Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
LS Live: Fans react to Seattle Sounders L vs. Minnesota United
0 Plays2 seconds ago
We react and take calls following Seattle's 3-2 defeat to Minnesota United in Matchday 17.
SPONSORS
Haxan Ferments - Specializing in unique, small-batch fermented hot sauces and vinegars, Haxan Ferments is handcrafted in Georgetown and made with the best local ingredients from across the Pacific Northwest. Use Code LS for a FREE Hot Sauce w/ purchase!
Sounder at Heart - Our network host and biggest supporter, Sounder at Heart covers the Seattle Sounders, Seattle Reign, and MUCH MORE! Subscribe and Support to the BEST independent Seattle Soccer coverage.
Podium Edmonds - Located at 114 4th Ave N, just off Main Street in the heart of Downtown Edmonds, come shop and explore the best menswear in the Pacific Northwest. Tell them Lobbing Scorchers sent you!
Full Pull Wines - Founded in 2009, they the best boutique wines of the world to members, with special focus on our home, the Pacific Northwest.
My Data Removal - Data brokers are selling your personal information! Fight back with My Data Removal. Hunt down and scrub your sensitive information from the internet. Use code "LS" for $10 off your annual plan.
Seattle Sounders Tickets - Get tickets to an upcoming match straight from the club and help support the show at the same time.
MLS Season Pass - MLS Season Pass is back on Apple TV with access to every single MLS match—including Leagues Cup and the entire Audi MLS Cup Playoffs—with no blackouts! Subscribe today to support the show.
MLS Store - New year, new gear! The 2025 MLS jerseys are here, and MLSStore is the ultimate destination for every fan. Every purchase helps support our show!
Follow Lobbing Scorchers:
Lobbing Scorchers is a production of Just Once Media.
Lobbing Scorchers is a Seattle Sounders and MLS focused show brought to you by Sounder at Heart. Hosted by Major League Soccer's Ari Liljenwall and Producer Noah Riffe. Join us as we lob our scorching takes on the American soccer landscape, Seattle Sounders, Major League Soccer, USMNT and more.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Viewing Information
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Lobbing Scorchers was previously recorded and streamed live on YouTube.com slash at Lobbing Scorchers. If you want to listen or catch these episodes live, see the video, and see all the rest of our content, go to YouTube.com slash at Lobbing Scorchers or LobbingScorchers.com slash YouTube.
Seattle Sounders vs. Minnesota United Post-game Discussion
00:00:22
Speaker
Well sir, we got a scorcher today. Gonna be real scorcher today. What the scorcher today? Well it's gonna be
00:00:46
Speaker
Good evening everybody. Welcome in to another post game live. Folks, we have got a lot to get to tonight. The Seattle Sounders played Minnesota United at Lumen Field.
00:01:00
Speaker
They take a 3-2 L. But the L itself almost felt like a like a subplot.
Player Protest Over Club World Cup Money
00:01:11
Speaker
There was a pre-game player protest regarding the ongoing dispute about the division, the participation money for the Club World Cup. And
00:01:25
Speaker
that really stole the show, honestly, least before the game. um But we're going to talk about the game itself. think we're going to probably going to start with the protest because that's how it all started off.
00:01:37
Speaker
But we are going to talk about the game itself. ah Seattle's first home defeat of the season. And then after we get through that, I'm going to talk about the Vancouver Whitecaps a little bit.
00:01:52
Speaker
Vancouver Whitecaps played in the CONCACAF Champions Cup final tonight, and it did not go particularly well. It did not.
00:02:04
Speaker
The Seattle Sounders are emphatically still the only MLS club to ever win CONCACAF Champions Cup, which I'm always a little torn on a how I should feel about that. about that Like if I should be rooting for other and MLS clubs in this in this competition out of like MLS solidarity or if I should ah take schadenfreude when they crash out.
00:02:31
Speaker
Sorry, I'm getting a little, OK, my bad.
00:02:36
Speaker
Had it open another tab and I was getting overlapping audio there. But we're good now.
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not going lie. I ah found myself rooting for the Whitecaps just because i really like the team that they have this year, and the run that they've been gone on has been undeniably incredible.
00:02:57
Speaker
But I won't lie, every time the last ah MLS club does crash out, I do enjoy it a little bit. not and Not necessarily enjoy it, but you know it retains the novelty of Seattle being the only club to do it.
00:03:13
Speaker
so bola We'll get into that later. And I'll also take some calls. If you want to hop on, lay down some takes, cope, whatever the case may be.
00:03:27
Speaker
ah But what I'm go to do is ah going to going to play the b Brian Schmetzer press conference first. And then the players...
00:03:41
Speaker
Had a had a little like a ah like a squad press gathering in the locker room after the game. Got some video of that, so we'll play that.
00:03:53
Speaker
But we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it because it's clearly... like this This dispute has been covered. Jada Evans wrote it up in the Seattle Times. so The players have been clear that they are not happy about this.
00:04:12
Speaker
And you know it doesn't surprise me that they would make a statement to that effect. I can't say i expected shirts with the Monopoly guy.
00:04:24
Speaker
Let's just take a look at the shirts real quick before we get into this. I have it right here.
00:04:35
Speaker
Club World Cup cash grab.
00:04:39
Speaker
This picture Noah got of Obed Vargas wearing it. You can see here. It's got the Monopoly guy.
00:04:51
Speaker
Monopoly guy wearing an MLS hat. FIFA.
