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Nos Audietis, Episode 261: Garth Lagerwey reflects on transfer season
64 Plays8 years ago
We’re now three transfer windows into Garth Lagerwey’s tenure as head of the Seattle Sounders’ technical staff. All three have been reasonably active. About a month after the last one has closed, we’re starting to get a better picture of just how effective this one has been.
Jeremiah met Lagerwey in his office at Starfire Sports Complex last Thursday. They talked about the proper way to pronounce his name (“how much does a lager weigh?”), his general philosophy on roster building, how he measures success at S2 as well as several other topics.
There’s also plenty of discussion about Saturday’s scoreless tie with FC Dallas, but sadly no questions.
This week's music: "Star Blazers Theme", Perry Como - "Seattle", RVIVR - “The Tide”, 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 and Sponsors
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Nos Audeadas is sponsored by Verity Credit Union. 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
00:00:18
Speaker
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.
00:00:31
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.
00:01:14
Speaker
The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle And the hills the greenest green in Seattle
00:01:27
Speaker
like a beautiful child growing up free and wild.
Hosts and Episode Overview
00:01:33
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of Noce Adiata, sponsored by Fullpool Wines, Queen Anne acupuncture, Verity Credit Union, Designers Marvel, and our broadcast partner Bootstrapper Studios. This is episode 261 and we're recording on Monday, September 18th, 2017. I am your host, Jeremiah O
Sounders' Performance Analysis
00:01:48
Speaker
'Shan. I'm joined by my co-host, Aaron Campo. Later in the show, we'll be joined by Sounders, GM, and president of soccer, Garth Lightaway.
00:01:55
Speaker
The unbeaten streak keeps on chugging along, but so does this pesky winless run. The Zellenders haven't lost since June 17th, that's 3 months ago, but they haven't won in about a month. The latest result was, in a vacuum, a totally acceptable scoreless draw against FC Dallas.
00:02:13
Speaker
But yet, there's a stinging sensation that is just the latest in a run of frustrating results, that has seen the Sounders score just three times in their last four. And yet, the Sounders are just a point out of first and in prime position to at least get a bye in the first round. Aaron, how do we go about squaring the circle? Like, how do we... Like, I've gone back and forth. On one hand, that was a very frustrating game. There was nothing pretty about it. But, like, you take the...
00:02:38
Speaker
the four ties in a row out of it and I don't know that there's a scenario ever in Sounder's history where I would have been upset about a tie in Dallas in September.
00:02:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that's the thing is that removed from the rest of the context of the way the season's going, that's a good result. It was certainly not a pleasant game to watch. Playing in Dallas is almost never pleasant. I don't honestly remember the last time I enjoyed watching a game at Dallas.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean the game last year against Dallas, the first game, the second game sucked, but the first one was I think even more boring than the one last weekend. And then I think it was in 2015 where they had that game that was a 0-0 tie where they set a record for neither team putting a shot on frame.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's the only exciting thing I can remember happening in Dallas. Well, the playoff game there last year was OK. Yeah. I mean, that was funny because they advanced, but it was a 2-1 loss. Right. Right. And aside from that, Freddie Monteiro scored that, you know, that like 40 yard free kick. That's about it. But even that one, that was a 2, if I remember correctly, that was a 2-2 game where the Sounders gave up a very questionable penalty at the end of the game.
00:03:57
Speaker
And it was right. It's just it's a shitty place to play. I mean, I don't think there's any way to get around that. They did have a three to win at Dallas, I want to say in 2014, where Dempsey had the the long free kick and then he had another late goal. But anyway, go on. I think that was in the fall, too, which God, it was just it was early.
00:04:19
Speaker
OK, so the spring, so not as awful. Yeah, I mean, I think that if you're on a run of playing pretty well, if you hadn't drawn a ton of games in a row, that we're all really frustrating in different ways.
00:04:35
Speaker
that results fine. It's, you know, maybe you're a little bit annoyed that you spent two hours watching it, but it's a, you know, the result itself is fine. And I mean, the result here is fine, right? Like the Sounders are still well within reach of first place. That's a game that I think would have been easy to lose. Dallas has been playing poorly lately, but, you know, they still have a lot of talent. And that's, you know, as we've, as we've established just kind of a shitty place to play.
00:05:02
Speaker
And Dallas needed a win. I mean, I would say the result is far worse for Dallas than it was for the Sounders. Absolutely.
Challenges and Player Performances
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is a team that, you know, looked like they were going to go nose to nose with Toronto FC for the supporter shield earlier in the season. And, you know, they're a wreck right now. I mean, they're out of the playoffs as it stands. So.
00:05:19
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, even in the context, it's not a terrible result. I mean, a point on the road is fine, but, you know, it's not just the context of the game. The game, and it's not- You're right, go ahead, sorry. Yeah, I mean, and it's not just the context of, you know, not getting results in prior games. It's just, it was another game that just wasn't a whole lot of fun to watch. The LA game wasn't a whole lot of fun to watch. The Portland and Vancouver games,
00:05:47
Speaker
they were okay, but they weren't great soccer. And it's just getting to be kind of a slog and the offense is just not clicking and it seems like it's gotten progressively worse and I don't know how much of that is just
00:06:02
Speaker
you know, random chance and how much of it is an actual trend or what. But it's just kind of bleh right now. And, you know, that's OK. You can go through stretches like that in successful seasons. But I don't really blame anyone for kind of rolling their eyes when it's, you know, time for the game to start, I guess. Yeah, it was not a it was not. And I think the best thing to say about this game was that it was not pretty. And and I think that
00:06:29
Speaker
adds to a lot of the frustrations is that unlike you know i think we could argue that certainly the vancouver game the center should have won they were the better team they played well they put a lot of shots on frame uh they basically got robbed by a very hot goalkeeper and then they gave up a very unfortunate goal while they were up a man
00:06:46
Speaker
And I think you could make a reasonable argument that they should have won the Timbers game. You know, they were the better team. They had better chances. You go on and on. The Galaxy game, though, was frustrating. You know, obviously they had to come back to get a point in that one. And this game was just, there was no offense. There was nothing to get excited about. There was nothing that we saw going forward that would really be encouraging. You know, there are two best chances
00:07:10
Speaker
off the top of my head, maybe I'm, or I guess they had three decent chances. One of them was a shot by Dempsey that was from, you know, 19 yards out. He didn't put it on frame. Kind of frustrating to see that he had a pretty open look. There was a decent new who put in a cross that if it was a little bit lower, Will Bruin probably had a decent shot at scoring at the back post. And then there was the Leerdom
00:07:35
Speaker
Which was a very exciting play, but actually a very impressive play by Lierdom. Towards the end of the game, 94th minute, where he got into the box and he put in a cross. And what was so frustrating about that is that the spot that you would like to think that Clint Dempsey would pop up in, there was no player there. And why was there no player there? Well, at the start of that sequence, Clint Dempsey looked like he may have been fouled by Walker Zimmerman. And rather than getting back up and getting into the play,
00:08:03
Speaker
He stayed down. Now, maybe he was legitimately hurt. You know, it was the 94th minute. He is 34 years old. It was 90 degrees. Maybe he was just kind of like having a Murtaugh moment where he said, you know, I'm getting too old for this shit. Either way, it was kind of frustrating not to see Dempsey in that play ready to kind of pounce on the loose ball. That would have been a golden chance. That said, that play, I feel like, ended up, you know, being somewhat symbolic for a lot of fans of
00:08:32
Speaker
frustrations with Clint Dempsey. Now, it should be absolutely said that it was only four games ago that Clint Dempsey was finishing off one of the hottest runs
00:08:42
Speaker
of his career, certainly of his Sounders career. And so it's not like it was that, it shouldn't have been that hard for any of us to remember a time when Clint Dempsey was begging goals and looking like a very, very good player. But he didn't seem himself in this one. He didn't seem himself in the Galaxy game. It looks like the long season may be catching up to Clint Dempsey a little bit. But I also heard some people talking about how he just sat on the ground for five minutes
00:09:11
Speaker
one of our colleagues at Sounder Heart, Relio, actually went back and measured the amount of time that he was on the ground. It was 22 seconds, which is a long cry from five minutes. Now it was an important 22 seconds. But it is interesting to see how many fans have kind of really turned on Clint Dempsey. And it's funny, I talked to one of the things I asked Garth about in our interview, which is later in the show, I asked him about Clint Dempsey and kind of tried to get him to give us a hint as to whether or not he's coming back and
00:09:41
Speaker
And Garth seemed to indicate that they expect Clint to come back, but we'll see. But anyway, I don't know, what do you make of all this sudden blame being heaped onto Clint Dempsey's shoulders, Aaron? I mean, I think it's a couple things. I think that anytime teams are struggling, there's a tendency to blame their best players by a lot of the pans. It happens with each row.
