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Nos Audietis, Episode 329: Ready to roll
59 Plays4 years ago
The Sounders return for their 13th season, ready to take on the team they scored an epic comeback against the last time they played at home. Unlike that game, though, this one will have fans in attendance.
This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)
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 Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of No Sadietes is sponsored by Full Pool Wines, a Seattle-based wine seller who recently released their first book, 36 Bottles of Wine. The ethos of the book, a highly curated look at wine categories that provide exceptional value right now, should be familiar to full pool readers. But there's loads of fresh content, and since it's not trying to sell any wine through the book, there's a bit more of a sass factor.
00:00:21
Speaker
And there's food. Lots of it. Fulpul's unique writing style is applied to recipes like leftover Thanksgiving turkey, schmaltz-a-ball soup, and pregnancy nachos. This book can be purchased through Sasquatch Books.
Seattle Sounders Highlights
00:00:32
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. What? Hey, Ocean! Let's go! Jordan Morris getting in behind Florian Youngford. Jordan Morris! Scores!
00:00:50
Speaker
And how's this for a save from Steph and Fry? Here comes Roy Deers from the middle to crowd it to Seattle. What do the Tigers dream of? They take a little Tigers in. It's the Sounders and an S-Com. I feel a lot better than Bob.
00:01:18
Speaker
The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle And the hills, the greenest green in Seattle
00:01:31
Speaker
like a beautiful child growing up.
Hosts Introduce Discussion
00:01:35
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of NOS Adietta, sponsored by Full Pool Wines. This is episode 329, and we're recording on Thursday, April 15th, 2021. I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me, as usual, is Aaron Campo and Lickett P. So here we are, the night before the start of MLS Cup, or MLS season
Preview: Sounders vs. Minnesota United
00:02:00
Speaker
13 for the Sounders and their face in Minnesota United, like a team that we just played a couple games ago, essentially. And it has so many, there are so many storylines for this season opener. It is kind of wild. Not only are the Sounders playing the team that they beat to advance the MLS Cup, a team that they had to come back from a 2-0 deficit in the last 15 minutes of the game to do. That team has
00:02:30
Speaker
has local, has spurned local kid, Hasani Dotson, who is surely always looking to get over on the Sounders. They have spurned club legend, Osvaldo Alonso, who clearly must be looking to get over on the Sounders. And they also are playing in front of fans for the first time in over a year. There's going to be 7,000 fans and those 7,000 fans, I assume, will be very happy to be there.
00:02:59
Speaker
But they probably were not in a great mood on Tuesday when tickets went on sale. Which why don't we just get that out of the way? Let's start right there.
Ticketing Issues for Season Opener
00:03:12
Speaker
Aaron, how aware how like I know you aren't going to the game. What do you what do you make of that whole mess that was the rollout of tickets on Tuesday for this game?
00:03:23
Speaker
So I started a new job a week and a half ago, and I'm still getting my feet under me. And I spent most of yesterday closing on a house, and I still know all about it, which I think should tell you exactly how big of a deal this was. It didn't go good, I think it's fair to say. Yeah. It went very bad.
00:03:47
Speaker
A degree that is noteworthy, I think, and for like a ticket snafu to be noteworthy to a high demand event is pretty bad. So not great, not a great start to the season. I'm certainly empathetic to the Sounders. There's a lot of weirdness around this that is, you know, maybe not typical and easy to prepare for. So I feel for them and everybody in that department of the team, but you can't,
00:04:17
Speaker
mess up this bad. You just can't do it. Well, so the thing that I come back to is I remember around MLS cup 2019, there was when the tickets went on sale that day, people were freaking out and they were upset and they were, you know, they had to wait and it took longer to get them. But like, that's a high, that was a high demand event.
00:04:40
Speaker
And it kind of was one of those things where it's like, yeah, it's like trying to get into a concert that you, a popular concert. It's like, there's going to be some hiccups. And at the end of the day, like, at least anecdotally, it felt like everyone who wanted to go kind of got to go. Like, you know, sure, some Sounders fan, you know, some season ticket holders bought a bunch of tickets and there were definitely a fair number of them that got onto the secondary market, but it wasn't.
00:05:08
Speaker
that crazy and I don't know, I just felt like ultimately that was well within the range of like kind of normal. And I don't think anyone was really talking about it. By the time the game rolled around, people had kind of gotten over it.
00:05:25
Speaker
This one, I don't know, it's gonna be, I think it's gonna stick in people's craw for a while. And I think you gotta go back to the original sin of this thing. And I think it all starts with the sounders dramatically, like dramatically underestimating demand for this game. And it sounds silly to say that, that when you only had 35,000 tickets available for total of five games and your season ticket base is basically the same size,
00:05:55
Speaker
It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that there's a high demand, but I think that is a little too
Ticket Demand Mismanagement
00:06:05
Speaker
reductionist. And by that, I mean the sounders, I think had a lot like they were using a survey that they sent out over a month ago.
00:06:17
Speaker
and they were using a lot of anecdotes that their reps, their ticket reps had with season ticket holders. And they were hearing, for the most part, I'm not ready to go to the game yet.
