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Nos Audietis, Episode 259: Finding perspective image

Nos Audietis, Episode 259: Finding perspective

E259 · Nos Audietis
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62 Plays8 years ago

It's been nearly three weeks since we last recorded a proper show — not counting last week's oral history of the Red Card Wedding — and a lot has happened. Most recently, we had three games in eight days that saw the Seattle Sounders extend their unbeaten streak to a franchise-record 11 games but only claimed five points in the process. Jeremiah and Aaron, though, find plenty of reason to be optimistic while singing the praises of new signing Victor Rodriguez.

This week's music: "Star Blazers Theme", Perry Como - "Seattle", Hounds of the Wild Hunt - "Ragged All Week", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia"

Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you're looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him. Music used in the sponsor reads: LASERS - "Amsterdam"

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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Nos Audeadas is sponsored by Verity Credit Union.

Episode Introduction and Sponsors

00:00:04
Speaker
Verity is a local credit union and has been headquartered in Seattle since 1933. They have branches throughout the Puget Sound area and know what is important to you because they live here too. Verity is not for profit
00:00:18
Speaker
and puts any money they make into good rates, products and services for you, the members. They have credit cards with competitive rates, checking and savings accounts and loans for all sorts of things, even bicycles.
00:00:31
Speaker
Verity is federally insured by the NCUA and an equal housing opportunity lender. Anyone who lives, works, worships or attends school in Washington state can become a member and we would love to have you. Learn more and apply at veritycu.com.
00:01:14
Speaker
The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle And the hills the greenest green in Seattle
00:01:31
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of No Audiotis, sponsored by Fullpool Wines, 29 Acupuncture, Verdi Creative Union, Designers Marble, and our broadcast partner Bootstrapper Studios. This is episode 259, and we're recording on Tuesday, August 29th, 2017. I'm your host, Jeremiah O'Shan, and I'm joined by my co-host, Aaron Campo, and our producer, Lickit.

Sounders' Unbeaten Streak and Performance

00:01:49
Speaker
Well, not necessarily the dream week we were hoping for, but far from a disaster as the Sounders went 1-0 in 2 over 3 games to run their unbeaten streak to a franchise-best 11 games and move into first place of the Western Conference. Weirdly though, it was the second two of those games, both ties, that should give us more hope going forward. Sure, both games felt more like two points dropped, as the Sounders scored first in both and were by far the better team, but they played so much better in those two than they did in the 2-1 win over Minnesota United.
00:02:18
Speaker
that required a last minute penalty and started this three games in eight days streak. So I'm feeling pretty good all things considered. How about you, Aaron? Yeah, I don't feel bad. I mean, it's easier to put up with these
00:02:32
Speaker
draws that really should have been wins in which the Sounders played really, really well and just were pretty unlucky when you're in first place and when you haven't lost in like two months. Right. It definitely makes it easier to swallow. It's been since the Sounders lost. Yeah, it's crazy.
00:02:49
Speaker
They're definitely frustrating. I was in a pretty sour mood on Sunday night leaving the stadium, but it's a lot easier to take when you've seen the team be successful and win the games that you really feel like they should win.
00:03:09
Speaker
like against teams like Minnesota. You know, in Vancouver and Portland, I think the Sounders are a better team than both of those teams, but they're not pushovers by any stretch of the imagination. The Vancouver game was tough because going in, I think most people would have been totally fine with a draw, but yeah, just the way it actually ended up unfolding.
00:03:33
Speaker
It made it a little harder to deal with just getting a point out of it. The Sounders have gotten lucky at times this year too. They've had games that they probably shouldn't have won that they did. Games that probably shouldn't have been draws that were in a way that favored the Sounders.
00:03:51
Speaker
You know, it's frustrating, but that stuff does tend to even out. And I think the important thing is that the sounders are playing really, really well. You know, if you are the kind of person that thinks that as long as they keep creating chances, they're going to be okay. I think you should feel pretty good. If you don't feel that way, I'm probably not going to be able to convince you that you should. But, you know, I feel pretty confident that if they keep playing as well as they've been playing and don't try to
00:04:20
Speaker
rock the boat too much and recognize the process has been good, the performances have been good, that it'll be just fine.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I think it's also a little easier to take dropping points in games you feel like you should have won when, like you said, when you're in the middle of a long streak, you know, it feels a little different at the beginning of the year when, you know, and I think, I feel like we say this a lot, we've said this a lot on the show, where, you know, you take a result and you said, well, if this had happened in the middle of a 11 game or a five game unbeaten streak, you would just chalk it up to a frustrating result and you wouldn't be pissed off.
00:04:54
Speaker
And I think this is maybe two of those games. The Vancouver game especially, I was very encouraged. You know, you take, yes, it's very annoying to not only have a lead and have a lead and up a man, and then to give up a goal to none other than Freddy Montero, on what was really one of the only real chances that Vancouver created on their own. They also had a chance that Stephen Fry
00:05:19
Speaker
gifted them, but that was really the only serious chance I thought that Vancouver had, and the defense was so good that Casey Keller was actually singing the defensive praises from the 30th minute on. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was doing the announcer's curse.
00:05:38
Speaker
But Victor Rodriguez, I thought, was really, really good. I thought Jordan Morris played well. I don't think I have any complaints. I think we may have seen Nicolas Ledero's one of his best games ever in Vancouver. And I don't know. I was very, very encouraged by that game. I felt really good going into the Portland game.
00:05:58
Speaker
I was impressed that Portland came out as strong as they did in the first 15 minutes. I was a little worried that the Sounders were gonna kinda get blown out of the water a little bit in the beginning. But they settled in nicely. Great goal by Christian Roldan. Hopefully you've seen the Levy Films footage of it because it is really kind of an amazing sequence. And then they give up a penalty, right? Basically the last play of the first half. And they were unable to find the winner.
00:06:26
Speaker
in the second half, but they were so much better in the second half. I mean, they were by far the better team in the second half. So I guess, I don't know, I guess maybe I'm just choosing to be encouraged by all of that. But it feels like if they play this way, and I think there's also the benefit of knowing that Victor Rodriguez is only gonna get more familiar with his