00:10:08
Speaker
It happened with Felix Hernandez. It happened with Matt Hasselbeck after the Seahawks fell off after their first Super Bowl run. It's something that happens a lot in sports. It happens with Freddie all the time. He was always the laser focused point of what's wrong with his team when they were playing well.
00:10:27
Speaker
And I think that's unfair, but I think it kind of is what it is. And it's something you just kind of have to accept that fans are going to do. You know, these are the guys that are going to pay tons of money and, you know, they're the players that people expect to put teams on their back and carry them through these struggles.
00:10:44
Speaker
it generally doesn't really work that way. And that's why it's a huge deal when a player does put a team on his back. But yeah, so I mean, it's part of that is just, you know, sports fans doing a sports fan thing. And that's, that's fine. I get it. But part of it is I just like, with Dempsey, I feel like there are a lot of people that have never really been super happy with him here. And especially since 2014. I mean, I think
00:11:10
Speaker
You know, the kind of player he is is that if he doesn't have another attacking player to play off of, he's not going to put up super crazy numbers. And he just hasn't really had that this year. You know, Nico Lodaro is a really great setup kind of player, but he's not an Oba Finney Martins kind of player.
00:11:30
Speaker
And I don't think Dempsey even needs that caliber of a player, you know, to be truly effective. But, you know, with Jordan Morris being hurt a lot of the year and then being ineffective and then being gone, it's just been kind of hard for him to get into a rhythm. But the numbers he's put up this year are pretty solid. I mean, he there's a pretty good. Yeah, go ahead. 12 to 15 goals. He's going to end up with four or five assists. I mean, those are our numbers where if you told us at the beginning of the year that he was going to put up
00:11:58
Speaker
you know, somewhere between 12 and 15 goals and have four or five assists, I think any of us would have been very happy to take that. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think, I mean, really, I think that the issues with this team's attack, what I like to see more from Clint and MC. Yeah. I mean, it'd be great if he was scoring, you know, 20 goals or whatever. Um, what I do, I wish that Nico Lodero had scored some more goals. Sure. But I mean, over the course of the season, their numbers are going to be.
00:12:22
Speaker
really good. And, you
Defensive Strength Discussion
00:12:24
Speaker
know, I think the problem is that Jordan Morris is not produced anywhere close to what I think it was reasonable to expect and whether or not, you know, what the causes of that are irrelevant. That's just the fact. I mean, he has two goals this year. Will Drune has picked up some of that load, but
00:12:40
Speaker
not enough of it to really make this team dangerous in the attack. Rodriguez has been really good since he came in, but I think it's clear to say that there are going to be some bumps in getting him integrated into the team. He certainly hasn't looked as explosive as he did in the first couple of games, and that's fine. I think that's totally reasonable that it's going to take some time for him to sort of gel into the team. But I think it's also reasonable to think he's not going to score a ton of goals either, that he's just not really that kind of player.
00:13:10
Speaker
So, I mean, I think that a big part of it is just that, you know, the way this team is constructed, they have to have an elite defense to be an elite team. And fortunately, they do. I mean, they have, if not the best, one of the very best defenses in the league. And the offense is going to sputter at times, and it's going to be explosive at times.
00:13:30
Speaker
That's, I think over the course of the season, a pretty valid and reasonable strategy. Unfortunately, when it's bad, it can be pretty brutal to watch for, for a lot of people. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's no question that, you know, you don't like to see your team score three goals in, in four games, but I guess it's, you can take some solace and that the centers have only given up three goals in four games. And if you go.
00:13:54
Speaker
you know all the way back to kelvin leardham's debut which came in the uh... in the earthquakes game the centers have only given up four goals in those uh... what ten game nine games so it's it's it's it's an impressive display of defense that the sounders i guess is the is that his uh... those is starting debut he technically came in off the bench against you see united the earlier game but didn't allow always on field
00:14:21
Speaker
Anyway, it's been an impressive display of defense and no one was better than, you know, it was funny, we were talking about, I know when Romain Torres' red card got rescinded, I didn't think it was that big of a deal from a strategy standpoint because I figured
00:14:39
Speaker
Gustav Svensson will come in for Roman Torres and maybe
Tactical Adjustments
00:14:44
Speaker
he's a slight drop-off in terms of defense but he's not a huge drop, he's an upgrade in what he offers in the passing game and so maybe it's not a bad trade-off at all but as it turned out Roman Torres had to start this game because Chad Marshall picked up some kind of injury that we actually haven't heard really much about yet.
00:15:03
Speaker
And Taurus was great. He was really really good. He's been really really good for you know four or five weeks at the very least maybe even a couple months and this is the Roman Taurus that I think we had all been hoping that we were gonna see for for a long time and he has been very good and I think that
00:15:20
Speaker
You know, as much as I was someone who was behind the idea of Gustav Svensson maybe permanently coming in to replace Torres as the starting center back, I think Torres is the guy you gotta be starting. And then the sounders gotta figure out how to use Svensson.
