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Nos Audietis, Episode 286: More like Crapids, amirite
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After a frustrating run of games, the Sounders got back in the win column with a convincing performance against the colorado Rapids. Granted, this was an absolutely awful Rapids team -- one that’s been outscored 19-1 during what is now a six-game losing streak -- but you can only beat the teams you play, and the Sounders were every bit as good as you could ask.
This was by just about any metric, their best performance of the season and it tied a season high for goals scored without the help of an own-goal. They posted their best xGD and their best xGA.
But is it enough? The boys discuss.
This week's music: "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Perry Como - "Seattle", RVIVR - “The Tide”, Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia"
Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you're looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.
Want to hear the music from the show in their glorious, full versions? Check out the Nos Audietis playlist on Spotify!
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsors
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of No Sadietes is sponsored by Fullpool Wines, a Seattle-based wine seller who recently released their first book, 36 Bottles of Wine. To eat those of the book, a highly curated look at wine categories that provide exceptional value right now should be familiar to Fullpool 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. Focal's unique writing style is applied to recipes like Leftover Thanksgiving, Turkey, Smaltz-a-ball Soup, and pregnancy nachos. This book can be purchased through Sasquatch Books. Hey, this
Sounders' Recent Performance
00:00:33
Speaker
is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to... There's no study at this. The Seattle Sounders have done it! And no one's come out here! And no one's come out here! And no one's come out here! And no one's come out here!
00:00:49
Speaker
The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle And the hills the greenest green in Seattle Like a beautiful child growing up
00:01:06
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of NOS Adietes, sponsored by Full Pull Wines, Queen Anne acupuncture, and our broadcast partner Bootstrapper Studios. This is episode 286 and we're recording on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018. I'm your host, Jeremiah O'Shan, and I'm joined by my, always by my co-host, Aaron Campo and our engineer, Lickett. Later in the show, we'll be joined by Sanders GM and president of soccer, Garth Lagoie.
00:01:28
Speaker
After a frustrating word of games, the Sounders got back in the win column with a convincing performance against Colorado Rapids. Granted, this was an absolutely awful Rapids team, one that's been outscored 19-1 during what is now a 6-game losing streak, but you can only beat the teams you play and the Sounders were every bit as good as you could ask.
00:01:45
Speaker
This was by just about any metric their best performance of the season. It tied their season high for goals scored without the help of an own goal. They posted their best expected goals difference and their best expected goals against.
00:02:01
Speaker
It was, of course, ultimately a 4-0 win. Three of those goals were very well taken goals. The other was a penalty that was, I thought, fairly earned. The Sounders now basically need to win one more of their final four games to get into the playoffs. Let's assume they manage that. So given what we saw this week,
00:02:22
Speaker
Let's assume they play okay, but
Key Players and Team Analysis
00:02:25
Speaker
maybe they only win the earthquakes game. Would that be enough to make you feel confident going into the playoffs? Or does this team still have quite a lot to prove, do you think, over the next four games, Aaron?
00:02:36
Speaker
I think they still have quite a lot to prove. If they get in, we know that anything can happen. But I think that there are definitely some concerns after the two losses last week. The Philly loss was extremely frustrating, obviously, but I don't think it was as terrible as maybe it felt.
00:02:59
Speaker
The galaxy loss was a gut punch. I mean, that's a team that has tremendous problems. You know, the Sounders were more or less playing with their full complement and just looked awful. So, yeah, I think that they still have a lot to prove if I'm going to feel super confident going into the playoffs.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's funny because if the Sounders had managed to win that Union game, let's just say they won that game 1-0, I suspect they would have benched a lot of the guys that ended up playing against the Galaxy. And if they had lost 3-0 after benching a bunch of their starters, I don't know that I would be that worried.
00:03:35
Speaker
But because they ended up using all their they essentially used all their starters again against the galaxy. That three zero loss did feel worse and I don't know that a four zero win over the rapids totally erases that I think that the centers did everything that they could do within that one game.
00:03:52
Speaker
to make us feel better about their chances. And I think that it at least showed that their confidence is not totally shot, that this is still a decent team. And I think there was a lot of encouraging things to take away from this game. The most encouraging of which was Nico Ledero was absolutely
00:04:10
Speaker
dominant. I mean, he was as dominant as I think we've ever seen him in a Sanders uniform. He had something like 115 touches. He had 86 passes, 86 passes. What's crazy about that is he had 92% completion rate. And that's despite playing as an attacking midfielder. He had, I think five or six key passes. I guess he had six key passes, two of which were assists. And then of course he had the goal. I mean, he was, he was heavily involved in three of the goals.
00:04:40
Speaker
He of course drew the penalty. It was just a masterclass performance and I was very encouraged to see him also assist Rui Diaz on a couple of his goals. And Rui Diaz, it's kind of funny, I don't think he's really hit his stride yet, but he's done a great job of just putting himself in dangerous spots and letting players find him.
00:05:03
Speaker
And he's not really scored what I would call like a spectacular goal yet. He scored some good goals, but like the goal he scored against San Jose, which was his first goal, may have been like aesthetically his best goal, but he's not really scored what you would call a golasso yet. And so I feel like he's still kind of
00:05:24
Speaker
finding his feet, which I think is maybe encouraging. And then the other bit of the offense that I was really encouraged by was just that there was so much offense that was generated from wide positions, which is something we really not seen. In my column this week, I talked about how coming into this game, almost all our production had come through the middle of the field, something like 75% of their goals and 80% of their assists had come through the middle of the field.
00:05:50
Speaker
And in this game, they got an assist from Christian Roldan, as soft as it may be. They got an assist from Kelvin Lierdom. They got an assist from Victor Rodriguez. And they got a goal from Victor Rodriguez, all of which were from wide positions. And Rodriguez's goal might be the one that was the most encouraging, because this is the guy I think the Sounders need to produce in order to contend for an MLS Cup.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah, they absolutely do. I mean, I think that you can definitely tell the difference between him being on the pitch and him not being on the pitch in terms of just how teams are forced to approach Lidero and Rui Diaz. That opens up more space for them. I love Harry Ship. He's been a crucial player for this team. And he's going to continue to be a crucial player, I think, down the stretch and into the playoffs.
00:06:39
Speaker
But there's a difference when Victor is on the field. And I think if he can actually be not just affecting the way that the game goes and the shape of the attack and the way defenses are forced to deal with it, but also actually contributing on the score sheet, that's going to be a really crucial thing going forward. And it was a great goal. And it was the kind of goal that he's come so close to so many times and just not managed
00:07:07
Speaker
to put away.
Victor Rodriguez's Impact
00:07:08
Speaker
And you could tell that, you know, it meant a lot to him that it was kind of a relief. And then he sort of alluded to that in the, you know, in the post game where I think he really, really needed. And I think he was about straight out. Yeah. I mean, he he like you don't hear players kind of. I mean, it was like I was actually surprised at how straight up he said, no, this is a huge goal. I needed this. The team needed it. You know, it's been a tough year for me and
00:07:36
Speaker
this was something that I really needed to have make happen. And, you know, you don't you don't hear I mean, you do hear it sometimes, but it just felt like he was
00:07:44
Speaker
it was coming from a real honest place. And you could tell that his, you know, you can just tell in his whole demeanor that I think this has been a tough season for him, mainly because of the injuries. And I think he knows that, you know, if he can't stay healthy, that this might be his last year here. And that's got to be tough for him because I can't imagine, I'm sure he would rather settle his family and kind of be back and be productive.
00:08:09
Speaker
And, you know, I, as a total aside, I was under the impression he didn't really speak English. His English is very, I mean, he was, he did the whole interview in English and it was, I would say, very good.
Strategies without Rodriguez
00:08:21
Speaker
It was like on the Maro Rosales level of English, which was just an impressive thing considering I was under the impression he didn't really speak English.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think too that it makes things so much easier for the Sounders if he's able to keep contributing, stay healthy, and come back next year because that's one less player you have to go out and sign. If they lose Victor, there's I think a little more urgency to make signings in the winter and that's
00:08:52
Speaker
Yes, I don't want to be in a situation like that again, frankly, for mental health reasons. So I just think it's really important that he continues to contribute, that he that he stays on the pitch and that, you know, it makes sense to bring him back next year because I think he is a really good player and it's just frustrating.
00:09:10
Speaker
And I'm sure it's a million times more frustrating for him that we haven't gotten to see as much of that as we would like through really, I don't think any fault of his, any fault of the team or coaching staff. It's just been, you know, poured on luck. Yeah, he I guess this is how I would maybe put my opinion of him.
00:09:28
Speaker
is if the cylinders are going to be at their absolute best, I kind of feel like he needs to be on the pitch. And again, like you said, this is not a knock on Harry's ship, but Victor Rodriguez at his best does frankly, most of the stuff that Harry's ship does.
00:09:45
Speaker
But he has the added bonus of being a dynamic, dangerous offensive player, whereas Harry Ship does not quite have that same dynamism. I think Harry Ship is a great player to have on this team. I am perfectly comfortable with him starting.
Jordan Morris's Return
00:10:00
Speaker
And I wouldn't actually mind seeing an attacking band of Harry Ship, Victor Rodriguez, and Nico Ledero.
