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Episode 405: When three goals aren't enough
71 Plays2 years ago
Give the Sounders this: At least they made it entertaining. The Sounders finally broke out of their scoring doldrums by putting three past Charlotte FC, including a brace from Raul Ruidiaz and another from Cristian Roldan in both of their first starts in about two months. The only problem? The Sounders also gave up three goals, albeit all pretty well taken.
Each of Charlotte’s goals erased a Sounders lead, meaning the Sounders blew more leads in this game than they had in their previous 17 combined (it had only happened once).
In the second half of the show, we discussed Cristian Roldan and Jordan Morris' USMNT call-up, suggest holding the Leagues Cup concurrently with the Gold Cup in future seasons and give our outlook for the second half of the season.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime sounder supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:21
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to... There's no study at this. Here we go. Come on! Hey, Ocean! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS co-pointers! Here comes Ray D'Ace from the middle to crowd it! The vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations.
00:01:04
Speaker
Seattle Sounders, the greatest MLS team in history. This is a tiny f***ing doll.
00:01:34
Speaker
Is
Episode Introduction and Sponsor Mentions
00:01:37
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of NOS Adietta, sponsored by Fullpool Wines, Watson's Counter, and our Substax subscribers. This is episode 405 and we're recording on Tuesday, June 13th, 2023. I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me as usual is Aaron Campo and our engineer, Lickett. Well, give the sounders this, at least they made it entertaining.
00:01:42
Speaker
that why you young people call twerking?
Seattle Sounders vs Charlotte FC: Offensive Highlights
00:01:58
Speaker
The Sounders finally broke out of their scoring doldrums by putting three past Charlotte FC, including a brace from Raul Rui Diaz and another from Christian Roldan in both of their first starts in about two months. The only problem? The Sounders also gave up three goals, albeit all pretty well taken. Each of Charlotte's goals a race to Sounders lead, meaning the Sounders blew more leads in this game than they had in their previous 17 combined. And it only happened once. Given all that, does this feel like progress or just more frustration, Aaron?
Defensive Analysis of Sounders vs Charlotte FC
00:02:28
Speaker
I think it feels a little bit like both and I know that's a cop out, but that's really how I felt. I watched the game today because I was at a barbecue this weekend with some old friends and I just did not feel like not spoiling myself. I'm sure you've been there where it's just like, I just don't want to not look at my phone for 12 hours.
00:02:50
Speaker
So I knew what happened. I knew what happened in real time, which made it maybe even worse. And I was prepared to be really annoyed. And I was, but I think I was less annoyed than I expected to be. I thought the sounders looked very good in the attack. After the first goal, I was pretty disappointed with how much the
00:03:13
Speaker
state of the game changed. The Sounders just looked like they kind of fell asleep. And Charlotte was pretty dominant for an extended period of time after that goal before they got their own. But really for the rest of the game, the goals were frustrating, sure. I mean, they were definitely frustrating. And there are things that I did not like from the defense. I thought that they were weirdly aggressive at bad times and extremely timid at
00:03:40
Speaker
equally bad times. I thought, you know, there were individual plays where guys just got made to look pretty, pretty foolish, but it's not like they were a shambles like they were against Portland, you know, back in the early days or at other times this year. They just had some lapses, and Charlotte did, to their credit, make some pretty good plays.
00:04:03
Speaker
Uh, but I thought in the attack, and that's really the phase of the game that I'm a lot more concerned
Player Performances: Albert Rusnak Steps Up
00:04:08
Speaker
about. The Sounders looked as good as they have in months and Raul being back to, I think he looked as good in this game as he looked since the spring of last year. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Since champions league, probably.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was clear to see how much of a difference Christian made, Christian being back. I think one of the things that was a topic of discussion generally, and I think is a worthwhile topic of discussion for us probably, is that Nico Ledero did not play this game.
00:04:40
Speaker
Albert Rusnak played in Nico de Ledero's 10 spot and I thought looked great. And I thought the sounder's attack looked great. And I thought that a lot of the sort of halting, timid, not especially urgent attacking play that we've seen that's kind of been a hallmark of this downward trend was not in evidence at all.
00:05:02
Speaker
I don't think personally that that is because Nikko wasn't playing, but I think it could potentially be partially because the version of Nikko that has been here the last month or so wasn't playing.