00:06:30
Speaker
And I think part of the problem is that the survey they put out, it was poorly structured. It was basically a choice between, I'm ready to go right now and I'll go when I feel like everyone's vaccinated. And there's obviously a lot of wiggle room between those two things. But I think ultimately what happened was the way people really felt was if I'm vaccinated,
00:06:54
Speaker
I feel safe going. And that wasn't, that notably was not one of the questions that the Sounders were asking season ticket holders. And I think they were overconfident in their data collection. I had talked to the Sounders a few days before tickets went on sale and they seemed really confident that they had an idea of how many people wanted to go. And
00:07:19
Speaker
they were wrong, really, really wrong, I think, to a shocking degree. Yeah, yeah, I mean, they clearly were. And I think this has come up a lot and you touched on it. The question being asked that I think they were basing all those metrics on was just fundamentally the wrong question. They were also collecting this data at a time when people's opinions about the pandemic
00:07:46
Speaker
where it's at, what's safe to do, what isn't, what vaccination means for you has changed a lot in the last month or two. I think people are starting to understand that there's trial data, there's real world data, there's just anecdotal data as well of places with high levels of vaccination are seeing their cases go down.
00:08:10
Speaker
Once you're vaccinated, you know, you should still keep up a certain level of precautions, but you can feel pretty safe doing things like this, especially like going to a socially distanced outdoor event. Where everyone is supposed to be wearing masks. Where everyone's supposed to be wearing masks, like it's about vaccinated.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's there's there's functionally no risk here. Someone in the sounder comments basically pointed out there is significantly more risk of somebody on the way to or from a sounder's game causing a car accident that that, you know, results in somebody dying than there is.
00:08:44
Speaker
somebody getting COVID and dying at this game, which I think is a reasonable way to look at it. But I feel like, I mean, even for myself, I've tried to stay really well informed about everything in terms of the pandemic, from case counts to the latest science about the vaccines and things like that. And I don't think I would have felt good about this a month ago.
00:09:05
Speaker
Right. And I think that that's been the case for everyone, or at least for most people. And just the demand, just people that would have honestly said a month ago, there's no way I'm going to this game. We're like, no, yeah, I would go to this game. And that's
00:09:22
Speaker
It sounds like I'm trying to make an excuse for the sounders and I'm not because I think that you have to recognize that that's what is happening, that like opinions on this kind of thing are shifting. But I think that's where the problems occurred for sure. I think you kind of nailed that.
00:09:38
Speaker
And I think one of the things that is maybe like if the Sounders had put these tickets up for sale when like the Mariners put their tickets up for sale, granted the Mariners are like weeks ahead of the Sounders in their season. But if they had gone on sale at that same time, I think that would have been more reflective of their perceived
00:10:04
Speaker
demand and there would have been some hiccups, but it would have been not the same. But I think because they talked themselves into believing that demand was what it was, that they thought they knew what demand was, they also talked themselves into thinking that waiting until three days before the game was an appropriate time to put the tickets for sale, which in hindsight seemed like at the time I thought it was a little
00:10:33
Speaker
weird and maybe risky is the right word there. I don't know what the, but it just felt like they were inviting potential for this to happen. Yeah. And if you had, and putting, and then on top of that, they put all five games on sale the same day and they let everyone buy like essentially one, if you had one account, you could buy 30 tickets.
00:11:01
Speaker
that doesn't seem like a good strategy unless you think that the demand is gonna be relatively low. And I think that they were probably more worried about not selling out these games than they were about having way too much like being flooded. And this is what happened. And I don't know what,
Ticketmaster and Sounders' Decisions
00:11:27
Speaker
They, like, I don't know how much of this is a real learning experience because I don't know how many more times they are going to go through this, but they're having to wear a really bad, I mean, it's on, and on top of all that, they moved to Ticketmaster who, if for whatever problems you may have with Ticketmaster, their ability to be, to like handle this sort of thing should have been better. Yeah. Like.
00:11:54
Speaker
They are accustomed to handling high demand events that have varying degrees of all these variables attached to them. They presumably have the most advanced ticketing software out there.
00:12:11
Speaker
Like if anyone could handle this, you'd like to think it was Ticketmaster. And instead, the first real experience Sounders fans have with Ticketmaster is this complete disaster. And let's be clear, I think most of this is on the Sounders. I think that Ticketmaster didn't help the situation, but Ticketmaster did not create this mess. And then obviously the thing that started this all off was the Sounders telling people at 8 a.m.
00:12:37
Speaker
or their third party vendor telling people at 8 a.m. that tickets were already on sale three hours before they were actually on sale. Yeah, if anything, I would say that Ticketmaster's presence makes me more inclined to think that that was the sounders that were really the source of the problems here. And it's not like I'm a huge fan of Ticketmaster. I think that they are
00:13:00
Speaker
They probably legally should not be allowed to exist, and not for like monopoly reasons just because they're so awful. But, you know, they do tend to do like handle crushes. I don't want to say well, but much better than this, like this was just like problems to a level that you don't see.
00:13:20
Speaker
you know, typically with anything Ticketmaster is doing so. And then, yeah, you know, it's like you said, there's not really the potential for a lot of learning opportunity here. Hopefully, I hope that that's the case because I don't really want to be in a situation like this again. But if anything, I think that
00:13:41
Speaker
The sounders have, I feel like have kind of been guilty in the past and it hasn't turned out quite so poorly of playing things a little fast and loose. And just kind of, I don't want to say assuming they're going to work out well, because that's a scribing motive, but I think they have been fortunate that some things that maybe weren't as well planned as they should have been have not caused as many problems. And I think they really got caught with their pants down here.