Player Focus: Rodriguez and Lodero

00:06:46
Speaker
teammates. He's only gonna get more familiar with how the league plays. And man, he looks really, really good.
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think you and I were talking the day after the game and I said that it was amazing that, you know, of he and Blanco, that Blanco is the DP because I just think that, and I like Blanco. I think he's a good player. Well, I like his ability as a player. I don't like him very much, but
00:07:12
Speaker
But Rodriguez just looks like a complete and total game changer for this team. And one of the concerns that I had was that he and Ladero were going to be a little bit redundant in some ways. I mean, they're not identical players, but they certainly do a lot of the same things, especially in the final third. They tend to kind of drift all over the place and make those...
00:07:33
Speaker
High-risk high-reward kind of passes that that we saw you know, Rodriguez pull off a few times over over the last couple of games But I mean if anything I think having two guys that can do those things operating, you know nominally out of
00:07:49
Speaker
on different sides of the field but really just kind of floating all over the place and having you account for those guys on top of having to account for for clan Dempsey who maybe doesn't do a lot of those same things but is still obviously a a person that you have to keep track of in the final third and B who is you know a pretty unpredictable player for defenses to have to deal with
00:08:10
Speaker
It's going to be really tough, I think, for teams to be able to stop that. And I think what we've seen a lot this season is that teams just kind of key on Nico Lodero and they get really physical with him. I think he's been fouled something like 15 times more than any other player in the league like that. It's way, way more than anyone else in the league.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, and he's I think pretty consistently has a man mark assignment for pretty much the whole game, you know, and teams are just focusing on him and it causes problems. And when you have to do that to two players that are doing really similar things, and also have to worry about Clint Dempsey and also have to worry about Jordan Morris.
00:08:47
Speaker
Don't forget about Clinton Dempsey being out there. Right. It's going to be a lot for teams to deal with. And I think, you know, we saw that against Vancouver. We saw that. I think especially late against Portland, you know, the number of times that Jordan Morris was able to get free again and behind the defense and get a ball delivered to him, he wasn't able to finish the chances.
00:09:06
Speaker
We haven't seen a ton of that this year and a lot of that is that you know early on in the season Morris was hurt and then after he came back he was playing on the wing a lot of the time and you know maybe not making those same kind of of striker runs and behind the defense right at goal and he also didn't have two guys that were capable of getting those balls to him on a consistent basis so
00:09:27
Speaker
I feel pretty comfortable that the offense is going to click. We've seen them do it recently. We've seen them do it before Victor Rodriguez was playing for the team. We know they can score a ton of goals. We know they can score in bunches. And I get that everybody wants to score three or four goals against really good teams and really good defenses. And I think everybody would feel a lot better if they were playing a team that was a contender in the Western Conference.
00:09:56
Speaker
just trounced them 4-0, that would

Sounders' Playoff Positioning

00:09:58
Speaker
be great, but that doesn't happen all that often. It's not a reasonable expectation. I think the reasonable expectation is you kind of beat up on the weaker teams like the Minnesota's of the world and you get results against the better teams. Obviously you want to get a win at home against Portland, against the team that you're kind of competing for at the top of the table, but
00:10:17
Speaker
You're not always going to be able to do that, but they've done it a lot recently, so it's not a huge step back to only get a point out of that game. Yeah, and I think that that's one of the things, is that it's not like the sounders haven't played well, or that they weren't getting results. Right before these two ties, they had won six of seven.
00:10:37
Speaker
It's a nice cushion. I, too, am frustrated that, you know, they could have, based on how they played, they could have locked up the Cascadia Cup. It would be nice to have that one already in the, you know, in the trophy case, so to speak, and not to speak, nothing of putting some distance between the Sounders and the Timbers. But as they are, they're sitting in a great position. They're in first place in the West. They are
00:11:02
Speaker
What, two points ahead of Sporting Kansas City having played the same number of games. They are, let's see here. They're one point ahead of the Timbers with a game in hand. I guess Sporting Kansas City has played two fewer games and there are two points behind. So that's not a great, I guess that's not as good of a position as I thought.
00:11:22
Speaker
But they got four points on Vancouver, they've got four points on Houston, and the playoffs don't look to be much of a concern at this point. They've got six points on Dallas, they've got six points on San Jose, and San Jose has played the same number of games. So the playoffs are feeling pretty
00:11:40
Speaker
Pretty solid at this point. The West is very much there for the taking. And I think a lot of people, rightfully so, are putting the Sounders right up there with Toronto FC in terms of best in the league. And I don't... Don't get me wrong, if the Sounders have to go to Toronto in MLS Cup, which is how it would play right now,
00:12:00
Speaker
I'm not gonna sit here and say the Sounders are gonna be favorites, but I don't think that they're gonna be overwhelming underdogs either. And we still got a lot of soccer to play before we can even talk about that. But point being, the Sounders are playing well, they're looking good. You mentioned Jordan Morris getting a couple chances in behind goal. Very frustrating to not see him finish either of those. But at the same time, we are probably overestimating how easy those finishes really are, right?
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's a pretty common thing for soccer fans to do. And I think that, you know, I mean, I'm guilty of it as well. I'm not going to say that I'm not. And I was pretty frustrated after the second one, to put it mildly.
00:12:43
Speaker
uh... you know i mean it's it's fine to be frustrated i think it's the it's totally reasonable to to want an expect or worse to put one of those chances away but to take it a step or two further and say well he can't finish uh... he needs to sit on the bench i think is ridiculous uh... we know he can finish he did it quite a bit last year he's out of a few good finishes this year uh... you know i i know a lot of people are skeptical of expected goals i i am as well to some extent but
00:13:12
Speaker
the combined expected goals for those two chances was 0.6. So that means more or less, this is simplifying things a little bit, more or less it means you'd expect a player to score a goal from one of those two chances about 60% of the time. So not quite a coin flip, but not that far off from a coin flip either. And I think that people
00:13:36
Speaker
They see a breakaway, they see a 1v1, and they think, you know, a great world-class striker, the kind of striker this team should have, is going to put that away. But it's just not necessarily true. And, you know, there were plenty of times that we saw, both of me Martins blow chances like that. There were times we saw Freddie Monteiro blow chances like that. We've probably seen it more with Jordan. I'm not going to dispute that, but... Right. And that's...
00:13:59
Speaker
That's the biggest thing. I mean Will Bruin has been pretty ineffective over Really the last month or yeah, let's go a month Yeah, they have the same number of goals and I think it's fair to say that Jordan has had much much better chances than Will Bruin and You know really 80% of being a good forward is getting into good positions to score Jordan Morris is the only
00:14:26
Speaker
Player the only attacking player on the team that has the the speed to get him behind a defense like that We've also seen him just kind of toss aside defenders on on plenty of occasions He's got great physical skills. I think he's a really intelligent player. I think he makes really intelligent runs Then the finishing will come, you know, I just I don't it's crazy
00:14:50
Speaker
for me to think that he's forgotten how to put the ball in the back of the net in, you know, less than a year. I just don't buy that. I think that the much more plausible explanation is that he's been playing in a position where he hasn't been getting as many good looks, playing as a winger, and he's just kind of been unlucky, you know, in the good looks he's gotten as a striker. I've been really encouraged with the way he played, and I think too that
00:15:12
Speaker
as much as I want to see him play as a striker and I think that's his best position and I think he's almost certainly going to play there now that Victor Rodriguez is with the team. I think he's gotten much better as a winger this year. I mean, I think that, you know, we talked a lot about his defensive abilities in that position early on in the season and how that was a big concern and I think he's really upped his game there and a lot of that obviously probably has to do with the injury and him being fit now.
00:15:37
Speaker
But he's just doing more winger type things when he's playing that position and he doesn't look as much like a striker playing out wide. And as much as I don't think that's his best position, it's good that he's improved there and that he has that sort of in the toolbox, so to speak.
00:15:54
Speaker
I've been really encouraged, as disappointing as it was to see those two chances not converted, but I think that he's clearly the best fit at that forward position right now. Will Bruin has been great this year, and I feel super comfortable having him come off the bench. Even if you think that there are matchups that are a little bit better for Bruin, I'm fine with him, maybe getting spot starts even.
00:16:19
Speaker
I think Jordan Morris is clearly the best striker on this team, and I think any talk of benching him, you know, because he didn't convert opportunities that no one else on the team can come close to getting on the end of is a little bit crazy.