Lineup Changes and Player Performances
00:05:14
Speaker
Yeah, well, we may as well start there. That was one of the big changes to the lineup. Nico let it out, pulled up with an adductor strain, I guess on Thursday. And that had sort of a cascading effect in terms of its impact on the starting world.
00:05:32
Speaker
lineup. Russnak obviously moved up to the 10 and then Obed Vargas moved into the double pivot. And, you know, there's a mix of reviews, I think, about Vargas in this one. And then we'll talk about Russnak too, but I've kind of talked myself now into talking about Vargas. You know, he definitely makes a mistake, I think, on the second goal. Like he over commits, he goes to ground. I don't think he really needs to go to ground there. He also had a chance to sort of break up that
00:06:02
Speaker
That was part of a counter attack that he probably could have made a play on to help break up. Albert Rusnak also had a chance to almost actually made a really good play to break up that. But to, you know, like you said, like Ashley Westwood, that's a great strike. Whether or not he's, you know, he creates the space for himself. That's a good strike. You know, you tip your hat, right? You hit it from 22 yards. That's kind of happens. And I think all three of the goals that Charlotte scored were
00:06:31
Speaker
ultimately well taken. Now there were critical errors in all of them. You know, the first one, the sounders completely, they have four marking two in the box and somehow allow Jalen Lindsay to be absolutely wide open at the far post. Now I think there's a fair debate as to whether or not Carole Subdowski actually kept that ball in, but somehow we don't have a good angle of that. Despite MLS supposedly having like 15 cameras at games, they apparently don't have one
00:07:00
Speaker
Down the end the byline there that doesn't make a lot of sense, right? But anyway that we didn't we didn't get a camera angle of that one And it was a great play assuming it was actually in and then the last goal again, you know, the Sounders had
00:07:17
Speaker
probably gave the crosser too much space, but it was a header that the guy did a good job with. And I don't know, I got off topic, but Obed Vargas. I thought he was solid. He had a couple bad turnovers. Neither one of them ended up costing the Sounders anything. And he had to play on the goal. But overall, I thought he was OK. What did you make of Vargas's performance?
Obed Vargas: Performance and Potential
00:07:42
Speaker
I think OK is about right.
00:07:47
Speaker
I think that I was a little more frustrated with the play that led to Westwood having the space to score. You're right. That is a great strike. And in general, and this is a little bit of a tangent, but one of the things that I thought was very strange in this game was Charlotte had a ton of good looks from right outside the box. And normally you're okay with guys taking shots from there. I mean, that's not a super high percentage area, but there's usually a little bit more, uh,
00:08:18
Speaker
a little bit more of a contest there. There's a little bit more.
00:08:23
Speaker
people in the way or whatever it is. And so that was a little weird. I thought... Yeah, Ben Bender also hit one off the post. Yep. That was the other one that stood out. But I think even on the first goal, the initial shot that came in was a guy in a lot of space just at the top of the box and it was blocked. But if you've got shots being blocked in that area, weird stuff can happen. But I digress. I thought that...
00:08:53
Speaker
That play looked pretty bad, but should not, is not usually going to be the difference between a goal and not. I think it's easy to, when that gets scored, it's easy to say, Oh, if he hasn't, if he doesn't go to ground there, if he doesn't bite on the fake, you know, that's not a goal. Probably true, but.
00:09:10
Speaker
eight out of 10 times is probably not going to be a goal either. So one of those things. He's a kid. And I think that the mistakes that we saw him make in this game are mistakes that maybe you would expect and can live with from a player that has level of experience. But I think you could see a lot of the good things that he brings and a lot of the potential that he has
00:09:36
Speaker
I didn't think he was, you know, by any stretch, the difference between winning this game and not winning this game. I think that there just usually has to be a scapegoat and he felt like a, I don't know, he felt like the right one or the most obvious one in this game because I didn't, nothing stood out to me as being like, oh, he's horrible. He was horrible in this game. He looked like he didn't belong. I didn't feel that way at all. I just, I thought he was just okay.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think I would agree with that. There was, you know, I think there's room for second guessing to start him over Josh Atencio who had been with the Sounders. You know, he wasn't away at the U20 World Cup and he had presumably been training all week, but I don't know. You'd have a hard time convincing me that the difference between winning and losing that game or winning and tying that game was, was using Vargas over Atencio. Uh,
Raul Rui Diaz's Return to Form
00:10:28
Speaker
But to get back to the earlier point, or to get back to Rusnak, I thought he was really good in the first half. He made a great pass to Rui Diaz right at the beginning of the game to set up a chance, I think in the third minute. He also made a great play to track down the ball that ultimately led to Rui Diaz scoring his first goal. And he was decisive with his passing.