00:10:07
Speaker
with maybe Roll Dawn and Svensson as the defensive midfielders, I've kind of come to accept that if Alonzo is healthy, he's going to be on the field. And if Alonzo is on the field, Roll Dawn is almost certainly going to be playing in the attacking band, which is fine, maybe not my total preference. But I'm not going to die on that hill of saying that the best team the Senators can field is without Alonzo.
00:10:34
Speaker
You know, I think I've said on the show that if MLS Cup is tomorrow, I still want him on the field. I think that's still the case. But yeah, I mean, I just Victor Rodriguez makes all those runs. He makes those passes. He he, you know, one of the things I love that he does is I feel like it allows Rudy Diaz to drop back into the into the midfield a little bit more because Rodriguez is perfectly willing to make those runs as kind of like a false nine.
00:11:00
Speaker
which I love, I just love that he's willing to do that and he's got the speed and he hasn't really gotten anything out of it but that he's just making those runs I think is encouraging because it gives the sounders a different look.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's the way that Rudy Diaz plays as the lone striker is really interesting because it is pretty similar to the way Oba played it in that, you know, he's not a big banger dude. That's going to, you know, go toe to toe with, with six, four center fat, center backs, but he's going to, he's going to stretch the field. Um, when he does get the ball and needs to hold it up, he's gonna, um,
00:11:36
Speaker
you know, he's going to use his dribbling ability or use one-touch passing or whatever to accomplish what needs to be done. And he doesn't have this, like, there are so many strikers, and it drives me crazy, that are not big target men that always want to stay high. And Raul doesn't do that. You know, he's making runs from all over the place. You know, he's playing deeper than Lidero on some occasions.
00:12:01
Speaker
It's a lot of fun to watch, and when you have somebody like Victor that can stretch the field in the way that Harry's ship cannot, you know, it really gives the attack dynamism that it just didn't have, you know, when Rudy Oz wasn't around. And it does, I mean, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but it does make you, you know, wonder what it's gonna look like when Jordan Morris is in that mix as well, who is significantly faster than most Victor and Rudy Oz.
Upcoming Match and Playoff Implications
00:12:30
Speaker
the ability they have to stretch the field wide, stretch the field in the middle and just, you know, come at you from all different angles and have attacking capable, goal-dangerous threats pretty much everywhere along the front four. That's going to be pretty fun to watch if it gets a chance to happen.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, it would be fun to watch. And again, I'm with you. I don't know that it's worth it. We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but you can see what's starting to look like a very deep and a very dangerous attack. If you can just kind of add Jordan Morris to this to this team without even necessarily adding a big piece in the off season. And if they can just get healthy,
00:13:14
Speaker
get Morris healthy, get him, you know, basically starting hitting the ground running when next season starts. And if you can have a healthy Victor Rodriguez, you have a healthy Raul Rui Diaz, Nico Lidero, you know, that's, that's a pretty good foundation to build your attack on. And I don't know that you, you need to go out and spend a bunch of money on a guy who you, who you need to be starting right away. Maybe you can go out and you can, you know, fill in another spot. Um,
00:13:41
Speaker
you know, and you can kind of see it all kind of coming together, hopefully, you know, if you can get to that point. But going, you know, the big thing going on, I think this next game is a big one. Houston Dynamo at home, you get those points and all of a sudden, it feels like
00:14:03
Speaker
the rest of the season, now you can kind of start feeling good about maybe seeding. Cause I think getting out of, getting a home game in that first round is absolutely massive. I don't know how doable it is to get into the second spot and get a first round buy, but at least getting a home game is huge. And I think if you have any hope of doing that, you got to win the Dynamo game.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think you absolutely do. And it's a game that they should win. I mean, the Dynamo are not a good team. They're certainly not as bad as the Rapids, but it's a team that the Sounders should be able to handle pretty easily at home. And if they don't win that game,
00:14:44
Speaker
it really, I think, makes you have to wonder, you know, okay, is this team closer to the team we saw against Philly, or is it closer to the team we saw against the Rapids? And maybe think, yeah, it might be a little closer to what we saw against, you know, the Union. I think the thing that is encouraging, though, is that we kind of talked about this during the streak. Teams tend to follow these long winning streaks with
00:15:09
Speaker
you know, runs of really bad form. And I think that the rapids game was really encouraging in that sense. So hopefully if there were any lingering feelings about like, oh god, is this going to be, you know, a slide? Are we going to finish the season on the bad note? Hopefully, you know, going out and pounding the rapids into dust is going to be
00:15:31
Speaker
give the team a little more confidence that no, you know, it was just a dip. Not too much to worry about and they're not going to have the second guesses that they might otherwise have. I think the Dynamo game at home is just is crucial because
00:15:44
Speaker
uh, you know, San Jose, I think is a game that you can chalk up as a win at home. Uh, but the other two games, it's going to be tough to get points out of those games, you know? Yeah. I mean, that is where Orlando is. It's in Orlando. Uh, and it's going to be not on short rest, but it's a midweek game. And, and I feel like just like that difference in routine can be enough to throw teams off. Um, and then, you know, the Sounders, they, they've only won in Houston once, I think. And that was in the playoffs last year. Um,
00:16:13
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, those are two tough games. They can get three out of the Dynamo game at home, getting into the playoffs out of the way, and go into that road trip without having to worry about that. And I think you feel much, much better about their chances of performing well in
International Break Challenges
00:16:37
Speaker
those two games.
00:16:38
Speaker
Yeah, the other thing that's going to make that Orlando game all the more challenging is it's the day after an international date where the Sounders are potentially going to have a lot of guys active. And that's kind of the under... What's the word I'm thinking of?
00:17:02
Speaker
It's kind of the big deal about these next two games is like how many players do the Sounders end up missing because of the international break? Unfortunately, I guess they had to reschedule this game from Saturday to Monday, which meant that it was inside the international break. My hope is that most of these guys, their federations will let them stay back. I suspect that Svensson is going to leave because
00:17:30
Speaker
Sweden is playing a nations league game and that's on the 11th, I believe, which is, so he doesn't have a whole lot of time to get ready as it is. Um, if he, if he leaves, if he, if he stays a day late, but the other games are all on the 12th and they're not, and they're all friendlies. And so my hope is that those federations will let their players stay for that October 8th game. But then there's not really much you can do about the.
00:17:56
Speaker
about the October 17th game, because a bunch of teams play on the 16th. But anyway, we'll see, we'll see. Because that's, they win the Houston game, the Orlando game becomes gravy. If they don't win the Houston game, all of a sudden they kind of need points out of that Orlando game, I think. And that's not a situation you want to be in. No. But anyway, that's probably a good place to call it a segment. Next, we're going to have Garth Legaway. And then we'll take your questions. You're listening to Nos Ariates.
00:18:31
Speaker
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Sounders' Community and Fan Engagement
00:18:32
Speaker
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00:18:51
Speaker
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00:19:13
Speaker
All right, welcome back to Nos Adietes. We're joined by GM and president of soccer, Garth Legaway. Welcome to the show again. I feel like this is about the time of year when we normally do this. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. So first off, get this out of the way. You have a rather significant election, I guess, of your own that you're going through right now that will kind of be wrapping up in a few weeks. Have you gotten any sense of
00:19:42
Speaker
Like, would you say you have any greater appreciation for this process now that you're in it as opposed to, you know, a year ago or even six months ago when it was just a thing that you knew was happening? Sure. I mean, that's certainly the details of it, the mechanics of it, how it works, who votes, those types of things. Yeah, you mean when you're going through it, it's different. But I would say that what's been fun for me is the opportunity to meet with various fan groups, you know, to really sit down with not just the Alliance Council, but
00:20:11
Speaker
you know, met with ECS and met with a couple other groups. And that part of kind of understanding their perspective, I think, has been valuable for me. And so I think you wouldn't – I might not have immersed myself at that level were it not before the vote. And so I think that's been a really good opportunity for me to
00:20:31
Speaker
understand not just even the fans but the culture and the club and all the things that go into democracy and sports where by not being here at the beginning, to your point, there's no way to have absorbed the impetus of that and what it meant and how it's part of the ethos of the club and so it's been a really worthwhile experience for me.
00:20:49
Speaker
Do you think that it's something that you I don't know like is the right word but do you feel like it because like so when I come out I'll give you my perspective on it is I look at this as not so much a referendum on on the person who's in your position as much as it is a check against a future where the fan base doesn't necessarily trust ownership
00:21:16
Speaker
And in that sense, because I think, you know, we could probably like, you've probably seen the, maybe you haven't, but there's been polls on Sounder Heart, both on Twitter and on the site, where there's like a 67, 75, maybe even higher percentage of approved, right? And so I don't get the sense that there's this wave of anger, especially the way, I mean, it would take a pretty dramatic vote to essentially vote you out.
00:21:40
Speaker
But I still think there's a lot of value in this process because I see it as a check against a future, maybe a never to happen future, but a future that could happen where there's an ownership group where you simply just don't trust their decision making process.
