He's not going to
00:10:24
Speaker
you know, be burning up and down the wing all day. But he can fill in adequately, but again, you kind of need him in the center of the pitch. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that they've got guys that can play there. It's not going to be a disaster. I feel much, much better about left-back depth than I do about right-back depth, picking up Francis and having Yuhu.
00:10:46
Speaker
So, we'll see. I think that, I think it was Andrew Beck who kind of put it this way when he said, if you felt okay with right back depth, when Fisher was here, you should feel okay with it now. If you didn't, you still should. And that's kind of where I'm at. It's really the one glaring spot, center back to a certain extent, especially right now, because Fenson is kind of necessary to have in midfield.
00:11:19
Speaker
It's hard to spend too much time worrying about your two and three deep options right back when you have players that can provide cover there.
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess the more relevant concern, at least in the short term, seems to be center back. Roman Torres did not play in the last preseason game. He is apparently dealing with some muscle soreness. I think we can reasonably assume
00:11:46
Speaker
that Torres did not come into training camp at tip-top shape. He had quite the off-season, if you were paying any sort of attention, and for better or for worse, he enjoyed himself and I don't think he was quite ready to hit the ground running.
00:12:04
Speaker
But I'm, I'm, you know, we'll see if that how big of a problem that ends up being. But you know, this is a, you know, a guy who, you know, we expect to be here for the long term. And I think that that's what's, what's tough about this schedule. And I think that it's, it's helpful, I guess, in some way, that the
00:12:25
Speaker
that CCL is compacted into one season, but it still comes at such an early point in the MLS season that it's just, it's frankly impossible to expect MLS teams to be able to compete at their top level in February or even early March when, you know, like Santa Tecla has already played eight league games.
00:12:48
Speaker
Mexican teams have played a comparable number of games. You know, and so unless there's a dramatic shift in the way that the schedule set up, I just don't see how Champions League can ever be a really, like a really fair test. Now that's not to give, say the Sounders shouldn't go out and beat Santa Tecla, they still should. But they already decided to disadvantage in this tournament because of the scheduling and that's kind of frustrating.
00:13:17
Speaker
But at the same time, on the same token, I don't know how much we're going to see a Clint Dempsey.
Sounders' Defensive Concerns
00:13:23
Speaker
I don't know how much we're going to see a Victor Rodriguez. I don't know how much we're going to see of Gustav Svensson. I mean, the Sounders could very well be missing five or six of their top...
00:13:33
Speaker
10, 11 players in this game, which is not super exciting. And then you throw in the fact that it looks like, I mean, I don't know, Tony Alfaro, I assume will be starting against Santa Tecla. And then who's like, I guess maybe Chad Marshall starts against starts as well, I hope. But I don't even know that I would guarantee that Chad Marshall is going to play in that game. It's it's it's not looking like I think center back right now is the position that has me more concerned than right back just because
00:14:02
Speaker
This whole situation there is a little more dicey, I feel like. Now we did hear two rumors this last week about players that might potentially be coming to the Saunders. One was a Panamanian named Roderick Miller. The other is a South Korean player whose name I am blanking on. Kim.
00:14:26
Speaker
It's less names, Kim, I know that, or his first name, I guess, as it goes. His surname is Kim. But anyways, I don't know what... Unfortunately, both those players are players who might also be going to the World Cup, which is the next time that the Sounders are probably going to really need help at center back.
00:14:46
Speaker
I don't know, but at least I guess I guess I'm glad that the Sounders are trying to address that position because I do think having a third center back is probably the top priority, at least for me, in terms of like if I could make one more addition to this team.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that I think that you have to feel pretty good about things in the in the midfield and in, you know, the on a wing striker is I mean, I think that everybody's kind of accepted that striker is if Jordan Morris plays really well, they're they're pretty well set there.
00:15:19
Speaker
If he doesn't, then they're probably going to use a DP spot on that position in the summer. I think they have enough depth that it's not a huge problem right now, for sure. Center back is kind of similar to right back in that you've got a lot of guys that you feel can play pretty well there, but because there are injuries at other position groups that they have to fill in at, Svensson's a good example. He needs to play central midfield, so he can't really play center back.
00:15:45
Speaker
And I think even beyond that, even beyond the immediate, and even beyond the World Cup, Chad Marshall is not getting any younger. Roman Torres is not getting any younger. And Marshall has had his fair share of injuries over the last few years. So yeah, that's definitely a concern. I mean, if you lose one of those guys long-term, you're stretched pretty thin. I do think there's some value in trying to get Alfaro some minutes early.