Jordan Morris' Impact Beyond Scoring

00:16:33
Speaker
Well, I think even beyond that,
00:16:36
Speaker
To distill what he brings to the team as just scoring goals, I think is also doing a little bit of a disservice to the position in general, but him specifically, because he's able to do things that other players on the roster, that other players in the league just can't do. His ability to get in behind isn't just about scoring goals. It's about forcing defenses to honor
00:17:00
Speaker
and to open up and to give a little bit more space in the midfield. Similarly, the way he's able to chase balls down at the end line is really not, there's not a lot of guys that are able to do that with his regularity. He's not, I'm not going to sit here and say he's a great holdup player, but he's a pretty effective player at retaining possession.
00:17:20
Speaker
He's he's a decent passer and he does a lot of stuff. Well, he's a you know, this last game I don't think normally we would think of him as a great defender, but this last game, you know, he was active defensively He made a great play actually very late in the game to chase down a ball in the defensive half defensive third and
00:17:39
Speaker
And he's doing stuff that helps the team play well. Now, should he be scoring? Yes. Would I like him to score more? Of course. But I think even if he's not scoring, similar to, you know, I wouldn't say it's on the same level as
00:17:57
Speaker
as Nelson Valdez, but in a similar way, he doesn't have to score in order to be effective. Like he can bring things to this team that make it easier for his teammates to score. And I think that's just as important as scoring himself. So, you know, that's the biggest reason I think I want to keep seeing him out there is it's not just because, well, he's going to start scoring eventually. It's because the team just plays better. Similarly, you know, Victor Rodriguez, even if he's not scoring and even if he's not picking up assists, you can just see the way that the players move the ball.
00:18:27
Speaker
the way the team is cohesive. And I'd love to see an extended period where we see Victor Rodriguez on the right or on the left, Clint Dempsey in the middle, Nicholas Lidero on the right, and Jordan Morris up top, which I don't think we've seen that for an extended period, have we? No, I mean, I think that... We suffer about 20 minutes on Sunday. Well, was Morris playing up top against Vancouver? I don't remember. He was playing on the right. Yeah, he was playing on the right.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, but Dempsey didn't start again. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I totally forgot about that. So yeah, I mean, you're right. And I think that it is one of those things where they, each one of them is, I mean, obviously they're great players themselves, but adding just another body to keep track of kind of makes things exponentially harder.
00:19:14
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm really looking forward to it. I feel very, very comfortable with that group of players. Um, you know, as much as I wanted Darla Gonzalez, um, it's, it's hard for me to imagine him having a bigger impact than, than Rodriguez has so far. Uh, and.
00:19:32
Speaker
And really, that's about as much as you could have hoped for out of this transfer window. I feel really, really good. I think that this team right now is better than the team last year that played in the MLS Cup. And I don't think it's just edging in. I think they're quite a bit better.
00:19:49
Speaker
One of the nice things, and this is a minor thing, but it was so nice to see three guys standing over a set piece in scoring range on Sunday and feel comfortable with any of them taking it. Yeah, it would have been nice if that set piece wasn't then squandered, but I'm with you there. Yeah, and it's nice to have another option besides Nico on corners. I think that he's taken a little too much stick for his corners this year. I think that what they're trying to do on a lot of those corners makes him kind of look bad if he doesn't execute it perfectly.
00:20:19
Speaker
It's nice to have more options for those kinds of things. Is this exactly the way I would construct the attacking core if I was building the team?
00:20:33
Speaker
It's a really damn good way to do it. And I think that they're going to be a pretty dangerous team over the rest of the season. So before we cut to the next segment, which is where we'll take questions, I do think we should spend a little bit of time talking about the elephant in the room, which was Matt Geiger and the officiating in this game. We had heard rumors that the VAR communication system wasn't working. Someone with the sounders told me that wasn't the case,
00:21:04
Speaker
that VAR was working fine and that for whatever reason none of those plays were reviewed but there was four plays I thought that really stood out and what's frustrating is that I think all of them are understandable in a vacuum like you can make a defense of any one of the calls but what's frustrating is that they all essentially went against the sounders. The first one was that Forearm to the Face from Blanco to Kelvin Leardum
00:21:31
Speaker
That gets a yellow card, even though it looked like a pretty, you know, the replays were pretty clear about what happened there. And then I think what made it worse, and I think probably should have been a second yell at the very least, was then Blanco standing over him and yelling at him as if he dove, which to me is not something that should be allowed anyway, but is even worse when, you know, he clearly did the thing that he was being accused of. Then there was the penalty on
00:21:58
Speaker
I guess it was against Leardum, but it could have potentially been called against Fry too. I'm not going to sit here and say it definitely wasn't a penalty, but it's the kind of ball where it's not going to be played by the offensive player and the foul essentially bails out the offense because it wasn't necessarily a dangerous play.
00:22:19
Speaker
And then there was the no call on the handball where the ball bounced up, clearly hits Zarek Valentin's hand. Again, you can argue that it was ball to hand, not hand to ball.
00:22:31
Speaker
but you start building it up. And then the coup de grace was the 93rd minute straight red card to New Who on what looked like a pretty, you know, maybe it was a yellow, maybe it was a foul, where he's basically swimming through Diego Chara, maybe he gets his arm up a little high. But for that to be a straight red, especially in the context of the call on Blanco earlier in the game, is pretty bewildering. I can't really tell anyone
00:23:00
Speaker
to not be mad about these calls. But at the same time, I get why VAR potentially wasn't used, although I would have felt a lot better if Geiger at least looked at the handball. Or one of them, any of them. Yeah, any of them. And that's like this. These games are almost more frustrating to me than games with just an obvious blown call.
00:23:22
Speaker
Because A, that's something that VRR is supposed to fix, are those obvious calls. But B, it's the kind of thing where everybody makes mistakes and it's hard to necessarily say these were mistakes. Like I've had multiple people say, and I feel totally the same way, this feels like a game where there were a lot of 60-40 kind of calls and they all went against us. And I think Mark Geiger sucks. I think he's a terrible referee. And I think that,
00:23:51
Speaker
The, in this game, especially the lack of consistency on the hands to the face thing is just frustrating as hell. Especially because I think Blanco's was a lot more blatant than Nu Who's was. But, you know, aside from that, like the penalty calls.
00:24:09
Speaker
I wouldn't be upset in a vacuum with that penalty going against the Sounders. I wouldn't be upset in a vacuum with that handball not being called. But like you said, it's compounded.
00:24:24
Speaker
Um, and just in general, I just, I don't like the way he referees games. I mean, we saw Salazar. His face is super annoying. Uh, and, and it was, I think especially frustrating after the game against Vancouver, uh, where Salazar was a referee and it was one of them, the most well officiated games I've ever seen.
00:24:44
Speaker
any level you know Premier League has gone from being one of the my least favorite referees to I actually enjoy watching him referee games like he's smiling he's like the things that used in the used to bug the shit out of me when he's like smiling and seemingly joking with the players
00:25:01
Speaker
But when he's got the game under control you actually feel good about all that like he's building a rapport with the game like he's like like he's one of the few rest who seems to enjoy it and Yeah, I'll admit that there's been times where that annoyed me, but that Vancouver game was so perfectly called I was amazed and I think too that the difference to me seems to be that I
00:25:24
Speaker
Salazar, when everybody hated him, myself included, I don't think he was calling games much more poorly than anyone else, but it was kind of his demeanor. And there were obviously some huge calls and huge games that went against the Sounders. Yeah, the 2012 Open Cup Final is gonna...
00:25:43
Speaker
That's going to piss people off for a while. But to me, it seems like the things that we hear about that are areas of emphasis that pro, you know, wants to get better at. He's gotten better at all those things and nobody else has. And I think that's the biggest thing. I mean, he's playing advantage correctly. You know, he's carding for persistent infringement. He's just, he's calling things consistently. He's calling things in a way that, you know, doesn't reward overly physical play.
00:26:11
Speaker
And so, you know, some of his idiosyncrasies are just less annoying, like looking like ad hoculating or whatever. Yeah, I mean, he had three advantages that he played that were so perfectly played. Like, he let it play out for a second. As soon as he saw that there wasn't actually going to be an advantage, he stops to play. Or he let it play out, and it doesn't need to call it back at all. But he just, I mean, he called that game. And I feel like it needs to be said, in a game the Sounders tied,
00:26:39
Speaker
that, and I guess you could argue that they got two big calls to go their way, but the penalty was stone cold. The red card was stone cold as far as I'm concerned. I don't think those were coming down to like the offici, the fishy being, doing the sounders any favors. If those calls don't get made, I would be very upset because those are like, those are very easy calls in my mind.
00:27:03
Speaker
And so it should be said that Salazar was really, really good, and Geiger was, as usual, not good. And I don't really, I'm at the point now where I'm not sure how Geiger continues to work games, because he doesn't seem to have any consistency, any flow.

