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Missing five starters, Sounders actually played OK
91 Plays1 year ago
It's not the sexiest or most interesting position to have, but Jeremiah and Aaron remain at least cautiously optimistic about the Sounders following their season-opening loss to LAFC. Given that the Sounders were missing five likely starters, there just wasn't much to read into the result.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. 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 Sounders 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.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
00:01:27
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Noose Adiatus, sponsored by Fullpool Wines and our subscribers. We're recording on February 27, 2024, and I am your host, Jeremiah Shan. Joining me today is my co-host, Aaron Campbell, and our engineer, Lickit.
Sounders Season Opener Analysis
00:01:40
Speaker
Well the Sounders opened their 2024 campaign with a 2-1 loss on the road to LAFC. It wasn't exactly the dream start we wanted, but there was definitely some mitigating factors. The biggest of these was a slew of injuries up and down the spine of the roster. Heading into the week, Ciao Paolo, Steph Frye, and Yamar were all questionable and their lack of inclusion was basically expected.
00:02:01
Speaker
Then Albert Rusnak picked up an ankle injury during the final training session, forcing the sounders to rethink their entire tactical approach without any training sessions to try it out. They ended up going with a 4-4-2 with Raul Ruidias effectively asked to drop in and do some of the number 10 stuff. I wouldn't say it went particularly poorly, but it definitely wasn't great. The most obvious issue was how disconnected Jordan Morris was from the midfield.
00:02:23
Speaker
There was also some issues with the sounders inability to control the game like they normally do, mainly due to the press that wasn't as effective as it often is, and a midfield that didn't quite have the same bite. Aaron, what did you make of this game?
00:02:36
Speaker
I think you largely summed it up. I did not expect a lot from this game, even though I'm still pretty optimistic about this team. I'm very optimistic about this team, in fact. But seeing the injuries, especially once Albert went down, I said, this is probably not going to be a point in this game. And that's OK. I mean, LAFC is a game you can afford to lose. LAFC away is a game you can afford to lose, especially.
00:03:01
Speaker
whatever month of this February. And when the Sounders went down to nil, I said, well, this sucks because
00:03:11
Speaker
I'm going to have to try to convince myself and potentially other people, I guess, that this isn't, you know, that, yeah, we're probably gonna lose this game by three goals, but it wasn't that bad and nobody should really be concerned. And so the fact that the Sounders actually fought back, I think quite effectively, made some pretty significant adjustments and made it
00:03:33
Speaker
You know, interesting down the stretch, I think was really a testament to, uh, the ability of, of the team to, to make those adjustments, um, uh, you know, and, and the team to have the right mentality in that situation and down two nil against a team that's sort of considered to be your rival for the top spot in the conference, uh, against the team that has, you know, a really good defense that is going to be tough to come back
Impact of Key Players and Strategies
00:03:57
Speaker
against. And then to correct a lot of the mistakes and fix the things that weren't working and really make a game. And I think it was really encouraged. So.
00:04:04
Speaker
Obviously, a loss is never something you're happy about, but I think that this went about as well as any loss could go. And I'm actually higher, I think, on this team than I was going into this game as weird as that sounds. Yeah, I don't know if I would say it was, you know, it could, I guess, as losses go.
00:04:26
Speaker
you could be better in that you feel like you actually deserved to win. I don't think the Sounders felt like they deserved to win this one, but they did enough that, you know, they started well. I think that they responded well to the second goal. They just responded really well to the second goal. And a lot of that was Pedro de la Vega coming into the game.
00:04:44
Speaker
And I thought it was really, and that's probably the aspect of this that gives me the most hope is that as soon as they put in a difference maker into the roster and they had a little bit more of a formation that they were familiar with, they were able to play much more effectively.