00:15:36
Speaker
But, you know, one of the ideas that you touched on and one of the ideas I'd like to dig into a little bit in the rest of this segment is, you know, you suggested the possibility of going to sort of a 4-3-3, I guess you could almost call it a 4-2, I guess a 4-2-5, would that make sense? Was that the right number? 4-2-4? Where you don't really have, where you kind of have Dempsey as a false 9 and you have Lidero,
00:16:06
Speaker
Lidero and Rodriguez as the other attacking players, and then you use the central midfield of, I guess you would call it, we'll call it a 4-3-3 for the sake of this. And Christian Roldan will move into, you know, ostensibly the more forward of the three center-mids, but he has Svensson and Roldan, or Svensson and Alonso. I'm really kind of like, I think I've convinced myself that that's the lineup I want to see against RSL.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think that it has problems, but so does the lineup the Sounders are putting out there right now. I think that we've talked a little bit about the ways that Jordan Morris can bring you things when he's not scoring goals that Will Bruin doesn't.
00:16:49
Speaker
And I think we've kind of seen that a little bit in the last few games. And I think that Dempsey and Ledero and Rodriguez are all going to be kind of in that space anyway. So, I mean, I just like the idea of kind of letting them do their thing and create and Dempsey can play a little bit higher, but without having to be a true out and out lone striker.
00:17:12
Speaker
the sounders don't need a ton of hold-up play, they're not really counterattacking anyway. If you're gonna go, you know, for the death through a million cuts kind of approach of keeping a ton of possession and just probing and probing and probing,
00:17:26
Speaker
I think that, you know, having your most skillful players out there is a way to do it. And it's not perfect. I'd much rather see Jordan Morris out there leading the line and stretching the line and, you know, maybe having some counter-attacking opportunities, but they're not going to get those with Wilbur and up there.
00:17:43
Speaker
So it's better to just kind of commit to the idea that we're going to play this way. We're going to have a ton of possession rather than trying to, you know, kind of shoehorn players into that strategy because you feel like you have to have an out and out striker. I'm skeptical that we'll see that, but I think it would be a lot more interesting than what we've seen over the last few games for sure.
00:18:07
Speaker
You know, and I suppose you could always go back to, you know, chances are the center is going to have to use slightly different lineups against RSL and at home against Vancouver. So I don't think that this would be the wrong game to maybe try something a little different. And I do think it's worth keeping in mind. You know, I know that there have been times where I've been a little frustrated with Victor Rodriguez that he, you know, for all that he seems to do right, the sounders aren't scoring much with him on the field. But the reality is that he's only started twice.
00:18:37
Speaker
and he's come off the bench in two other games. They've looked like a dangerous team when he's on the pitch, so I'm still pretty bullish on what Rodriguez can really bring to this team. I think that getting him onto the field in a formation like that would be an interesting look.
00:18:54
Speaker
And I'm excited to potentially see that. It'll also be interesting to see how Spencer kind of juggles these lineups for the next three games,
Mid-Episode Sponsors
00:19:03
Speaker
I guess. They have three games in relatively quick succession. But anyway, we should probably take a break. We're going to come back. We're going to talk to you. We have a long interview with Garth Legway. So go ahead and get settled in. We're not going to do questions this week, partly because this was such a long interview that I did with Garth. But we'll come back. We'll close things up. You'll listen to no s...
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Speaker
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Interview with Garth Loggaway
00:20:52
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adietes. We are joined by Sounders GM and president of soccer, Garth Loggaway. What's the proper way to pronounce your name? Loggaway? Loggaway? The SportsCenter guy is way back when Obermann was doing it and they did a clip of me back when I was playing and he turned to Dan Patrick and he said, how much does a Loggaway? And I thought, you know, there's a perfect phonic device for my name. Is that actually the proper, it is Loggaway?
00:21:19
Speaker
you know, lager you drink and then whey, like how much does he whey and lager whey and you're there and it's phonetically does not, it's not spelled the way it's pronounced, obviously. And it's actually a Dutch name that is lagerweij, which was in Dutch, W-I-J, on the end. But at Ellis Island, when my great grandparents came in, they could not spell that or didn't understand. And so it became W-E-Y and it's stayed W-E-Y ever since.
00:21:46
Speaker
Well, I would like to think that that's the first time that you've explained that on air. Sorry, I want to say it's my great-great-grandparents. Actually, I'm going to be off by a generation. It's the 19-teens. Anyway, that could be. I've told the story. No saudientes. We're breaking new ground. Or really old ground. Right, exactly.
00:22:07
Speaker
So that's always the goal on the show. But this has been an interesting year as seemingly every year of your tenure, maybe every year of the sounder's existence seems to have its own little interesting tidbits. I guess we'll start with this, you know, we're now almost a month removed from the close of the transfer window. You look back on it, do you feel like this was a six, you have a little bit more like,
00:22:32
Speaker
sense of how you did, like the day after, I'm sure you felt great about it, but what do you, you know, looking back on it, do you think that this was a good transfer window? Do you feel like you guys are well positioned ultimately? I think we're talented and I think we're deep and I think we're in a position to defend our title but the reality is that I think the transfer window will be judged based on how the team does and you know we've got this great unbeaten run and
00:23:00
Speaker
coincides with Kelvin Nerdom's arrival. And I think in a broad team sense it was more about stability than anything at that spot. But Kelvin's come in and for me been one of the best outside backs in the league since he got here. So that's been a real positive and I really locked that spot down. Still have high hopes for Victor Rodriguez in that left wing spot. Same situation where we've been a little bit unsettled there and really think that that can be a solution for us.
00:23:29
Speaker
But ultimately, it's the team performance, right? I mean, each decision in a vacuum you can pick a part and say, well, this part was good or that part was good or bad. But it's how the team does. And that's the stage we are. And we're in the business of defending our title. And that's the only goal that matters right now.
00:23:49
Speaker
And so as the league introduces more and more mechanisms, and I guess maybe the physical mechanisms aren't the difference, but the amount of money that you have to pull levers, the amount of flexibility you have as the season goes on seems to change each window. Does it make it hard? So this year we had an influx of targeted allocation money.
00:24:11
Speaker
How does that change what you're able to do? Does it make it harder? Does it make it easier? Are you someone who wants all the choice? I know some people feel like I would rather order off a limited menu because I can kind of wrap my head around each thing. Other people want to go to a buffet.
00:24:44
Speaker
The system's more complicated than it was before, is what I would say. And look, the success within the system, that's our job. That's how we're evaluated. And so we have to work within that complex system to get the most optimal outcomes we can. One of the things that I think hasn't been talked about a lot, at least, is that TAM dollars change in value over the course of the season.
00:24:49
Speaker
be able to pick anything they want.