MLS Officiating Improvements

00:27:17
Speaker
He contradicts himself, essentially, throughout the game. Yeah, and it's just so frustrating, because I feel like refereeing in MLS has gotten better.
00:27:29
Speaker
You know, in general, I think that it's not where it needs to be, obviously, but it's to the point where I don't think it's significantly worse than most other leagues, frankly. And I think that a lot of the complaints that center around MLS referees being bad and focus on the MLS part
00:27:48
Speaker
Are a little bit of that that old American inferiority complex coming out where it relates to soccer Because in general, you know, I don't think they're any worse than anywhere else, but it doesn't mean they're great and and Mark Iger I think is the worst and You know, it's sad because he used to be good and I don't you know Maybe he didn't maybe he just had like four or five really good games of an opportune time and it worked out for him I don't know but
00:28:13
Speaker
he's yeah i would rather see pretty much anyone than him at this point which is crazy if you think back like three or four years um but he's yeah he's he's just the absolute worst yeah well that's probably a good place to to end the segment we're going to come back we'll take your questions you're listening to no study at this
00:28:34
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:30:51
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adiatus. We have lots of questions, and Lickit is here to start asking them. Yeah, let's go. Kuomo asks, how are we not better than 10-man Vancouver? I mean, we were better than 10-man Vancouver. We just didn't score more goals than to 10-man Vancouver. Yeah, and it's an important distinction, to be sure. And yeah, I think we were much better. And I will say that 10-man Seattle is probably not better than
00:31:21
Speaker
Uh, then 11 man Portland, but we got a point in that game. Uh, I would say that, uh, although we were, we were better in that game.
00:31:31
Speaker
Right well and and knew who got some often like the 89th minute or whatever and and I Was actually talking about the last game. Oh, that's right. Okay. Yeah, I forgot about the point No, it's true my point being we were better. I thought we were actually we looked really good against Vancouver We just didn't score any goals, which was very frustrating and again Jordan Morris had a great look that you know, he finishes that chance and
00:31:59
Speaker
It's a whole, you know, it's a whole different situation that was with 10 men also. It was easier for them to have 10 men behind the ball most of the time too after that. It did seem to weirdly play into the way that they were already kind of set up. Yeah. Next question. Jim C Kim asks true or false. Two ties not only garners less points than a win and a loss, but it feels worse too.
00:32:23
Speaker
Mmm, I don't know. Does it really feel worse if we had lost if we had beaten Vancouver and lost to Portland? Would we really be feeling better? I don't think I would I don't know that I would I Mean if we had lost to Vancouver and beat in Portland, maybe we would yeah, but but I think it's highly dependent on the context exactly I
00:32:43
Speaker
But I'm Weirdly, I mean, I know it doesn't make any logical sense, but I'd almost rather have the two draws and the two points then then have a loss in there Just cuz I you know, I think the unbeaten shrink is unbeaten shrink unbeaten streak is good for for I Don't want to say morale, but I guess I'll go with morale. I think it's you know
00:33:05
Speaker
If you're playing well, I think where it's dangerous, like in 2013 we saw this where the Sounders had like a, I think a nine game unbeaten streak right before their seven game win this run that they went into the playoffs with. And I think the big difference there was that they weren't playing good in a lot of those results. And it finally caught up to them, whereas
00:33:32
Speaker
the Sounders are playing, are playing well legitimately. Like they've played, like I would say that they've maybe had one, I don't know how they had a bad game in this 11 game streak where you would say, oh, they really didn't, they, they definitely didn't deserve the result that they got. I think the worst game they had was against Minnesota at home, probably. Maybe DC United. That was pretty bad. DC United.
00:33:57
Speaker
Was that it was? I guess it was on the 4th we win over DC. You're right, I mean like a... What? I mean at the same time like...
00:34:05
Speaker
In the Minnesota game, I felt like, even though they were not great, they could have scored four or five goals. Right. That's what I mean. And against DCU, I just felt like they got caught napping in the first half, and then they came out and blew them away. So they weren't great. It wasn't a great performance. But there's a logical explanation for it, and it didn't end up mattering. It was getting up and up to win that game. They deserved to win on the whole. They just didn't necessarily play well. OK.
00:34:36
Speaker
SSFC4015 asks, well he asked like three questions but he probably answered it all in one. What's missing right now with the team? Which two current bench players should be starting? Why don't we use the third sub anymore? The third sub, we might as well start with the third sub because I've actually kind of asked myself this question and I think what we're seeing is just that
00:34:56
Speaker
That Brian likes the way that the team is playing and so he's been reluctant to kind of tinker with that now I would have rather seen Rod, you know, we only use three subs in the Minnesota or two subs in the Minnesota game I think Rodriguez could have probably helped in that one, you know, we only saw two subs in the Portland game I would imagine Kovar could have helped in that one So yeah, I don't know Exactly. I mean, I think I'm sure the answer is that just Metro just doesn't want to mess with the lineup essentially
00:35:26
Speaker