00:05:02
Speaker
But even before that, they were never pinned back. They were never struggling to connect passes. They were never really under it, I didn't think. And so I thought they were hanging in there, 1-0 down at halftime. I think they would have considered 0-0 to be a fair
00:05:21
Speaker
you know, a fair result at that point. But, you know, I was, I was actually trying this new note taking method during the game. And I actually had a lot more action in the Sounders, in the Sounders attack than in LAFC's attack. I don't know if that's exactly how it worked out in terms of the shot totals, but I thought the Sounders were getting good looks by and large. And
00:05:44
Speaker
You know, like Rui Diaz had ended up with five shots, which is, you know, a pretty good total. He didn't do enough with those five shots, I don't think, but he was getting himself into dangerous positions. You know, there was a chance early on where Morris got played in sort of a deflected
00:06:02
Speaker
Christian Roldan cross, and he hits it well, but he hits it, you know, well within the range of Hugo Laureis's, his sphere of coverage. And so, you know, it was probably never going to be a goal, but you know, I thought it was a good start. And then Roldan found Morris again on that breakaway.
00:06:19
Speaker
And I think it's fair to say, okay, Morris probably needs to do a little bit more with that, but he did draw foul. He drew a penalty. Pedro de la Vega converts it. And then I thought from that point forward, it was really all sounders. You know, the sounders look much more likely to get the equalizer than LAFC was to add a third goal.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think that anytime you find yourself in a situation like that where you're down by two goals and you get one back and you force the home team to say, we are setting up shot and we are just going to hang on to what we have.
Concerns Over Team's Aging Roster
00:06:57
Speaker
That's a positive thing. Maybe you don't feel great about it because you don't get the second goal.
00:07:03
Speaker
I think that they clearly turned the tide. De La Vega, and I'm sure we'll talk about this, but absolutely changed the game. And I think that's the thing that was, I think, the most encouraging for me. And, you know, I mean, we've seen the sounders
00:07:21
Speaker
We've seen very good Sounders teams have real stinkers against L.A.F.C. They've never won a regular season there, and this was definitely not their worst performance in L.A., that's for sure. Definitely not. It's frustrating, but in a way that I think is much better than it could have gone.
00:07:43
Speaker
And I'm excited to see this team at full strength. Now the obvious flip side to all of this optimism is I think one of the concerns everybody had about this team was they're on the older side, especially in key positions. And this is one of the things that can happen with teams that have a higher average age in those positions. And so how do they deal with that? Is there ever going to be a time when the team is fully healthy? Probably not. But.
00:08:11
Speaker
My counter to that would be, you know, we've seen the Sounders playing down three or four key players before, and they're usually not able to hang with the best teams in the league away from home when they're doing, when they're down four. And I think that's, that's the real takeaway from this game is the Sounders went into a situation that was going to be an uphill battle. And not only did they not get embarrassed, I think it was a fairly even match generally.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the stats say it was even, you know, even by non penalty XG, it wasn't, wasn't too, I want to say that there was a bet, there was a, a advantage for LAFC, but it wasn't a big one, you know, the two goals they scored were pretty low probability chances, frankly. The second one was was pretty ridiculous. And I think you can argue this owners could have done better defensively on both of those. You know, on the first one,
00:09:10
Speaker
Obed Vargas doesn't quite close down Omar Santos as hard as you would like. And he, but he's not, he's, you know, he's, he's not just letting him go free and he hits a, you know, he fits a nice floated cross. And really the problem there is you could see, you know, it's, what's frustrating about that one is you could see Jackson Reagan.
00:09:31
Speaker
motioning to the danger. He's basically pointing to where this cross is going to go the whole time as the play is developing. And unfortunately, Nuhu decides that his best move is to stick to the post and then still gets beat on the post. So it's a very frustrating thing to watch the replay of, especially.
00:09:50
Speaker
I think that's a pretty preventable goal. And then the second one, you, I think you could argue that attention, maybe again, could have closed down Bogus a little harder on the shot, but that's not, I mean, he's like fading away and it's, it's from a weird angle and he hits it basically off the underside of the crossbar. I mean, it's, it's a tough one to really, to really second guess too badly. More than those plays, I just think it was,
00:10:14
Speaker
I don't think Atencio and Vargas played badly, but I think this did show that they aren't exactly an ideal pairing, and there is some room for concern that if Jau Paulo is out for an extended period, they still don't have an ideal set up.