00:10:55
Speaker
He played a lot. You know, he was pretty good about playing the ball forward. He didn't get it. He wasn't on the ball nearly as much as you would expect Nico to be on the ball. But that that maybe isn't such a bad thing. The one area of weakness, though.
00:11:10
Speaker
was the left side, whether it was Chu or Morris, barely got involved in the game. And I think a lot of that is because the way the Sounders system is sort of set up is that Ledero is supposed to fade off into the left and essentially be like a false fullback while, uh, while new who drops back and plays like a third center back and
00:11:32
Speaker
Chu and Morris combined had 25 touches in the game. That's really not enough. Now you score three goals, it's hard to nitpick any one player not getting enough touches, but it probably isn't the most sustainable way to score goals if you're just going to sort of abandon your entire left side of your attack.
00:11:53
Speaker
And I think part of that is probably that Rusnak only was training at the 10 for one day, I would imagine. I think Friday was probably the only day he trained there. So it's entirely possible that he just wasn't quite ready to fill that role. And he is a different player than Lidero anyway. And so I'm inclined to give him a pass. And if he ends up starting again against LAFC, presumably the Sounders will have had 10 days to sort of
00:12:22
Speaker
game plan for that a little bit more effectively. Yeah, I think so. And I think that's a fair criticism. I think that a lot of the sounder success earlier in the year was down the left, be Jordan coming down the left or two feet in Jordan from the left and sort of have that whole side of the field cut off as kind of a
00:12:41
Speaker
reminiscent of the battle days of last year, because that was a consistent problem last year. Yeah, it was. So it is definitely something that would have to improve if Rusnak played there, because I don't think you can depend on three goals coming in every game. I mean, Charlotte is really bad defensively. I mean, I was encouraged. Go ahead. I was going to say that I think they're the worst defensive team of the league.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I was definitely encouraged by some things we saw in this game, and a lot of those were just...
00:13:14
Speaker
the decisiveness that the Sounders played with and, you know, the, the lack of timidity. And I, I thought that was something that's been missing. And I don't think you can shock that up to Charlotte being bad defensively necessarily, but I think you can shock a lot of the success. The Sanders had in this game up to beat, to try to be in that defensively, uh, as good as the third goal was, it was a great pass, great finish. I don't think that's a goal you're going to be able to score against a lot of teams in this league. I don't think that sure Apollo is going to get the space to hit that ball. And I don't think Rudy Diaz is going to get.
00:13:44
Speaker
that wide open up back post against better teams to make matters world to make it even more.
00:13:51
Speaker
tough to reproduce. That was Xialpaolo's third attempt at that cross, essentially. They had cleared it twice before that. And you give Xialpaolo three chances to hit that cross, he's going to hit it. Still, it was a nice finish. It was good instincts by Rui Diaz to get into that space. And more broadly about Rui Diaz, he just looked so much more confident. He looked free the way he hit that first
00:14:20
Speaker
His first goal was just absolutely vintage stuff from him. Funnily enough, it was a very similar goal to the one he scored against Charlotte last year. But this was a nicer goal. And he just looked like he was playing with an attitude that was much more reminiscent of something that we've seen in years past that I don't think we've seen at all this year.
00:14:48
Speaker
has scored this year. It's been, you know, it felt like it was, it was like grindy. It was, it wasn't necessarily in the flow of the game. It was, you know, like the, even the, the goal against Portland, he, it was, it was a fine goal, but he, he didn't really do anything else in that game.
00:15:06
Speaker
And this one, he was just everywhere. He was exactly the player that you need. And it was sort of a reminder that if they can get him fit for the rest of the year, that's probably better than a... They're not gonna make a big signing, but getting him fit for the second half of the year would be the equivalent of making a big signing.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah, I, I mean, it's, I definitely had the observation that compared to how he's looked earlier in the, in this season and how we kind of looked in the rough parts of last season before, before and during when he was hurt, he, he looked like a player now that had not tried to rush back from injury that had actually gotten healthy. Right. Yes. That's a good way of putting it.
