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Episode 397: Mailbag for Week 15
72 Plays2 years ago
This isn't the most uplifting mailbag episode but we do give our thoughts on a possible formation change, the seeming inability to find late goals and how much a problem the lack of lineup consistency is.
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Transcript
Sponsorship and Introduction
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.
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
Mailbag with Jeremiah, Aaron, and Lickit
00:01:38
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of NOS Adiatus, sponsored by Fullpool Wines and Watson's Counter. I am Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me today for the week 15 mailbag is Aaron Campo and our engineer, Lickit. How you doing, Aaron? Oh, you know, fair to Midland. Um, you're doing a lot better if sounders were not playing like dog shit, but hey.
00:01:42
Speaker
that why you young people call twerking?
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, control the controllables, right? Right. But Villa's good, right? Did they finish a really good season? They've got one game left. Oh, one more game. If they win, they will qualify for Europe, which would be pretty cool. Wow. Yeah. So yeah, that's been fun. That's been nice. Actually getting me up out of bed early enough to watch the games live sometimes.
00:02:28
Speaker
It's been years since that happened. I was going to say. Yeah. I was going to say. Not all of them for sure, but some, the 830 games. But yeah, how are you doing Jeremiah? I'm doing okay, all things considered.
00:02:46
Speaker
I feel like I dodged a bullet a little bit by not going. I was originally planning to go to Vancouver this weekend, and I didn't go. Not because of fear that the sounders would be awful, but it just didn't really work out with the schedule. And I'm kind of glad I didn't.
00:03:04
Speaker
Even though I wouldn't have been going just to see the Sounders, I was going to go to visit friends. It does like cramp. Yeah, exactly. We went to Portland a few years ago for my wife's birthday and the Sounders played like the day before and they lost.
00:03:24
Speaker
you know, it was just like impossible to like feel as happy as I would have exactly. And I like I knew I knew that like I was like, Oh, man, if the sounders want to be having such a great time. So in Vancouver is such a fun city that you know, you don't want to
00:03:37
Speaker
I know negative associations with it. So I think you're right to do it. I feel like I'm going to have to stop trying to link my visits to those two cities with the sounders playing games. I've linked that too many times and it seems to backfire more times than it works out. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:04:01
Speaker
Like at least I shouldn't try to extend the stay as a result of that. Like make it a separate trip. I'll go and visit my friends and family. Right. Independent of the Sounders playing a game. Or you could go visit your friends and family before the game. Yeah. And so that way you're coming home and like no matter what happens. Right. Although I guess it could say all that trip sucked because who cares about my friends and family. Right, exactly. Well, maybe you were right the first time.
00:04:31
Speaker
Well, all that said, let's see what our subscribers and listeners want to hear about. Yeah, let's do that. First one is from a subscriber. It's from Clayton
Sounders' Formation and Player Challenges
00:04:42
Speaker
H. Thank you so much, Clayton. Is there any chance of a change in formation? In particular, it feels like we're losing the midfield in every match lately. Pressing teams will pin our sixes into passing back and forth with the back line.
00:04:54
Speaker
cuts off service to Nico and the forwards. Too often our only hope to progress the ball seems to be throwing up Hail Mary's to Jordan or Leo Chu. Is this just down to missing Christian's ability to drop down into more of a number eight role? Is it fatigue beginning to limit our forward's abilities to cover more ground and provide outlets? That is a great question, Clayton. It is a great question. It identifies a lot of the problems. Yeah. Down to acknowledging that
00:05:18
Speaker
part of what you lose when you lose Christian is you lose sort of a, I wouldn't say a unique ability, but definitely a rare ability to both be a winger and a extra central midfielder that allows the sounders to do a lot of the stuff that they were doing so well. And it's not a role that they have readily available to them.
00:05:44
Speaker
like no one else on the roster, I don't think is going to be able to do the same stuff that that Christian does. And, you know, I suppose one potential answer would be to switching to like a three, four, two, one. And I suppose you could get away with that if you think if you think you can get away with Leo Chu as a winger.
00:06:06
Speaker
Or like, uh, as a, as a wingback, maybe it makes sense to go to a three, four, two, one, put Morris at the top and then have like Lidero and Rusnak sort of sitting in, in like a dual 10 rule underneath them, along with Joe Paulo and Josh attention. I don't know if that's the ultimate fix for a whole season, but for a game, it could maybe work. Yeah. I mean, I think.