00:10:36
Speaker
this was this was obviously accentuated by also missing Albert Rusnak and so they didn't have a tent so they were in addition to only being having you know missing their their best defensive midfielder they also were down a number in the midfield
00:10:52
Speaker
And so that had, I think that had some compounding effects. And I think that's, you know, I think even this week where, you know, Brian Semester went on the radio today and said that he's expecting Pedro de la Vega as a start.
Midfield Dynamics and Adjustments
00:11:04
Speaker
Like, even if the Sounders start in a 4-2-3-1 with de la Vega in the middle, I think we'll have a much better idea of what this team is going to look like.
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think just to very briefly get back to the midfield pairing in the LAFC game, I think that what you saw there is two guys who are very good all-rounders who can complement either a more attacking midfielder or a more creative midfielder or a more defensive midfielder
00:11:34
Speaker
But can't do can't like be the opposite number necessarily. I don't think it was necessarily I think there was a lot of focus on the midfield didn't look as tight defensively for me it just felt like
00:11:47
Speaker
They weren't able to control the midfield and not just in the defensive phase, but also in the attacking phase. They weren't quite as comfortable in possession. They weren't making as many line breaking passes. I feel like, you know, there were some attacking runs that weren't getting picked up, stuff like that.
00:12:06
Speaker
And, you know, I think they they both played fine, but the Sounders really need good performances from their central midfield based on the way they play to to be successful. And I thought that the back line, aside from new who in that one instance, I thought generally he had an OK game defensively, but that was a very frustrating one because it's not the first time we've seen a goal like that. Right. But I thought they coped pretty well despite, I think,
00:12:36
Speaker
being having a little more pressure than maybe they would necessarily have behind that midfield. Right. Yeah. And I think where you see the, the deficiency is
00:12:49
Speaker
They're asking Raul Ruidias to drop back and do some number 10 type stuff. And he did drop back into the midfield a little bit to help with possession, but he certainly wasn't hitting line-breaking passes. He certainly wasn't doing that stuff. I don't know that him and Morris connected a pass.
00:13:07
Speaker
a single pass together. I don't know the last time the Sounders used a 4-4-2 front to start a game. They've chased games before where they had two forwards on the field like that. They didn't do it at all in training, all preseason. This was a new formation.
00:13:29
Speaker
I don't, I don't, you know, like you might have to go all the way back to like the Oba deuce days to find where they were running something like a 442 and even then you kind of had to play making forwards. So it's like they were able to their whole thing was interchanging. So I don't I don't know. I mean, this was
00:13:48
Speaker
I don't even know what, what you would compare this to in terms of like Sanders past. So it was a gamble, but I don't think that the formation was what cost them ultimately. I mean, they, they still generated chances. They still, you know, didn't give up a ton of chances. It was just one of those things where they didn't, you know, and this is, this is the part that I think stings a little bit is that it does feel a lot like so many of the losses last year where it's okay. They didn't play badly, but.
00:14:15
Speaker
You can still find things that you want them to do better. It's one game. I guess that's what it comes down to. I can understand why people are frustrated. I think it's a little early to be losing your mind over, I told you so. I don't quite know what the I told you so's are sort of right now a little over the place.
00:14:39
Speaker
I said, like, I don't think anyone said, don't expect Albert Rusnak to stay healthy. This has been, this is maybe the healthiest player of the centers that had, he gets a freak ankle injury. What are you going to do? Right. Yeah. And his backup is supposed to be Pedro de la Vega, who's not quite fit yet. Right. Yeah. I think that if de la Vega can start this game, I mean, who knows, right? But based on what we saw from him in the limited amount of time he had,
00:15:07
Speaker
I feel a little better about the way it goes instead of Raul having to play that sort of tweener 10-9 role. I thought Raul's game was interesting because I don't think that he was impactful on the game necessarily. But I thought he looked good, obviously, until he got hurt. And so who knows how that changes things. But physically, he looked like he had
00:15:36
Speaker
the first step that was missing a lot of last year. He looked just a little more, I don't know, in control of the ball. His touch seemed better. He looked a lot like him, the version of him that we were all kind of hoping to see again. He definitely didn't disappear, which I think is what would happen a lot last year is he sort of just disappeared.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, he was making good off-the-ball runs. His hold-up play, I thought, was pretty effective. It's just that there wasn't anybody that could break lines to lay it off to, and he wasn't capable of breaking the lines. It was just a weird role for him to be playing. But I found myself saying that does look like I'm used to robo-looking and how he didn't look last year. So hopefully this injury isn't
00:16:29
Speaker
that well and at that level in a position that's a little more well suited to his game, where he's not, you know, asked to do as much holdup stuff and not asked to be a creator. You know, I think it could be interesting to see what he can bring. Because at this point, Raul is sort of a bonus, like anything he brings to the table is great. And if he can, you know, perform at 80% of P Kraw Raul, that's a pretty big bonus.