00:14:07
Speaker
maybe that will encourage them to tighten things up and have some risk mitigation in place that they maybe wouldn't have done in the past. But there's just not really any concrete lessons I think that you can take from this specific situation. I guess maybe if there's one thing you can take away from it is maybe don't put the tickets up for sale so close. They didn't have to do that. We've had the schedule for two weeks.
00:14:38
Speaker
You didn't need to sit on the tickets. I guess the closest thing to an explanation I've heard from that is that they had some real concern about King County being knocked back to phase two and then having to basically refund all the tickets. But that clearly would have been better than- That's not a hard thing to do.
00:15:08
Speaker
Like it sucks to have to do it, I'm sure, but. It's not that big of a deal really though. Yeah, it's really not like, especially since they're going to just give credits, right? Like King County is not, I mean, I don't want to say the bad guy, but King County is the one making that decision. It's not like you're going to be the ones pissing off the fans. Exactly. Whereas here you're having to just, you know, eat the whole plate full of crow and that's not, that's not great. That's not a great outcome. Yeah. And so I.
00:15:36
Speaker
Like I like that was the excellent that was the closest thing to an explanation, the centers gave me as to the reasoning for putting that it does it didn't make sense at the time, and it makes even less sense now and.
00:15:51
Speaker
I mean, and I guess if demand had been lower, it wouldn't have felt that big of a deal, but I still don't think it would have justified the decision. Yeah. And that's what's too bad about it. And I think Peter Tomazawa, who's the Sounders president of business, is a really, really sharp guy.
00:16:11
Speaker
But I do think he probably has to carry this one a little bit more because I have to assume this was his plan. Whether or not he came up with it, he's the one that signed off on it. There's so many pain points in this.
00:16:33
Speaker
You know, like the irony is that the next day I was able to log into my account and I bought a ticket for, like I used some of the credit in my account to buy a ticket for a friend. And it was not easy even to do it. I mean, it wasn't super hard, but like, for instance, the thing that was, I think tripping up a lot of people is that it would show X number of tickets. Like there's 18 tickets available in this section. And so you say, well, I want two.
00:17:00
Speaker
and it says no tickets are available and you find out, oh, they're only available in singles or they're only available in six person pods or whatever. Like apparently there are like pre-assigned pod sizes. I don't, I don't exactly know the ins and outs of that, but like there was this weird thing where you could only buy tickets in increments of two or one, two, four, and six. So you can buy tickets in pods of three or five for some reason, which I don't, I assume is some sort of,
00:17:31
Speaker
I'm sure the idea is like, well, if you want to take the whole family to the game, you should be able to do that. But like some people have three people in their family. Right. That's why I don't, I, so I don't understand why would they pre. Yeah, no, it's very, very weird. And like what made that worse was like the first few emails they sent out about it said you could have pause of one to six. And it wasn't until the email, like the day before the tickets went on sale that they clarified about how like there were certain pod sizes that you couldn't have. And.
00:17:57
Speaker
and I don't know the whole and I don't like on some level I I think it is a complicated thing like the software that it requires to run this must have been very complicated uh because it's like you're having to shift like because you're not even just selling like tickets in normal blocks you're having to say so I'm sure it's it's a logistical nightmare but
00:18:21
Speaker
again this just goes to why are you letting why are you letting this come so close to the game why is there only an i mean like inaugural season ticket members only had an hour long window which is just begging to have problems i
Recap of Ticketing Problems
00:18:38
Speaker
don't know it was uh very weird just not like this is the kind of thing you expect from like
00:18:48
Speaker
a band that doesn't know how famous they are yet or something. Like, just like this, like, I mean, the sounders are regularly selling 70,000 tickets in a high demand environment. This is certainly much tougher than that, but, and I don't think it was ever going to be easy. Like, I think that it's just when that many people want that few of something that's going to be hard to do. But most of the time when people get really pissed off and frustrated about a ticketing experience, it's just because of that crush.
00:19:18
Speaker
Thanks.
00:19:19
Speaker
Uh, it clearly wasn't what happened here. And that's not, yeah, that's not what happened. And I think all you have to do is first there was the 8am email that was mistake. Then they had to apologize at nine 30 and then 11 o'clock the ticketing goes open. There's a mess. And then they end up rescheduled, like changing everything and pushing people that were supposed to be able to log on at noon to three. And then people that were supposed to log on at one to four and subsequently, and people were still having these problems.
00:19:49
Speaker
late at night. And the sounders, I mean, the sounders knew they messed up. Sure. Oh, yeah. And so there's not it's it this I think everyone recognized that this was not just a normal, high demand, low inventory type of situation. But
00:20:07
Speaker
I don't know, hopefully we don't have to talk about it anymore. I do think there's some value in trying to do a real post-mortem and get a public understanding of what happened. I kind of tried to do that to the degree that it was possible the day after.
00:20:23
Speaker
actually the day of, but hopefully there's going to be more information that comes out and I'll certainly do my best to get to the bottom of it. But it was not the greatest way to start the season. But we do have a game to talk about. Yeah, we might as well talk about that. Minnesota United is quite a quite a way to start the season. This is a team that I think everyone believes is going to be contending for top spot in the West.