00:06:35
Speaker
Leo's appetite for defending is not ravenous, I think it's fair to say. But I think that if you have somebody who is that capable of creating problems from the attack as a wingback, as long as you're exclusively defensive minded players
00:06:56
Speaker
are doing what they need to do to cover for them. I mean, basically, you have you can even have some sort of an unbalanced thing where if new who's playing at the left center back, he's functionally playing as a left back a lot of the time. I guess sort of what I'm describing is a is not so different than what the centers are trying to play anyway. I yeah, I think I mean, to some degree, although I do think that
00:07:21
Speaker
You do have the benefit of when you are in defense, as long as leo choose not caught too far forward, you do have another body back there. Even if it's not the greatest technical defender you've ever seen, he can still get in a guy's way. Right. So, um, I think it's worth, I think I wouldn't be opposed to it. We're definitely at that phase of this run where there are very few things that are too crazy to try.
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I will say that I think Clayton absolutely nailed the problem, which is we are getting sort of overrun in the midfield and we have to figure out how to
00:08:03
Speaker
like the Sounders are winning the possession battle, but they're not winning the midfield battle. Right. And I do think that it's obviously it's not as simple as Christian being gone, but I do think that Christian's ability to, as you said,
00:08:18
Speaker
play as a winger when the situation calls for it and play as another midfielder when the situation calls for it allowed them to play in a certain way and they're still trying to play that way a lot of the time and they don't have a player that's capable of doing those things as effectively. And I think that's what's causing a lot of the problems.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah.
Coach Substitution Strategies
00:08:36
Speaker
Well, uh, these are Twitter questions. This is from Garrett Amini. He says, why does, why does it seem coaches are so much more keen on subbing at the 65th minute than at the half? It seems like halftime would be less disruptive and given an opportunity to communicate a new strategy and game plan. Yeah. I mean, it's the thing that I think a lot of people get frustrated about. Um, it's, but I think it's pretty standard, you know, as, as you said, Garrett, where it's.
00:09:02
Speaker
It seems like most coaches are that way. I think a lot of it just has to do with you have a tactical approach. You have a lineup that you're practicing with all week. You've got a game plan. And as long as it's not getting completely blown up, it's a lot easier, I think, to make tweaks to that game plan and then sort of go with maybe not scripted substitutions, but substitutions that you've kind of planned for, where you say, OK, if the game state ends up like this,
00:09:29
Speaker
We can do this. We can go with this player. If it's like this, we can go this other direction. So I think that's probably part of it. I also think that there has to be a management element of it to some degree where I think being taken off at halftime can be seen as kind of an insult sometimes. And so you have to be really sure that that's what you want to do if you are concerned about insulting a player. So maybe that has something to do with it. I don't know.
00:09:56
Speaker
I do think it's it's likely just a tactical thing. Yeah. And I would say sort of along the same lines, the halftime sub is sort of an admission that something's not working. And and so if it's because otherwise, why wouldn't you just start start? Why didn't you just start that way? Right. Right. Like unless there's some compelling reason to make that halftime change, it usually makes sense to to like play it out and see if
00:10:24
Speaker
The reason you went with the starting lineup in the first place is going to go the way you want it to. Yeah. I think too that a lot of the time, unless it's an obvious disaster like it was against Vancouver, I think a lot of the time coaches and teams see the game state at halftime a lot differently than fans where they're sort of anticipating that things will have gone a certain way.
00:10:50
Speaker
And that's kind of part of the larger plan. And so fans may say, oh man, we couldn't do XYZ, whatever. Whereas coaches may say, yep, we kind of anticipated that this is how the game would play out. Now we know what to do to get it to the state we needed to get it to to get the result we're after.
00:11:09
Speaker
This one is from Typewriter17. Apart from Houston and the fact that they had nine people, the last game I could find where we salvaged a late draw or scored late to win was against Pumas on the road, since it's been a lot of one-goal losses and very few with any late victories. Thoughts?