00:16:49
Speaker
you know, a long-term thing and he can show more of that because if he can
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree. I would totally agree with that. It's and it's going to be interesting to see how that how that evolves over time. What did did you did you all that said, and I guess at some point we will talk about Pedro de la Vega, but did you I felt like I needed to get your thoughts on just the decision to go with the four four two instead of doing something that was maybe a little bit more, you know, in the it would have been easier, I think, in some ways if. Like the like, I guess maybe the obvious for lack of a better
00:17:29
Speaker
Uh, term would be to start role on at center mid, move Morris to the right and move rolled onto the middle. And at least that way you're playing in a familiar formation, but I don't know that that really solves any of the issues because it's not like Morris is really going to help you with possession on the right wing anyway.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yeah, and I wouldn't be shocked, this is just conjecture, but I wouldn't be shocked if there is some concern with asking Raul to do all of the forward work. I think that maybe that's potentially something they've identified as something that they need to not have him doing if he's going to contribute at a high level. So that could potentially be part of it.
00:18:09
Speaker
I don't think he wants, he's not at his best when he's mucking it up with center backs, I guess is your point. Yes, yes, absolutely. And I think now more than ever that that is true. It's never been a strength, but I think it's something he was so good in every other phase of the game that it wasn't as big of a deal previously.
00:18:25
Speaker
Now, I think especially at this phase in the season, maybe that's not something you want to do. And, you know, I think that there is an argument to be made for going with a more familiar formation. And I'm not going to tell anybody that they're wrong for thinking that.
00:18:43
Speaker
But it's going to be extremely hard to convince me that that was the difference. Right. And I think I'm sympathetic to this idea, too, is that, you know, the Sounders spent all offseason, all preseason training with Morris as a forward, with Roldan as a right mid, and sort of a tacit promise that this was
00:19:05
Speaker
the role they were going to play this year, not necessarily just because, you know, they deserve that, but because the Sounders believe that's their best position. And to just throw that out on the first game at the first sign of, you know, trouble where it's like, we're not going to try to pretend like we have alternate plan. Like as soon as we need you to move, we're going to move you kind of thing. Like maybe if this was game five or six, it may have been a little easier sell to say, look, we just need you to move positions today rather than
00:19:36
Speaker
you know, we don't even know when the fix is coming. Like, we're gonna just, we're gonna, and so, I don't know, I think I'm sympathetic to that.
De la Vega's Promising Debut
00:19:51
Speaker
So let's get to the fun part of this discussion. We've waited long enough to talk about Pedro de la Vega. He came in around the 60th minute and just immediately he brought energy, he brought danger, he was dribbling at opponents, he was asking all kinds of questions with different types of passes. And the thing that I found most
00:20:13
Speaker
pleasing and most encouraging. And the whole thing is, yes, okay, he scored a penalty big deal. But it was everything around the penalty that I found really, really encouraging. You know, as soon as the review started, De La Vega basically went to the spot and was ready to take the penalty. And it's and he was there was like, no question in his mind, I don't know if this was something that got worked out beforehand. No one questioned him. It was his shot to take.
00:20:41
Speaker
He steps up, he takes it confidently, puts it, you know, picks a side, puts it past Hugo Louris who, you know, let's call it what it is. This is a guy who won a World Cup not that long ago. He's definitely not the Hugo Louris that won the World Cup, but he's not that far removed from it. I'm sure it's a somewhat intimidating goalkeeper to be facing down.