00:16:12
Speaker
and just to see what they have there, and maybe if they need to, they can make a move in the summer. But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it. I mean, even though I can see the reason behind it, and it's just sort of the kind of thing that has to happen, I would feel much more comfortable if it didn't have to happen. Yeah, and I guess if there's, it's one of those situations where if you can't trust Tony Alfaro to play against a Salvadoran team,
00:16:42
Speaker
which presumably is at a level lower than MLS. Who can you trust? Who can you trust him to play against? Right. I mean, I think that we're likely talking about like a U.S. level team, right? And he's starting, you know, most S2 games, right?
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, you would hope that you can get something out of them, but it goes beyond that. I mean, the actual season is starting soon and you've got potentially a much better opponent in the next round of CCL if they get past Santa Tequila. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a big concern and it's weird because center back when everything is at full strength is, I think, a huge strength.
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, Marshall and Torres are as good of a duo as you're going to find. But yeah, there's not a ton of depth right now, and it's a little scary. If they can sign either Miller or Kem, I think everybody will feel much, much better. And honestly, I'd feel completely fine with that roster and don't really see any obvious moves that would need to be made before the start of the season.
Jordan Morris' Role and Impact
00:17:50
Speaker
So you mentioned Stryker, and it does seem like Jordan Morris. It's Jordan Morris' job to lose at this point. And I should say that Morris has looked very good. Part of that is probably because he's ahead of most everyone in terms of his preseason. He came into camp, I guess he got an early start in camp because of the US national team. He didn't really have an offseason. Neither him nor Roaldon had really any sort of offseason to speak of.
00:18:18
Speaker
But he has looked good. And I, you know, if I'm the Sounders, I have to admit, I don't know that I'm rushing out to sign a strike. If you're looking at the offense, it does seem like the one position of need is probably like if you had to sign someone today, put a gun to my head in the offensive band, I guess I would probably take a striker because that seems to be the position
00:18:46
Speaker
most capable of upgrading. But at the same time, Jordan Morris, if Jordan Morris regains the form he had 2016, and it's not like that doesn't seem like it should be a stretch that he could do that. It almost seems like you're, you're shooting yourself in the foot a little bit. If you, if you sign someone and you and you kind of stick it, you get him stuck, you get him stuck.
00:19:12
Speaker
And so I'm liking the decision to let him kind of see how it goes. And then in the summer, if you don't need to replace him,
00:19:30
Speaker
You can, you can go out and sign the next Clint, your future Clint Dempsey or, you know, and I, cause I'm sure the sounders would route, you know, all things being equal. I have to assume that the sounders would probably rather sign a Clint Dempsey like player, uh, rather than a, you know, rather than a Jordan Morris type of player.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. And I think that it has to be what you're hoping for, for multiple reasons. I mean, the most obvious one is that Jordan Morris is producing like he was in 2016. That's an insanely valuable player from a contract standpoint, from a cap hit standpoint.
00:20:12
Speaker
you know, that's that's one of the better bargains in the league. And there's just there's no good reason to think that 2016 was the outlier. And last year, with all of the I think, pretty reasonable explanations for, you know, his his poor performance, that that was the actual Jordan Morris, you know, that's what he's that's the player he's going to be. I just don't think that that's
00:20:35
Speaker
really a rational way to view the things. And I think that if as bad as the loss to Toronto was, I think that we forget how good this team looked down the stretch last year. And if that wasn't the case, that they kind of limped along and ground out a bunch of results.
00:20:51
Speaker
And just the offense wasn't clicking at all and they weren't scoring any goals. Then yeah, maybe you do make signing a striker a higher priority. But they did all of that without Jordan Morris. So if he comes back and he's not the player he was in 2016, there's reason to think that it's not really gonna kill your offense. And that you can risk it and kind of ride it out. And I think that,
00:21:18
Speaker
They have so many goal threats from other places. They don't have to have a guy scoring 16 goals to remain competitive to the summer, but I think he's easily capable of that. I honestly wouldn't be shocked if he has a much better season this year than he did in 2016 because I think people forget that he struggled for a pretty good chunk of that season. Yeah. He did. The bulk of his production really came in the
00:21:46
Speaker
middle chunk of that season. And that he wasn't super productive down the stretch. I mean, he had that he had the couple goals in the in the rapid series.