00:20:51
Speaker
Yeah, I don't buy it, but I think it's a reasonable thing to believe they're probably still pretty pissed off about the way their season ended last year. Right. So that's not great to be up against. Yeah, I mean, I'm not feeling great about this game. I think that that's probably not a super uncommon.
00:21:13
Speaker
opinion, just sounders and listen to some guys, as you've probably noticed. And, you know, I think I don't, I'm not necessarily convinced that Minnesota United is like a top contender in the West, but I think that they're a good team. I think they're going to give this pretty hobbled version of the sounders some trouble.
00:21:32
Speaker
Yeah, I do too. I think the Sounders should feel like they're the favorites to win this, but I don't necessarily feel like they're overwhelming favorites. Ledero looks like he's going to miss this one.
00:21:45
Speaker
It, I guess what I heard is that Rui Diaz and Bruin were training together up top. I'm a little, a little surprised by that only because I would think without Lidero that it would make even more sense to start Montero just because he gives you that playmaking ability. Yeah. But I, I also think that it suggests the sounders are probably going to do more of a dueling eights behind, uh, like an inverted triangle essentially in their central midfield. So you probably have like, um,
00:22:14
Speaker
Jaup Hallo and Christian Roldan sitting beneath the forwards and then Joshua Tenzio most likely sitting deep. And I don't know, maybe that gives the sounders a different kind of look. I hadn't really spent a lot of time thinking about how even the 352 can have several different looks to it.
00:22:34
Speaker
obviously you can have your wing back sit further back but you can also kind of play around with the way you structure your central midfield and and the one good thing is the sounders seem well equipped to move all those pieces around like they have like they want to go with a more defensive
00:22:49
Speaker
Uh, five, three, two, you could put new who Alan out as a wingback and you can put Christian or Alex Roldan, I think probably can go either way with that. And you can go with three true center backs like Shane O'Neill, Javier Ariaga, and Jamar Gomez Andrade, or you can put new who as one of the left center backs. I mean, you can, you can do a lot of things that give you different.
00:23:12
Speaker
real different looks, not just different personnel, but like real different styles of playing. And so I'm really interested to see how this formation looks. Do you have any kind of like 10,000 foot view opinions of this formation? Yeah, I mean, I think that you're definitely right that Bruin over Montero suggests that they're going to lead into a little bit more of a
00:23:34
Speaker
There was a modern approach because that sounds judgy. That's not how I mean it, but just, you know, in MLS, you can get away with having like kind of a creative number 10 that that's about all they do. But that's kind of going out of vogue in a lot of leagues. And so a lot of leagues are playing with like two eights and two strikers and in a shape pretty similar to this. And I wouldn't be shocked if the sounders do something a little bit like that.
00:24:02
Speaker
I think especially against a team like Minnesota United who, you know, they like to press, they can make the midfield a little tough to play through. And so it's probably going to be a pretty physical, pretty
00:24:18
Speaker
draining sort of game. This is me trying to set up a Freddy Montaro's lazy joke, if you didn't catch on to that yet. But I do think that, I don't believe that obviously, but I do believe that
00:24:33
Speaker
Um, I can see the approach, you know, I can, I can see how this might be a game for Bruin and Raul rather than Freddie. Um, and I also think, you know, there's some benefits of Freddie coming in off the bench late and, and, um, and playing as, as a more creative, creative player against some tired legs. Um, it'll be really interesting to see though. I mean, I think that, uh,
00:24:53
Speaker
Everybody knows how much I love Freddy and how excited I am to see him back, but I kind of know what a Freddy Bontero Raul Rudea's striker pairing is going to look like. And even though we've seen Bruin and Rudea's play together before,
00:25:12
Speaker
They haven't in a situation like this. And so I think that's going to be interesting to see a new formation. There's no Jordan Morris to work as an outlet. Totally different system. Nico is not going to be in there. So I think there is going to be a lot of.
Potential Formation Change to 3-5-2
00:25:27
Speaker
probably a little bit more counter-attacking, counter-pressing type stuff going on. At least I would think that that's probably the expectation or the goal. So yeah, it'll be very interesting to see. And I think Freddie is going to get plenty of looks, but I think
00:25:44
Speaker
the questions really are more around how does a Bruin and Raul pairing look. I mean, Schmetzer talked pretty openly about the fact that one of the reasons they started talking about a 3-5-2 was wanting to get Raul and Bruin on the field together. So there's probably stuff that they've seen in training over the past couple of years that
00:26:04
Speaker
makes them want to try that out more frequently. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it goes. I feel like the sounders this year are going to be such a different team than we've seen in the past few years.
00:26:23
Speaker
And I think they're still going to be a good team. I just don't know what their identity is going to be like I don't, I don't know, you know what their, their style of play is going to be like I think it could be pretty radically different so that's a little scary, I'll be honest with you but but also pretty exciting.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. We've seen the sounders play a 5-3-2. We've seen them play a 5-4-1. I don't know that we've really seen them play with true wingbacks ever, for an extended period of time.