Late-Game Performance Issues
00:11:27
Speaker
I am struck, if that's really true, I'm at a bit of a loss. I mean, I don't know. The game against Minnesota even
00:11:40
Speaker
Though I guess it depends on what you are like calling a late goal, but you know, this underscored in the 79th minute against Minnesota United. Uh, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's an interesting observation. I, I would have to sort of like dig through the archives. I assume, uh, TIE fighter did this and I'll take his word to although that's us hook up and kind of, um, yeah, I don't know. I, I, I know that at one point,
00:12:09
Speaker
in the 2021 season, it felt like the Sounders were scoring a ton of late goals. And I don't know, I don't know how indicative, when you're getting a lot of them, you sort of talk yourself into thinking like, oh, well, this is clearly a thing where we have a fitness advantage. And if you're giving up a lot of them, you go, eh,
00:12:31
Speaker
Maybe we're at a, maybe it's our fitness that's causing these problems, but the sounders aren't giving up a lot of late goals either. Like it's, I'm sure it's happened more than once in that same stretch, but yeah, I don't, I don't know if I read much into it to be honest with you.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the games that the Sounders have won this year, generally they've won pretty comfortably. The games that they've lost, they haven't really been in a position to score late equalizer. There haven't been a lot of the awesome game being a notable exception for sure. I think that's the one. And then I guess you could say like the no no against RSL, the no no against LFC. Those were close games. But yeah, generally not a lot of opportunity. Yeah.
Injuries and Lineup Consistency
00:13:18
Speaker
In. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:21
Speaker
Uh, this is from Adam P three 60. Why are they playing like shit? Old, tired, low T is that a, I don't know. I don't know what that means. I see. And if you knew you would know the answer to that injuries that didn't, haven't been found coach losing the locker room. Uh, I think that.
00:13:43
Speaker
I'll say the coach has not lost the locker room or there's no evidence that I see to suggest that. Yeah. I haven't seen that. I think that it's important to remember as bad as this run has been that the sounders are still in second place in the Western conference right now. I mean, it's yeah. It's not going to stay that way forever. No, we were sort of using the same logic last year, but it is a notable thing that for all their struggles they, you know, and like to be fair too, it's seven points and seven games. It's not.
00:14:12
Speaker
a complete. I mean, that's bad, but it's not right. Your season has completely gone haywire bad. It's it's the kind of run that most playoff teams and MLS are going to go through. Right. Border shield teams, not so much. But, you know, teams that are good will have stretches like this. I think it's I mean, I think it's a lot of injuries.
00:14:34
Speaker
Um, injuries, I don't think are an excuse for this run, but they are a contributing factor and people hate to hear that they hear it say, Oh, you're just making excuses for them.
00:14:47
Speaker
I mean, yeah, like if you don't have some of your best players, it's going to be harder to win games. Like that's just, that's just the way it goes. So I think that's part of it. There has been fixture congestion at a really bad time. These injuries have kind of stacked up and then you go into this run of, of a lot of games in a short period of time. So that's part of it. Um,
00:15:07
Speaker
I mean, it's always possible there are injuries that haven't been found. I think that it's a confidence thing. I think that a lot of the players look like they are severely lacking in it. We've talked about Jordan being a confidence player. I think maybe he's the one who stands out the most to me being that way. But I think that most players are going to be affected by that to some degree. So I think it's a combination of things. And I think that the solution is just win ugly once or twice and get some of that confidence back, get people healthy and things can turn around just quickly.
00:15:41
Speaker
So the next one is from D underscore height. Lineup consistency is a big problem currently. How much of that is on Brian and how much is out of his hands? Similarly, if things start looking up at the end of the season and we make the playoffs, will we even care about this current run of bad form?
00:15:56
Speaker
For sure, I don't think we're going to care about the recent, I mean, like if the centers turn things around, this could very easily just be a blip in the, you know, in the schedule. Like you said, this is the kind of run that most decent teams experience at one point or another in their season. As far as the lineup goes, to some degree, I think it's out of their hands. Like they, they've tried to repeat line, like they, they repeated a lineup this last week. I,
00:16:25
Speaker
I don't really blame Brian for some inconsistency with the lineups in part because he's also trying to find the right combination. It has sort of become a self-fulfilling prophecy of you look for the lineup that works
00:16:45
Speaker
And as a result, you end up changing lineup a lot, but I don't think they're doing anything crazy as far as that goes. Of course, the alternative is that you get blamed for being, uh, being obstinate or being, you know, like just sticking to your guns longer than you need to. So it's a little, you know, the results are going to color your, your vision of this, but I do think to some degree it's, it's out of his hands. Um, you have any other thoughts on that?
00:17:13
Speaker
No, I think, I think you, you pretty much covered it. I think that if anything, I would like to see a little less lineup consistency. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, exactly. Uh, trivial X wants to know, did somebody accidentally activate a time machine and warp us back to 2022 feels like all the struggles we had when missing Christian fully fit anyway, and roll or back with a vengeance on a brighter note, the kids are looking pretty
Young Talent and Rothrock's Future
00:17:35
Speaker
good. Should we expect Rothrock to sign?