00:21:57
Speaker
And he didn't play bad, but he was just not, he just wasn't the same, like his most, like he really had like a very productive 10 game stretch. And then outside of that was okay. Well, from a pure production standpoint, but I do think that he was clearly, you know, in like September, October, even when he wasn't racking up goals, he was clearly a much, much better player.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yes, I would agree with that. And I think last year we kind of saw that same player when he wasn't injured, he wasn't necessarily producing. And it was such a small period of time that he wasn't injured or recovering from injury or kind of a reserve option because he'd been out for so long that it's hard to take anything away from that healthy period of time that he did have. But he looked like that same player.
00:22:50
Speaker
And I don't think there was anyone that was really super concerned about him not getting back to that goal scoring form before he got injured. So yeah, I mean, is he going to score 20 goals and be an All-Star or sorry, an MVP candidate? I don't think that he is, but he doesn't have to do that to be an insanely valuable player. And like you said, if they can sign Clint Dempsey's replacement,
00:23:15
Speaker
Uh, in the summer window and it's, I would assume there's a good chance that they're going to look to go younger. And so maybe it's a player that doesn't have to have guaranteed playing time right away. Um, it just gives them so many more options. Uh, and you know, or maybe somebody pulls an Oba and, and bails.
00:23:32
Speaker
in the summer or, you know, something like that happens and you have to replace a key player. It just gives them so much more flexibility. And, you know, the other option is, will Bruins start in? And man, I just, I really, I really don't want to see that for a good time if we can avoid it. He's a hell of a player to have on the bench, but
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, he's he limits the sounders in some ways that are are pretty significant. No, I mean, I like I think that I think I'm agreeing. I agree with you that he's a great player to have on your roster. He's a great player to have as a spot starter, as a as a as a sub, as a change of pace option. But you don't want him to be starting 30 games for you right now.
00:24:21
Speaker
or 15 maybe, but in any case, that's probably a good place to end this portion. And we'll close out the episode, not gonna do a full episode today. We're gonna save some of our good stuff for Saturday, but that's what I bring that up.
Yacht-Con Event Details
00:24:41
Speaker
Yacht-Con Prime, Yacht-Con 3, whatever you want to call it. We seem to be going back and forth as to what we're calling it ourselves. But that's going on Saturday. It's going to be at Queen Anne Beer Hall from about 12 to 3. Doors are going to open at 11.30. If you want to go, I would suggest getting tickets ahead of time just to make things a little easier for you. But that would be Yacht-Con 3.
00:25:06
Speaker
dot brown paper tickets dot com. That's where you can get the tickets or you can go to our Facebook page or you can go to sound at heart. There's lots of places where you can find that we're selling shirts, we're selling ascots. And of course, there's going to be a big raffle.
00:25:21
Speaker
where there is a ton of really great stuff. There's a bunch of autographed programs. There's a ton of autographed stuff. We actually got Steve Zakuwani to autograph a couple of the Yacht-Con shirts. So I think it's going to be a really good time.
00:25:38
Speaker
Garth Ligaway is going to be there. Brian Schmetzer is going to be there. They're going to both be on the Sounders panel. We're expecting to have one or two players on that panel as well. The rain panel looks very nice. Bev Yanez, Yael Averbuch, I think is how you say your name. I should probably figure that out. But two rain players are going to be on that panel. We've got interviews with Steve Zaccawany and the new rain coach of LACCO. I'm not going to try to say his last name.
00:26:07
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, uh, all the, and then of course the proceeds from this event are going to the Seattle children's autism center. Um, and it should be a lot of fun, right? I mean, it's been fun in the past, I think.
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah, I lost my mute button. I'm in off-season form. Yeah, it was a hell of a lot of fun last year. The first one was great too, but this is the second year we've done it at Queen Anne Beer Hall. We have a format that I think we've kind of settled on a little bit. It should be a blast. I'm glad it's on a Saturday this year.
00:26:49
Speaker
I feel like Sunday makes, like, there are I guess some benefits to having it on a Sunday, but Saturday is definitely the way to go. If we can do that going forward, I think that would be our preference. But anyway, so that's that, I think, right? Oh, am I missing anything here? I think so.
00:27:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I think we'll stop. Uh, so close out by thanking our sponsors, uh, football wines, queen and acupuncture, Verity credit union, designers, marble, and of course our broadcast partner bootstrapper studios. I am Jeremiah Shan, uh, signing off on behalf of Aaron Campo and engineer Lekit Lekit. Uh, this is no Zadi at this. Remember you will never get a loan.
00:27:37
Speaker
Green Douglas spur where the water's cut through. Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew. Canadian northwest to the ocean so blue. It's Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn. Roll On, Columbia Roll On.
00:28:24
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!