00:26:58
Speaker
like we've seen them at the end of games do things like this you know we've seen them go to two center back like just two center backs and no no full backs essentially before uh if they've you know essentially if they've needed it late in games but to really create your identity around a three five two like they're potentially doing here
00:27:18
Speaker
it's definitely a different look. And I get the sense that they're really committed to it. And I think that they, you know, we were talking with Brian Schmetzer prior to Yacht-Con and he was, you know, he was talking about how, you know, when teams run three forwards at us, we still think we match up well with that. And to me, that's like a level of commitment to this formation that is different than what,
00:27:45
Speaker
know, I think a lot of people had assumed. And so I don't think it's merely a convenient thing. I think that they really wanted to create a secondary formation that they could deploy and give themselves a real different look, not just a look that, you know, is altered because you're missing a bunch of guys. And that's really what they had done in the past, where
00:28:09
Speaker
they went to a 5-3-2 sort of out of desperation just to get a bunch of kind of defensive players on the field. And that doesn't seem to be what they're doing here. And so I think that gives it an interesting look. I think, you know, Brad Smith is seemingly perfect suited for this. Alex Roldan actually, I think is really well suited for it too. You know, he's a high motor guy who's really effective at putting in early crosses. Brad Smith on the other side is a little bit better at driving deep and cutting back.
00:28:40
Speaker
You know, I think there's some promise here and it will be interesting to see how they stick with it. You know, it'll also be interesting to see where Kellen Rolfe ends up fitting in. I think we're going to see him probably at some right wing back, but we could see him in the middle of the park as well. I'm really excited about seeing Josh Atencio start potentially this game. Yeah. I'm intrigued to see what Danny Leyva can do. I guess he's looked really good in preseason. I haven't seen him at all.
00:29:09
Speaker
like literally I don't think I've seen him make a pass in preseason but I'm hearing good things about him. And yeah I'm really kind of in some ways the lack of information that I have about the Sounders this year is making me more intrigued about getting to see them play on a regular basis because I feel like
00:29:32
Speaker
I'm going to be surprised in ways that I haven't been surprised for the last, you know, five or six years. Yeah. I mean, I think you obviously are, are used to getting a ton of insight before the season, but I mean, even from my perspective, and I think just from a more typical fans perspective, like it's really hard to know what's going on. Like it's really hard to know, you know, you've got basically you've got propped up.
00:29:58
Speaker
to go off of, and that's about it. And so it's fascinating. It's not a situation that I think we're used to being. And this team is great about giving access, giving free access. They've got a lot of smart people covering them. They've also got people like you covering them, which you know is. But it's different. And I think the fact that it's the lack of knowing what's happening
00:30:27
Speaker
The fact that they're switching formations entirely, the fact that they're missing a guy that's been one of their key players the last few years, the fact that they're, you know, missing Nico Ladero, like we're used to having a pretty good sense of the sounders are going to be missing a key player for a game. We're used to having a pretty good sense of what they're going to do to compensate. We don't really know. Like we have no idea, which is frustrating, but is, is kind of exciting and in its own weird way.
00:30:55
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree with that. It's going to be, you know, I'm sure in some level, Brian Schmetzer likes it that way too, because I'm sure he loves the idea that Adrian Heath doesn't really know what he's going to do tomorrow. And that's not a position that a lot of opposing coaches have been in facing. Brian Schmetzer teams are really the sounders in general. There's not a lot of, you know, like maybe you surprise someone with a random player starting, but like,
00:31:23
Speaker
People really don't know how they're going to play. That's going to be kind of an exciting thing.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I'm just looking forward to having soccer and feel like I can actually care about it and getting into a routine of covering it again. I'm a little bummed that Sanders had an open training session today. I was not able to go. I had previously planned a vacation to Westport, and I was on my way back from there today.
00:32:02
Speaker
This was the first time I would have been able to see training in over a year. So kind of bummed I missed that, but hopefully that means that we'll have open training sessions in the relatively near future. And I'll get back to knowing what I'm talking about. We're getting there. It feels like we're really starting to get there, which is a nice way to feel after the, after the past year plus.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yep, yep. Well, I think that's where we'll call this a segment. We have questions from you coming up next. You are listening to NOS, I get this.
00:32:38
Speaker
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00:32:57
Speaker
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00:33:19
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adiatus. We have a bunch of questions, and let's go ahead and start, Aaron. All right. This first one is from Rick Sports Seed.
Playoff Expectations and Strategy
00:33:30
Speaker
On a scale of worse than the white caps to domestic trouble, how optimistic are you about 2021? Wow. That's a good range.
00:33:40
Speaker
I think I'm a little closer to domestic trouble on the scale, but I don't think the Sounders are going to win a domestic trouble, but on that scale, I guess I'm closer. I think a trophy is not out of the question. I don't necessarily wouldn't say I expect that, but I think the Sounders will be a solid playoff team. I think this year could play out a lot like 2018 in that
00:34:05
Speaker
And I don't mean that they'll go out in the first round. I mean that if they get into the playoffs and it feels like they have a realistic chance of winning, I think they'll probably make a signing in the summer that will change the makeup of this team. But I look at the team right now, and I actually think they're going to be in... I fully expect this team to be in playoff position for most of the year. I don't see this team falling apart, especially if they stay healthy.
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that there is a pretty wide gap of potential outcomes with this team. I don't think they're going to fall apart, but I could see them struggling in a way that I think would have been hard to imagine last year's team struggling.