Yeah, and the Portland game's tricky, too, because, and this is one of the reasons I'm really glad we won't be starting Bruin and Morris at the same time anymore, is that, you know, they both started, Bruin came out, Morris shifted to Stryker, and Rodriguez comes in, and then that means you're only a real forward option, and they, I think it was pretty clear Morris was gonna have to come off at some point, because he'd been running his ass off, Islam or Nagel,
00:35:53
Speaker
And then Kovar is you're really only attacking sub left, but you're not going to take off Dempsey or Rodriguez or Ledero. So and do you really want to switch to like a, you know, five attacker set up when you've got a draw against Portland? That seems kind of crazy too. So.
00:36:12
Speaker
That was just a tricky situation in that I don't really know who on the bench made logical sense for that third sub. If they got a goal, there's plenty of guys. We were talking about this during the game. Who are you going to take off? One of the things I thought they could have done is maybe taken off Nuhu and essentially gone three at the back.
00:36:34
Speaker
or almost on one at the back, or they could have taken off Torres, I suppose, which we've seen them do, but that's a little bit, that's taking off your last
00:36:46
Speaker
You know, one of your two center backs for an offensive player is the kind of thing you're doing late in the season or when you're like desperate chasing points. Right. And Portland was still getting low. But I think you probably, you know, in hindsight, it would have been probably good to take off new who and bring in another, you know, bring in Cobar, I guess. But I don't think that's a, you know, I don't know that that's automatically an upgrade.
00:37:14
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it's a, I think it's less we're only gonna use two subs and more, just like that's a tough decision to make, but I wouldn't have been disappointed with it, but I totally understand the reasoning. And then what were the other questions? Yeah, I guess there's two more questions. What's missing right now with the team and which two current bench players should be starting? I don't think there are any bench players that should be starting. I think once this team is, is like when they come back from the break,
00:37:43
Speaker
My suspicion is that, or when they're fully, when they have everyone available, I don't know what's going on with Jovan Jones. I guess we could have talked about Jovan Jones too. Maybe that's a question that comes up. But, oh good. I don't know what's going to go on with Jovan Jones, but I think everyone else is pretty obvious at this point. Victor Rodriguez, we already talked about this. Victor Rodriguez, Clint Dempsey, Nicholas Lajero, Jordan Morris up top. Roll, I think Roll Dawn and Alonzo are probably your starting defensive mids.
00:38:13
Speaker
although they've got a kind of an embarrassment of riches and i don't think that there is a i don't i don't necessarily think there is a problem right now uh and i don't know i just not i'm not freaking out about maybe i mean maybe the one the one that's kind of a toss-up is fencing torres sure but torres has been yeah i think in the last week he was really good
00:38:39
Speaker
Yeah, I'm almost curious if he was carrying a knock or something, although that wouldn't really explain some of the things he was doing that weren't great, so I don't know. But I mean, I think Gustav Svensson is going to get plenty of playing time. They're just going to have their ideal 11 available every game. Right. And even if they did, I mean, guys are going to need days off. So he's going to have plenty of playing time. But there's nobody in the starting 11 right now that I think needs to sit.
00:39:07
Speaker
by any stretch of the imagination. Tim Murphy has a set of questions. First one is a question about College Sounders, which we have a list of players that I can just list off. But I'll read his question if you want to talk about it. Then we can list out the players afterwards. Handwanna Buwanna, who is currently at the UW.
00:39:39
Speaker
Well, I don't think either one of Aaron or I are experts, so we asked Dave Clark what he thought
00:39:47
Speaker
who we thought should be worth watching, and he gave us three names. Tosh Samkinj. Do you know that name anyone? He's at University of Denver, he's a defender, he's a junior. Nick Hines, who you may know, he's at Akron.
00:40:08
Speaker
He's kind of a Jovan Jones type of attacking fullback type. And then Jacob Housie Ramsey, who's at UConn and he's a defender and he's also a junior. But those were the three guys that he said that we should be watching. I would say if you get the chance to watch you dub play, you should watch them anyways, because they're just fun to watch. But Buona could be a player that you could see later on. He gets compared to Darling Canagvi a lot.
00:40:39
Speaker
Yes. Timerfi's second question is, what would Roldan have to do to be talked about on a national level the way that not as good Kellan Acosta is talked about?
00:40:51
Speaker
I mean, I think he needs to have a game or games as good as some of the ones Acosta has had for the national team. I don't think Acosta is significantly better than Roldan, but there's a reason people started flipping out over him. It was because he played a few really, really, really good games with the national team. He's been, you know, not great more recently, but Roldan has never put in performances like Acosta did. And so, you know, I think if he gets a game or two like that,
00:41:22
Speaker
He's also a player who is a little easier to appreciate in Limited like you only see like he does things that show up on highlights Yeah, and I think Christian rolled on is for my money a better player and a player who I think you can build around more effectively I think maybe ends up having a better longer career but you need to watch him for all 90 minutes to really appreciate what he does because there's a
00:41:49
Speaker
Right, and you have to know what you're talking about, too, which a lot of U.S. national teams know. Yeah, and I think that, you know, in five years when Christian Roldan has been, you know, and, you know, we used to say on the show that we weren't sure that he was the kind of player that's going to end up playing in Europe.