00:21:03
Speaker
And then immediately, you know, the ball bounces out, he grabs it and he doesn't even, he barely celebrates. He just takes it and runs it back to the center circle. You know, this is his first career, MLS goal, first goal for the Sounders. He doesn't get lost in the moment at all. He's just ready to play. And he just gets out there and he's doing the work again. I loved everything about it.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, it was fantastic. Taylor Twelman's journey through the penalty was extremely funny because immediately, as soon as it becomes pretty obvious that it's going to be called the penalty, he's saying, if I'm Jordan Morris, I'm going, this is my goal. I'm going right to the spot.
00:21:42
Speaker
And then De La Vega, it makes it pretty clear that this is going to be his. And as soon as the goal is scored, Taylor's saying a lot of the same stuff you're saying, right? It was just like, I love that attitude. And it was a funny moment.
00:21:57
Speaker
That's not a criticism of Taylor, by the way. This is a pro Taylor podcast, but it was it was a very funny emotional journey. And yeah, I I loved it as well. I think his attitude and coming on like I didn't think that the sounders had they didn't have like the drooping heads. Right. Bad body language stuff going on necessarily. But there was definitely like a spark when he came on. It's it's clear that there are still some things to be worked out communication wise and that they're still getting to know each other.
00:22:25
Speaker
But there were several moments where the timing was just off. And I think in, you know, a month or two, the timing is not going to be just off. Like it's, you could see it, right? You could see the ideas and his head and his teammates head, like they seem pretty capable of picking up on his runs and it seems like they, they know what he wants to do and they know how to get them the ball. The timing just isn't quite there.
00:22:48
Speaker
So that was exciting to see. And yeah, I mean, the sounders were pressing up until the end against an LA team who, you know, sometimes you have that flurry of late activity. That's really kind of nothing where it's just a team is confident to retreat into a shell. And yeah, there's, there's activity, but it's not really dangerous, but it didn't feel that way at all. Like it felt like the sounders were genuinely creating pretty decent chances against a bunkered in team.
00:23:15
Speaker
And I'm extremely excited to see what he can do, you know, with 90 minutes with more familiarity and, you know, a higher level of comfort with his teammates. And I think I said this on the last episode for people that were actually able to hear me talking that, you know, I think.
00:23:37
Speaker
No, it did, it did. It always does because look, it's a pro. But yeah, like I think it's important to be patient, especially with younger players who are coming into the league for the first time, but he did not look like a player that's going to take a long time to adjust. No.
00:23:53
Speaker
very small sample. So I think everything about the patients still applies, but a lot of the concerns that he was going to maybe be mid-season before he was at a level where he was really hitting it in full stride, I don't really have those anymore.
00:24:09
Speaker
I thought of it a lot like Niko's debut in 2016, where he was just immediately taking guys on, just doing Niko stuff. And it was very clear that he was not going to have a betting in process. He was going to hit the ground running. And that's what we saw from him.
00:24:34
Speaker
today, Brian talked about how, you know, we still want to talk, you know, we still need to work with him a little bit on how we defend, but the effort, the defensive effort was there. And that's, I think, pretty key. This is a guy, I mean, he was in like, I think he was in seven duels or something like that. He was like four for seven on duels. He, he had, I think he had four successful dribbles. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
00:24:57
Speaker
But this is like, you don't see that this is not something the sounders have had on their team pretty much. And it was just very exciting to see. And it's I think it's, it's some it's probably the thing that gives me the most hope.
00:25:10
Speaker
aside, you know, along with that, they didn't literally fall apart once they, they were missing some guys. So, you know, that's, that's, that's all good.
Referee Issues and League Negotiations
00:25:19
Speaker
Uh, one other thing I did want to talk to you about was the replacement refs, I guess we'll call them scabs on the show. Should we call them scabs on the show? So the, the scab refs, like I did think it was very, it was very, the, the journey of people.