00:34:50
Speaker
You know, I think that they have collapsed potential in them just because I feel like at least going into the season, they have some holes that if, you know, if things go wrong, like if one or two key injuries could really do. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that. Yeah. And I think that hasn't I think to a degree that hasn't been the case so far. Sorry, interrupted. Go ahead.
00:35:17
Speaker
No, no, I was gonna say I agree with you that I think you let's just say the nightmare scenario is Lidero is out for the first, I don't know, four or five weeks. And he comes back and he doesn't hit the ground running and then Rui Diaz leaves for the summer. And all of a sudden you're talking about playing half your season without
00:35:40
Speaker
basically your three best players. Right. Like that that could be problems and and they you know if
00:35:50
Speaker
There's a few, you know, like if Joe Paulo gets hurt, that's going to be a problem. If, you know, like, I don't know, Rudy is getting hurt, might not be as big of a deal. Like, or his absence might not be as big of a deal because I actually am pretty confident that Bruin and Montero will be okay. But like if Montero were like, you know, Montero looked like he got hurt in that preseason game. I don't.
00:36:12
Speaker
He went down like really earlier on and was like, Oh, got a non-contact injury. And for a second there, I was like, okay, this is bad. Like if that's what happens, this is, this could really go sideways quickly. But assuming health, I think this will be a competitive team throughout.
00:36:27
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like the realistic floor is something like the 2013 team or the 2015, maybe the first half of 2016, where it's like, this is a team that I think is just too talented, barring absolute catastrophe to miss the playoffs. And they definitely have the upside potential because of the talent that they have, but I'm not... There are ways I could go sideways pretty quickly.
00:36:55
Speaker
Alright, this one's from M. Gomini says Jordan Morris is out for a while. Rolled on has missed a few call ups. Is there anyone we have to worry about missing for World Cup qualifiers? You're probably a better person to answer this question than I am, but I mean, I think.
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, you know, there's there's there's Raoul, right? It's the obvious one. And I think, you know, in terms of critical players, like, I think Niko's days of call ups are probably past. Seems that way. And, you know, other than that, I mean,
00:37:30
Speaker
Ariaga. Ariaga, yeah. Nuhu has gotten some call ups, although he hasn't actually gone to camp. So there's always the possibility, just given the pool of players the Sounders are signing guys from, that somebody breaks through and gets called up. But I think the big ones are Ariaga and Raul.
00:37:51
Speaker
And, you know, I think potentially Christian, if he plays really well. Yeah. And so the thing with the U.S. national team is that it's not just the World Cup qualifiers. I think they have Gold Cup this year. Yeah. And so that's and I would think that that one, either one way or the other, I think, well, Don is probably going to miss some time.
00:38:16
Speaker
But yeah, they lean pretty heavily on the MLS guys. I mean, for that matter, hell, maybe Steph and Brad could get a call up for, you know, for some of those games. I feel like, no kidding. But like, that's when the, that's when Brad Evans started getting call ups, right? It was Darian and Gold Cup and I know World Cup qualifier year. So yeah. Next one is from not underscore Rossi. Who scores more goals this year, Freddie or Will? Oh, that's a good one.
00:38:46
Speaker
Well, I think Freddie's going to have more combined goals and assists. I actually think he could be in the teens for combined goals and assists. I'm pretty bullish on Freddie's potential. But I'm going to say I'm going to go with Will. I think Will has a double digit goal scoring season in him.
00:39:07
Speaker
Uh, I will say Freddie both to prevent us from agreeing again. Um, but also because I think Freddie is probably going to end up with more playing time, um, than we'll, uh, we'll see. I mean, who knows, but I, I think, I mean, I think you're right that Freddie's contributions are going to be maybe more as a creative force. Um, if he's playing with Raul, Raul is going to get some goals and Freddie is going to set them up. Yeah.
00:39:32
Speaker
But Freddie, Freddie passing against San Diego loyal was something else.
00:39:40
Speaker
Freddie, I mean, I remember having these conversations about late career Freddie when he left back, you know, in 2013, I guess it was. And I think that's kind of the way we saw him evolving. Like once his physical skills started to decline a bit was, you know, becoming kind of that like burbatavi, super clever playmaker kind of guy. And that's, you know, it seems to have been the way things have turned out.
00:40:04
Speaker
So this is from Bill Jones, S-T-R-P-T. Bill Jones, T-R-P-T, who we should know his name by now. He's on every show, I think. Which young player, not named Roll Dawn, will get the most minutes this year? Man, that's a tough one because we haven't seen so many of these players in any capacity for so long.
00:40:31
Speaker
Um, am I, are we new who doesn't count for this? Yeah. I mean, I think, I think the spirit of the question would be, cause obviously the answer is new who if he doesn't count. Um, I, I'm going to say, uh, I'm going to say Danny Leyva because I want that to be the answer.
00:40:52
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that I think I think it's really a choice, probably between Leyva and attention. I'll say attention, not just because
00:41:04
Speaker
I think it's good for us to disagree, but because I actually like I think he there's a good chance he could start the season opener. And if he stays healthy I think there's a really good chance that he is, you know, a regular part of the rotation I think it's going to be a little easier to.