00:15:50
Speaker
I mean, we've had this conversation with Niko before where it's really tough to tell sometimes whether this player has hit a decline and they aren't going to be able to stay healthy. And this player just hasn't had a chance to actually get healthy. And those can be kind of difficult to tell apart sometimes. But I do think that, and I think it's fair to say that we know Raul was not necessarily happy with how long he was held out.
00:16:19
Speaker
Uh, I, there was some definite rumblings of that, but yes, absolutely. If this is the player we get compared to the player we had the last time he came back from injury, it's hard to say that it was not the correct decision because he did look a lot freer. He, he was way more involved in the buildup. He was dropping deep and that's not necessarily like a critical piece of his game, but I do think it's indicative of how much more fit, how much healthier and how much into the flow of the game he is now that he wants the last time he came back.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, you know, there was an opportunity that that third minute, I think, chance that he had, I noticed he was played in and he elected to shoot from, you know, the edge of the penalty area or whatever it was. And it looked like he had Leo Chu sort of like coming in on the left wing and Chu probably would have had a better look from where he was. And I at the time said, I don't mind him shooting that in part because
00:17:15
Speaker
It's a mentality like this is the mentality I want him in. I want him in the mentality of like, hey, if you play me through.
00:17:22
Speaker
I'm going to take the shot because I believe in myself to finish this chance more than I believe in myself to set up my teammate who might have a slightly better chance. And that's what you want from a striker, I think. You want him to be a little bit selfish. You want him to take that shot. You want him to try to get his goals because that's sort of how he's going to build his confidence is getting that goal. And I think we sort of saw that the way that he played
00:17:48
Speaker
he played the whole game just with a confidence and I was like really excited about getting Rudy Diaz back essentially. Even the finish that he had on the second goal, it would have been a shame if he missed it, but it was not so different than the one he missed the other day. Yeah, no, definitely not. I mean, it was
00:18:12
Speaker
It was the kind of goal that I think you have to have a certain level of confidence to score. As much as maybe it kind of looks like a tap-in, it's more difficult than that to make the run, time the run, hit it on the run.
00:18:31
Speaker
off a bounce it's a great goal it's the kind of goal that he makes look really easy that as we saw the last time he tried to score a goal like that is really not quite as easy as it looks all the time and i think that having you know a certain level of confidence and just being back to feeling physically good and feeling back into the flow of the game really can make a difference
Evaluating Stephen Fry's Value
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah. So one of the other big things I wanted to just get your take on you. I saw you tweet about this and so I wanted to bring it up. There was some chatter like every time Stephen Fry gives up a goal right now, it seems like there is a chorus of people that want to declare that he's passed it. And don't get me wrong, he's
00:19:14
Speaker
I think some of his stats are a little misleading in terms of overstating how good he's been this year. But in this game, I thought he actually played reasonably well, and none of those goals struck me as ones that I would ever expect him to save.
00:19:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that's, I truly do not know what people were saying. And I know it's not necessarily fair to judge people's reactions like in the heat of the moment of a game or
00:19:45
Speaker
You know, I saw a post on Reddit about how he needed to never start again. You should never judge the, you should never take anything people say on Reddit too seriously about the Sanders, especially. But I really like, I was expecting something, right? Like one howler or, you know, just not getting to a ball that he maybe should have. And I think what it is with stuff and pride is that at his peak,
00:20:14
Speaker
you know, three, between seven and three years ago, three, two, three years ago. Right. When he was an elite MLS goalkeeper, easily the best goalkeeper, the sounders had had a year and year out, one of the best keepers in the league.
00:20:29
Speaker
criminally underrated by the national media, but I think everybody that watched The Sounders regularly understood how good he was. He's not that player. No. And the decline has been noticeable from where he was at that point. I think he's still a
00:20:46
Speaker
better than average MLS goalkeeper. I mean, I think there's this desire for him to be a top five goalkeeper. He's probably a, he's probably a top 10 goalkeeper, but he's not, he's, he's, he's just not, he's not the elite goalkeeper. He's still.
00:21:04
Speaker
You know, I still think he's going to win you more games and he's going to lose you. And I think you can absolutely win an MLS cup with Stephen Fry at his current form, but he might not win MLS cup for you the way he did in 2016. I think that's very fair. I think that there is a.
00:21:22
Speaker
I'm probably not that long ago where he gets a hand to Westwood's goal. I think there are probably saves that he would have made in years past that he hasn't made this year, but he made saves that he had no business making.