00:17:38
Speaker
It definitely does feel reminiscent of 2022, as we talked about on the mainline episode earlier this week, although for the first time, I think we said that this Vancouver game, to me at least, was the first one that felt that way. I do think Christian being out is a big part of it. At Raul, I would have, you know, obviously missing him hurts, but they were playing so well without him earlier in the season that that's a little frustrating.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah. The kids are looking good. I mean, I think that Cody Baker, we've talked about, he's been good. Reed Baker Whiting have been impressed with maybe not quite as much, but I think the talent is clearly there. He just needs a little more experience. Tencio's had moments at least. Tencio's definitely had moments. This is why they invested so much in the Academy. And the thing I think that's frustrating is that
00:18:24
Speaker
The Academy kids, the younger players are playing at a level I think you've got to be quite happy with. It's the veterans that are kind of that are that are healthy. They're letting the team down with Rothrock. I don't have any insight into that. I would love to see it. I think he's earned it. But I have a feeling that there are maybe like roster constraint issues. I don't I don't really know. Yeah, I don't. I my suspicion
00:18:46
Speaker
is that he's going to sign if like he was training with the first team today I don't think he has any short-term call-ups left I think they burned their last short-term call I can only assume that they
00:19:01
Speaker
were willing to be sort of willy-nilly with that last call-up because they ultimately expect to sign them. But I don't really fully understand the ramifications of signing them. I still think they would have two open roster spots. Even if they signed them, I think you would occupy like a
00:19:19
Speaker
supplemental roster spot. So it's not necessarily a big roster spot that he feels, but I don't, I don't know for sure. I think he's done enough to deserve it. And I think he's an interesting player to be able to have on the roster. You know, he's someone who potentially, you know, he's competing with like Dylan Tevez for some of those minutes. And he's, you know, to his credit, he's, he's made the most of his opportunities. So I'd have a hard time begrudging them if they, if they did sign them and
00:19:48
Speaker
And like I said, I think it still leaves them with two potential, you know, more, you know, like senior roster spots they can fill. Yeah, I do think that it is important to note because I feel like
00:20:03
Speaker
Some people either forget this or maybe don't know this. And this isn't a reason not to sign him. I would love to see them sign him. I think he's earned it. He is 24 years old. Right. He's not a kid. Right. He's not a 19-year-old Academy product. He's 24. And so that does, I think, have to factor into some degree, I would imagine.
00:20:25
Speaker
Right. He's a different case than any of the other Academy kids that are really on the roster. Yep. I think that's you. From Bill Jones TRPT, what are the obvious holes in our depth and what can we do in the summer window to address them?
00:20:48
Speaker
I think that's part of what's so frustrating is I don't necessarily know what the obvious depth shortages are. I suppose another outside mid, Rothrock kind of would adjust that. He's someone who can provide some offense at that spot, but I think you probably want to bring in a
00:21:11
Speaker
a player who has a little higher end upside. So that's I think where you want to look. I suppose you could bring in a young forward, but I don't know if that's really a huge area of need, especially if you have a healthy a bear, if you have a healthy, like you sort of have to assume these guys are going to be healthy at some point. And if you have Montero, if you have Morris, if you have,
00:21:35
Speaker
If you have a bear, like that's, should be plenty of depth at forward. So I would be reluctant to use another roster spot, uh, there, but yeah, I think probably right wing, maybe a left back, but I, I actually feel okay about left back, especially, you know, once row is back in a, in a, probably a couple more weeks, you have Cody Baker, you have new who.
00:22:02
Speaker
Like those don't scream to me as huge needs. And I guess that's a little bit what's frustrating right now on this roster is that unless you start taking pieces away, it's hard to say like, okay, well we need to bring in this piece. And I think a lot of the big changes for better or for worse are probably going to just have to wait till the off season.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I think that another attack minded midfielder that's not necessarily an out and out winger could maybe be another depth piece that they add to the team. But I don't think it's there's just not a whole lot of room to do anything seismic without moving, moving guys. Yeah. All
Raul's Future Speculations
00:22:45
Speaker
right. This one's from Tom Bureau. He says, What are the odds that Raul never plays another minute for the Sounders and wants out?
00:22:51
Speaker
slash more money that he wants out and or more money. I think the odds of him never playing another minute are very low. Yes. I think he'll probably be I would be.
00:23:04
Speaker
I wouldn't be, I guess, shocked if he didn't play before the end of, you know, next week, but, um, I'd be surprised. And I think if, if not, unless he has some kind of setback and I don't think there's any evidence that he wants out that I've heard, I'm sure he's frustrated. I'm sure he would like them to hurry his recovery along. Um, but he's.