00:41:24
Speaker
I know this has been a discussion that's come up on Sounder Heart. I think Atencio has kind of surpassed Leyva on the depth chart, not necessarily because of Leyva being bad or doing anything wrong, but he lost a year to
00:41:38
Speaker
He lost a whole year last year. Atencio didn't play a lot last year, but he was in training and he was growing and he was doing all these things. And I don't know that the gap between them was ever that big to begin with. It was just that Leyva was younger and a little bit more hyped. And Atencio is a little bit more
00:41:55
Speaker
A little more polished, a little more steady. He's physically a bigger person. And he's left, he's a left-footed defensive midfielder, which I think is a little bit of a different look. The Sanders had looked at him as a center back, but I think he's going to settle in as a defensive midfielder. I think we're going to see, I'll go one step further. I think we might see like 1200 minutes or more from Matencio this year.
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah, I do think, I think you're probably right as you talk through it. And I will also say that I think that it's going to be easier to get minutes when your primary competition for those minutes is Jordy Glenn. Yeah. And not, you know, Christian Roldan and, you know. I will tell you this, it would be interesting to see a double pivot of Danny Leyva and Josh Tatencio at some point this year. I don't know that that's like, it would be an interesting look.
00:42:48
Speaker
And I think Leyva is probably the higher upside of the two still. And so I would love to see both of them get like a significant number of minutes. Yeah. And I mean, Danny Leyva is what he's 17, right?
00:43:02
Speaker
Yeah, he said he was 19, I think. Yeah, it's not like if Danny Leyva doesn't get, you know, 1200 minutes this year, his career is over. Right, exactly. It's easy to forget. Next one is from I underscore T, I underscore Ross. I think that's an I and not a J. So what if it's J?
00:43:22
Speaker
Sorry. O'Neill versus Newhoo. These are, I guess, separate questions here. O'Neill versus Newhoo. Does Christian Lebedon play the 10? Does the 10sio start?
00:43:34
Speaker
This is like five different questions. What's the secondary ticket market look like, as Anthony said? All right, I'll just do quickly on these. I don't know that it is necessarily O'Neill versus New Who. I think that's going to be a rotating, I think there's going to be a lot of rotation in the center back. But I think if you're asking who's going to get more minutes, I'll say New Who.
00:43:59
Speaker
Christian Roldan. So it was interesting. Roldan seemed to be the more advanced of the midfielders in the game against loyal, but it also kind of looked like Jau Paulo and Roldan were almost as like
00:44:15
Speaker
dueling, like duel eights rather than one of them as a 10. And I think without Ledero, I think that might be a little bit more of a common look where a tensio is basically like they invert the try the midfield triangle and, and play with two eights instead of a 10 and, and like two sixes essentially, or a 10 and two eights.
00:44:37
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that's what it's a 10 and two eights or a 10 and six and yeah, what anywhere. Uh, yeah, exactly. And, uh, anyway, so I think attention does start the season opener and the secondary ticket market. I don't, I don't have a good sense of that right now. I'll be honest. Um, I think my suspicion is that most people that bought tickets for these games are going to go, uh,
00:45:03
Speaker
like they bought them for themselves or for other friends as opposed to like going out there and scalping which has the effect of like raising the tickets that are available on the on the secondary market um but yeah all right uh this is from Jeffrey M Williams given the anticipated shift in formation does the change does that change our priorities when looking to sign additional players does it move any specific position up or down the priority list that's interesting
Impact of Formation Change on Recruitment
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting question. I think that we've obviously seen very little of the team in preseason. We just have very little insight because, you know, the ability to cover the team as closely as we've seen in years past just hasn't been there for guys like Jeremiah.
00:45:54
Speaker
So we don't know exactly how it's going to play, I don't think. And even if we had regular preseason, you never know what things are actually going to look like going into the season. But I would say that I don't think that it does because I think that the clear need is still the clear need. You know, before we knew we were changing formations, I think a winger was always the most likely addition. And I think even if the sounders are playing with
00:46:24
Speaker
playing, you know, with two strikers and no true wingers with wing backs. I'd still like to see another more attacking wide player come in. So I think it's going to be an attacker and I think it's probably going to be one that plays wide. And I think you just have to feel pretty good about depth at striker with this team, I think.
00:46:45
Speaker
You know, maybe they go for another creative central midfielder. I don't know, but I just, I still feel like attacking wide players is the right move to make. Because I think one thing we can say about the Sounders and Brian Schmetzer, they are not afraid to play very asymmetrically. And so if they've got a wing back on one side and an out and out winger on the other, I don't think that's going to be super shocking to see.
00:47:09
Speaker
I will say the thing that is interesting about my, if you're asking right now, are the sounders targeting a different set of players like as of today than they were six months ago? I don't think they are. I think they're still targeting wingers, like you said. I think that they are actually intending to go back, especially if, well, I mean, this is the thing is that if they think Jordan Morris is coming back, they'd be crazy to,
00:47:38
Speaker
not go back to a four, two, three, one, right? Like that's a formation that Morris is going to thrive in. I'm not saying Morris couldn't play in a three, five, two, but he's more, he's going to be more effective. I think as a, like, I think we've seen that he's his best position is as a winger and being a second forward is maybe not getting the most out of him.