00:21:37
Speaker
on a routine basis for years. And I just think that people have gotten so spoiled by that version of stuff and fried that they are really, really, really underrating the current version of stuff and fry, which I think, as you said, I think top 10 is exactly right. I would put him in the top quartile ish of goalkeepers in the league. He's not a problem for me at all. I think you definitely have to start thinking about a succession plan. He's, he's
00:22:01
Speaker
clearly towards the end of his career, you know, father time is undefeated and all that. But I think the idea that he needs to get benched so that, you know, we can get a look at Cleveland and I like Cleveland. I think he's a good keeper with a lot of potential, but I just, I just don't see it. I especially didn't see it in this game. I did not think, I think he was the last guy to blame for every single one of, of Charlotte schools. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think the other thing that just makes it tough is, uh,
00:22:32
Speaker
It's not like there is someone who is clearly up to his standard waiting in the wings. I think Cleveland is a fine backup. I don't necessarily think he's the Sounders goalkeeper of the future. Andrew Thomas might be the goalkeeper of the future. He's been getting most of the time at Defiance. He is an elite shot stopper. I'm not quite sure that he's as good in possession or
00:22:57
Speaker
and the other parts of the game that you sort of need him to be. And I'm definitely not quite ready to take that leap of faith either.
00:23:09
Speaker
Well, I think too that a lot of, I think people really underestimate how important a keeper's ability to play to style is, especially when you're a team like the Sounders that wants to play out of the back, that needs their keeper to be confident in possession. And I think you could argue in a lot of the cases that that's probably more important than being an elite shot stopper when you're a team that wants to play the way the Sounders do. And I think that that just really gets overlooked.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, I think that's probably a good place to call this a segment.
Upcoming Topics and Team Outlook
00:23:40
Speaker
We're going to come back. We have a whole bunch of stuff to talk about. Uh, Jordan Morris Christian rolled on getting called up to the gold cup, uh, some stuff about the league's cup. Uh, and, and we're going to talk a little bit about our outlook for the second half of the season and especially looking ahead to the LAFC game. Uh, but you're listening to nos adi at this and we will be right back.
00:24:04
Speaker
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00:24:34
Speaker
Welcome back to Nos Arietes. So we have a few more topics that we wanted to talk to that weren't directly connected to the game this week. The first one is a bit of a news item. Jordan Morris, Christian Roldan both called into the Gold Cup.
00:24:54
Speaker
Uh, which means they will potentially miss as many as six league games, which is just an absolute gut punch. Uh, especially considering Jordan missed the two previous games had came back, played 20 minutes against Charlotte and Christian was out for two months. I don't know. I don't like I'm.
00:25:17
Speaker
I'm not surprised that Jordan got called up because he's clearly very much part of the national team plans. I was a little more surprised about Christian, not just because I don't know where he falls in their grand scheme, but the guy has barely played in the last couple months.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's super frustrating. I think Christian, like you said, is much more frustrating for me, both because the Sounders have weapons offensively. They do not have anybody that can do what Christian does. No, I agree. And he came on against Portland. He was the only player that looked interested, the only player that looked like a spark in that whole game on either side. He comes back, back into the certain lineup, gets Charlotte, the Sounders. Hey, they can attack again. And I don't think that's just Christian, but I think it's a huge part of it. And I think that,
00:26:04
Speaker
The way the tempo that the Sounders need to play with, the way that they want to play, Christian almost has to be on the field for that. And it sucks really bad. It sucks that they're losing him for so long because, and we'll get to the league's cup, but because the league has decided that's more important than the regular season.
00:26:26
Speaker
I'm never going to begrudge a player an international call-up, but it's frustrating because it feels like this is an interim coach who doesn't really know what he's doing, who just wants to call guys in that feel comfortable, that everybody knows and that everybody can train with so he doesn't really have to do too much. And I can understand that, but I don't care. It's none of my business. I don't care about the Gold Cup. I don't care about the US men's national team except kind of during the World Cup.
00:26:52
Speaker
And it's frustrating because it's going to have a very tangible impact on how I feel about the next six games. Well, these next six games are potentially huge games for the Sounders. They are potentially season-defining games. Not the least of... And this game against LAFC is maybe the biggest of the bunch, in part because LAFC comes into this game
00:27:17
Speaker
in an absolutely brutal stretch of games where the Sounders played on Saturday. They don't play again until a week from Wednesday. So they have essentially a 10-gate day gap between games. LAFC plays two games in between. And that will be the 14th game they've played in something like seven weeks. This is a team who is absolutely ripe for taking if the Sounders can take advantage of it.