00:23:28
Speaker
I mean, that's just kind of the way he is. That's kind of his personality. He wants to play, he wants to score goals, he wants to help the team's team. And I mean, I think that Raoul has to know that he doesn't have a lot of leverage to ask for more money right now. Even if he wanted it, I don't... I'm sure he wants more money. Sure, so do I.
00:23:46
Speaker
He's not, I mean, you know, I think he's his agent, if nothing else has probably got to be aware of that. Yeah, I'm with you. I definitely don't think this is the last we've seen of him. He's out at training.
00:24:01
Speaker
I don't, I suppose maybe there's this, if I'm to read into the question, maybe there's this perception that the reason he hasn't played is some other reason than like he declared himself fit last week and he didn't play this week or this last weekend. And I think that's really just comes down to the coaching staff and the medical staff.
00:24:25
Speaker
taking a much different perspective on his recovery than he is taking of himself. And, you know, hey, God bless him. I'm glad he wants to play. Uh, but if I'm the sounders, I'm also being as careful as, I mean, the reality is he's gotten, he's already been hurt three times this year. Yeah. Yeah. Like they, they can't afford to just keep rolling it. Like every time he gets hurt, they give him more time off.
00:24:52
Speaker
with the hope that you'll get more fit and, uh, and it keeps not working. So, you know, they got to figure out a way to get them on the field and staying on the field. And I think that's what this is about. And I think that's where his frustration is coming from. And if, you know, if they can get him back on the field and get him healthy and he's scoring goals, I think that will fix everything. Yeah. Uh, including maybe the sounders form. Yeah. Yeah. Why not?
00:25:21
Speaker
Uh, this one is from, Oh gosh. Uh, in Baudouin, perhaps one. Uh, sorry. Uh, I did my best. This lump feels like a bad vibes of mental laps. Uh, final third product isn't a sharp finishing. I think there are mental errors on defense injuries. Just fix your congestion and an esprit of bicycle kicks seem to have sucked the fun out of this team. Yeah. I am like, uh,
00:25:50
Speaker
Intellectually curious about the alternate history. If, if a Spria doesn't score that goal, if the season would be in a completely different place more broadly, I think it was frustrating. I meant to mention this at some point in the earlier in the week or this episode, but the other thing that's sort of frustrating about this run, the sounders are on is if they were just destroying teams.
00:26:17
Speaker
we would be tempted to sort of be skeptical of what it means because they've mostly been paying pretty bad teams and that their record is also bad while playing these bad teams doesn't help the mental vibes. It doesn't help any of this. And I think it all contributes that there's just so much, yeah, it's not good right now. I don't have an answer for it. But it is, I think it's all of this stuff.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think all of it is in and of itself a unsatisfactory explanation, but it does all contribute to these vibes for sure. Yeah.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think you said it. Yeah. Well, we're going to end on a just a really great dad question.
Humor and Education Priorities
00:27:08
Speaker
I think this is from the Rocky. That's how I'm going to pronounce that. Why am I on fire? How do I put myself out? You said burning questions. I guess that was we got to blame Lickett for that one.
00:27:22
Speaker
That's true. We do. And I'm happy to do that. I will give an earnest question or answer to the question. You stopped dropping the roll, my man.
00:27:34
Speaker
Should have worn that in first grade. I don't know if kids are still getting taught to stop dropping water. Why do we stop teaching kids how to put themselves out if they're on fire? Because you can't learn to code with that knowledge. And that's the only thing that matters anymore is
00:27:54
Speaker
Learning to code and stem so it's not there's no math involved in rolling on the ground We can't spend time on it. We gotta gotta hit those test scores. Yeah schools will lose their funding
00:28:09
Speaker
That's, that's how it goes, I guess. I guess it is no better, no better system than that. Nobody's come up with one. So I guess we just gotta keep, keep going for it. Yeah. Well, that's our, that's our, our mailbag show for week 15. Uh, thank you to our sub stack subscribers for, uh, making this fun. I forgot to put a call for questions in this week's column in my newsletter or my, this week's newsletter, but I'll, I'll remember to do that in the future. Uh, and if you have.
00:28:39
Speaker
Questions that you want to really make sure you get answered. That's the best way to do it is to send them in through the through the newsletter but All that said, thank you to our other sponsors full pull wines and Watson's counter I am Jeremiah Shan signing off for Aaron Campo. This is no study at this and we'll catch you next time
00:29:34
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!