00:21:57
Speaker
And I don't know if you've spent any time kind of thinking about kind of the role of this election in kind of like a grander scheme like that, where it exists more as a, you know, a process that we were kind of laying the groundwork for like a
00:22:15
Speaker
I don't know if I thought of it exactly like that. I think there's a couple of important things worth unpacking. I think that the relationship of the owners to the communities is really important and I think that if we as an organization get that right, I think to your point, I think that that
00:22:31
Speaker
Hopefully the majority would see that the the club was it was going the right direction And you know certainly feel lucky to have been given this opportunity by those owners and I've sat next to again one of these meetings that I said and as part of this I got to sit next to drew and he talked about you know, why we do why we did this and
00:22:53
Speaker
what it meant to him and how he came on as an owner and you were aware of these things intellectually but to hear him speak in the manner in which he spoke that he was definitely still impassioned about this even nine or ten years later and that was cool to see his personal investment in it and his idea that this was something that was important to the way he put it was this is hopefully with the club a hundred years from now and so the philosophical stuff I think is
00:23:23
Speaker
It's all really worthwhile and certainly the fans, the fans I talk to, at least it's important to them. They feel it's a meaningful right and it's something that enhances the value of their season ticket and something that they hold dear. And look, if you go down brass tacks and you say you might lose your job, it's not.
00:23:44
Speaker
Thrilling. You know, you have to move your family and all that stuff. You wouldn't just stay here and live life as a Seattleite? You know what? We love Seattle. And I joke with people. We thought we've had our anchor baby, our eight-month-old was born in Seattle. You know, we're Seattleites now, through and through officially. But probably you'd have to find work somewhere. Right, yeah. So you'd probably have to move. But look, I mean, I think a little bit. I don't know. I try to look at it most days. I'm doing this for the greater good. And you get that higher.
00:24:14
Speaker
that higher calling so hopefully it works out and I get to stay and we get to keep trying to win championships. So have you had the experience of talking to these fan groups where you met someone that just kind of straight to your face said my intention is to vote you out? Yeah. What's that interaction been like? I was honest. I don't like you and I'm not so personal. I don't like what you're doing on so and so.
00:24:43
Speaker
and been able to engage them in debates at various civility levels. And some people are going to change their mind and some people are not. And I think the kind of general kind of decision-making tree is there's 80% of the people that are going to kind of do what's best for the group, and you're going to have 10% probably on either side that are going to have a more extreme position, that you're probably going to be that position.
00:25:11
Speaker
You know, the goal of the vote, I don't think, is to win 100% of the vote. And I don't even think that's a good message to try to be all things to all people. I just think that comes off as disingenuous and insincere. So I respect people. People have a different view. They think the club should be doing different things. That's a completely worthwhile opinion. And likewise, I'm not pledging that I'm going to do
00:25:32
Speaker
or we are going to do whatever that 10% say. And to the contrary, I think we're going to take feedback from this and say, hey, if we do have the numbers you raised in the high 60s or 70s in support, then probably we are appropriately responsive to
00:25:50
Speaker
the fan base. I think that's what a vote is, right? That it's, hopefully, too, that if there are people that think we're doing some things right, that it's a mandate. You know, if you do get, if you land in the 60s or 70s, that that's, in this day and age, like, that's, it's not bad, you know, and that's, that is support, and that's real support, and that's hopefully an endorsement of how we're doing things, and that the fan base is supportive of that.
00:26:14
Speaker
So, and I'm not going to try to necessarily get into the mindset of someone who is voting no confidence, but I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of, like if you discount the people that are mad about ticket prices, which obviously you aren't in charge of, and discount people that are kind of just voting no because they feel like it's important to
00:26:37
Speaker
have someone essentially voting no. I think you're kind of left with a group of people who have, I would say, some reasonable frustrations. And I
Transfer Policies and Criticisms
00:26:48
Speaker
would think that they probably fall into two main areas. One of them is kind of the transfer, at least the perceived transfer policy, and the other one might be the open cup and kind of the team's performance there. And I kind of wanted to get into those two areas a little bit.
00:27:03
Speaker
As far as the transfer policy goes, it seems like the policy is that
00:27:10
Speaker
your goal is to find certain players and that if the sacrifice to get those players is to wait a little bit longer to get them, then you might otherwise prefer that that's usually what you're going to do. And it seems like it's been vindicated, frankly, for the past at least three summer transfer windows. Would you say that's a fair summation of what the policy is?
00:27:38
Speaker
Do you feel as though it has worked out? Look, I mean, ultimately, it's up to the fans to judge if it's worked out, right? Or if it's going well or it's not. I mean, you know, when we signed Ledera, we won the title. That's probably a pretty good return on investment. And then we went to the final and I think Raul's been really good, been really happy with that signing. And so from our internal perspective, like,
00:28:01
Speaker
Those are both big, big expenditures and resources for the organization. That was important for us not just to get good players, but to get them at good ages and to get contracts that were of the appropriate length so that we had stability and we had the ability to build around those guys. And I think that those are all things that are important and ultimately how you weigh that against the timing of it. I mean, I want to be clear.
00:28:25
Speaker
No one here is saying don't sign someone in a window. It's just saying we really look at these as three to five year decisions and it's really important to get them right. From our perspective at least we're two for two on the big ones.
00:28:42
Speaker
Hopefully it is a good franchise foundation, and you know the next couple of years We'll see how that plays out, but the team's been successful the last two years. I think by an objective standard And you know we hope to be in the playoff places and make a run again this year And and if we do so Raul and Niko will be hugely important to that that effort and I you know again It's up to the fans then to decide you know if that's something that the stuff that I get maybe get a little bit frustrated with Jeremiah's
00:29:10
Speaker
Just the idea that we intentionally start slow, I don't, I don't know, it's doesn't easy for me to say, it's just, I'm still mildly incredulous about this I mean the job is really hard and you try to win every game and sometimes you can't and
00:29:27
Speaker
I think we've laid out pretty articulate arguments about you know in 2016 We started slow and like we held ourselves accountable We changed the coaches in the Hall of Fame who had been here for seven years like I know I don't know what bigger response is an organization We can give to a slow start than that
00:29:43
Speaker
And then in 2017, we made what, again, in my opinion, are really hard choices. We changed 13 guys off a championship team to set us up for the long term again here. And look, we got two of those decisions wrong. We got right back wrong. We got left wing wrong out of the, I think it was technically 11 guys that we changed. And then we addressed that with Lyredham and Rodriguez in the summer. Now it wasn't because
00:30:07
Speaker
We wanted to wait until the summer. We just, we went nine for 11. And again, I make no claim to perfection and it takes a long time to interview and to integrate nine new players into any team.
00:30:17
Speaker
And it's not ideal and you don't want to change that many guys and then as soon as we could we addressed the other ones And just you know just to finish the thought and then this year again, like there's a parallel example TFC us same offseason the same schedule both get crushed by injuries like
00:30:37
Speaker
I'm happy to take responsibility for it, but I honestly don't know what we could have done differently. I still wanted us to try to win the Champions League. And again, for better or worse, whether you agree with that or not, we stated publicly ahead of time, this is what we're doing. We're going to try to win Champions League.
00:30:53
Speaker
But it hurt us. There's no question that hurt the start to our season. We literally had to play a mixed group in our home opener against LAFC and in the game against Dallas of the eighth Champions League quarter-finalist. None won anywhere in the region. And so those are real barriers. And you can say, hey, we took some dumb red cards and things like that.
00:31:16
Speaker
There were really factual, objective, quantifiable reasons for why we got hurt. On top of that, I said, I'll take responsibility and say we changed performance coaches. We lost Dave Tenney, who was the top class in MLS. And it took us a while to get Damian Rodin in. And Damian is just as good as Dave. And they're both awesome, but they have slightly different methodologies. And it took us a while to ramp up with Damian. And so hopefully this offseason we've
00:31:41
Speaker
We have better continuity on that front. But it's not a, all I mean to say is, whether you agree or disagree with everything I just told you, or parts are none, it's not a conspiracy. It's not a, we're setting out to lower the bar and we're not going to sign a DP until the summer because, again, that presupposes like, oh yeah, we planned on Jordan Morris tearing his ACL. That's just not a real supportable idea, in my opinion.
00:32:08
Speaker
I mean, definitely, I see what you're saying, and I think I'm pretty sympathetic to the point of view. At the same time, you look at, you have three straight slowstarts of the season. I would imagine there's something that you've learned from that.
00:32:27
Speaker
But I mean, I don't know, but maybe there isn't. Maybe it is really three individual things, but at the same time... Keep in mind, it happened in 2015, too. Just people don't document that because we were in first place, and then we won 11 games, so we won two, and we... So some of the answer here, and I know this isn't satisfying, but it's pro sports, man. Again, we want to win every game, but if you have a bad stretch of 10 games, that happens. I don't think it's statistically that unusual. I mean, again, do we want to avoid it? Do we not want to be in a hole?
00:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, nobody here wants to be stressed and under pressure for months at a time. And so do we want to be more consistent? Yeah, absolutely. But I'm at pains to point out the 2015 stretch because it was literally from a statistical standpoint, it was almost the same as the 16, 17, 18 ones. Yeah, I hadn't really, I guess in the sense that it was a 10 game stretch as opposed to when it was. I think it was 11, but there was a big period where all of a sudden we weren't very good. It was a very bad summer.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yes, and we went in, Olga got hurt and Clint got hurt and you know, we had, we were, there, there was discontinuity there, but, um, you know, just look.