Season Strategy and Success Metrics
00:25:05
Speaker
One TAM dollar is not worth the same today as it was six months ago.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yep, and to be clear, most correctly stated is a TAM dollar is a TAM dollar, right? So, but you have a choice then, do I want to spend $500,000 in January? Or do I want to spend $500,000 in July? And if I spend $500,000 in July, that's the functional equivalent of a million dollars in the sense that you're, you know, if you save that money, and now you spend it in July,
00:25:32
Speaker
don't be wrong, the next year you're going to have to spend the full million on it. But you're getting, in terms of using your resources, a better bang, fair buck. And so it's made us a little bit more cautious about how are we going to make choices on personnel early in the season. We don't want to lock ourselves into substandard outcomes, particularly because we thought we had a pretty good team coming into this year.
00:25:53
Speaker
And again, I think in hindsight, some of the hysteria over our start was there was only a six-week break between the end of the season and the end of the next one. But also, there were 7-11 games in the road. And if you look at those home games in that stretch, I think we only lost one home game. We've only lost one home game all year. So yeah. And it was Toronto, I think, in that stretch.
00:26:17
Speaker
It was 1-0 and it was a pretty, like, hard to swallow loss. It was a penalty that you gave up. Yup. Yup. And again, I'm not suggesting for a second that we were playing great or there was no cause for or concern or anything like that, but, you know, in that stretch, we started six different right backs. And so combination of, uh, of, of.
00:26:36
Speaker
Tough schedule, I would argue, to start. And now we've gone, you know, the 16 games, or not 16, 12 games unbeaten, but we're 10, 2, and 6 best record in the league over the last 18 games since that 7 of 11 on the road. So I think if you look at that and you say, all right, well, how does that compare to last year when we were, quote unquote, the hot team? And you're like, oh, it's the same pace.
00:26:56
Speaker
You're like, OK, well, maybe, and this is what I argued at the end of last year, we weren't hot. We just changed some stuff, but we got good, right? Roman Torres came back. We got, we signed Lidero. We got Brad Evans back, at least in some capacity. And then we were pretty good. And so when we changed our team, it took us a little bit of time at the beginning. It was because we changed, you know, 13 guys changed from the championship team. Took us a little bit of time to get up to speed, but I really think then that
00:27:22
Speaker
We did that. We got to the summer window. So we still have these two issues out of the 11. So let's address both of them. And then look, we got a piece in the Marnagle that's already banged home an important goal for us and gets a standing ovation every time he walks in the field. It's a nice trick, by the way. It is a nice trick, yeah. Yeah. In case you're worried about playing your best at work, you're like, hey, just have everybody in your office stand up and give you a cheer for you and see if you're like, all right, I can do this. I'm going to go get it. It's a good case for bringing him almost exclusively off the bench because he hit that rush right there.
00:27:52
Speaker
Every time I really think that I thought after the first game I'm like, okay This is great fans. Love them. He's back and then they did it for the second game another third game But I'm like, this is gonna go like this. This is good for Lamar So so this is the way and he's then he's done really well for us and that that's you know that's what happens sometimes is all the attention goes to the big signings and then this one you kind of picked up as an insurance policy, hey, maybe this will work out and
00:28:19
Speaker
if that one hits then everything looks good because again it's it's a team success it's not about my success or the scouting staff success or the front office's success it's does the team defend its title and hopefully well so you know a lot was made of some comments you you made earlier this year kind of around the transfer window about how uh the way you value a season i think you were i think you gave a fairly nuanced
00:28:44
Speaker
Answer to it that you know effectively the league says MLS Cup is the champion. There's not really a debate like whether or not I Personally feel that the supporters shield is a better accomplishment is ultimately irrelevant because MLS Cup is the league title There's not there's no
00:29:01
Speaker
Questions about that and you know Champions League is Champions League US Open Cup is what it is But like in who gets to wear the star and lost cup There's not like I said, it's a parade right who gets a parade right? We won the centers have won five trophies previously. They've had one parade was from a lost cup But I guess the question is is that there is a I think there's a viable and fair debate to be had about
00:29:28
Speaker
how much enjoyment you get from a season. And while MLS Cup has the high of being the champion for the, for that moment and for the next year, essentially, uh, you like week to week, like last year, I think most fans would say week to week. It wasn't as fun as like 2014, uh, when, when they won supporters, when centers won a supporter shield. And I guess the question is, is do you think that
00:29:58
Speaker
playing for like whether or not the support shield is important from a you know a lead perspective like there's some value in winning on a week to week basis and it makes for a longer form of enjoyment and I guess the question is is that
00:30:14
Speaker
Can we expect the Sounders to be essentially building up for MS Cup every year? Or is there, you know, at some point the roster is going to settle in and, you know, maybe you won't have exactly a set roster the day the season kicks off, but that you're reasonably able to compete at the same level beginning the season as you would at the end?
00:30:32
Speaker
You look, I think it's important sometimes to not overthink some of this stuff. Do we go out to win every week? Yes. Did we want to start out with a rough beginning of the season? No, of course not. But if you start with the 7-11 on the road,
00:30:49
Speaker
Mathematically, you're likely to have fewer points at the end of that stretch than you did. And I totally understand the anxiety of, you know, because I think there still is the perception last year that we had, it was a 20 game run, which is, to me, a little bit, slightly more than a hot streak. But I think, but there was the perception, I think, out there that, you know, they got lucky. They're the best bad team.
Building for Sustainable Success
00:31:09
Speaker
Signed a guy, changed coaches, away they went. Just, it's random. They just got hot. And I just categorically reject
00:31:18
Speaker
that analysis. And I don't think that it encompasses our personnel change. I don't think it encompasses the tactical change that we made. I don't think it encompasses the strategic change in terms of just the voice that was in the locker room. And so as a result then, my perception of the beginning of this year is, hey, we've gone as far as we can with that group. We're able to win a title with them. That's awesome. But you can't start seven guys over 30 for an extended period of time and expect good outcomes.
00:31:48
Speaker
more than otherwise we change the team. And I don't mean to duck your question at all. But my job is to create sustainable success, replicable success. And you need to build up to that. And some of that is simply getting younger in our case and getting more young players. And the question is not young versus old, but more good players. And the cool thing about young players, particularly when you have them as depth pieces, is over the course of the year, a lot of them get better.
00:32:18
Speaker
Henry Wing was better than he was when the year started. Tony O'Farrill is better than he was when the year started. You saw it last year more starkly with Jordan Morris and with Christian Rodin and with Jovan Jones. I knew who Tolo is better now than he was at the beginning of the year. And so that's part of my philosophy. And again, that can be right or wrong. But some of the, my teams get better, tend to get better in the end of the year is I've said I want a veteran player in every position and I want a young player in every position that I believe has or we believe has talent and upside.
00:32:47
Speaker
And certainly, you're not going to be right on everything. You hope you're right on more and you're wrong. But your team theory should get, literally, at the very least, deeper over the course of the season because some of those young players who are not ready at the beginning will get better over the course of the season. And then if you couple that with the TAM dollar, that if you save it, you can get more for your money in the summer.