00:47:59
Speaker
And so as long as you are under the assumption that Jordan Morris is coming back, I think the 4231 is probably going to come back to at some point. It might not come back this summer. It might not come back till next year, or it might come back at some point. But I think the sounders right now are looking at wingers. The one wrinkle to this
00:48:19
Speaker
is if they are looking really good at an N352 like maybe they maybe this is the formation they should have been in all along they find out and they just really like it and so then all of a sudden maybe they that does change i don't know what position shoots to the top of the need chart at that point
00:48:37
Speaker
Cause I, I mean, I guess you could always improve your, like, if you're going to go in a three, five, two, and that's now your way forward, you probably want a better right wing back than Alex Roldan. No offense to Alex Roldan, but you can probably go out into the open market. And if you're all of a sudden like un, like this is your, your new reality. Like maybe, maybe that changes. Maybe all of a sudden you feel like you just need to get better wing backs, but.
00:49:03
Speaker
I don't necessarily think that's going to happen. And I think that long story short, I think winger is the top of their, their like target list. And until like, we'll see where that changes. All right. Last question of the first show of the 2021 season from Nick Peyton. Is it time to panic?
00:49:26
Speaker
yeah it's always yeah panic yeah why not there it's as good a time as any yeah get it out of your system now yeah why not i mean it's uh yeah i mean you know it's
00:49:38
Speaker
There's a lot of shit going on in the non-soccer world, so you can panic about that. You can panic about soccer if you're tired of panicking about the non-soccer stuff. You can panic because the season snuck up on you. You can panic because you couldn't get tickets to the game. I mean, there's lots of stuff to panic about. It's a good time to do it.
00:49:59
Speaker
Yeah. And hey, if you can panic about anything soccer related, consider that a good thing, right? Absolutely. I am looking forward to this year feeling more normal. Yep. I don't know that it will ever it will feel totally normal, but like more normal. I'm I am glad that there's going to be fans at the game. I'm
00:50:28
Speaker
It'll be really interesting to see how
00:50:31
Speaker
how the reopening of the stadium looks. Like I don't, I suspect that it will be at least another round or two of limited capacity. I would like to think that there'll be more and more capacity, but I am, I'm really, I'm, I'm looking forward to feeling normal about soccer again. Absolutely. Yeah. Last year was, was definitely a slog at times. And I hated that because I love soccer so much and I love this team so much. And,
00:51:02
Speaker
I don't want to feel that way about it again. So I'm very excited. I don't either. And I would like to think that we won't feel compelled to do that. And I know last year was a weird year for the show. We didn't record nearly as often as we would have liked, but a lot of that I think was just because it didn't always feel natural to do that. And my hope is this year it will feel more natural to get onto a more regular cadence of recording.
00:51:33
Speaker
of questions that we can talk about and it won't feel silly talking about them. And they're not, they're also not going to be playing like eight games a week, which I think will help. They are going to be playing a lot though. That's they are, they are, but it's not, isn't, it's not quite as bad as slash. It's not quite as bad. No, it's not quite as bad. Uh, but they are playing a lot of games still, uh, especially, you know, like
00:51:57
Speaker
I find myself kind of looking forward to League's Cup, as silly as that is. I'm kind of intrigued by that. And that was a tournament that I loudly shat on when it first was announced. But I think that they've made some tweaks to it that make it a little bit better. I still would like to see this be a real tournament where American or UML teams have to go to Mexico.
00:52:24
Speaker
Yeah, on occasion right now it's playing paid played entirely in the United States, which is takes something away from it, but I'm looking forward to that. If the centers qualify for open cup. That'll be interesting. I'm not. I don't think I'm going to get too emotionally invested in missing out on that. If that's what happens. Yeah, so.
00:52:46
Speaker
but yeah, it's gonna be a, I'll tell you, this first start, the start of the season is gonna be interesting though, because the Sounders are definitely gonna get tested. Yes. And that's a big part of why I don't necessarily, I'm not very bullish on their chances in making the open cup is it's a real meat grinder of a start to their season. It is, it is. And maybe it would be good to not play in the open cup. Yeah.
00:53:12
Speaker
Yeah, I hate feeling that way, but I mean, you know, let's be real. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, that's probably a good place to call it. We've had a good show here. Hopefully everyone enjoyed Yacht-Con and we're able to enjoy some of that, keep you busy during the very long off season. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it really was. But Yacht-Con was a blast. I had a really good time doing that.
Conclusion and Thanks to Sponsor
00:53:38
Speaker
Yeah, and we raised almost $15,000. That's too shabby, buddy. We got a beer made. Yeah. It was a really good beer. I've still got three of them. I'm going to have, when we get to the new house, I'm going to, I'm going to have one in the new house on the back porch. I'm excited about that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's the good stuff, but
00:53:58
Speaker
All right. Well, Aaron, thanks for doing this. And I guess we'll sign off. Thanks. Of course, we should thank our sponsor, Fullpool Wines, who also was a huge part of Yacht-Con once again. So thank you to them. And for Aaron Campo and Likit, I'm Jeremiah O'Shan. Remember, you will never get alone.
00:54:21
Speaker
Green Douglas spur where the water's cut through. Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew. Canadian northwest to the ocean so blue. It's Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn. Roll On, Columbia Roll On.
00:54:59
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!