00:33:36
Speaker
Again, we strive to do the best we can. And I just want to be careful that I at least cannot deliver perfection. There may be somebody else out there that can. And the fan base should strive for that person, of course. But I think you're going to lose some games sometimes. And hopefully you don't string them together. And can we get better at that? Yeah, that's something we should work on. Do you think it informs at all your
00:34:05
Speaker
Mentality is maybe the wrong word, but your strategy going into this winter window, as far as keeping in mind, is that something that you think about at all? Having just said, we don't set out to do this, then I'm not keeping in mind we had a slow start. Keep in mind, I want to have a good team, because if you have a good team, then you're maximizing your chances to get lots of points, and then you make the playoffs, and then you get to keep your job, and those are all things that flow together.
00:34:34
Speaker
I don't mean to be obtuse about it. I mean, am I worried about a social star? Sure, in the sense I'm worried about any period of our season that doesn't go well. And I'm going to try to give us the best possible team we can in March. You know, we're February if we wind up playing in Champions League.
00:34:50
Speaker
That doesn't that doesn't come at the expense of rational planning over more than one transfer window and you and I've talked about this. I mean, that's my stewardship on a basic level from my perspective is I have to think long term I have to think about more than one transfer window. That's literally my charge and my responsibility.
00:35:09
Speaker
And again, they understand that people feel differently, but that's kind of how I approach the job. And I'd say that foundationally, that's not likely to change. And it's easy to level up that, well, you're not responsive enough, you're not reactionary enough.
00:35:27
Speaker
You know, again, I just would say no approach is perfect. And this is what's worked for me, not just here, but in Salt Lake. And it's a way of being efficient. And I know people don't like that word either. But you know, if you're consistently, you know, but what I would say is, you know, you get points like, I just, I asked for some faith at some point, right? I mean, 2009, I won MLS Cup. 2011, I lost the Champions League final. 2014, I lost MLS Cup.
00:35:56
Speaker
2016 won MLS Cup 2017 lost MLS Cup like that's five finals in nine years like I think that's a decent track record in terms of the expectations that are put upon this this job and and You know at some level like at some level like either you agree the methodology you don't But I would and I'm probably overly defensive about it, but I just
00:36:23
Speaker
it's worked for me and it may not be the best one but it's just it's gonna be hard to persuade me that a different foundation is the right one. No, I think that's certainly fair. You know, you bring up your time at RSL and you guys did, you went to an open cup final when you were at RSL and back then there was a
00:36:48
Speaker
RSL, you, I think, were on record as saying you looked at the OS Open Cup as the easiest path to Champions League, and that Champions League was ultimately the goal there. And I don't know if that philosophy has changed, but it doesn't seem as though the Open Cup is spoken about in the same way, even in the sense of as the easiest path to the Champions League.
Youth Development and Academy Focus
00:37:19
Speaker
Has your perspective on the Open Cup changed since then? I actually would say no. And again, I think I haven't done a good enough job of explaining this.
00:37:32
Speaker
I believe that when we put young players in those games, the Open Cup games are actually showing a lot of respect for the tournament. We have said we're a player development organization. We spent a ton of money on these young players and how they develop. And I would tell you that it's a super valuable experience to play an Open Cup game on the road for a young player when there's nowhere to hide. Like, are you ready or are you not ready? And that the other team wants to beat you and you're going to play until somebody wins.
00:37:58
Speaker
You know, it's a real game, and that's maybe step one. Step two is the long-term plan for the organization. We've talked about three phases of player development, right? We said we had to get the academy right first. We got to get that proper amount of talent in our organization, and now we're in phase two where we won the national title, you know, been third place the year before, won some 15 regional titles. Like, all right, now phase two starts next year, and we have to try to improve the U.S.L. product. Well, how are we going to do that?
00:38:28
Speaker
We're not going to change what we're doing at the U.S.L. We're just going to sign better players and literally the talent coming into there is better. And then hopefully two years after that we're going to have those kids in the first team and again then the bottom half of our roster hopefully is getting more talented.
00:38:44
Speaker
because way back in six years ago we identified a larger group of talented players beyond just De'Andrea Lynn and Jordan Morris and we're now systemically, repeatedly, sustainably able to push players of that ability up and then when the bottom half of the roster
00:39:00
Speaker
in theory gets stronger, now you're more able to compete on all fronts, right, and in the open cup. And so, and again, if you're, just to take this year's experience, if you've gone to two MLS Cups and played 11 months in a row, when you've had only a six-week offseason, and then you go to Champions League, like again, I think most folks would agree that trying to win Champions League is a laudable goal for the organization. And it doesn't mean it's any more important or less important, it just
00:39:28
Speaker
Nobody's ever won that. That's an awful enticing carrot to go try and win, to try to be the first American club to win that tournament. And that means that just in that progression, MLS Cup, Champions League, Open Cup comes next. And it doesn't mean that it doesn't have a ton of value. There's obviously a huge history of success with the Sounders in the Open Cup. It's a foundational part of what the club is.
00:39:53
Speaker
But again, I just have to be careful about promising to be all things to all people. And the easiest thing to do here would be to pander and say, you know what, Jeremiah, I've heard this concern from people, and you know what we're going to do? We're going to play all our guys, and we're going to start 11 stars next Open Cup game. And I'm trying to be sincere and say, here's the long-term plan to try to address this from a talent perspective. And in this last season, here's why we fielded the team that we did. We had lots of injuries, and we wanted to put some young players in the game.
00:40:21
Speaker
Nothing is absolute. It's not a devaluing of OpenCup, or this isn't a valuable path. In this case, it's a more pragmatic, like, this is how long it takes to kind of address these things. Again, you can absolutely argue with the methodology, but the idea is
00:40:43
Speaker
in a world. We see how the league is racing ahead and if Atlanta's going to spend what they spend in Toronto and LA and New York, these are fundamentally bigger places than Seattle. You have to have infrastructure in place in the long term to compete with them and that's the idea as we are preparing. We actually are preparing for that apocalypse, the future that we hope never comes by having this sustainable base and is there short-term pain? Yeah, it stinks to not do all the open cup.
00:41:12
Speaker
But again, we don't set out to tank or throw open cup games. So the organization seems to be stronger from top to bottom at least from a systems perspective. How effectively do you think, like how big of a role do you think you've played in making that happen? Like if you could kind of just
00:41:39
Speaker
Without going too into depth, walk us through a little bit of the process that when like, in terms of like the state of the, because I don't think most fans really appreciate what the Academy looked like in 2014. And they certainly don't, you know, they don't necessarily understand the role of S2 in the organization.
00:41:58
Speaker
So if you could just kind of maybe walk us through a little bit of some of the things that you had to do organizationally to get us to where we are today. Sure. The first thing I'd be very careful to say is this is definitely not an I answer. It's a we answer. Sure. You know, the simplest way to put it is when I got here, the Sounders were a soccer team.
00:42:18
Speaker
There was the Sounders, it was the first team and it had this great tradition and a wonderful fan base, but they literally had launched S2 as I came in. They had done a bunch of work ahead of time. Adrian had done a bunch of work to get it off the ground, but literally the first game, I was at the very first S2 game ever. We had, I think, three people working in the academy at the time.
00:42:42
Speaker
You know, you have to ask Adrian if this is part of the reason you brought me in, but I took as my mandate like we're going to try to build a soccer organization here, not just a soccer club and that required some fundamental changes and how we thought about some stuff so I think I added some value from a culture perspective of, you know, we need to value every part of this pipeline, it doesn't just come about on its own and we're going to hire the right people at every level and
00:43:06
Speaker
But look, it doesn't happen without lots of investment from ownership. I mean, it's the biggest thing was going to them and saying, hey, I'd really like to try this. Here's all the reasons that I think it would be helpful long term to the organization. But like people like Maya Mendoza, Ekstrom, who just were invaluable in setting up the legal infrastructure that supports the academy. Anytime you're working with kids and with minors, there's so much that goes into
00:43:30
Speaker
protecting those kids and setting up processes and checking backgrounds and just all the you know Aaron Bagley in the business office as well was super helpful on this stuff and tons of people over here and you know long story short I mean the process was all right what can we take
00:43:46
Speaker
For me, what can I take from RSL that would work here? Well, it wouldn't. And we decided pretty early that residency wouldn't work as we had had it at RSL because of the value of that place around education, that you weren't going to persuade the majority of parents to send their kids to online high school.
00:44:02
Speaker
And so you were better off with some different version of that. And so we came up with a home state program where, you know, lots of sounder fans, season ticket holders are hosting these top prospects from all over the country that are contributing to the academy and its progress.
00:44:19
Speaker
We then went out and said, hey, we don't want to be just a Seattle club. We want to be a Washington club. You know, it's certainly from a player development perspective. We need to do that if we're going to compete with New York and LA and Toronto and Dallas. It's again, places that just have more people than we do. And so we set up affiliates and certainly our affiliates locally, Seattle United being the most prominent, but Eastside and Pack Northwest, I mean really important partners of ours.
00:44:44
Speaker
then partner in Yakima, partner in Spokane, and some in Central California, relationships that we've developed. So that was the other part now. So now can we be everywhere such that we will see good players when they come up and maybe the most prominent players so far as Ray Serrano is from a tiny little town called Moses Lake.