00:33:09
Speaker
Now, if you have confidence in that, hey, we'll get through this part of the beginning, then hopefully that's the... So what I would say is it's not a dogmatic, like, we have to only play the games in September and that's all that matters. It's just a little bit of a natural outflowing of kind of the way that I or we roster build. And again, I would say that in my job, it's really important to understand
00:33:37
Speaker
what the rules are certainly, but also how do you define success and
00:33:43
Speaker
The rules are that the regular season champion gets to host the final if they get there. Well, now you still have to get there in order for that to make any difference. And as in any other sport, you want to finish as high as you can. That never changes. You want to maximize your chances of hosting a final. I mean, again, who is opposed to playing a final in Seattle? And that's a worthwhile, noble goal. And just at the beginning of the season, it's balancing. Do I want to invest in this perhaps less optimal solution now?
00:34:13
Speaker
Or do I want to wait and see if I get a better one later? And in particular, too, I think if you think you're good, if you think you have a foundation, and again, Sounders have made the playoffs nine years in a row.
00:34:24
Speaker
So I think there's a pretty good foundation. There's a pretty good infrastructure here. And so again, that, that tends to argue for patients in the beginning of a season to try and see if things work and then to fix them there as opposed to, you know, um, you know, a lot of look, a lot of new teams, a lot of young teams, they push everything into the front of the season because they have to. And then you see this start and then the, the end isn't quite as good. So, so look, I mean, 2014.
00:34:50
Speaker
what's the best regular season clearly by definition most points really fun team really talented team and I think that's really what you're going for is can you build back to a sustainable level of talent where you have talent and depth and you're not in a place where you have to change five or six players at the end of the season because of age injury depletion etcetera and so look at that and that's that's to some degree the
00:35:13
Speaker
You're chasing perfection and that's really difficult and right and you know I think there's nothing wrong with saying that you know what the 2014 team was really good You know, I like to think the 2016 the team was pretty good too And I think the 2017 team is really good, but we'll be judged based on on what we win and and look 2018 and
00:35:33
Speaker
It's a different animal altogether, because we're going to play Champions League. And if you advance to Champions League, you could have two straight months of playing twice a week. And that's going to test our depth like anything, nothing that we've ever faced before. And you're going to have to look at then, how do we approach the league games in between the Champions League games, because we're going to try and win Champions League.
00:35:53
Speaker
And then what is the physical toll on the group, such that we have to manage that. We have a World Cup break, which is going to be a little, you know, as long as it wasn't 14, but a little bit longer than one this year. And then you have to ramp up. So, so again, like I just.
00:36:09
Speaker
It's not, all I would say is it's not a European system. It's not a home and away every week and we take all breaks off and there's just as always I feel like every season something that influences what you want to do and you have to look at the season holistically and say when are our big most important games and how do we want to allocate our resources to maximize our impact in those games.
00:36:31
Speaker
And that said, the only other kind of maybe philosophical change that I would make is just if you go to a player development model as we have over the last three years and you have us too, because keep in mind these mechanisms didn't exist in 2014. But if you have a reserve team and you have now, we have three national academy teams, under 19, under 17, under 15, and we have age groups younger than them, you have to give opportunities to those kids to develop. And so it's not a matter of disrespecting the open cup competition that the Sounders have won four times or devaluing it.
00:37:00
Speaker
If our organizational philosophy is we need to develop players because we need to become more sustainable in our success and we need to push them up into the squad, then you have to give those players competitive games at some point. And we talk about sampling. Do we push them up? We can't push them up into the first team and leave them there and let them fail. You have to kind of push them up, bring them back down. Push them up, bring them back down. And so that's what I think
00:37:25
Speaker
Think on the on the open
Youth Development and S2 Team
00:37:27
Speaker
cup specifically. I think there's some misperception that suddenly we don't care about the open cup and that's that's really not true. It's just The the organization's evolved and we now have all of these other things that we're trying to support and we're trying to look at three and five year Progressions of the team but of individual players as well and I really think the open cups a critical part of that so I actually would think we're
00:37:47
Speaker
Inherently valuing the open cup highly value in the open cup. We just maybe value it in a different manner than you know, if you were able to play You know out now to we are playing to whatever game But it's like that at some point, you know you you've signed a backup keeper And if you literally never let him play, how's he gonna get better? I mean, that's to use an obvious example, but it's not like in years of
00:38:16
Speaker
you know, 9, 10, 11, like in 2009, 2010, maybe it made sense to have Casey Keller start every Open Cup game. But at some point, you'd like to have an organization that doesn't require you to start your starting goalkeeper and open up games every single, and I would guess this is just the natural progression of that.
00:38:32
Speaker
Yeah, and I would argue it's the evolution of the league. Literally, the league has to get better. Look, we had 10 teams in 2005. We have 22 teams this year. The league's doubled in size. We haven't doubled the number of American players. We have to do this. We have to develop our academy to increase the number of players that are coming through the system because it gets harder and harder to have quality Americans.
00:38:53
Speaker
And again, as I've said, we're competing against LA and New York. Seattle's not the same size, though. There aren't as many people here. So we have to be that much more attuned to it if we're going to stay and hang with the big boys in terms of the holistic five-year competition. And when I talk to fans, when I read the community, I sense almost that some people are worried there's a disrespect of what came before or a lack of recognition of what was accomplished.
00:39:18
Speaker
I am certainly at fault if that's the case, but I do not intend that by any of my remarks. I do think we want to parade and so we should be playing for endless cups, but that doesn't in any way, demean or disrespect what came before or diminish the value of those championships or how hard they were to win or how great an accomplishment that they were.
00:39:37
Speaker
I just believe that I'm making strategic choices. We are now making strategic choices consistent with our investment and consistent with what I believe we need to do long term to remain competitive in MOS and deliver our fans the best product they can possibly consume. So you mentioned Champions League. You suggested that maybe that is sudden that I mean, you've always said since that was one of the things you've most been consistent about is saying that Champions League is kind of the big prize in North American soccer.
00:40:06
Speaker
I assume that, you know, and Champions League is going to kick off, I guess, in February, it sounds like. So it's going to be possibly the earliest season the Sounders have ever... February 20, roughly. You know, we don't have a hard day. The draw hasn't happened yet. But at some point in the middle of that week, that's when our first game we think was going to be.
00:40:23
Speaker
Right. And so that, so presumably that's, that it sounds like you guys are going in with the assumption, like, and I guess that would affect, I guess the question is, how does that affect your off season? Uh, presuming that, you know, the Sanders have never had a, anything like a set team, and this is predating you going into the knockout stages of championship. And essentially we're starting in the knockout stages, you know, um.
00:40:45
Speaker
And I know so many times I've looked at the roster at the end of the year and been like, man, it sure would have been nice to have Clint in a Champions League game or OBA. And neither one, neither Clint nor OBA ever played in a knockout Champions League game. Or I guess last year. Yep. But that was his first one. That was his first one, right. It gets to Clinton America, right. But until then, and you know, when you look at the roster at the end of last year and said, oh man, if Nico Ledero
00:41:09
Speaker
who knows how that affects the you know so i guess the question then is how does that affect offseason building and and do you imagine another kind of heavy transitionary period this offseason no i look i think we've been most effective in those windows where we bring in two or three impact players um so inevitably there will be some you know depending on how the season plays out depending on how contract negotiations go like these are all the stuff like uh you know
00:41:36
Speaker
There'll be some range of change. There's an expansion draft. I mean, we may lose somebody there.