00:25:37
Speaker
at least
00:25:55
Speaker
And the rest of the players, the rest of the referees that are calling these games are like basically pulled off the street. Yes, they have experience at some level, but a lot of these guys, I don't think the guy that called the Sounders game, I don't think he had roughed a single match between professionals. Like the level is not, and you can see there was all kinds of,
00:26:20
Speaker
like I'll use the the most obvious situation I thought was the was the penalty where they don't call it in in live action fine that happens all the time. That's how that's that's what VAR is for. VAR calls him over and he sits there he watches the same exact replay like 24 or 25 times.
00:26:42
Speaker
and just keeps watching the same replay over and over and over again. And I'm like, at one point, as soon as I saw the replay, I'm like, oh, that's a penalty. They need to, they need to review. That's got to be reviewed. They review it. Okay. Bang, bang. If I'm the replacement ref and I'm having a BAR tell me you need to reverse this, who am I to say no, right? Like I don't have any ego in this thing. I'm just like trying to get through this thing. And he sits there, watches it forever, ends up taking like four, literally four minutes of the review actually itself took four minutes.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah, went went back left. This is the point at which I lost my mind. I think it was making sure it would need to be a yellow. I hope that's what it was. But he'd watched it like 40 times. I know. I know it was. It was. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think you said something last week, I think, or maybe this was offline. I don't remember. But basically that I think, you know, MLS is hoping that they can
00:27:40
Speaker
get a good enough performance in week one that they have a little bit of additional leverage.
00:27:46
Speaker
I don't think that that happened. If that was actually their goal, I don't think that happened. It was just a really piss-poor performance. I frankly do think that it actually favored LAFC. I don't think it was anything like the difference. But I do think that this was an example of a referee very clearly favoring the home team. Well, I think also, to me, this is what it felt like.
00:28:15
Speaker
pretty good about calling fouls in the first, I don't know, 20 or 30 minutes. But at that point, it was seven, eight to one in favor of like the, like LAFC had committed seven or eight fouls, the Sounders had only been called, maybe at that point, they might not even called for any.
00:28:33
Speaker
And then he calls the dissent. The thing that just absolutely killed me was Tim Tillman comes in, absolutely cleans out Obed Vargas. It's probably Tillman's third foul of the game. Christian Roldan has his hands up yelling at him. That's got to be a yellow. That's got to be a yellow.
00:28:50
Speaker
And then he, he shows a yellow to rolled on and says, Oh, you're going to give me a yellow. I'm the, like, any points to his armband. Like I'm the captain. I'm allowed to talk to you here. And the guy's just like, get out of here. And that was at that point, there was nine to 1000 favor of, uh, or LAFC had committed nine fouls. The Saunders have been called for one.
00:29:11
Speaker
And it was a, I feel like at that point he started letting a lot of like pushes in the back just go. And I don't know if that was an unconscious like desire to like try to, it's like, Oh, the foul count is getting too.
00:29:24
Speaker
to just proportionate. And it's like, well, that's LAFC is game to some degree, they want to, this is sort of how they want to play. And I'm not going to sit here and say like, Oh, well, if he calls the foul on Leo, at the top of the box on Leo Chiu, maybe LAFC doesn't score that first goal. Like the goal happened quite a bit after that. And frankly, it happened after Jackson Reagan just put a ball out of bounds for no reason.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, but it was a it was a frustrating game to watch. There was another one where there was a corner kick and Sancha, Illy Sanchez heads it off the crossbar. It hits the crossbar and then it's going to the end line. It doesn't look like it actually crossed the in line. But Wonga takes possession of it.
00:30:07
Speaker
And then they just, they call for another corner kick. Yep. And it's like, what do you, what do you, how, how is that another corner kick? And on the, I just watched this replay and like the Twelman and Jake Ziven are just sort of beside themselves as to what, what are they calling here exactly? Like, how is there another corner? Like, did they think?
00:30:29
Speaker
I really appreciated their commentary on the refereeing in the game. I understand that it is not their place or particularly smart of them to talk about it in relation to the lockout. Yeah.