00:45:05
Speaker
that I'm sure you know better than I do. I know. But I can't claim I've ever been to Moses Lake. You can't either. But we found him because you have this affiliate network and you actively seek out. And I think we got that right, too, and that culturally we didn't come to kind of burn and pillage. We didn't say just give us the guy. Mark Nichols deserves a tremendous amount of credit for this. He's developed a curriculum by which we train our players.
00:45:33
Speaker
And then he systematically said, but we really want to train your coaches. So what will really raise all boats in Washington State if we have this common curriculum that's instituted and taught and is taught in a similar manner. And so it's been Henry Browner the last couple of years. We had somebody else before that.
00:45:50
Speaker
whose job it's been to go out to these affiliates and to coach the coaches and to say here's the curriculum and here's how you implement it and with the idea of again that even that's probably even longer term than six years but if you raise the technical ability of kids around Washington State now
00:46:05
Speaker
Again, the whole, the tide is rising then and hopefully your raw materials get better to work with. So we approached that really thoughtfully and methodically. And then we said the other decision that Mark Nichols made that I thought was really, really good was we're not just going to bring in some ringers at U19 and try to win some games. And then we thought long-term, we thought, okay,
00:46:28
Speaker
You know, how long do we need these kids in our system? Probably at least three or four years. And that was still, you know, all right. And then once we figured that out, then we remade the U.S.L. team because the first year of the U.S.L. team, you know, those were not players that I had signed because I just came and took over. The average age of that team was 24, 25. And we said,
00:46:48
Speaker
We're going to take that down. And I think this year we're right between 19 and 20 years, average years old. And again, I recognize again there long term that the short term has been worse. We took a step back in terms of results on the field. But the hope is that the long term is right. And that once you get it right, it stays right. So I think that's the other big thing with a lot of these projects is you don't want a blip. You don't want a one off. You want something that is sustainable. And look,
00:47:14
Speaker
I don't want this to be controversial, but it is a source of some pride to me that RSL has not fallen apart since I left. That we put these things in place, and that two years after I left, they put five kids on the other 20 national team. And those kids are now signed with RSL and playing for them, and again.
00:47:31
Speaker
My heart's here. This is what I'm dedicated to. This is what I'm growing. But again, if it comes down as an article of faith, at least there's some evidence that this has succeeded in another setting. And if we can apply it appropriately here, that it can work here as well. And I think the last person I haven't mentioned who's been really prominent is Chris Little.
00:47:52
Speaker
Let's go to the year this year at the academy and Wade Weber and Coach Hutchinson at S2. Just everyone is bought in and everyone is bought into this culture of it's not about me. It's not about if my team wins this game on this weekend. And that's a huge departure from youth soccer in general.
00:48:10
Speaker
And I can sit and look a parent in the eye and say, we're going to take care of your kid, and we're going to give them the best possible chance at developing them, not only as a person, not only as a player, but as a person. And every S-2 contract has a community service requirement and an education requirement. And it's been critically important to model and mirror the values of Seattle and Washington State, broadly speaking.
00:48:34
Speaker
So doing that and then made the last part of the strategies in terms of organization building. And again, this one huge help from Maya Mendoza, someone who's led the process literally in Tacoma. But to have our training facility here in Taquila, to have the stadium in downtown Seattle and now to have S2 in Tacoma, and to be able to triangulate the Puget Sound from both a brand perspective and a servicing the community and hopefully finding all the future stars of tomorrow.
00:49:02
Speaker
I just think that that was that was a huge piece of infrastructure, I mean in a world and again I got to thank our owners because in a world where other teams are mixing a usl team, our owners are saying no, let's, let's find a business way to make this work and let's, let's be partners with the reneres who Aaron Hartman has done an awesome job helping us and
00:49:20
Speaker
running that franchise and you know giving us a viable path and hopefully we get the stadium built down there and you know we can be there for you know permanently and That would be really exciting and and so probably more information you wanted, but that's a lot of the infrastructure that went into Building up the first team and then the cultural shift that maybe I made at the first team I promise this will be shorter was just to try to be objective and process-based
00:49:51
Speaker
And this is to take with every player signing whenever possible. We have a scouting version and we have a data version and we apply the same process every time and you're never going to get them all right, but you do it the same way every time.
00:50:06
Speaker
Again, it's not, you know, you've heard my mantra, like a sports team is not fundamentally different than a law firm or a business or anything like that. And if you run it with processes and you empower smart people, you're probably going to get good outcomes and you're going to get well vetted outcomes if you have, you know, feel like, yeah, data looks good. Yep. Scouting looks good. Yep. So play the coaching staff lots. You know, like those are stacked on top of each other. Those mean now do those decisions take more time? Yes.
00:50:34
Speaker
Are they occasionally excruciating in terms of how you get to the final product? Yes, but ultimately if you get them right then they're good for a good long period of time and again hopefully are foundations to build a franchise on.
00:50:48
Speaker
So you mentioned homestays, and I would imagine that's not something that a lot of fans know anything about. I mean, I don't expect you to have an exact answer, but do you have a sense of how many kids you have that are doing homestays? Roughly 10, and it fluctuates from season to season, and we just started the Academy now. So Mark Nichols is probably slapping me mentally right now, because I don't know the exact number of homestays, but certainly they do. And it's been roughly 10, though, for... And what's the age range of those?
00:51:16
Speaker
This is admittedly, I'm guessing now, but I would guess between 14 and 17 years old. If we look at kids that were signing kids as young as 15, the majority being 16 or 17, we want them in here. Loosely, it's high school. The research, for the same reason that
00:51:34
Speaker
our under 12 program doesn't take kids away from their their home clubs so we bring them in here we train them and then we send them back because a lot of the research that's been done is that it's actually psychologically better for kids to be with their parents and be with their support groups and their friends and yes you want to develop them technically but you know again how they develop as people is critically important long term and so consistent with that we tend to take kids that are high school age.
00:52:00
Speaker
So kind of along those same lines.
00:52:05
Speaker
But maybe not. You touch on the kind of the psychology of this and the kids, what best serves them. One of the things that has been a lot in the news is kind of psychiatric health among athletes, especially. How much have the sounders done in that area? And is that something that you guys have delved into at all in terms of monitoring those kinds of things?
00:52:30
Speaker
We monitor lots of things about them. I mean, their sleep, their nutrition, their exercise, that all falls under sports science. And to the specific, you know, sports psychology, which I think is what you're probing at, I honestly think that that's an area where we can improve. You know, I think we're pretty good at lots of things around that, but we're maybe not so good at that. You know, when you talk about, you listen to Coach Schmetzer speak a lot about mentality, right, and how that's important to building good soccer players.
00:52:59
Speaker
So certainly it's a value that we hold in our club, but I think we can scenario where we could do some more. I mean, I was actually talking more, not so much psychology, but psychiatry of like mental health and depression and things like that. I'm just curious if that's something that I honestly have no idea what your answer is. I have no idea. I would like.
00:53:17
Speaker
but it was just kind of something i was curious about as far as like is that is that a thing that that teams in general are getting more into yes yeah no one we just hired a woman named diane carney as our full-time health and welfare officer and so her job is to assist with the well-being and you know not from a clinical sense she's not a psychiatrist
00:53:37
Speaker
Right. But in a counseling sense, and she's someone that looks out for all the educational and community needs of our kids. So yes, we have somebody full-time, literally came aboard, she was part-time before, came aboard full-time about two, three weeks ago, because we thought that this was- Did you work for the Academy kids? Yes, exactly. It works for the kids. And the thing is, it's interesting, Jeremiah, even within the last six months, I would say that it's evolved, and we thought it would be just Academy kids.
00:54:06
Speaker
But it really is kids in particular below a certain age. And so whether the kids sign to a first team contract or signed to an S2 contract or working in the academy, it's at least so far our focus has been how do we help these kids grow up? How do we help them become good people? How do we get them stability? Because if they get settled, I mean, and we think about this in terms of foreign players coming into the team. But the reality is that if these kids are signed and straight out of high school and they don't have any kind of
00:54:34
Speaker
collegiate experience or experience away from home that they do need a little bit more help in terms of
00:54:39
Speaker
What does it mean to grow up? How do we retain the values that are important to you and the work ethic? When we teach them how to be a pro, this is the physical requirement of it. This is how you do this. But I think that emotional piece and that stability piece is hugely important. That's why we brought Diana Board to help with the education of welfare. So a more literal kind of health. You mentioned having Damien Rodin here as the new
00:55:06
Speaker
What is what is his title is it high performance director? I believe
Management and Cultural Shifts
00:55:11
Speaker
instructor Anecdotally, it seems like muscle injuries have been a bigger issue this year But I also know that that's not like the anecdotes that we read and I think that most fans of any particular team read They make it seem like we have the most
00:55:28
Speaker
muscle injury prone team. Like every, I'm sure every team believes that every fan of every team thinks that their team is the most muscle injury prone. I'm curious if you know whether or not this, like where you guys kind of fall in terms of, have you been having a sense of like, are the sounders more prone to muscle injuries than average MLS team? You're going to be shocked to hear this answer right now as much as we thought.
00:55:53
Speaker
I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what other teams do. Like, I focus on what we do, because that's what we can get through. Yeah, sure, totally. And that's what we can do better. And so I don't, I haven't done a, I don't know if a comprehensive study has been done on days missed for muscle injury and stuff like that.