Christian Roldan's Future Prospects

00:42:05
Speaker
I don't think that anymore. I think there's a pretty good chance that if Christian Roldan wants to play in Europe that he's going to play in Europe. I mean, he's exceeded my expectations already. He's 22 years old.
00:42:15
Speaker
And he's doing things now that I never really thought of doing. But, you know, we saw those two games where he was starting up as a 10 and it was like this eye-opening thing like, oh, if you really take the shackles off, this guy can do some amazing things. And, you know, if he were to be given that kind of opportunity or have that kind of game at the national team level, I think we would be talking about it. But, you know, Killin' Acosta also hits a really nice free kick and people notice that stuff. I mean, it's
00:42:46
Speaker
And that's I think what gets you national hype. I think too the biggest thing for me that's been a huge surprise is that I thought that the thing that was really going to hurt Christian is that
00:43:03
Speaker
he probably wasn't gonna make a World Cup in 2018, which means that he's probably not gonna play in a World Cup until he's like 27, I guess it would be. But I think he's probably gonna make the World Cup team. I mean, at this point, it seems like he has a really, really good shot. And, you know, if he can do what he does for the Sounders in a World Cup, people are definitely gonna take notice of that. As long as they have a commuter train between where he is and wherever Morris is, right?
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Timothy's last question is, do we actually know anything about JJ's current situation with the team or him leaving early to go with TNT? I guess that's Jovan Jones. You know, it's funny, I did a fair amount of digging on this and I think the sounders were actually being
00:43:53
Speaker
honest when the day after they were calling it personal reasons and they were reluctant to say why he left the team and I think best I can tell they didn't he like Jovan Jones is never to the best of my knowledge never came out and said this is why I left he just basically sent a text when he got to Trinidad and said hey I'm in Trinidad you know hope that works out for you guys and
00:44:19
Speaker
And so the Sounders, I think, are expecting him back. They are expecting him back after the international break. I don't know if there's going to be some punishment. I don't know if there's going to be some period where they won't let him play. I don't really know exactly what's going to happen. But they're certainly expecting him to come back. And given New Who's red card, there's a chance he starts against the Galaxy, which would be... Yeah, it would be...
00:44:47
Speaker
We're not depending on how to do it. I mean that's... it's gonna be interesting.
00:44:53
Speaker
So I don't know I mean who knows maybe he gets back and we find out there was like a legitimate personal reason and he just felt like so strongly that he had to go that he just Went went and you know I think we should probably withhold some level of judgment at least until we have a little bit more information But we just don't we don't have information he hasn't and I think it's notable that he hasn't gone to like the Trinidadian press and said I just want out I want out or whatever it was and
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah and I think my thing has always even when I was super super pissed off about it and I was pretty pissed off about it but my thing has always been if the team if they don't feel like he's a distraction if there aren't lingering bad feelings that they can't work through with the other players or with Spencer or whatever
00:45:39
Speaker
then it's not my place to say I don't want to back. He's not my coworker. So if they're cool with it, I'm cool with it. And I'm hoping that everybody's cool with it because he's a really good player. And as much as I love NuWho, Jovan's better. And I'd just feel better about our chances if he were out there. Although with Rodriguez, it's
00:46:00
Speaker
It's interesting to say the least, you know, and that'll be an interesting thing to see play out because he can't, he can't do as much jovining. Um, I don't think with a player like Rodriguez there. So, but still, I mean, he's, he's a really good player. So hopefully everything works out. Maybe maybe Brad can play left back. Yeah, we kind of forgotten about Brad. Maybe he'll be healthy by then. Yeah, maybe fingers crossed.
00:46:30
Speaker
Airback asks, is there anything that Will Bruin can do significantly better than Morris? I mean, right now he's finishing better, I guess, or at least this season, but I don't know that it's... like, I don't know. He...
00:46:45
Speaker
I think there are a few things that Will Bruin can do a little bit better than Morris. I think his Hold Up Play is a little bit better than Jordan's. I think that... He's probably better in set pieces. Yeah, I think he's a little better in the air in general than Jordan is. If there's a big edge, it's probably that one. It's probably aerial ability, but I don't think Bruin's any world-beater in the air necessarily. It's weird because they're pretty similar players.
00:47:16
Speaker
but with completely different physical makeup. Like, they do a lot of the same kinds of things, but Morris is just way faster and stronger. So, I mean, I don't know if there's anything that's significantly better, but yeah, I mean, he has put the ball on the net more times this season, so I guess that's the important thing for some folks, I don't know.
00:47:44
Speaker
Kind of related to that, Cthulhu Lemon, clever name, is Bruin tired in a mini slump being game planned against? He's been invisible for a few games in a row.
00:47:56
Speaker
he has been and he's been and that's You know, and I think that is what we see that he's a somewhat limited player like he's I like having will ruin on this team but I think that these last few games are a reminder of Why the centers brought him in with the intention of him being a backup and not being the starter yeah, I mean, I think that this is what will ruin brings when he's not scoring goals and
00:48:20
Speaker
It's not a lot. That's the difference, and we talked about this a lot earlier, but even when Jordan's not scoring, he's doing things to make the team better. Bruin is just kind of there. He scores a fair amount of goals for his time on the pitch, but when he's not scoring, there's not a lot to it.
00:48:44
Speaker
I think this is just kind of the player he is. I mean, strikers are inherently streaky. Um, I don't think he's doing anything differently. I don't think teams are necessarily game planning for him. I just think that he's in a bit of a dry spell. So, um, you know, I think that's about all there is to it. I mean, if we were to get a Bruin that got his career, like matched his career high, we would be very lucky, I think. Yeah. And he's only four goals off that. Yeah.
00:49:09
Speaker
The second shot of this series of questions is Brian Richards 1 asks how long before we begin to panic about Morse's inability to finish It seems as though we're past the point of it being a dry spell Yeah, I mean I I don't think that he has a straight-up inability to finish I just think that he's just not he's not a clinical finisher at this point in his career and I think that that's
00:49:35
Speaker
That's okay. Like I would like him to be better, but I think we have to accept that this is not a player who's going to put away, you know, every chance he gets. Yeah. And not to go back to the expected goals well, but I mean, if you look at his, his numbers on the season, he's not finishing that far below what you would expect out of him. No, he scores. If he ends up, I mean, he, he expected goals since he should have five to six goals right now. He's got three.
00:50:02
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that, again, it's just, and I think that if you hadn't had these similar struggles early last year, and I don't even want to say struggles, just a similar dry spell early last year. I don't know if this would be a thing people were talking about, but I just think it really is as simple as the fact that strikers are kind of streaky and finishing is kind of fluky and stuff like this happens and it seems like a pattern, but it's really not. It's just kind of the way things go.
00:50:34
Speaker
I think it's just that his last three misses have basically been really high profile and it's just staying to those minds. And I think that we should take some solace and he scored three goals in the gold cup. They were well-taken goals. He hasn't totally forgotten how to score. Great. And don't get me wrong, there are definitely things I wish he would do a little better or a little differently at times. He has room for improvement there. It's not that he doesn't. I just think that saying he can't finish is a pretty tremendous overstatement.
00:51:05
Speaker
Maybe one of these times he'll try to dribble around, at least. Probably not. Let's see, in the Chaser, so to speak, ASbednar asks, if Vader starts, who do you start up top, Bruin or Morris? Morris.
00:51:23
Speaker
Yeah. I've said a few times that maybe there are scenarios in which there are better match-ups and Bruin makes a little more sense to start up top. And if they exist, then I'm all for that. But the more I try to think of what those scenarios might be, the less I can come up with.
00:51:41
Speaker
I think Morris, I mean, if if he continues to struggle and it gets into his head and we've seen that happen before, then yeah, maybe it makes sense to start brewing. But I think everything else. And I'll say this last game, we did not see a tentative Jordan Morris. I think we saw him not, you know, finish clinically. But I don't think either one of those chances were like outright poorly taken or showed like that he was panicking or that it was in his head or anything like that. Yep.
00:52:12
Speaker
K. Seldig asks, or says, Lawless tweeted today that the teams have choices whether to play during the international break. How does that work? Why would you choose to play? Well, what we've been told, and this is not necessarily new, is that MLS essentially leaves it up to the teams whether or not they want to have games scheduled during the break. And they have to, you know, if they're not in, I would assume both teams have to agree to
00:52:41
Speaker
effectively not play and so they'll move a game to a different date. I'm assuming what happens is the schedule comes out and everyone gets scheduled during the weekends or during the international breaks and then the teams all work to
00:52:56
Speaker
Eliminate that I assume I'm not exactly sure the process But yeah, you'll you're definitely gonna see teams that choose to play games on on international breaks And a lot of times it's it's teams that don't have a bunch of international players You know the Sounders if they had to play this week would be it would be brutal there. They're missing nine guys They would missing nine guys. That's just from international duty
00:53:19
Speaker
I don't think that they would necessarily even have enough to feel the full 18 if everyone was healthy, and I don't think everyone's healthy. But yeah, so some teams don't have a bunch of internationals, so they're okay with playing, or they just don't want to play midweek home games, and they would rather play those games on the weekend.