00:04:58
Speaker
They all came out wearing those. So that is quite the statement.
00:05:06
Speaker
We'll see if that actually leads to, i think, Stefan Fry and Christian Roldan were talking about it after the game, but I think the one of the primary sources of their frustration has been the lack of dialogue.
00:05:21
Speaker
And i'll just i'll I'll say from my perspective, I'm with them on that um that much. I don't see why there's not a dialogue about it.
00:05:33
Speaker
I don't think it's about like being greedy or unappreciative. I think it's about basic fairness. You have a 90-10 split.
00:05:42
Speaker
I'm trying to put myself in the situation of someone who is taking on the extra workload of a tournament like this, the physical and mental demands that that puts on you, and then the prize money or the participation money that you're going to divide up
00:06:04
Speaker
90-10 split.
00:06:07
Speaker
I think it's fair to at least expect a dialogue on that and see if you can come to an arrangement
00:06:15
Speaker
that they find more palatable.
00:06:20
Speaker
But Brian Schmetzer also did point out after the game, I mean, when you do a pregame protest like that and then you lose the game, you do open yourself up to uh,
00:06:35
Speaker
the notion that perhaps your focus wasn't entirely on the game. And Christian Roldan admitted that it has been a distraction for the players. So we're going to talk about it more, but let's do this presser first.
00:06:50
Speaker
I'll hit a couple of things in chat as well before I play that. Derek, thank you for the one gifted membership. Appreciate your support as always, man.
00:07:02
Speaker
See what we got going on in chat. And then then we'll play the Schmetz presser. I thought the Schmetz presser was interesting. He said, i mean, well, you' you'll see, but he said that ah he didn't know about the plane protest.
00:07:15
Speaker
They didn't tell him. He found out with the rest of us. And his emotions on that seems to be mixed.
00:07:25
Speaker
All right. Get to a couple things in chat here. Bradford says, cue lobbing scorchers, throwing shade on anyone, offering objectively yet critically review of players' performances, aka the brigade, especially regarding Rusnak.
00:07:43
Speaker
Objectively yet critically.
00:07:50
Speaker
don't think we throw shade. We banter with the brigade. I'd like to think we're on... ah
00:07:58
Speaker
We're on cordial terms with the brigade. i will say i will say that ah we don't need to do this, Bradford.
00:08:09
Speaker
The most recent result that the team takes doesn't have to be like a referendum or a proof of concept of
00:08:22
Speaker
whatever you think about any individual player, how about Rusnak or anyone else? I think that's kind of the cycle that we fall into with this discourse sometimes. It's like all based on the most recent game.
00:08:33
Speaker
Like you understand that.
Seattle Sounders Tactical Analysis
00:08:34
Speaker
I mean, I would i would agree that it wasn't like a super great Rusnak game today, but I would also say, I didn't i didn't think the, ah I think the defense lost this game today.
00:08:48
Speaker
I think the defense lost this game. I thought the offense generated some good chances and they got two goals. And based on how they played an attack, I think they played well enough in attack to not have to take an L in this game.
00:09:04
Speaker
An L in this game didn't have to happen. ah Defensive breakdowns, a lot of them, are on this loss more than on the attack, in my opinion.
00:09:18
Speaker
um Doug, I'll post the... um the link to call in in a bit here. I haven't dropped it in yet because we're going to do pressers first. But you'll ah you'll see it in the chat when i when I drop it in. And then it's pretty easy from there.
00:09:34
Speaker
You just click on it, and it should put you in the lobby.
00:09:41
Speaker
Will we get a striker for the Club World Cup or is Craig actually being serious? I mean, I don't know if they're going to use this window, but Craig Wibbs did talk at Long Acres the other day and he made it pretty clear that whatever move they make is not gonna it's not going to be like for the Club World Cup like that.
00:10:03
Speaker
Like it will be with an eye on the holistic future.
00:10:17
Speaker
Like CR7 said in the postgame, they are already capped, so if they advance, they will not get any extra prize money. Yeah, I mean, that's part of the ah issue here. Stefan Fry pointed out that,
00:10:31
Speaker
like, he was posing the hypothetical of, say that ah say that an MLS team did win this tournament. You know, obviously that's astronomically unlikely, but like say they did and the the the club got the $120 million dollars prize or whatever it is, and they're capped at 1 million of that.
00:10:52
Speaker
That is pretty crazy. That is pretty crazy. Is that not crazy? Just on principle.
00:11:01
Speaker
Just on principle.
00:11:05
Speaker
They're capped at 1 mil. They're capped at 1 mil. yeah they're capped at one mill And they got 10 for participating.
00:11:15
Speaker
But what I think is interesting about it if you think about who their beef is really withd it's with, it's with MLS. But is it not like mostly with like the owner, Adrian Hanauer?
00:11:33
Speaker
Because as I understand it,
00:11:36
Speaker
he is He has it within his power to do whatever he wants, theoretically, with that. I could be like wrong about that, but I'm pretty sure he could just divide up that 10 million however and allocate like more of it to the players.
00:11:55
Speaker
And I think
00:12:00
Speaker
they said after the game, I'm pretty sure Fry said that they haven't been able to like have any sort of dialogue at all. And yeah, it is a, uh, it's, it's, it, that's, that's sort of the thing is the CBA is very clear on that. But the thing, here's the thing, like, I understand technically the CBA says what it says,
00:12:23
Speaker
but when you have a unique situation like this, where you have a tournament, that's way more prize money than anything the CBA could have ever anticipated. Like,
00:12:35
Speaker
i can i I can see the argument that you should be able to come up with with a new agreement that everyone thinks is more fair.