00:41:47
Speaker
It's a very short off season. I think our report date is January 19, if I'm not mistaken. So you have literally a month. You have four weeks. And you guys get an early, you're not able to come in early. That's CBA mandate. And I believe it's six weeks from the end of the, from MLS Cup date. So it's challenging and you just have to kind of go in and do the best you can and look, I mean, I'm
00:42:11
Speaker
Probably don't want to draw the Canadian team or the Mexican team in the first round, you know, because it's Canadian teams Toronto We know they're pretty good. The Mexican teams are usually pretty good and that's you know, Costa Rican teams are good, too But maybe they're not quite as far along in their season yet. And and you know, you gotta
00:42:28
Speaker
to point we get you gotta try to ramp up a little bit and with uh... with four rounds uh... you know if you if you get club american the first round that's it that's a tough drop and that's just it is what it is and you gotta do your best and be competitive but no your direct question was is your team going to be settled
00:42:47
Speaker
No, I mean, it's four weeks into the season. Like it's not now. I mean, I guess does it affect the way that you like, let's just say normally you might go into the off season thinking like, well, we can really wait until the second half of the season to get the DP we want. But maybe this year because of this, there's a DP, like maybe we're a little more willing to get our second choice.
00:43:10
Speaker
I think there's some truth to that. Again, we don't know yet what their, at least they haven't told me yet, what the TAM rules are going to be for next year. This has been literally a transfer window by transfer window kind of decision. And so, again, what I just want to be careful about is if you look at the salary cap hits of a DP versus a TAM, right now, a DP salary cap hit is worth three TAM players.
00:43:33
Speaker
And so just have to think about what's the wisest use of your resources in terms of do we want three of this or one of this? And again, it's the rest of your teams, their salary gaps impact how you choose to allocate that. But yes, the answer to your question is it does argue for a more expedient DP signing if necessary, such that that player is in my January and prepared for the Champions League.
00:43:58
Speaker
that said as much and as badly as I want to win the Champions League and I, you know, we were the first team to go for it truly at RSL in 2011. So I mean, this has been a years long held position of mine.
00:44:10
Speaker
The DP decision is a at minimum three and realistically a five-year decision and no matter how badly you want to chase one tournament You cannot screw up a five-year decision. You cannot screw up a ten million dollar decision If you do that, you will bury your franchise I mean, this is this is the it's the equivalent of drafting a quarterback in the first round of the NFL If you do that and then in the world even before they had You know smaller contracts for those guys like, you know in the old school and they just if you blow that decision You're tied to a huge number
00:44:41
Speaker
And you kind of can't fix it and that's that's what you can't that's why you got to be careful and and it I Understand why that's probably a frustrating answer on some level because we've gone to windows without signing a DP and you know Trust me again, like we all want to win. We all want to bring VPs in You know, we all want to have big impact and that's certainly what we're striving to do did the
00:45:07
Speaker
experience of this last transfer window and assuming the reports are vaguely accurate about how negotiations went and how close you may or may not have come does that end up changing the way that you look at things or do you think it went about I mean was that was the outcome within the realm of expected outcomes?
00:45:29
Speaker
Look, you can hope for an outcome, but hope is not a strategy. And it was pretty clear that Durlos was going to be difficult if, in fact, we ever talked to Kiev or that ever went down. And what I would say is we approached it and we kind of said, here's our option. Here's our backups.
00:45:56
Speaker
We found or we thought internally that our first option was significantly better than the others. That's really what it boiled down to. And it was when we ultimately got to, okay, this isn't going to work.
00:46:08
Speaker
do we want to do this? And that was the decision then of for the next five years, I'm not sure I'm willing to say that this is the best we could possibly do. And again, the risk there is if you don't think your team's good and you need to do it, then all right, you need to do it. And I actually would say when we signed Lidero, I'd say we needed to sign a DP at that point. The season was not going well. We had to turn it around.
00:46:33
Speaker
The point of being stable and being consistent and not chasing this means that
00:46:40
Speaker
You have some ability, no matter how frustrating it is for a fan base, to say, let's get this right. Let's wait. Let's get this right. We believe we've addressed our two positions of critical need. We believe we have depth in terms of that is comparable to that 2014 team that won the supporter shield. And therefore, we can look our fans in the eye and say, we're doing the best we can. And we're also looking out for the long-term best interests of the franchise.
00:47:09
Speaker
And I guess the next question related to that is, is your perception of what you need going into this offseason as of today, is it any different than what your perception of need was the day the transfer window closed, the stock transfer window closed? Yeah, I think it does, actually. Because when you looked at our team, we looked at some wide forward options. That was for this summer.
00:47:37
Speaker
and I think in Victor we've identified again a player that we think could play there and you know the coach's staff has used some other guys there. Jordan before he got hurt, Jobin's played there. So I think we've addressed it and so does that push you toward maybe a different position for this next one? It could you know and I actually wouldn't I still wouldn't rule that out going back with a wider forward but I think we're gonna have a slightly different focus and again that happens every time and
00:48:07
Speaker
you know everyone's like oh you know what if you have you followed up on your targets from last window and like it just as soon as you get to the end of it window it's not that it erases you still know which players are good and which are not but the economics change pretty radically every window and so you do have to kind of start from scratch in that sense and go back to your pool of guys go back to you know some of the some of the guys some of the reasons why our backups were where they were was that the next kind of class of players above where we were was
00:48:35
Speaker
double the price of where we're shopping and so you look at that group and this is where it gets tricky but some of those guys come down and now if you've done your scouting properly you might pick up a guy that's maybe had a down year but has got a really significant valuation in your mind because you've scouted them over the last you know two or three transfer windows and
00:48:54
Speaker
So it works both ways. You both have these young guys that explode, and you have other guys. You can have young guys that explode and then come back to earth,
Balancing Fan Expectations and Strategy
00:49:02
Speaker
and you're like, wait. But I remember when he was on his way up, and so now we can get him at this median valuation. And the other thing I'm sensitive to is that doesn't mean we're cheap. What it means is we're smart. It means that we're waiting or we're getting players at their appropriate valuations. Because again, if you overpay for players, if you say, hey, we like this guy, and the next option costs double,
00:49:23
Speaker
If you pay double, that affects you for the next five years, because now you don't have those resources for the next DP. And Clint Dempsey is 34 years old, and he's not going to play forever. So it's hard, and it's a balance. Brian's got to win every weekend, and I have to try. We have to try to win over a course of years, and not even just one tournament, but we have to win over a course of years. And we want to try to make it sustainable. We want to try to make it predictable.