00:30:44
Speaker
But I think that they made their failings pretty clear about the quality of the refereeing. And I appreciated that. There was another one where it was kind of similar to the one where they gave the corner after that Eli Heder were new who very clearly shepherds the ball out without touching it. And LAFC gets a corner.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah, that was one where they and they also could have called a foul on that place like news getting dragged down as well on that play and they and they call it a corner. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. That was that was around the time when I felt like there was a lot of all of a sudden there started to be a lot of no calls where
00:31:20
Speaker
It's like, what's going on here? And I also, I don't think the, even from what I, the most egregious call was probably the, which wasn't in the Sounders game of the weekend was Sergio Busquets completely pantomimes a foul where Mark, I think it was Mark
00:31:42
Speaker
Markey Delgado, I think that's who it was, goes in for a tackle, doesn't touch Busquets, and gets a yellow card. And, and then I thought the best part of that was that after the game, Leo Messi goes up to the referee and is complaining to him about like how bad of a job he did, I guess. And it's like, I somehow think you should be very happy that you, you
00:32:07
Speaker
got away with one here, but I don't know. I can't imagine that Garber or anyone else was really thrilled with the performance of the replacement referees, but it was very well within what I would have expected. I mean, it may have been actually a little better than I would have expected. I know there's a lot of people out there that have talked themselves into believing that, well, how much worse can these guys be? And we got to get rid of Pro. I hate to break it to you, but the whole reason Pro exists is to improve the, like Pro is the replacement. Right.
00:32:35
Speaker
I also, I saw a lot of it in real time of people saying, well, it's not like these guys are any worse than the regular MLS refs. And I just, yeah, no offense, but you, you couldn't, you could not be more wrong. I, everybody hates the refs no matter what sport, what league, what level they are. Every league has the worst refs in the world.
00:32:56
Speaker
It's true. And, and, and I, I watch, I mean, I think everybody knows, you know, I watch a lot of soccer worldwide and last roughs actually pretty good, um, miles better than they were pre-pro. Um, it's just not even a comparison.
00:33:14
Speaker
These guys were worse than MLS refs when I started watching MLS and regularly in 2009. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Just, I mean, they're like college level, high school level. Right. Exactly. Literally. Yeah. And that's the games a little faster.
00:33:31
Speaker
You know, at this level, um, it's none of these guys apparently had to pass fitness tests because of course, like, how can you expect like, and that's, I don't want to, you know, I guess on some level you it's fair to beat up on, on the scab refs because they are, there are scabs, but it, I don't want to put the focus on them. I want to put the focus on, you know, I guess the, uh,
00:33:55
Speaker
I did happen to talk to the president of PSRA, and so maybe I'm biased by having that information. But I guess what they're asking for amounts to essentially $100,000 per team in terms of added pay and bonuses and travel accommodations and various things like that. Man, $100,000 per team. Put in context, that's the lowest paid player on your team.
00:34:20
Speaker
once you factor in bonuses and everything like that. This is such a small amount of money that we're really arguing over that I don't understand why MLS is, you know,
00:34:33
Speaker
I don't quite understand the play here. Garber made a comment about how maybe it was purposeful that the union rejected the bid, the contract offer by 95.8%. Well, yes, probably. What's the nefarious
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah, they want a better contract. Yeah. It's insane to me the levels which the people in charge of the money will go to to make people looking out for their best interests the same way you're doing sound like some plot.
00:35:18
Speaker
And it's the same. It's not a lot of money at all. It's a ridiculously small amount of money to a couple of million dollars. It's worth like into the trillions probably when you add up the wealth of all the owners. But it's the same mentality that
00:35:35
Speaker
Has Tesla going to court to get out of $100,000 worth of fines for toxic sludge in their tunnels? It's just what you do when you have a business. It's like, well, yeah, you got to fight for every dime. It's just what you do and it's just like, all right, well, everybody's going to hate you for it, but I'm sure they're used to that.
00:35:56
Speaker
Yeah, and this is, of course, coming at the same time where MLS is just absolutely covering itself in glory with the whole mess over the US Open Cup, which the thing that kills me about the US Open Cup thing is the solution that they proposed, which was to send MLS next pro teams instead of MLS teams wasn't even going to save money. I mean, they still are going to they were still prepared to
00:36:23
Speaker
send all these players to various places around the country. So I don't quite understand what they're even.