00:56:07
Speaker
But we're constantly trying to make our rate better. And it's a field. It's a lot like scouting. There's always something else to do. You're probably never going to be in a zero injury world. And so it's a constant work in progress. And I touched on earlier that Damien's methodologies are slightly different than Dave Tenney's. And they're both excellent, but they're different.
00:56:27
Speaker
adopting them and you know it takes literally a full year to really ramp up and incorporate kind of all of these things both from a technology standpoint to a culture standpoint to just you know what how are we training the athletes every day.
00:56:44
Speaker
And so I think what we've learned, like I can't claim I knew this before Damien came, but there's going to be some bumps in that transition. You know, as we shift everyone around and we train everybody a little bit different than we have in the past, some guys are going to respond better than others. And, you know, it hasn't been a smooth path. And from our perspective, at least.
00:57:03
Speaker
the one team again that will compare. So it was like Toronto who went through the same just really short recovery. And again, I think there's a little common sense here. Like if you play for a long time and you have no time to recover and you do that a bunch of times in a row, you're more likely to get hurt and break down. And, you know, I just, I would, I would ask for some perspective in that. I think we want to be playing in MLS cups. And if the cost of that means that we recover more slowly or have a higher injury rate,
00:57:30
Speaker
Uh, you know, again, we'll work to take it down as much as we can, but I mean, there's just reality intervenes at some point and there's so much that these guys can do. And, um, so it's, it's a, it's a constant work in progress. So you're saying it's not a video game. It is, it is unfortunately not a video game and I wish we could sign somebody every time somebody got hurt. That's the single biggest thing. Like, oh, this guy got hurt. Why don't you replace him? I'm like, we're working on it. Right. I mean, like it's, it's a process and, and, uh, you know, uh,
00:57:57
Speaker
I wish there was a supermarket, you just walked down the corner. I always say, I think football manager and FIFA are both the greatest sources of more educated fans and the most misinformation about how things actually work. That's really funny, Trevor. The cliche that I've used forever is that I have the job that very few people have done, but everyone assumes they can do better than me.
00:58:21
Speaker
I found it to be to have a good perspective because you know I am a fan of sports teams and other sports and I have all those feelings that our fans do and you know again I think we're pretty lucky here in Seattle because I think we have a pretty knowledgeable fan base and you know we can sign guys like Lidaro and Rui Diaz and whether they're the most famous players in the world or not if they're good players our fans recognize that and are like yeah you should do more of that so that's cool.
00:58:49
Speaker
So I'll end on this note. And it's a little bit of a layup, but I'll toss it anyway. How well equipped do you think the team is today to make an MLS Cup run this year?
00:59:02
Speaker
is with everything it depends on health. I mean, the more guys we got available, the better off we're going to be. You know, but I put our starting 11 certainly against anybody's in the league. You know, if you look at our defense, we're ranked number one in the league. And, you know, I know our offense isn't rated as highly, but I believe since we've signed Ruby Diaz, we've averaged.
00:59:21
Speaker
1.7 or 1.8 goals per game or something like that. You're closer to two. You're closer to two? You're closer to two before the last two shutouts, right? And so look, I mean, obviously we have to prove that that's sustainable and that new reality is the reality. But on a basic level, like just the data over the last three months has been we score two and we give up one, you know, a little bit less than one.
00:59:43
Speaker
that's going to win you a lot of games. And I think, again, because I believe we're a good team, and I believe that you don't get to finals two years in a row through luck or merely good fortune. And so I do think we're poised to make a run. I think we've got to be focused on Colorado, and we've got to get in the playoffs. There's a lot of work ahead of us. But I think if we can close out the season or write the ship now, tomorrow,
01:00:13
Speaker
and have some urgency about that, then hopefully get us headed the right direction again and get a home game. I'm sure it would be helpful. And then hopefully go on another run. Great. Well, I really appreciate your time. You've, as always, been more than gracious with it. But yeah, thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me. All right, you listened to Noce Adiatus. We'll be right back.
01:01:00
Speaker
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Speaker
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Competitions and Playoff Outlook
01:01:42
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Ariates. Hopefully you enjoyed that interview with Garth Legway. So we've got questions. Likit is not here today. So Aaron and I will be doing the whole switch off thing. I'm going to go ahead and get started. This is from at Steve at home. How well we do during the international break.
01:02:01
Speaker
Uh, I feel like, you know, we were kind of talking about this, um, before Garth came into the studio and we did that interview that happened here, um, that I was in the room for. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think, yeah.
01:02:17
Speaker
I think that the Houston game is really important. I think it was the consensus because they're probably not going to be without everyone. And so that's going to be a big deal getting three points from that game. I think it's going to be huge. So I think that this team without Ruiz Diaz is not a great team. I think they're fine. I think they can probably get some points.
01:02:43
Speaker
But they're not great. And so I would rather not have to worry about it, obviously, not have to worry about how they do during the international break. The nice thing about the international break is that if they do underperform in those games, you can chalk it up to the international break. So that's always the next time it makes use. That's true.
01:03:04
Speaker
This one is from Karsten50802189. Karsten is tweeting from Moscow. That's not true. Will Gustav Svensson be a sounder in 2019? If Svensson is not back next season, can we expect sounders to sign a TAMDP-level defensive midfielder?
01:03:24
Speaker
man I think he's gonna be back and I think he's probably gonna be on a tam contract but if he's not I almost feel like the senders have to sign a tam level player even if they have Alonzo because I just don't know that even if Alonzo gets through the rest of this year healthy and even if he is
01:03:46
Speaker
playing like the guy that's been playing for the most of this last couple months, few months, I don't know that the Sounders can really count on him staying healthy next year. And so I feel like, you know, if Gustaf is back next year, I think you ideally go into the season with Alonzo Roldan and Svensson and Dellum as your kind of quartet of defensive midfielders.
01:04:13
Speaker
But if Gustav isn't back, yeah, I think you almost have to go out and sign a big, not a big, but like a tam level player.
01:04:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's important to keep in mind that Ozzy was playing really well this time last year, too. So that's a good point. Yeah, I mean, I think it's tempting to think that he's going to sustain this for 34 games. But I think that's yeah, I don't I don't think that's I think it would be a big mistake to go into the offseason, expect like if you can get Ozzy back under a decent contract next year, I think you should do it. I don't think you should make him like a centerpiece in any stretch of the imagination. Right.
01:04:54
Speaker
All right, this one's from Michael Manzer. Any insight on how the GM vote is going? Will the team have a new GM this offseason too? I mean, I don't think we know that Sounder and Heart readers want to retain them by a pretty substantial margin. I don't see any way Garth gets voted out.
01:05:15
Speaker
it's hard for me to believe that any GM would ever get voted out unless, you know, the current owners sell the team to like a, I don't know, oil man from Oklahoma or something. And they just run the team into the ground to, you know, try to get people used to the idea of them not being around or something like that. Otherwise, I just, you've got to have what, like a two thirds,
01:05:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's a big hill to climb. I mean, that's kind of the thing is that you not only do you need to, I think you need something like two thirds of the voters to cast ballots and you need two thirds of those voters to vote them out. And that's just a big hill to climb. I do kind of wonder if the founders were in the exact same situation as a galaxy and let's say Chris Klein was their GM,
01:06:12
Speaker
do we think that Sanders fans would rally behind that and fire him? And it's not like the Galaxy's performance. I mean, I guess there's the notable difference that they haven't been to MLS Cup any of the last two years, but their performance isn't so drastically different, at least during the regular season. Do you think that like, that just feels like a mismanaged organization though? Right, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's for me, the key difference is that
01:06:41
Speaker
A lot of the things that Garth has done have not had the best results or the results that we necessarily hope for. But I feel like the thought process is always good. And I feel like they're making decisions based on data, based on experience, based on a holistic view of how they want the order to function. And I think the galaxy are making decisions based on whoever talked to Chris Klein last.
01:07:06
Speaker
And I think that there are enough people that kind of understand the distinction there. Even people that don't like Garth and think he's underperformed, they don't think he's incompetent. Well, I don't think most people do.
01:07:22
Speaker
Sure. There are definitely people that do. But I think for the most part, you know, people fall into the camps of like, I don't like this guy, but I think he largely knows what he's doing. And it's even bright to put him out or people that are behind him fully. So, yeah, I mean, I think that things would have to be pretty bad. It's like amending the Constitution, right? Like it's possible that we could do it if we need to, but it doesn't happen very often because the barrier to doing that is just so high. Right. Right.
01:07:51
Speaker
would agree there. So this one's from Tistiche. Do you think the Sounders' smaller offensive lineup will have trouble in the playoffs? It seems like the games are called in a way that allows much more physicality.
01:08:03
Speaker
You know, it's funny, against the rapids, they used a attacking band of, I want to say Christian Roldan is probably the tallest of those four guys, and he might be 5'8", and that's being generous, I think. Yeah, he's not a big man. No, and against the rapids, I don't think you would...
01:08:27
Speaker
you would even bat an eye. Like you don't even necessarily think about how tall they are. But you know, Lidero is a reasonably physical player. Rui Diaz seems like he's capable of holding his own. Roldan certainly capable of holding his own. Victor Rodriguez is more slight, but I don't know. I don't feel like they're like a soft or like,
01:08:54
Speaker
You know, it's not like they need all this space in order to operate. I feel like they've had plenty of physical defenses that they've played against and they've been finding. And frankly, Harry's ship isn't really much bigger either when he plays. So, I mean, for better or for worse, I think they are going to have to figure it out with a smaller lineup. But I don't think, I don't feel like that's going to be their undoing.