00:12:47
Speaker
don't know.
00:12:52
Speaker
Not very impressed with our new right winger, Jackson Reagan. Yeah, what was up with that?
00:12:58
Speaker
What was up with that?
00:13:02
Speaker
They had a
00:13:04
Speaker
Jackson Reagan out wide a lot, lumbering into the primary assist zone.
00:13:11
Speaker
And it felt like even, ah felt like Stu Hawks was floating out there a little bit too after he came on. I think that was something, they must have seen something on film with that. I don't know. might have to go back and watch that.
Pre-match Preparations and Press Conference
00:13:24
Speaker
I don't know what was up with that.
00:13:29
Speaker
right, let's do the Schmetz presser. Let's do the Schmetz presser and then the player presser. So it's going lot of pressers here, but I think these are important to watch.
00:13:39
Speaker
and I'm also running a little bit of double duty here, so.
00:13:49
Speaker
Check out Schmetz's
00:13:53
Speaker
demeanor here. He said a couple things that... Kind of indicated that he wasn't pleased with
00:14:05
Speaker
how this whole thing was handled. i don't know. I'll let you guys see for yourself.
00:14:11
Speaker
Pulling it up right now.
00:14:21
Speaker
raised Hand function button for us. We can get to your inquiry. At this time, we'll start on the front row row over here. Jade, I saw your hand first.
00:14:32
Speaker
Thanks. Thanks for the time, Brian. I have a two-parter. First, your players opened the match with the protest against a Club World Cup. I wanted to get your thoughts on that, if you knew anything about that.
00:14:48
Speaker
I did not know about it. you know i was I knew that the the union and the players were having conversations. I did not know that negotiations had you know, either gone good or bad. I didn't know that because, you know, i didn't pay quite close enough attention.
00:15:06
Speaker
This is a free country where guys can certainly do certain things. I understand where they're coming from, but I also understand Adrian's side of things. He's put a lot of effort, energy into this club, his life into this club.
00:15:20
Speaker
And so, you know, I'm for, you know, good conversations. Sometimes they're hard conversations, but I'm good conversations to find ah positive perspective or, you know, some form of solution.
00:15:31
Speaker
But, you know, the protest sure was a surprise. And then as far as the ah match goes, you know, the first half you were able to fend off some of their pressure, but kind of what broke down in the second half? well why What broke down was, you know, we showed them clearly who Minnesota is, who they are, who they are.
00:15:59
Speaker
ah They're a team that concedes possession, drops off, plays on counterattacks, and we fell right into their trap, right in their trap. First goal, you know, throw in midfield, two guys got spun, you know, they create one chance, they score, and credit to them.
00:16:18
Speaker
But it was on us, poor defending in that moment. Were we able to create enough in the first half? No, I don't think so. Not any enough clear, obvious goal scoring chances.
00:16:31
Speaker
ah You know, second goal on the PK. We've pushed Jackson Reagan higher up the field. We're trying to, you know, get something. ah You know, Christian's running with a guy.
00:16:46
Speaker
ah Jonathan Bell comes late. i mean, it's a penalty. It's a a transition moment where we just need to do better. We need to have guys make play. And you know, the, the last one, I mean, look, I have, I have told you guys in this room, it's Steph Fry is the best stop shot stopper in this league, bar none, bar none.
00:17:06
Speaker
But on that third goal, he needs to do better. He needs to push that ball wide and he'll accept that. I mean, we'll, we'll talk about it. Uh, Because goalkeepers have a very tough job because if they make a mistake, it usually ends up poorly.
Player Perspectives on Protest and Team Dynamics
00:17:21
Speaker
When a defender, a midfielder makes a mistake, usually there's some guys behind it and sta Steph has saved our ass a bunch of times. So in that sense, you know, our guys just didn't make the plays when they needed to.
00:17:35
Speaker
right, we'll go to Nico next. Coach, I just wanted to get your take what you kind of mentioned Jackson Reagan getting a lot higher. Was that a designed strategy prior to this game to get him that high it wasn't prior to the game. That's just the way the game unfolded because what we were trying to do was create overloads against 5-4-1.
00:17:56
Speaker
And since they have a lot of guys in the middle of the field, you needed to create a, you know, a three versus two or a four versus three in those little wide areas in those pockets. And because they only had one forward and we build with three, one center back pushes, you still have two against one to cover.
00:18:17
Speaker
So it's one of those things that, you know, just manifested itself during the game. And if you had to decipher maybe what went wrong, knowing that you were probably going to have to break down Minnesota, what would it be? Is it switching to point of attack? What was that didn't work? Just making plays.
00:18:33
Speaker
I don't think the guys made enough plays today. yeah We were good in some moments. you know We had some possession. It looked dangerous or halfway dangerous. mean, Georgia came on and did some really good things.
00:18:45
Speaker
But then there was that final piece that might have been missing. you know Ryan, the same thing in the second half, some good stuff, some other stuff. Paul in the first half got behind his guy, was able to get Russell in trouble.
00:18:57
Speaker
ah But it just wasn't enough today. It just wasn't. All right, we'll come over to Jeremiah and then swing around to this side of the room. If you were to articulate what you thought Minnesota did particularly well in terms of limiting you, what what do you think that that was?