00:36:30
Speaker
Like what they're even fighting over. I mean, essentially what MLS could do if they wanted to is just change, just work with the players union to change the CBA to allow for more, uh, free passage of players from the first team to the second team. And that would have been the solution, but they, what seems to be happening is they just don't want to have to negotiate with the players union over this.
00:36:59
Speaker
And just a very silly, I don't know, there's just a lot of own goals going on with MLS right now. And I don't quite, it just seems like this is a time where MLS should be consolidating its wins and not looking for losses. And yet they seem to be picking all these fights. Man, pick these fights in a few years when you're not writing them, when you've already sort of like,
00:37:21
Speaker
brought this messy momentum to a head, right? You're still trying to gain momentum from Messi's inclusion, from the Apple deal, from all these kinds of things. There is positive momentum to be found, and yet they seem to be stuck on fighting these battles where are just complete PR losses.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, the referee union and their statements have made it pretty clear, like all of what you just said of all of these things that make it insane to pick these petty battles and make you look bad is why they're asking for more. They're saying, Oh, you can, you have this huge TV deal. You can bring in Leo Messi and pals. Right.
00:37:58
Speaker
And you can't give us, like you said, the equivalent of a hundred grand per team. Right. To give us what we're asking for, which is really not that much, not even full-time money, really. Right. The league is enjoying its greatest record attendances. It's supposedly enjoying a lot of benefits from the Apple deal. It's go down the list. There's all these things that business seems to be going really well for MLS and they're going to sit here and fight over pennies.
00:38:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's not state and they like messy is going to retire sooner than later. And you're not going to have replacement refs that will even be sped up. Right. And you're not going to have, you're not going to have the bandwagon folks who 80% of these people are never going to watch animalistic game again, no matter what happens. Right. Right. Like they're unwinnable. Yeah. The key is whatever percentage you can turn into fans.
00:38:56
Speaker
convincing them if the league is worth paying attention. And if you're doing stuff like this, that really backs up the belief that a lot of people have about MLS, that it's kind of bush league, that it has this sort of like falsely inflated value, that it's kind of a house of cards. You're not doing anything to dissuade people of that notion at all.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah. No. Well, I suppose that's maybe a good place to call this. I don't have much else. I think we emptied the chamber there. Yeah, I think so. I don't know. I don't have anything to say about us enough, Steve.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah, we're going to do I think the hope is that we're going to get will on to give us a little bit of a preview of Austin FC later this week. He will have some choice words for Austin, maybe since you're not on Twitter, you may have missed this, but he was he was like live tweeting his frustration over how bad they were playing. And someone asked him, why do you think that is? And he just said, I'll tell you it's soft mentality. And and then he did it. He kind of tried to
00:40:02
Speaker
say that he didn't mean that in the bad way? Somehow, I don't know how that... I'll have to ask him about that. What's the positive way to take... They have a soft mentality. But anyway, hopefully, we'll get him on and if not, we'll figure out something else. So we'll preview Austin FC later in the week. You don't have to worry about that.
Closing Remarks and Acknowledgments
00:40:22
Speaker
But anyway, thanks. Good hanging out, Aaron.
00:40:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're going to get back to the weekly cadence of the show. We are. Yeah, it was a it was weirdly like an extremely short, the shortest ever off season, but also felt really long. So yeah, I'm excited to get back to get back to it.
00:40:39
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And so with all that said, thank you to our sponsor full pool wines. Thank you to our subscribers on sounder heart. You guys are continuing to blow me away with with how we keep getting new subscribers, we're probably gonna end up hitting something like 2500 paid subscribers in the next month or two, which is pretty wild to think about.
00:41:00
Speaker
So i want to say thank you to everyone who is subscribing and if you are to subscriber i want to encourage you to do that it's as cheap as three fifty a month or twenty seven fifty a year if you want to get into our discord it's now eighty bucks a year. But we had to change that we found out we had to pay sales tax on everything so we altered the prices to reflect that new reality.
00:41:22
Speaker
But, hopefully, people are finding that to be a good value. It seems to be. So, thank you for supporting us. Thank you for doing this, Aaron. Thank you to Likit for producing this. I am Jeremiah Shan. This is no study at this. Remember, you will never yell alone.
00:42:37
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!