01:09:17
Speaker
And I think you kind of hit it on the head when you said, yeah, they're not big, but they're certainly not soft. They can all take a beating. Lidaro is no stranger to getting this shit kicked out of him for 100 minutes every week, and he seems fine with it. So, I mean, he's probably not fine with it, but he can deal with it pretty effectively.
01:09:38
Speaker
I mean, you know, skilled players on every team get beat up. It's just kind of what happens. And they, you know, if they're going to succeed, they learn to deal with it. And I think that all of these guys have learned to deal with it pretty effectively. So this one's from at interpiercing. Will the Sounders ever realistically be interested in Luis Suarez? Sure, he's an incredible talent and name, but the organization's strategy of roster building has changed since the Dempsey signing. Garth especially would see Suarez as a big market DP.
01:10:06
Speaker
Uh, I think if Luis Suarez wanted to play for the Sounders, uh, he would be here tomorrow. They would buy him a house. They would buy him a plane. Like I don't, I don't think there's any team that now that being said, I don't think that the Sounders would necessarily go pursue him. You know, I'd say like.
01:10:27
Speaker
go after him like you know you would maybe expect LAFC or someone to do but the whole reason that there's a rumor about Suarez connected to the Sounders is that he's good friends with Nico Ledero and Nico is whether it's serious or not you know been trying to sell him on Seattle so I mean that that's that's you know that's the end right like if if Luis Suarez says I don't
01:10:50
Speaker
I want to go play in Seattle, then yeah, absolutely. If Luis Suarez says I want to go play in MLS, I think it's an entirely different conversation. But there's not a team in the world where if Luis Suarez says, hey, I'd like to play for you, they're going to say no, except maybe like Manchester United or something.
01:11:07
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know that there is a team in the world. I mean, right now, certainly. I think the biggest challenge is not so much would the Sounders want him. If the question is, will the Sounders pay him what he's worth, well, that's a tough one. I mean, the reality is that he's owed probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 to $60 million over the rest of his contract.
01:11:33
Speaker
Are the cylinders going to make it worth his while to walk away from that? That's probably not. That seems doubtful at the very least. Maybe after his contract is up and he's 30, he'd only still be what, 33 at that point, 34.
01:11:53
Speaker
you know, I don't know, maybe the sounders are still interested. It's a very different equation, I think then. Right. And Nico Ledero obviously is much older than, it's a whole different, the team is very different. So it's hard to say. But if you're asking me tomorrow, would the sounders be willing to try to make it work with Louis Suarez if it's not about making him, you know, making his $40 million, you know, making him whole on the $40 million he's owed? Yeah, I think they'd probably look into it. But
01:12:24
Speaker
I don't, I don't, that's not what I'm counting on happening. That's right. Yeah. I mean, I think that it's, I don't think there's any team in MLS that could conceivably. No, I don't, I don't think there's ever any teams in the world that are going to pay him what he's worth at this point. Right. And pay Barcelona what they value him at. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's the other thing is like, are they, is Barcelona just going to let Luis wear his walk at this point?
01:12:49
Speaker
Right. Even if they're happy to sell him and invest that money in somebody younger, they're going to want a pretty decent return. I mean, transfer market probably inflated, but they say he's worth $70 million. I don't know if that's that inflated, honestly. But even if you cut it in half, that's twice as much as any player in MLS is worth.
01:13:15
Speaker
Right, right. No, it's yeah, it's, and I don't think I mean, more to the point of the question, I don't think that it's
01:13:24
Speaker
a Luis Suarez is a well-known guy that's going to have a high salary. It's just that it's just not a feasible thing. I mean, I think, yeah, it's just not, it's not going to happen. This one's from T Wemberly 23 regarding the S2 rebrand. What are you expecting outside of the new team name? Will the cover colors differ or the pattern slash template of the kit get an overhaul?
01:13:49
Speaker
I would definitely think that the kit is going to have to get an overhaul. Like I, I would assume that they will not, I mean, they're not going to use the sounder's template, whatever the sounder's template is at that point. They're not going to like, this doesn't make any sense. I don't think they're going to have to probably get their own Jersey contract, which I believe is perfectly allowed in the U.S.L.
01:14:15
Speaker
but will it color? I would think they'll probably go with a whole, like my guess is that it's gonna feel like a whole different team and that the kind of the link to the sounders will not be nearly as overt. Like I would be a little surprised if they went with rave green and blue and shale essentially is which I guess is hundreds colors. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them go with something that's more similar to the Rainier's
01:14:44
Speaker
Um, but you know, that's, that's something I haven't really even considered frankly, but that's the suspicion is that to me, it's probably going to be a full re like it's going to be top to bottom rebranded.
01:14:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think the only way it makes sense to have like a more overt link to the first team is to like call them the South Sounders and give them the U.S.L. area uniforms. Right. Which I don't think is going to I mean, I don't think that's what they want to do. And I love the idea personally, but I get why they don't want to do that. Right. And I also say that I think the bigger question will become
01:15:26
Speaker
when they rebrand and they are kind of selling themselves as not just the sounder's affiliate, if that affects their player personnel kind of decision-making process. Because right now, I think for better or for worse, most people understand that it's really a farm team and
01:15:51
Speaker
You know, most of the minutes are going to guys who are under the age of 23, like tonight I think they had an average starting age of 23.3 or something like that, someone figured it out. And that's like the oldest lineup they fielded all year.
01:16:07
Speaker
And so I think it's going to be more interesting is if they sign more kind of like usl pro types like guys who are like David is started types guys who whose career aspirations essentially are to be really good usl players.
01:16:22
Speaker
And if they sign more of those types, I think they're always going to be signing a bunch of Academy kids and they're going to probably sign prospects and they're going to use it to get minutes for guys from the first team. But the question I think is, will they sign more, you know, Pablo Rossi types?
01:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see because I do think you're right that if they are presenting themselves as because I mean, I think that personally, like saying like, hey, these guys are going to be this is the future of the sounders, you know, their kids now, but you know, you can say you saw them when I think that's kind of a compelling selling point, right?
01:17:02
Speaker
You know, and their attendance has not been terrible by any stretch of the imagination. It's actually been pretty decent in Tacoma. I think if they have their own stadium, the novelty factor is going to, you know. All right, this one's from Matt, soccer talk. I know this is far in advance, but how realistic would it be to host MLS Cup this year? If we take advantage of our games in hand and the only teams in the East above us would be would be New York and Atlanta. Plenty of other things need to happen, but it's a nice thought.
01:17:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's crazy. I think NYCFC is also above us on points per game. They are, but they're also fading really, really fast. That's true. I mean, I think that if the sounders can get, let's say,
01:17:50
Speaker
They win their two home games left and one of the road games and get a point in the other and they get 10 points. Um, you know, that'll put them on 57 for the year. Um.
01:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you're probably right that New York and Atlanta are the only teams that would be ahead of them. I think Atlanta, I don't think Atlanta is going to get to the final. I'll be completely honest with you. I know that they have, you know, racked up a ton of wins. They've scored a ton of goals. They have some incredible players. They're also still starting Jeff Lorentowicz in every game. They have
01:18:23
Speaker
They are not stacked from top to bottom. And they've got weaknesses that teams have kind of figured out how to exploit a little bit. I don't think that they're a juggernaut, I guess, is my point. I don't think they're as good as that Toronto team was last year, for example.
01:18:40
Speaker
And the Red Bulls, I mean, the Red Bulls, I think are are legitimately very good. I think Atlanta is legitimately very good, too. I know that those people are fucking crazy, so I don't want them coming after me. But I but I think I think they're vulnerable. So it would not shock. Yeah, I know. Not that you would by any means. But yeah, I mean, I don't think it's crazy to think that one of those two teams that neither of those two teams are going to get out of the playoffs because the playoffs are weird.
01:19:09
Speaker
I could see DC making a run like the Sounders did in 2016. They saw two games in hand, it's crazy. And they've been playing really well.
01:19:21
Speaker
It wouldn't be crazy at all, I don't think, to see them come out. And there's no way they're catching the Sounders on points. So Columbus, I think, is pretty good. They could certainly get through the playoffs. Columbus, I think, is an interesting choice just because their defense has been really great. They seem kind of built for the playoffs. But I think it's probably going to be New York or Atlanta.
01:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, just, you know, I think New York is probably the best team in MLS, the Red Bulls, not NYC FC. So I don't know, I definitely think that there are, if I had to pick one, I think they would be the one team that I pick. Yeah, I mean, I think our best hope of hosting is probably Columbus, or like you said, DC,
01:20:12
Speaker
making life difficult for those two top teams.
US Men's National Team Speculations
01:20:18
Speaker
Those would probably be the two teams that I would give the best chance of pulling an upset and getting out of the East. It sure would be fun. It would be very funny for the Sounders to host MLS Cup after all the kind of the hand-wringing, but I'm not holding my breath on hosting MLS Cup this year. No, I'm not really either.
01:20:40
Speaker
Next one is from Stefan Hoggins. Was Roldan left off the US men's national team because of the Sounders? If so, what does that do to his confidence?