00:19:14
Speaker
ah just become hard to beat. ah You know, they stack at three good big center backs, two wing backs, a line of four. There's just not a lot of space to play in You know, sometimes you like to play through the middle.
00:19:26
Speaker
They were preventing that. We had to go side to side a little bit more, try and create those overloads. um I think they did a good job, but that's true to who they are. I think for us again, i think our guys were, again, it's hard to say, again, a lack of patience, but We needed to be more dramatic in some moments when we had the opportunity and then a little more patience like towards the end of the game where we were you know still in the game at 2-1 and still in the game at three two but we were kind of rushed in some of those moments.
00:20:00
Speaker
All right, Maz, down to you.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, Brian. How would you rate them the play of your six and your eight in the middle there in terms of the Christian and no bed? Yeah. was fine.
00:20:17
Speaker
I mean, Obed was more of a tactical switch for this game. Last game, I took him off because I didn't think he was playing up to his potential. But for this, I wanted to keep Albert on the field for set pieces and stuff like that.
00:20:29
Speaker
And we needed to get a second forward in there. I mean, it was pretty clear and also as they came on, did a good job. did did jackson reagan going up push christian back a little bit more than you would have liked no no yeah i don't think so all right we'll go over to george here in the background next as the mic makes his way over to him reminder for those on zoom if you have a question please hit the raise hand function button uh can i make it in portuguese you can if you like yeah yeah
00:21:00
Speaker
soavvikeque ahbair to do but fogic makeed up for paraor quatro but
00:21:07
Speaker
I'd like to know about the preparations and the plans to face Botafogo.
00:21:17
Speaker
Well, similar to perhaps the protest shirt tonight, we're not focused on Botafogo. Tonight was an opportunity to surpass the team that was directly ahead of us.
00:21:34
Speaker
And against Vancouver, there's a chance to gain points against a Western Conference opponent. And that's what's most important.
00:21:54
Speaker
Okay, next round of questions. Yeah, we'll go back row here.
00:22:02
Speaker
you know jogu com vancouver terremo my autotraport opportunity tragedy going have ponus <unk> chimia west conference ah confidential as is sovis port
00:22:18
Speaker
okay next round of questions
00:22:22
Speaker
yeah we'll go back back row here
00:22:27
Speaker
What do you think you saw from the set pieces tonight and what do you think you want to see more? Our set pieces? are Your set pieces, yeah.
00:22:37
Speaker
Well, usually i review it during film. My off-the-cuff comments might be we didn't score off any of them. ah You know, I think we had a bunch.
00:22:48
Speaker
ah You know, we we put a lot of work into our set pieces. i always say it's life or death inside the penalty box. You know, teams can get plays and schemes and, you know, opportunities from trick plays. But basically it comes down to good service.
00:23:07
Speaker
And then guys, it as soon as the ball leaves Albert's foot, it's following the flight of the ball and trying to get your head on it or your foot on it or something. It's it's not that... you know, crazy or it's not that hard.
00:23:19
Speaker
So I'm not sure if we were as effective as we needed to be because set pieces obviously in our league are an important thing. All right, we'll come back down to Moz and then swing back to this side of the room.
00:23:34
Speaker
Brian, do you feel you're getting the defensive marking and physicality that you need from your back four and in terms of your two backs? Because it seems like the last three games, opponents are having shots, like unpressured shots.
00:23:52
Speaker
Is that fair? question i don't know. I'll look at the tape, Maz. You're a good guy and you see things. But I don't think so. I mean, look, we're playing Stuart Hawkins and Jonathan Bell.
00:24:06
Speaker
Kalani came on and I thought, look, Kalani played well tonight. Stewie's got a promising future. Jonathan's been a good foot soldier. You know, knew who's done his part for the club defensively.
00:24:19
Speaker
think Christian Obed or you know, rangy, they pick up a lot of loose pieces. So I'll look for it. All right, Nico.
00:24:30
Speaker
ah Two questions. Just wanted to get your take what Stuart Hawkins, you felt about Stuart Hawkins when he came into the game, third game this season. He was fine. I mean, he was good. I mean, look, that was Jackson was on a time restriction.
00:24:45
Speaker
ah But Stewie came on and did fine. I mean, he's getting better in the air. i like to see that. Talk about aerials and set pieces. He was decent. ah But work in progress, though.
00:24:57
Speaker
And it in terms of stress transition defense that maybe failed at times today, moving forward towards ah Vancouver as well, that tends to be a team that gets more in transition. what What needs to get better and what kind of went wrong today?
00:25:11
Speaker
Again, I'll watch the tape for a final, final answer. Look, ah on the one, I think it was the third goal when, you know, Nuhu goes forward, Pedro loses the ball.
00:25:23
Speaker
We get nine guys back. So I'm not so sure tonight was all about the transition defending. Yeah, the PK, okay, fine. But, you know, I'm not so sure was the complete lack of transition defending. I just don't think we made plays defensively.
00:25:41
Speaker
But then again, to be fair to the defenders who put the work in, ah you know We just didn't do enough on the attacking side of the ball. Anything else on the center? All right, we'll take one or two more. George?
00:25:59
Speaker
Coach, you made a some changes to the starting 11. I assume ah one of them was because of the baby from Jesus. Any news on that? And did you get the outcome that you wanted from the changes that that you made?