00:27:47
Speaker
And I would hope the Sounders can at least figure out a way to keep Christian for that game. I have a feeling they won't because we've already heard that US soccer denied FC Cincinnati's request to keep Mia Zaga and Brandon Vasquez. And so I don't know if they'll take a different tack with Morris or Roaldon. I'm hopeful. I'm not necessarily expecting it.
00:28:13
Speaker
But man this is just the it's it's a really really bad stress and the centers to some degree made their own you know this a problem of their own making if they hadn't dropped so many points in their previous ten games i would maybe be less worried about these six.
00:28:30
Speaker
But a big part of the reason they dropped a lot of those positions, they don't have Christian. Exactly. Exactly. And so it's just, it just feels like punishment for, uh, for, uh, for the sounders.
MLS Schedule Conflicts and Impact on Sounders
00:28:41
Speaker
Uh, I don't, I like, again, I don't have the, uh, immediate solution, but I do think there's something to be said about the long-term solution to this, which is, look, if we're going to be playing league's cup and we're going to take a break from the season to do it.
00:28:56
Speaker
I think you got to figure out, you got to play it concurrently with the gold cup. And I realized that means that you're going to be missing some key players from both the guy, Becky's and from MLS. But man, you, you can't, you can't devalue the regular season as badly as you are. I mean, essentially what MLS is saying right now is the league's cup is more valuable than a six regular season games, which is a lot. It's a lot of games.
00:29:24
Speaker
Right. Which is also, they're saying it at the same time that US soccer is saying, or just the way we think about international soccer and how much it's valued, this is much more important than the regular season as well. This is a gold, I mean, they don't do the euros every year.
00:29:43
Speaker
They don't do, why are we playing the gold cup every year? We play the gold cup every two years, but that's twice as often as they play the European championships. It only needs to happen every four years. And then we're going to do the least cup every year. Just have the playoffs.
00:30:01
Speaker
just have the playoffs have everything and just that's better than what we're doing now like don't pretend like any of these games matter because they really don't want as many teams make the playoffs as they do and the playoffs are completely random at this point because of the new playoff format it's just
00:30:21
Speaker
Well, and I think it sucks. And I think my suspicion is that the reason that part of the reason they expanded the playoffs this year is sort of like an acknowledgement that teams are going to be handicapped by the league's cup. And so they wanted to give a, you know, they wanted to make it easier for some teams to potentially not be hurt by the league, by essentially by league's cup.
00:30:45
Speaker
Whatever. You understand what I'm saying, I think. It does all build toward this idea that the regular season exists purely as a way of moving inventory and not as a way of creating a genuine competition. That's super frustrating. I hope that MLS
00:31:06
Speaker
will hear what I'm hearing all the time. And I'm hearing from a lot of people, this is very obvious. And I think they are really risking the, you know, a revolt of season ticket holders saying like, look, if you're if you're going to tell me that, you know, 20% of the season is just not worth playing, why am I paying for all these regular season games?
00:31:32
Speaker
Yeah. Why am I paying for season tickets? Why am I getting a streaming service I didn't have before and then paying on for another streaming service for MLS on top of that? If these games are this unimportant, I'll just, whenever the team is on Fox, I'll watch them. And I like, I think, you know, I think the Apple deal is fine outside of how you feel about Apple in general, but I think as a, like, it's a reasonable thing to ask people to do. If the games are important, if the games matter, if they don't,
00:32:03
Speaker
Who cares? And if you're trying to convince people that we're sort of on the fence about being the kind of fan that will shell out four season tickets and MLS streaming, this isn't helping. This isn't helping. And it's just, no one is more
00:32:21
Speaker
apathetic and at times outrightly hostile towards the MLS regular season and MLS ownership. And I don't get it. I don't get it. This is how you make your money. Yeah, it's very weird. They treat the sport the same way the worst kinds of sports journalists treat sports writing where they're concerned about stories and narratives instead of the games.
00:32:46
Speaker
Because that's what the people that care about the games care about. The narratives are great when they occur, but all they're doing is trying to create narratives all the time. It's like WWE. It's so frustrating because I just want to watch my team play meaningful games 34 times a year. And if they do well enough in those games, then I get to watch them play in the playoffs. But these games just don't feel meaningful.