01:20:52
Speaker
I don't know why he was left off the team. It's an interesting line, interesting roster. There's a lot, a lot of guys who are first-time call-ups, guys who have kind of been on the radar for a while, a lot of kind of younger guys from Europe. I think in general, it looks to me like they tried to call mostly guys from Europe and leave the MLS guys kind of home unless they had, you know, particular interest in getting them back involved.
01:21:18
Speaker
I was a little surprised to see Michael Bradley on there. And there's a few other guys that came from MLS that, you know, probably would have preferred. So I don't, I don't, I don't know that Roll Dawn's confidence really is affected by this.
01:21:35
Speaker
I think he feels reasonably secure about his place in the national team. And I think it would be nice to see him get a few more minutes there. But he's in a good place, I think, as far as that goes.
01:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that if the Sounders did ask that he not be called up, even if, I mean, we don't know if he would have been, we don't know how, but I think if the Sounders had said to him, hey, we're asking that you not get called up because these are really important games, like he's not somebody I would expect to be upset about that. Right, I would agree with that too.
01:22:09
Speaker
This one's from T underscore Willie. It's seat route relocation time. What is your favorite area of the stadium to sit, stand in on match day? I've had seats in general admission and I'm now in 329 and both have their pros and cons.
01:22:25
Speaker
So we were actually talking about this today, about where to sit. Currently, our seats are in 131. And I really, really like those seats. I do too. If I were slightly richer, maybe I'd sit in the equivalent club section, because those are a little cushier or whatever. But that's the only beef I have. I love them. I prefer them to actual like midfield level seats at like the same
01:22:55
Speaker
uh the same level um i prefer them to field level anywhere i'm not a huge fan of the field level seats for sounders games um if you're just going to one game you know if like it's like your your big day out like you're coming from far away and you can't get to a ton of games i really like the upper level seats right around mid field because the view that you get is is pretty incredible but for season tickets it's kind of a bummer because it's just like well this is
01:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, we had season tickets. Yeah, we had the bigger version of the TV view, right? Right. And that's where our first season that we had season tickets, we had season tickets in the 300s. Right. And I went, I want to say I sat in those seats once or only maybe twice. And it was a neat experience, but I didn't feel like, like it was a cool thing to try out. It was not something that I was like dying to do every week.
01:23:48
Speaker
And there's a couple of downsides, I think, to being up there. One of them is that you end up kind of with a rotating cast of people around you, I think, just because those seats aren't necessarily always season ticket holders.
01:24:03
Speaker
But beyond that, it's just, you feel kind of removed from it. And I don't know if I, if I was only going to one game, I don't know if I'd necessarily want, I think it's worth going there to check. That's fine. But if I was going to go to one game, I think I'd want to feel like I was in the atmosphere a little bit more. But I really like our seats. And it was funny because we were actually talking about moving down like five or six rows, which would have been the same price. The seats were a little closer to midfield.
01:24:28
Speaker
and they were like they were closer and we actually basically decided that we would rather stay where we are because where we are we are actually getting covered by the roof which is really nice yeah it's very nice it's very nice why why mess with success you know i totally agree like i really like i like those seats i feel like
01:24:47
Speaker
You know, one of the things, and this is admittedly a ridiculous standard, but one of the things I like about those seats is like when we give them away, I feel like people are going to appreciate those seats.
01:25:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Cause like I gave, like we, I gave the seats on the 300 level to some friends last year, a time or two. And they're like, Oh, thanks. But like these, these seats are, they're nice. And I think generally my, my preference for soccer is to sit near one of the goals instead of the midfield, because you're maybe a little tiny bit lost when stuff's happening at the other end, but you have a great view of what's happening, you know, in the balls and your own. So I would agree with that. Yeah.
01:25:28
Speaker
So don't sit in the section because it's full. So you can't sit there. But you can sit in the one on the other side, whatever that one's called, whatever it is.
Best Sounders XI Debate
01:25:42
Speaker
Last question from Jim C. Kim, I'm sure there will be a best 11 list put together next year for the 10th anniversary of the sounders MLS era. Assuming that, what would your personal best 11 be of your most favorite sounders and I'm going to throw in the caveat here that we are
01:25:59
Speaker
adjusting for era. So if you put somebody from the 2009 team, just assume that they would be at that level for 2018. Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. That's the way I'm going with it. So if we're going with favorites as opposed to best, I'm going with Stephen Fry as my goalkeeper. I think I'm going with Leo Gonzalez as my left back.
01:26:28
Speaker
I'm going to go with DeAndre Yedlin as my right back. I'm going to go with Chad Marshall as my center back. And I think I might go with Jeff Park. I was a big Jeff Park fan. Kind of bummed that Jeff Park didn't really go in, like his career kind of short circuited after he left here. But I was a big Jeff Park fan. Defensive midfielder, you got to go with, I think I'm going to go with a 4-2-3-1 just because I feel like that makes the most sense.
01:26:58
Speaker
Um, although that's going to create some really tough choices. It's tricky. Man. I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with Alonzo. I'm going to go with Roll Dawn and I'm going to go with Svensson. I'm going to go with the three man central midfield. And I think I'm going to go with three forwards. Yeah, I'm going to go with three forwards. I think I'm going to go over deuce and ready.
01:27:28
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. That's, that's my, that's base. That's purely like, I'm not going to try to play necessarily with that lineup, but I think that's the, I think that's my personal fave best 11.
01:27:40
Speaker
All right, yeah, I don't have a lot of quibbles with it. I'll give you mine. It's a little different. I'm going to go from right to left as God intended. So, for my goal keeper, Yedlin is also my right back. I think that one's, that's got to be like, Yedlin and Ozzy have got to be the two most nailed on, I think. Right, okay. The other Chad Marshall center back, I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with Hurtado.
01:28:07
Speaker
No, that's not a bad show. I don't think he's anywhere near as good as a lot of other center backs that we've had in more recent years. But I think in those earlier year teams, he was. I mean, he was almost defensive player of the year in 2009 for an expansion team. I think that's worth something. And I think people forget also how good he was before he had his ACL. Yes.
01:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Left back, I'm going to go with Jovan. I don't think you can make... That's a good call. That's a good call. I don't have any issues with... I think that for me is probably the toughest decision. Jovan or Leo, but I'm going to go with Jovan because you chose Leo, so... Yeah, no, that's fair. Better radio. Alonzo, obviously. I'm going to go with Brad Evans as the other central midfielder.
01:28:56
Speaker
That's a good, yeah, I feel bad for leaving Brad out, but. I think it's, you know, it's fair. Yeah, thank you. And I'm gonna go Rosales, right, right wing, Lidero, left wing, and Freddie and Oba in the middle.
01:29:16
Speaker
Yeah, I can't I can't really for for one one. Yeah, I think that's a, that's a, that's an awesome solid one I, I just couldn't resist the idea of read, like having over and deuce playing together again, fair, and just throwing Freddie into the mix there. Right.
01:29:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. I think the hardest decisions for me were Zach and Rudy Oz because I actually think Rudy Oz is the best. I do too. I just feel like he hasn't played enough games to justify being in a fave best 11. Right. And obviously leaving Deuce off is tough but
01:29:52
Speaker
It comes down to him and Freddie and I'm never going to choose anybody over Freddie. So yeah, that was, that's fair.
Conclusion and Acknowledgments
01:29:58
Speaker
That's fair. That was fun. That was fun. Uh, I'm actually really looking, I hope the Sounders do do a best 11 and I, and I kind of hope that they include USL era players, although I don't know that any USL players.
01:30:10
Speaker
are really going to have a realistic hope of getting into it. I do kind of like the idea of including them. Although it does feel if you're going to do celebrating the 10th anniversary of the MLS team, I suppose you got to limit it to MLS players. Yeah, I guess you could put Zach Scott in there is like sort of a compromise.
01:30:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's fair. That's fair. Roger Levesque probably is going to get some love in there. All right, well, that's the show. Thanks, of course, to our sponsors, Focal Wines and Queen Anne Acupuncture, as well as our broadcast partner Bootstrapper Studios.
01:30:44
Speaker
I am Jeremiah O'Shan. Oh, thanks to Garth Legaway for doing that interview. Garth Legaway interviews always go so long. I feel kind of bad, but I swear to God, I think I asked 10 questions and he went on for 40 minutes. So I am not taking the blame on that. I think the one thing we know about Garth Legaway is he likes to talk. He does like to talk.
01:31:05
Speaker
And, you know, I don't know. I would like to think people will have a little better, every time they hear him, I would like to think they have a little better insight. I tend to think that the interviews he does with me are less prone to, he seems to not ever make these ridiculous statements like likening rooting for the sounders to being a Pearl Jam fan or whatever. Anyway.
01:31:33
Speaker
Take that for what it's worth. Anyway, thanks to, or I am Jeremiah Shann, signing off on behalf of Aaron Campo and Lickett. This is No Study Yetis. Remember, you'll never get it. Green, Douglas, where were the waters cut through? Down and wild mountains and tangents you flew. Vanading northwest through the ocean so blue. It's roll on, Columbia, roll on.
01:32:01
Speaker
Roll on, Columbia Roll on. Roll on, Columbia Roll on. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn. Roll on, Columbia Roll on. We love you. Let's win another one!