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think the guys that started the game were good. I thought Pedro was okay. thought Kalani was, again, very
Reactions to Seattle Sounders' Performance and Home Loss
00:26:18
Speaker
good. ah Jonathan, Jackson coming back was a positive. Jesus, yes, he is with his wife and she is giving birth or in the process of everything. And ah we're excited for a new member of the Sounder family.
00:26:34
Speaker
All right, Diego, you've got the last one here
00:26:41
Speaker
here. Buenos. Considering that we won the two previous games playing at home, there was perhaps misunderstanding with Minnesota, thinking that we could win with facilitation.
00:26:58
Speaker
this conflict, this apparent conflict that there was, could have influenced something in the team's heart.
00:27:10
Speaker
um Considering that we won the last two games, the ah the last two home games, do you believe that there was probably an overestimation about, you know, that this should have been an easy win against Minnesota?
00:27:25
Speaker
And then do you believe that the conflict that happened earlier on the game today about the club World Cup influenced the state of mind of the players for the game Well, we did not.
00:27:42
Speaker
We did not underestimate Minnesota. And the statement that the players tried to make today, you know, they have to back it up. And so, you know, tonight I'm not so sure because I was looking specifically at the effort that they put into the game, which I think they did.
00:28:03
Speaker
But you know, they leave now the question open of was their concentration fully there on their opponent?
00:28:17
Speaker
um no and no no su amo in una and minnesota is a sunni quipo kelor fatammo he knows rest almost a new moment Now, the position the players with respect to the Copa of Clubs is something that is their word and something that they have to support with actions. So, it will be in them to see if they really were completely concentrated in the game and if it is something that affected their performance.
00:28:52
Speaker
walker open
00:28:58
Speaker
That was Schmidt's postgame, and to me, it sounded like he was a he was pretty heavily implying
00:29:10
Speaker
that the that the protest might have affected the team's focus and concentration. Or he said, he at least, he said that the fact that they lost the game opens up that question and just kind of the way he was talking about it earlier in the press or two, seems like, seems like he's of that belief.
00:29:37
Speaker
Do I think, do I think that the protest affected their concentration in the actual game? have no idea. It's hard to say. I'm not in a, not inside anyone's head.
00:29:49
Speaker
Does it really work like that? i don't know. Like, when you're out there playing, are you, like, mishitting a pass because you're thinking about your Club World Cup money? Like, I mean, I don't know, maybe.
00:30:05
Speaker
But I thought it was interesting. Schmetz said that ah he didn't know about it. It was sprung on him. Sprung on him pregame. But he was very clear at the end there. you know He said, ah basically, if you're going to do that, you've got to back it up.
00:30:23
Speaker
You got to go out and show that it's not a distraction.
00:30:29
Speaker
So we're going to talk about that more, but i'm going to play the player's presser first. Some of you might have seen it already. But I think that is an
00:30:45
Speaker
important context to have here.
00:30:50
Speaker
So I'm going to play that. It's it's pretty much all Stephen Fry and Christian rolled on. And you guys can hear what the players themselves have to say about this issue.
00:31:03
Speaker
This was a filmed by Jackson Feltz, by the way. Shout out Jackson Feltz. Shout out Sports Radio KJR. Let me just take this to pregame and what he what you
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah, obviously our club will confirm this lesson about two weeks away. We have no idea what's going on in terms of distribution of funds for a tournament of this size.
00:31:34
Speaker
We've made numerous- Can you guys hear this all right? To get to the table and actually talk and figure things out. It's a shame that we're two weeks away and we have absolutely no clue.
00:31:46
Speaker
Like I said, we've tried to. found put a letter together all players that are involved on the team signed it um okay let
00:32:01
Speaker
me try again me know if this is better yeah um
00:32:08
Speaker
regame which
00:32:14
Speaker
yeah um Obviously, our club will come to this lesson about two weeks away. We have no idea what's going on in terms of distribution of funds for a tournament of this size.
00:32:29
Speaker
We've made numerous attempts to try to get to the table and actually talk and figure things out. It's a shame that we're two weeks away and we have absolutely no clue.
00:32:41
Speaker
so We've tried to. We've put a letter together All the players that are involved on multiple teams signed it in private trying to, you know, force them or encourage them to try to talk to us so we can figure things out because we wanted to put this event a long time ago, so we can focus on things.
00:33:04
Speaker
Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet. And like I said, we're less than over two weeks away from this. And I thought it was ah important that we somehow would get a message out that hopefully finally talk to them.
00:33:16
Speaker
Ryan had made that comment that while he understands both sides, know, it was situation where you needed to come back about as far as the match goes the play goes. Do you agree with that as far as, you know, taking into that you're going go to Jessamyn and not getting the match?
00:33:31
Speaker
Thanks. Yeah, we would have loved to win, right? To kind of send that statement off in the right direction. Obviously, you've found about the game. But the reality is that this is a huge distraction for us.
00:33:45
Speaker
We have known about a private money for a long time now, and have gotten to this point where we're two weeks away from the tournament and not knowing where we're at, not even essentially getting a response. And so while it is frustrating that we didn't get get a result, it is a huge distraction for us to have to deal with this on a daily And we're having to focus on homeless play.
00:34:15
Speaker
with this on the back of our minds. So the reality reality is we need to get this sorted because if Vancouver wins, we are going to have to be dealing with this four years in the fight and there's no language in the TVA when it comes to the club or country.
00:34:31
Speaker
What has Adrian, if you had any conversation with him, what has he said maybe even personally or specifically to y'all? Well, that's kind of the issue is that we've tried to engage in and nobody seems to want to talk to us.