Scheduling During International Breaks

00:53:40
Speaker
And I think Paul Cox believed, chimed in on Twitter and said something that the team had asked the Lions Council whether or not they should play during the break.
00:53:50
Speaker
got getting their input and they said don't play during the international break so I'd heard the kin underscore wise 2020 has how many points within three do we have at season's end and what place do we finish I feel like 54 is the number that most of the models are projecting and that feels pretty pretty accurate to me though the only games that I
00:54:13
Speaker
I think are really our games. I don't think the Sounders should feel like they should get three points out of are on the road against Dallas and on the road against RSL. I think I kind of think they should expect points against Dallas. Oh, I think they should at this point. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'll be disappointed. I mean, assuming Dallas wins in those games. Oh, wins. Gotcha. Okay. That makes more sense.
00:54:40
Speaker
Yeah, I just looked at the remaining schedule and came up with 56. I think so. Um, that would be good. That'd be really good. Um, but yeah, I think, I mean, I think that's doable and I think they'll finish in first.

Sounders' Expected Finish in the West

00:54:53
Speaker
I just, I don't think sporting KC is gonna be world beater down the stretch. Um, and, and I just, I don't see Portland or Vancouver catching them. So can we get more than 56? I mean, we could.
00:55:10
Speaker
Because I'll go with 57 just to freeze you out. That's fine. That's how to do it.
00:55:18
Speaker
Price is right situation though. That's true Couple Victor Rodriguez questions SS you underscore Richard M asks his Vader almost as good as Ledero or case of our front for not having a weakness anymore He seems a bit every bit as good as Ledero shrug emoji and does Victor's performance assuming he continues to round into form and
00:55:47
Speaker
mesh with the team, meaning we don't need a Dearly's Gonzales-type DP, but a 9, and that was asked by C-Southern.
00:55:53
Speaker
I'll take the first part of that. I think it's too early. I think his early performances are on par with the early performances that we saw from Ledero, but I would hesitate to say that he's as good as Ledero just because we've seen so much more and we've seen Ledero do it over a much longer period of time and I don't know that I'm ready to proclaim that Rodriguez is gonna be able to
00:56:18
Speaker
do that without seeing him for a little bit more. I mean, we've only seen him play the equivalent of less than two games. Way less than two games. I guess he's only played 150 minutes or so. And not even that much. Anyway, I do think that if he continues to play this way, that it changes the kind of player that the sounders are going to be looking at in the offseason, though.
00:56:43
Speaker
Yeah, and I'll say part of what makes Ledero so valuable is not just the things he can do, but the fact that he can do them for 96 minutes, week in, week out, never need to rest. That's super rare. That's really, really rare. And even if Rodriguez's is good when he's on the pitch as Ledero, it's hard for me to imagine that he's going to be able to contribute at that same consistent level. So that's part of, I guess, what sets Ledero aside. For me,
00:57:13
Speaker
assuming everything continues going the way it has. Rodriguez, you know, continues to play really well. I think my ideal scenario, assuming quantum disease is back, and I think that that's an 80% sure thing of happening, I would like to see them maybe go after a number nine that's 20, 21, 22 years old, that's a DP, but as a young DP,
00:57:36
Speaker
that maybe isn't going to need to start right away, that you can, you know, feel comfortable kind of maybe letting him be a substitute and spot starter his first season and then, you know, kind of take over the reins in year two. I think the advantage there is that Jordan Morris is a good striker. I think he could be a really good striker. I don't think he's incapable of playing as a target or not a target forward, but a true number nine, but I think he's going to be more effective as kind of a shadow striker.
00:58:04
Speaker
type of player like he was with Valdez so if he sticks around after the World Cup which you know who knows but if he does you can play that guy up top if he doesn't then you know you've got more options of who you can replace Clint Dempsey with either you can go for like a true
00:58:21
Speaker
center attacking midfielder or you know, you can Try to find another kind of shadow striker type player. So I mean it's it the Sounders don't have a true number nine target forward type and That's you know, you don't have to have that to succeed but it gives them a lot more flexibility with what to do with their other spots and how to replace other players if they move on and
00:58:47
Speaker
flip-flops asks, who would be put on the bench if we had signed that third DP? Things seem crowded as they are. Yeah, I don't know. If we had signed a third DP, it would actually create some very interesting situations for Brian Schnitzer because I don't know. In some ways, I think we're better off having not signed a third DP so far.
00:59:20
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that's an unreasonable stance. And I think, too, that most likely, Victor Rodriguez is told when he signed, hey, there's a chance you're going to be kind of a rotational player here. And he was OK with that. And if we had signed that third DP, he probably doesn't get the starts that he did. But we didn't. So he got the starts. And holy shit, he's pretty fucking good. So yeah, I think he probably would have been the odd man out, weirdly.
00:59:48
Speaker
but he's played well enough that I certainly don't regret it. Could just imagine Spencer going like this for like 20 minutes.
00:59:58
Speaker
See shield K2 has as a stupid as stupid a concept as quote-unquote soccer city is can you really call yourself soccer city if you don't even show for a cup match against your rival so if you didn't hear about this what happened was the ECS FC and the Timbers Army FC I guess is what they call themselves have a annual
01:00:21
Speaker
match that they play and they go back and forth as to where it's played and it's a it's actually a whole card of games that are through several levels uh... with the premier game being you know essentially what you see it you know the top yes ecs team against the top timbers team and my understanding of what happened was that the way timbers army decides who gets to play in that game is they have like an internal league and the winner of that league then
01:00:48
Speaker