00:49:52
Speaker
And honestly, we want to be transparent and we want to try to explain ourselves to our fans because they're entitled to that explanation. But I hope folks understand at least that a lot of thought goes into these things. And it just can't as gratifying as it would be to make a one-time decision and say, we're going to get this guy, whatever it costs, no matter what it takes.
00:50:12
Speaker
that's just not smart in my experience so that that's um and and and we will be we will sustain our success and so maybe there's a stretch of 11 games being in the season that may be a little bit less fun but maybe the trade-off for that is
00:50:27
Speaker
We made the playoffs nine years in a row and we might make it a 10th and maybe we make it another 10 after that and that's kind of cool. It is kind of cool. It is kind of cool. You mentioned Clint. I don't expect you to tell me what your plan is for him, but how has his recent, you know, his second half form essentially affected how you guys look at him going into next year?
00:50:51
Speaker
I actually don't think it affects it that much, and here's what I mean. Clint was playing really well, and then he had a physical problem, and then he couldn't play at all. And we didn't know whether he was gonna, like, our options were never, literally never play again, or come back to his level, and once we figured out that he was physically okay, and I think it took him a little while to trust his body, even after he was okay,
00:51:15
Speaker
But then, honestly, once we got Clint back, then he started playing like Clint. So in that sense, I don't know that our evaluation has changed that radically. It's just, are we going to get Clint back? And we do. We got him back. He's been a really important member of our team. He's been our leading scorer. And I think he's going to play in the World Cup next year. So all of those things argue for trying to find a solution to
00:51:40
Speaker
have them here. So changing gears a little bit and I realize we're probably running out of time but I did want to touch on this with you. S2 is clearly a significant part of the organization. I think from a business standpoint it's maybe a little different than from a
00:51:59
Speaker
from a player development standpoint and I don't know, I'm curious real quick, how do you feel like it has worked in that way? I mean, you know, attendance is not good, attention to it hasn't been real high, it's not been a you know, it hasn't been like a
00:52:20
Speaker
a siren call for fans to get out here. But at the same time you've developed players, they haven't played poorly necessarily. So how do you go about balancing that and what do you see as the future for S2 within the organization?
00:52:35
Speaker
Sure. I mean, look, we have made it a, and again, this, this is, I understand why this would be frustrating for some fans, but we've made it a purely player development organization. So what that means is we try to line up those games when possible with first team games. So with the guys who don't play in the first team games, at least have the opportunity to be selected for the second team games.
00:52:53
Speaker
So again, we prioritize the player development for everybody throughout our organization. And that means that we've played games on Tuesday nights or Friday afternoons and things like that that just haven't made as much sense commercially. Look, I think the long-term play in relationship is that we're going to have a better commercial value in Tacoma. If we're able to work out that deal and
00:53:16
Speaker
Again, strategically big picture. It would be awesome for us to have century Lincoln Seattle to have a training facility here at Starfire and Tukwila and to have a minor league affiliate in Tacoma, because now we have blanketed the region and if you want to talk about what's best for the next generation of Sounders fans.
00:53:34
Speaker
They all get to sample different kind of paths along the way, and even kids in our program get to see different parts of the area and interact with those fans. So that's the vision as to where we want to take this thing. And in terms of S2, again, folks, we haven't yet maybe put through an all-star level player.
00:53:55
Speaker
But we signed Oleks, and again, he had some flashes two years ago until he hurt himself. Then we signed three more players off S2 this year. Zach Mathers, who hasn't played much for the first team, but he's got 10 goals for S2 and is arguably the most improved player on that team.
00:54:11
Speaker
And then we pushed through New Who, who I think speaks for himself. I think he's probably the best young player we've pulled out of the system so far. And then Geordie Delem, who's played a lot of useful minutes for us, has been a really, really good squad guy, international now for Martinique. And so in two years, we've got four players now. And again, are those guys everyday starters yet? No, but the whole point of signing guys at 18 years old is,
00:54:34
Speaker
just as within a season young players get better over a couple of years we expect these guys to get better and so i think yep yep and he again yeah and limited influence i would say in the first team and obviously no longer with us but um you know if what i would simply say is i actually agree with your point s2 has not been hugely influential yet but my point is that as we improve the quality of the academy because that's the foundation of s2 um
00:55:03
Speaker
We do have, in my opinion, half a dozen pro prospects on the current S2 team. Not to say we're going to sign that many next year, but even if we sign a couple again, and we'll most likely take everybody to preseason just what we did before and see which ones sink and which ones swim.
00:55:19
Speaker
If there's a couple that swim, now all of a sudden on your first team, you might have six guys from us two. And that's in just three years. And if you continue to populate that way, and one of our goals is we're signing now 16-year-old Asriel Gonzalez, 18-year-old Sam Rogers. When we look at the ages that DeAndre Yedlin and Jordan Morris and Christian Rodin broke in, it was all between the ages of 19 and 20. Jordan broke in with the national team first before he signed with the Sounders. But I think it's fair to say he's playing at a high level when
00:55:48
Speaker
was a full international so now how can how do we replicate that because that's what we want to do and we want to create more of those guys we want to create another player like Kellen Rowe who comes out one year before D'Andre and the way you do it we believe is by signing kids now who if they're good enough at 16 17 8 years old and now can we get them 100 games
00:56:09
Speaker
before they're thrust into that sounders spotlight and so again what I would say is long-term I actually think we're on course to exactly what we want to do because you can imagine if you if you let's say you get up to six s2 players on on the sounders right and then couple that with home drones right Henry Wingo she had a Koya Aaron Kollbar not all of a sudden
00:56:30
Speaker
By next year, maybe you have 10, Jordan Morris, you might have a 30-year roster that is Seattle products, man, that you're developing. And we want to get it so it's at least half the roster of the senior roster. And again, I think the first phase, those kids will be supporting players. They'll be squad players. But then hopefully, they continue to grow and progress, and the events will become impact players.
00:56:53
Speaker
I do think it's a five-year process, at least. Because again, if you want to talk about the Academy, the Academy is five, six, or seven years. And only when the Academy becomes, the Academy had a great year this year. The challenge to them now is, can they do that again? And then once they get to the stage where they can do that every year, now we know we're going gangbusters down there. And now we're going to turn. But I think this year, I think we're at four or five home-growns in S2. So again, what you need to get to is 10 home-growns on S2.
00:57:20
Speaker
then you're going to get the 10 homegrowns on 10 homegrowns slash s2 guys on the sounders and then you're going to eventually see those kids make impacts and and look who knows maybe knew who total uh or it's that we're somebody we haven't even signed yet breaks through and you're like okay i understand i understand why you're spending money down on s2 right now so so going into year four do you think
00:57:41
Speaker
Traditionally, S2 hasn't been seemingly inclined to bring guys back for a second full season. There's been a lot of turnover year to year at S2. Do you think you're settling into something where you're signing guys maybe earlier in the development process that allows you to build them up at S2 without feeling like either you gotta sign them to the first team or you gotta come loose?