00:34:45
Speaker
We've been getting from the league, we've been getting through the union promises that something's coming, something's coming. The next thing you know, it's 20 something days and nothing's coming. And now we're less than 20 days from the tournament, 14 days away from the tournament. So at some point we wanted to talk a long time. Like I said, we we we tried avenues that were private, respectful, because I think what we're asking is something that's there and can come in.
00:35:15
Speaker
more um and then what i think is is uh thought was what what we care every like again and as well
00:35:26
Speaker
really with the yellow protect by team invite and they able to come your not street to day federal one that are just managedly or whatnot so um and they don't already establish with peer system as well and you know we we agree with that peer system as well such an amount of bigger team than we are.
00:35:47
Speaker
We are well aware of that. We're realistic about those things. The world is getting a certain percentage. We're being here on and participating on stage. And I think it's just a different thing as well.
00:35:59
Speaker
And like I said, i just good negotiations to to do talk. But we have none. ah Do you feel comfortable saying what what the players are looking for? is it just you're trying to start conversation and i to the point me have We have any in content.
00:36:18
Speaker
No. I mean, honestly, when this tournament was announced and prize money was yet to be determined, which let's go back quite a year and change and go, I think if they would have been a letter to be signed that we get the same thing in terms of percentage that other teams get and it's fair, we would have signed it.
00:36:37
Speaker
I'm not knowing exactly what that means because it just means it's fair. But I have a memory of this sort of thing happening in 2020, when you were in the club and it felt like you guys were trying to start this conversation again, it felt like you were getting same sort response and not getting response. I'm just curious if, don't know if you can remind us what that process was and if you kind of saw this coming little bit. Well, these were uncharted territory, right? And even from 2022 to now,
00:37:11
Speaker
The league has grown and and we're, you know, and then you see LAFC now, yesterday, a huge game to rightfully now be also part of this tournament. So things are changing, you know, and I know this clause is has been, everybody talks about the CBA, but this is one that's um been put in long before these big tournaments showed up.
00:37:31
Speaker
I mean, just to give you perspective, I mean, winning the winning the CONCACCAMPIONS is making you way more than than what right now it seems club or club.
00:37:42
Speaker
So yet we need to win coming up to get to club or club. And that just doesn't make any sense. And so I think the league knows that we're growing, the sport is growing, that's great. i mean, having this stage here, having the chance to host this tournament in this country is amazing for the sport.
00:38:00
Speaker
We should all be stoked about this, that we get to play meaningful games and not friendly against the best of the best. And because we learned it, And yet we are here now two weeks away from it and we have no idea what's going on in this discussion.
00:38:14
Speaker
Have everybody talked to the players from East Miami and IFC about the next steps for engaging in our effort? Yeah, we've been in Zoom calls.
00:38:24
Speaker
Again, either these are the starters or the other groups. We have these conversations two weeks away, but we have these Zoom calls with
00:38:37
Speaker
Do you know the political party party party not knowing what was goingnna happen for them but without
00:38:47
Speaker
that
00:38:51
Speaker
we're obviously united in that essentially know the other part of the park and know i life far party mar on the that and julie individual overtimeing one sort of this as far as where We think that's that's the same report talk who obviously us, and and they to engage watch in this company
00:39:20
Speaker
mean were only we're only deep that has three teams that we do present
00:39:28
Speaker
it's it's amazing it's amazing for the sport again for this country but it's worth to grow with also what's happening next year with the with the work of coming. And it's just, I think we are growing, but we're at the same time, at times, we're trying to get back. This is the world stage coming, and it's as big as it gets.
00:39:47
Speaker
And I think the things that come with it will be appropriate as well. Given what's going on with the finances, does change perspective at all on just the excitement of the tournament, of the games? Does change the way you look at kind of just
00:40:06
Speaker
I mean, like I said, we know the moment we had a chance to play in Morocco. At that point, I think we thought that was our only chance. And it was an amazing experience to go to Morocco after preseason, get to play against a champion from a different part of the world.
00:40:24
Speaker
An amazing short short experience, but amazing nonetheless. And honestly, we thought that would be the end of it. So giving them the change in tournament and the way you get into it and us getting another chance, we were stoked 100%.
00:40:37
Speaker
is the in incrediblean the cream was a cross meeting all together and getting to play against each other. This is what dreams are made of. But this was announced, what, two years ago?
00:40:49
Speaker
And from that point already, I know, like I said, it's a long time, but I think we were hoping that we could can engage a long time Obviously, FIFA was trying to figure things out, but even then, think they announced it quite few ah a few months ago in terms of what their plans were.
00:41:05
Speaker
Again, they probably, to me at least, It looks like they thought of things in terms of putting a team system together, making sure that everybody is accounted for and then is put into their right brackets.
00:41:19
Speaker
But it's just been in silence since then. that yeah It's very frustrating. You want to be looking for these games. You want to be making sure that you can focus on your league because other teams are obviously done their seasons. We're in the midst of it. We just played against the team.
00:41:37
Speaker
which is been a that's the only thing that folks on the rest is good and
00:41:47
Speaker
we're good to go but open the reality is feel happen to feel about that one one is space state retail television you'll go out denor anything like i have time anymore experiences
00:42:03
Speaker
that's great great that that' that sort of the decision in but blala I know there's also a couple of rules in terms of how we can come from the state anymore and I told that we need arrive in bus.