00:33:09
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, the regular season right now is so, you know, and there are, there are impacts the league's cup is having beyond just these six games because they're there because of the league's cup. They're also having to, uh, play more games in a tighter window. And so you, we have more three game weeks. We have more.
00:33:28
Speaker
you know, there's all sorts of cascading effects. And what's frustrating is that it's so, it feels like it's such a challenge just with injuries to get a consistent, any kind of consistency in terms of your team. And now we're creating sort of all these extra layers of complication, like playing through the gold cup, like having to compact the season for league's cup and doing all these sorts of things that just,
00:33:54
Speaker
make it feel less competitive. And, you know, it's like, I'm going to watch this stuff. I'll pay attention. I think, you know, maybe I'll be singing a different tune if the if the Sounders were to qualify for CONCACAF through League's Cup. Maybe I'll feel a little differently about League's Cup. But, you know, right now it's just it just feels like it's it's cheapening the regular season and and at a time where I don't think MLS can really afford to do that.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah. And there's been a conversation in the very top level of club soccer in Europe about players are playing too many games. They've got European competitions. They've got multiple domestic cup competitions. They've got the regular season. They've got international duty. And these are players playing at clubs with much deeper rosters that are not having to play in every game. I mean, in MLS, you're expecting your best players to play every single game outside of maybe the US Open Cup.
00:34:49
Speaker
And it's just not sustainable. You're going to run guys ragged. You're going to have more injuries. You're going to have shorter careers, unfortunately. And it's all in the pursuit of these competitions that just barely even anyone notices.
00:35:05
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it is frustrating. Uh, more broadly though, uh, this is the, the, the Charlotte game actually technically kicked off the second half of the season, uh, for the sounders who, uh, I just thought it was worth looking at a few numbers that I, I went through. We oftentimes use FBF FB refs numbers. Uh, I, I used, I decided to go look at, uh,
00:35:33
Speaker
American soccer analysis, XG numbers, just because I was kind of curious how they compared. And one of the things that jumped out to me is the Sounders lead MLS with 31 expected points. And so I do think that's sort of worth remembering. And that's just sort of using a calculation based on their expected goals and expected goal difference to come up with how many points you'd expect them to get.
00:35:57
Speaker
And I do think that's somewhat relevant for level setting in terms of how we assess the Sounders first half of the season. They're second in MLS with an 8.18 expected goal difference. They're third in MLS with 26.13 expected goals. They're fourth in expected goals against. And
00:36:19
Speaker
According to American Soccer Analysis data, they're actually closer to mid-table in terms of actual goal difference compared to expected goal difference. They're 11th in that category, which I actually thought was interesting because it felt like it more accurately reflected where they are in the standings.
00:36:37
Speaker
And, uh, anyway, I just thought it was, it was interesting and it gives me some hope that they can actually play or get better results in the second half of the season than they did in the first. Uh, assuming they aren't completely decimated by, uh, various availability concerns. Uh,
Sounders' Performance Statistics and Future Improvements
00:36:58
Speaker
so I don't know. I don't know if you make anything of all that, of all that, those numbers I just throw at you.
00:37:03
Speaker
I mean, I definitely think they are worth considering. I think they're worth paying attention to. I do think that this is one of those situations where you make your own luck idiom is kind of true where the sounders were playing very well earlier in the year and probably scored more goals than they really should have.
00:37:27
Speaker
They played poorly the last couple months and they probably have not gotten as many points as they should have from those games. And I think where they are in the standings is actually a pretty
00:37:41
Speaker
reasonable based on how they've played overall. Which is second in the West. Yeah, second in the West, certainly not like an elite team, but like if you look at FC Cincinnati, I saw the same ASA data. You saw FC Cincinnati is overachieving at a
00:38:00
Speaker
I mean, they are, they are blowing all their expected numbers out of the water. I think they're a good team. I do not think they are the best team in MLS history. And that's the level that they're, they're playing at right now in terms of the results they're getting.
00:38:15
Speaker
So it's not like the sounders are the only team that are going to regress, unfortunately, since the 90s in the East. And I think LA at LFC has been similarly unlucky to the sounders. I think they were both at the same level in the table of underperformance. So
00:38:39
Speaker
I also saw that the Galaxy have been, as much as Cincinnati has been overperforming, the Galaxy are underperforming, which is extremely funny to me because they really probably haven't been that bad, but they still got everyone fired. It's very good. But yeah, I think you can't look at these numbers as concrete proof that the sounders have been horribly unlucky and that they're
00:39:03
Speaker
you know, going to go back to one of the best teams in league. But I do think that they can sort of level set a little bit and say, this is a good team that had some good luck earlier in the year has had some bad, bad luck in the last few months, even though they haven't been great. Uh, if Raul is back to his best, if like you said, Christian leaving doesn't completely destroy the team. If Nico can get healthy and play the way he was earlier in the year.