00:58:07
Speaker
Yeah, look, it's something that was just contractual. I mean, the first year, I wasn't here as we signed the whole team. And look, I mean, honestly, we probably had our best soccer team, right? And S2 makes the playoffs.
00:58:20
Speaker
Yeah, and a lot of those guys, they don't want to stick around. They're there, so you give them a chance for the first team. So we said, okay great, that was made the playoffs. We want to win, we want to make the playoffs, but what we have to do to be successful long term is to develop players. And we didn't feel like we developed a lot of players from that group.
00:58:38
Speaker
So we went younger, and then we went younger still, honestly. And to your point, I think it's astute. I think you're able to take a younger player. And look, the wages aren't very glamorous at S2. So younger players are probably more willing and more able to take a lower wage for more than one season.
00:58:54
Speaker
I think Kurt Schmidt deserves a lot of credit here. He's been the S2GM now for two years. And he really took hold of it this cycle and standardized our contracts and made them make a lot more sense, I think, to the players and the agents. And I do think we're going to have a lot more success in creating stability because that is desirable. We do want guys who are going to stick around more than one year.
00:59:13
Speaker
And I think part of that is on us to show them a path. I think part of it is age, where we get them at a point in their progression where they believe they can develop and they see that. I think it's also institutional in that Coach Schmetzer deserves a lot of credit because it's not every Tuesday that we play the game, but on a normal Saturday to Saturday week, one day a week he'll bring in the best S2 guys, the best Academy guys.
00:59:36
Speaker
And they'll train them against the first team. And it's the same sampling thing that we talk about where they get to get in there. And so now, maybe you're playing at that lower level at S2. But if you see that, you're getting an opportunity. You see what you're up against in the first team. I think it gives you a little bit of perspective. And look, it maybe makes you realistic about what your chances actually are. But hopefully, that also shows you, if you make progress, by the way, there's three of your teammates that are up here with the first team right now.
01:00:02
Speaker
So great. That's probably a good place to end this. I really appreciate you taking time. I know you've got a busy schedule and yeah, thanks for
Final Sponsors and Game Preview
01:00:10
Speaker
doing this. Anyway, thanks a lot. Good to see you again. Yep. You're listening to no audio.
01:00:18
Speaker
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01:00:40
Speaker
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01:01:10
Speaker
Welcome back to Nos Arietes. So hopefully you enjoyed that interview with Garth. We don't get a whole lot else to say in this final segment. I don't know, do you have any final thoughts, Eren, before we go into this RSL game? I guess it's a big game, potentially. If the Senders win this one, they're in great shape. But chances are, at the end of this next three games in, I guess, eight days, we're going to know a lot more about this team and how serious they are in terms of their ability to contend.
01:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I think that the Sounders are almost certainly in the playoffs. I think the last odds I saw they were like 98% or something like that. So it's just a question of seeding and that, you know, that's hugely important. So I would really like to kind of get things turned around here and go into the playoffs with a good feeling because
01:01:58
Speaker
as bad as it's been, you know, over the past month or so. Realistically, they're still playing like a pretty good team. They're still getting results. And they're clearly underperforming the talent that they have. And, you know, that happens to most teams. It's not happening to Toronto this year, apparently. No, it happens. It's amazing. Toronto is it's like every time someone brings up the Sounders in comparison to Toronto, I feel like there needs to be a qualifier added, which is
01:02:27
Speaker
Yes, the Sounders are falling short of Toronto right now. Toronto, by the way, putting together one of the greatest seasons in MLS history, full stop. If the season ended today, they would be one of the highest ever points per game. They'd have one of the highest ever goal differences. They have a huge lead in supporter shield. What they're doing is really amazing. I don't think the talent gap between the Sounders and TFC is that great, but they're making the most of it.
01:02:57
Speaker
breaks just go all your way and Toronto seems to be kind of in the midst of something like that. Yeah, I mean they are a historically good team and I think that given the way the ways that MLS has improved over the years and the last few years especially and they're really taking advantage of that, I think it's fair to say that they're unquestionably the best, most talented team that's ever been in the league.
Playoff Strategy and Closing Remarks
01:03:22
Speaker
And that's that's a high standard. I mean, if the Sounders were playing TFC tomorrow in the MLS Cup, do I think they'd win? I sure don't. I do not think they would win. But you can't win the MLS Cup every year. Right. And, you know, if you can go into the playoffs and play well.
01:03:39
Speaker
progress through a series, that's a successful season. I'd be happy with that. If they are playing in the play-in round and get knocked out in the semifinals, that's a pretty big disappointment. And how they do over these next few games is really going to determine the likelihood of whether or not they're able to do that.
01:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, and it's worth noting that MLS Cup is almost three months away. Like, there's a lot that can happen between now and MLS Cup. So if the Sounders end up meeting Toronto FC and MLS Cup, that's something I think I'll worry about then. I'll consider that a huge success if the Sounders get to
01:04:14
Speaker
MLS Cup and get a rematch with Toronto FC. I certainly won't I won't complain if I have to go to Toronto for a second straight year but you know I'm not like I said I'm not convinced that this is you know that that Toronto is gonna you know just juggernaut their way all the way to an MLS Cup. So anyway but I'll end on this note really kind of taking a closer look at the schedule my assumption is that the Sounders are gonna basically
01:04:40
Speaker
treat these next two games like maybe not must-win games, but those are the games that they're gonna probably put their most energy in. And I think they would be very okay with the unbeaten streak stopping at 15. Philadelphia is a team that they could beat, that they maybe should beat even on the road, but I suspect that is not the game that's gonna see the Sounders' best lineup.
01:05:04
Speaker
for understandable reasons. Yeah. Yeah, that's I mean, that's that's pretty reasonable. And Philadelphia is an interesting team anyway. So I mean, if you can get a point out of that game after getting good results in the next two, I think that's okay. And then they've got, you know, a really big game against FC Dallas coming up after that. They take a break though. Yeah.
01:05:27
Speaker
Right. But I mean, you know, it's it's it's definitely fine to put the emphasis on the other two. So, so, yeah, I'm with you. And I think they can play a team in Philadelphia and so the results, but it is wild that there are only five games left. It does not. It feels like there should be more.
01:05:54
Speaker
But it also feels like the season has been going on forever. Yes, as MLM seasons tend to do. Well, anyway, I think that's probably a good place to call it a segment.
01:06:04
Speaker
Thanks to Garth Legaway for spending so much time with us. He's always very good to us with his time. Whenever we can finally get him, and it took a little while to actually get him to sit down for an interview, but it was very well worth it. I hope you found that to be an interesting segment. Of course, thanks to our sponsors.
01:06:24
Speaker
Foolpool Wines, Queen Anne Acupuncture, Verdy Credit Union, Designers Marble, and our broadcast partner Bootstrapper Studios. I am Jeremiah O'Shan, signing off on behalf of Aaron Campo as well as our engineer, Lickit. This is Nos Arriettes. Remember, you'll never get alone.
01:06:41
Speaker
Green Douglas fir 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.
01:07:28
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!