00:42:14
Speaker
And so that makes things a bit more difficult when we can't just show up from home the way we do for our home games. But honestly, we're all straight here and there because it's almost pretty good to get home to the advantage. It's nice to get to be at home, right?
00:42:27
Speaker
And don't have to go to a hotel and maybe you make your own meal to make sure your family is fine. Those are come from things that some players actually appreciate. I actually don't know what the problem is. In terms of us sitting and going for meals or going to hotels, nobody has anything like that with us.
00:42:47
Speaker
But I'm sure we talked to logistics and someone if you could just When was the decision made to do the the display?
00:42:59
Speaker
Well, we had been talking about it minutes this week. We had meeting with our association. We made the decision to go with the club. We had a lot of eyes on this game in particular.
00:43:16
Speaker
It is only game that was being played on Sunday. And so we thought that he wouldn't make a statement, unfortunately. the idea was to To a statement that we're unhappy.
00:43:32
Speaker
And the magnitude of this tournament is being displayed worldwide with the amount of bonuses that unhappy and the magnitude of discernment is being displayed worldwide with the amount of osas that are being sent to clubs, and so we just want fair share.
00:43:54
Speaker
And just to clarify, we have heard that we have seen any games and if you progress, your bonus is capped at the current level, so that will be part of your discussion at Belarus.
00:44:06
Speaker
Correct, yeah, we're capped. We already hit the cap. And so, as you can tell that's frustrating like that's your work work cap from the very what are the incentives right i mean again we we're we're talking about an adult tournament um all right uh apparently the audio is uh is chalked so sorry if that was a long time of uh not being able to hear well i thought uh i thought when i picked up that it was sounding better no one said anything but uh apologies uh they didn't they didn't have uh
00:44:44
Speaker
like a microphone like they normally would in there. So that was just like the raw phone audio. So hopefully you guys could hear some of that. But i mean, I think the primary takeaway, if you were unable to hear, is that ah the frustration, it sounds to me, is primarily centered around the lack of dialogue.
00:45:09
Speaker
They're very clear that they think the split is unfair It's out of whack. um But that the reason they did this was because they can't really, they can't get anyone to the table.
00:45:24
Speaker
And I'm sympathetic to that. I don't understand why they, why there can't be a dialogue. To me, it sounds like they're not being told like anything. They're kind of just getting cold shouldered.
00:45:41
Speaker
So why not, uh,
00:45:44
Speaker
Why not at least have the dialogue.
00:45:49
Speaker
I don't know. I'll be interested to ah see what the fallout from this is. um I'll be honest. When I went to the stadium today, I was not expecting the whole team to.
00:46:02
Speaker
Take on the corporate oligarchy.
00:46:05
Speaker
But that's what happened.
00:46:09
Speaker
And then.
00:46:11
Speaker
Then they lose the game, their first home loss of the season, which is tough.
00:46:17
Speaker
feel like they, are there was like more pressure on that game than there should have been given everything that happened.
00:46:29
Speaker
But yeah, I agree, Andrew. It does seem un-Hanauer-like. I feel like he's known as a, is there such a thing as a player's owner? Like a player's coach, but like, uh,
00:46:41
Speaker
I've never um never heard a player say anything to the effect of like that he is not attentive to his players or doesn't listen to their concerns or anything like that. I guess I haven't really heard many quotes on that issue, period.
00:46:57
Speaker
But...
00:47:00
Speaker
it does seem like a situation where, you know, the CBA is the CBA. They actually, they, they have like full legal standing to just keep that $1 million dollar cap.
00:47:13
Speaker
It's one of those things though, where like,
00:47:17
Speaker
The technicality doesn't have to outweigh common sense, you know? But i I would be interested to hear Hanauer speak on this. Like I would, if there's some reason why his hands are tied or the organization hands are like fully tied,
00:47:36
Speaker
it would be like, it would be nice to know that from an outside perspective, just out of curiosity, you know?
00:47:48
Speaker
So
00:47:52
Speaker
we shall see. going to drop the call link calling in a second, ah but I'm looking at chat real quick just to see there's anything that ah anything that I missed. A few of you brought up the – getting in more into the game itself. A few of you brought up the Minnesota player that – got away unscathed with that, ah what should have been a second yellow, which uh, I don't think we, uh, there's not like ref controversy to be had about this game really other than that one in particular.
00:48:32
Speaker
But what I will say is that, uh, it is frustrating for it to happen like the second time in the last few weeks where, uh, The ref withholds the yellow because he gave the same player yellow earlier.
00:48:47
Speaker
Like, he would have given the yellow if he wasn't already on one. And, like, I don't know. I thought that foul by that guy was a pretty clear yellow.
00:49:02
Speaker
so
00:49:05
Speaker
Bad precedent. They just negotiated these exact terms in the CBA. Yeah, I get that. But ah like what Fry was saying is like that that was agreed on
00:49:20
Speaker
without taking into account participation in a tournament with this much prize money. It's so the amount of prize money at play here is so far beyond. I think anything.
00:49:31
Speaker
It's clearly beyond anything that was anticipated.
00:49:36
Speaker
when it was negotiated, which you could say hindsight's 20-20, but it just feels like one of those things where there's unique circumstances that happened that weren't anticipated when the original rule or agreement was come to, right?
00:49:56
Speaker
I'm just trying to illustrate the situation as I understand it. Yeah, it was about Open Cup and Leagues Cup. so Open Cup is slightly less less prize money.