essentially goes to play in this game well the winner of the league was never I guess clearly they were never communicated with clearly or there was some level of misunderstanding and so and in any case they never they never showed up and so timbers army was left trying to scramble to put together a team and they weren't able to do it so they forfeited the the cascadia supporters cup I guess it's cool I'm not sure exactly what the they called the cup for the
01:01:18
Speaker
So for that okay supporters couple. Yeah bummer Well Let's see so see Michael underscore leiper asked has the have the MLS champs successfully avoided meeting the president Yeah, looks like it. I don't know that I I want to be a little surprised if if Trump ever has an MLS champion visit him
01:02:09
Speaker
to the East Coast already and for the most part teams have been able to work it out but now that especially when Western Conference teams go to the East Coast so rarely they just have fewer opportunities and so the window of visiting the White House gets smaller and smaller and you know there can be conflicts.
01:02:15
Speaker
it's worth noting too that the tempers didn't go to the White House either last year when what's this fuck wasn't present so it might just be that
01:02:30
Speaker
That's true, but I'm totally fine with making it a statement. Yeah, I am too. Let's just decide that's the case. Let's just go with that. That's fair enough. Okay, now the funny questions. Brian, underscore, most are masked. Do you see Caleb Malice getting playing time with the first team this season? I mean, I honestly didn't know how much he'd make the 18 and we've seen him on the 18. So I guess I wouldn't be shocked if he got into a game at some point.
01:02:59
Speaker
Let's see, you guys talked about Geiger, I don't think you really want to talk about him again, do you? No, he makes me mad. He makes me mad. Okay. K L Chubbuck asks, what is the most obnoxious thing you've heard shouted in the stadium? What do you feel is the correct way to deal with it? I guess I would imagine you two have much better answers for this than I do. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty rare that I actually get most of the shit that annoys me that people say is like dumb things that they say about sounders players.
01:03:27
Speaker
Um, the P word chant is pretty bad, but I, I heard that pretty seldom, especially these days. So, um, but yeah, people used to say a lot of mean things about Freddie Monteiro and I would just usually turn around and flip him off.
01:03:42
Speaker
Yeah, the it's usually just the people saying dumb things about they think they know how to how they should play the game and who should be playing and there's like the one story I have is there was the group behind me that sits there and they Swear to God they pick one player every game to complain about
01:04:01
Speaker
so one of the games late last year they were complaining about someone and there was some guy that just had a ticket for the game sitting in my row and these guys were going on for like 45-50 minutes and this guy turns around and just like you guys are the most negative fans I've ever heard you guys even why do you guys even come to games and they were quiet for the rest of the game it was so beautiful that's effective
01:04:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's perfect. There was there was a game a few years ago. It was a CCL game. I think it was 2000. It was either 2011 or 2012, I don't know. And these douchebags behind me were just ragging on Montero the whole game and talking about how lazy he was. And he's not chasing down a keeper, even though, you know, the other striker was busy doing that because Montero was playing withdrawn and just the whole game. And then he scored this just ridiculous free kick.
01:04:53
Speaker
later on and me and my friend just turned around and stared at them.
01:04:57
Speaker
Uh, cause you know, we were like talking loudly about like how stupid people are that don't, you know, appreciate them or whatever. And we just assumed they'd like, you know, either mug us off or like be pissed off or whatever, but they tried to hug us and we're like, what the fuck, dude? Like you don't get to celebrate this goal. So I guess, uh, the not effective thing to do is to try to like mean mug on somebody after they should have got a player.
01:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, I would say, either say, are you going to do that all game? And they usually shut up. Or go find a usher and tell them that they're being obnoxious. Oh, yeah. At better than S, what MLS player should replace the Lenin statue in Fremont? Brooks Lennon. That covers that. Freddie Monteiro. That works too.
01:05:56
Speaker
But he's going to be sitting down in a chair because he's lazy, right? Yeah. Apparently, Brooks Lennon's dad is named John Lennon. Really? Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's pretty funny. That is funny. And the last question. B underscore mantle asks, what's the best kind of Capri Sun? Whoo.
01:06:17
Speaker
Have not had a Capri Sun in a long time, but I would guess I'm I'm very partial to Like orange ish like orange drink flavor I didn't even know they had flavors. Honestly, it's been a long ass time since I had one Is there a coconut one? Well, like not like like something that has like coconut flavor in it
01:06:46
Speaker
I don't know. It's tropical. It doesn't matter. Fruit ponches are the best flavor. Come on. Oh, is that the obvious answer? I don't like fruit ponch. Fruit ponch is kind of gross. Wow, apparently Caprice on his own by Disney. Wow.
01:07:00
Speaker
I'm on the Capri Sun website right now. Oh, there's fruit and veggie blends. Maybe one of those will be good. That sounds wonderful. Maybe Sun should send us a sampler and we can talk about it. Yeah, that's a good call. Hey, if you know anyone that works at Capri Sun, have them send that away. All right. Is that it? Yep, that's it. All right. Well, thanks everyone for another good show. You know, we were gone for a while.
01:07:30
Speaker
had been almost three weeks since we'd recorded so glad to get back on the back on the saddle hope everyone enjoyed the red card winning oral history that kind of took the place of the show last week hopefully you felt like that was a good placeholder for you
01:07:44
Speaker
But anyway, thanks to our sponsors, Fullpool Wines, Queen Anne Acupuncture, Verity Credit Union, Designers Marble, and our broadcast partner Bootstrapper Studios. I am Jeremiah Shan, signing off on behalf of Aaron Campo and Lickit. This is No Study Yetis, and remember, you'll never get alone.
01:08:03
Speaker
Green Douglas fir where the water's cut through. Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew. Canadian northwest to the ocean so blue. It's Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn. Roll On, Columbia Roll On.
01:08:50
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!