00:39:29
Speaker
I feel pretty good about this team. They're not going to be the best sounders team we've ever seen, which earlier in the year, it looked like they might be. And so that's kind of a bummer, but I think everybody's kind of accepted that that was probably a little bit of an outlier in terms of the performances earlier on. I think this team could make a run. I think that they, you know, I don't think I would consider them an MLS Cup favorite right now or anything close to it, but if they can show improvement, I think they could certainly make a run at it.
00:39:56
Speaker
You know, and that's, I mean, really that's a, if you can go into the playoffs saying, yeah, we've got a shadow winning this, you generally got to feel pretty good about that. And I think they could definitely get there. Yeah. And it, I'm also kind of, one other thing that gives me a little bit more confidence is I do think it's, it's notable that, uh,
00:40:17
Speaker
Christian's absence also coincided pretty closely with Obed Vargas also being out, and that's just another piece to the puzzle that can potentially help solve that absence. So, you know, they may be better positioned to show some improvement than they were, you know, during most of Christian's first absence. So, you know, we'll see, we'll see.
00:40:43
Speaker
I did want to add one other observation. I just wanted to share it and it's not really particularly relevant, but I just thought it was funny.
MLS and Messi: Coverage Critique
00:40:50
Speaker
I went on to MLSSoccer.com today just to see if there were any other stories that were worth talking about and what greeted me, but four centerpiece pieces about Leo Messi potentially signing in MLS. And this is almost a week after the news first dropped.
00:41:12
Speaker
Like, yeah, I, it's, I get it, but, but I also don't, because like, what is ML, what is MLS getting clicks that are those people want to come back? Right. I don't, what does that do for them? Like, are they bringing in a bunch of ad revenue from MLS soccer.com? I can't imagine that they are. I MLS has this.
00:41:39
Speaker
mentality as a business entity of any attention is good attention. And it drives me completely baddie. It drives me insane. It's why they put up with Zlatan. It's why they were retweeting The Rock after the Amelia thing. You can just be a soccer league that's regionally important.
00:42:07
Speaker
And that should be fine. That should be enough. It is for everyone else in the world, but MLS just has to chase the attention. And I think it bites him in the ass a lot more than it's helpful. But I get that Messi's different. Yeah. I just thought it was funny that it's like, what are we going to do when he actually signs, let alone makes his debut? You don't even want to know, man. That's going to be awful.
00:42:31
Speaker
No, I think you're probably right. But anyway, that's kind of what we got. I don't know. You have anything else you wanted to get off your chest there, Aaron?
00:42:43
Speaker
I don't. I mean, you know, I'm, I, I felt pretty good about this game, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to 10 days off from them.
Sounders' Schedule Break and Father's Day
00:42:51
Speaker
I think that's going to be nice. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it wouldn't be, I'm, I am also looking for, I kind of need that, uh, father's day weekend falls on a, on an off week, which is, we don't get, we don't get that very often. Uh, so with that said, uh, we do have a, uh, another,
00:43:09
Speaker
mailbag episode coming up later in the week. If you missed it, earlier this week, we had Adam Bells from SCUF talking about Obed Vargas at the U20 World Cup, as well as for our paid sub-sex subscribers. We have an extended version of that discussion where we talk about Christian and Jordan's place in the national team and
00:43:32
Speaker
Hopefully you guys enjoy that. But all that said, that's a plug. I guess you can consider that a plug to become a Subsak subscriber. That is at nosadiatdis.subsak.com. Those plans are $50 a year or $5 a month.
00:43:47
Speaker
And we are going to hopefully be having some more news sort of related to that relatively soon. But for now, thank you for being a subscriber. You guys make this possible. And it's been a lot of fun doing all these extra episodes. Also, thank you to Full Pull Wines and Watson's Counter for
00:44:08
Speaker
also playing a big role in making this happen. With all that said, I am Jeremiah O'Shan, sending off for Aaron Campo and Lickett. This is No Study Yet This, and remember, you will never yet alone.
00:44:53
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!