00:50:13
Speaker
They can lean on the CBA like that, but you would hope at some point ah basic fairness.
00:50:25
Speaker
would be part of the equation, but like, ah it's tough. It's tough, you know, being a full outsider and not, not knowing the fine points of it.
00:50:37
Speaker
Like I'm, I'm open to the notion that maybe, maybe Hanauer, maybe there's some reason that we don't know where Hanauer's like, I literally can't do that.
00:50:52
Speaker
that That could be the case.
00:50:56
Speaker
But we don't, until we know that, until we know that reason, then
00:51:04
Speaker
we just don't know.
00:51:07
Speaker
think the max prize money a club could earn from winning all comps was about a million when the CBA was negotiated. Yeah, I think that's the, I think that's the thing to understand is that like this happened because
00:51:22
Speaker
There was sort of an unforeseen situation where the amount of prize money or the participation money was just so far and away beyond what they thought they were preparing for when they made the CBA.
00:51:39
Speaker
That's sort of what I mean when I say like, you wish common sense could be applied in situations like this sometimes.
00:51:49
Speaker
The beer bureaucratic corporate oligarchy, like,
00:51:55
Speaker
there's like a rule or a technicality. It's like, well, that must be adhered to unequivocally, no matter what, because that is what is decided.
00:52:07
Speaker
But if you just took a step back and were like, okay, that wasn't anticipated when we were negotiating this for open cup and leagues cup, maybe we can, maybe we can just have a little dialogue and ah we're not going to, you know, we're not going to give you all 10 million, but,
00:52:28
Speaker
We'll try and make it we'll try and get it to a point that you guys feel better about I think the way the players feel about it should matter they're the ones who play the games.
00:52:39
Speaker
They're the reason that the club is in the tournament.
00:52:43
Speaker
You know. I'm gonna drop the. ah link to call in and chat here if anyone wants to come on and lay down some takes I heavily ah heavily encourage it actually it it helps me out in these situations when i'm when i'm rocking double duty and running the stream solo so. Blanchez- Definitely don't be shy.
00:53:07
Speaker
Blanchez- And whoever calls Alex Blanchez- You can have a lot of the floor can have a lot of the floor, like I said. Got my mind in two places for these sometimes.
00:53:22
Speaker
um but While I wait for you guys to QN, can talk about the game a little more, I guess. I thought it was interesting to watch Minnesota United play.
00:53:35
Speaker
i I talked to Jeff Reuter a lot and read a lot about the sort of extreme tactics that they've been playing in terms of the amount of possession that they keep or ah that they don't keep.
00:53:49
Speaker
So I like having not watched them all that much this year. i was curious to see what that actually looks like in practice. And they definitely don't. They don't possess the ball.
00:54:01
Speaker
That is for sure. But what they were really good at, it it was interesting because, James, I see, I'm going to get to you in a second. It was interesting because they ah
00:54:12
Speaker
they seeded all that possession and felt like they were sitting back a lot, but they're they're somehow really good at kind of playing what looks like a bunker encounter style, but not really sacrificing...
00:54:29
Speaker
like chance generation or attacking output. They got three goals in this game. I thought the first one, you know, Schmetzer said it was poor defending, but I, I did think that that was, mean, they're the ball movement that they had in the, uh, in the passing on that goal was, was very good. and They win the penalty, uh, on John bell off a, ah off a counter where, uh, Joaquin prayer, I think was one-on-one with Christian and, uh,
00:54:55
Speaker
Ran around him, I believe. And then John Bell just cleaned him out. But again, that was another like. ah Kind of just well orchestrated opportunity. So I think they're. I can see yeah like why they're third in the West.
00:55:10
Speaker
um James, if you can hear me. Okay, yeah, you acknowledged. bringing you to the stage right now. James, thank you for calling in, man. Appreciate it. How are you feeling after that 3-2 defeat to Minnesota United? And if you've got any thoughts on the protest as well, feel free. We're talking.
00:55:27
Speaker
Yeah, to to paraphrase Brian Schmetzer after the LAFC game, I feel better in Vancouver. Oh man, I totally, ah I totally forgot to make that reference, but yeah, very good point.
00:55:40
Speaker
Yeah, brutal. um No, you know, I thought, I thought a lot of what Schmetzer had to say was interesting. You know, ah one of the things in his halftime interview that he said was he thought there was too much passing and watching and not enough passing and moving.
00:55:56
Speaker
I would agree with that. i mean, I think in the first half, there was a lot of, dumping it out to the wing and and hoping for the best, which is just not a great strategy when you're going up against a team that feels three big center backs.
00:56:09
Speaker
I mean, that's kind of their bread and butter. um And I don't think that our new right, right winger Jackson Reagan was the solution to that. um He, he was so out of position. mean, I, I, who knows if this had anything to do with the penalty, but he was so out of position on that one.
00:56:27
Speaker
He was way up on the right wing And so Bell's kind of up on an island. um And he obviously makes the wrong decision. But if he had had his center back partner in the right place, maybe that would have made a difference.
00:56:40
Speaker
Yeah, don't know. What do you think was the intent behind that? Because it seemed very clear that that was like an intentional tactical wrinkle to sort of have Jackson like shaded out like that as opposed to his normal positioning, didn't it?
00:56:59
Speaker
I mean, Smechler kind of talked about that. He said, you know, they play with one up top and so we'll, you know, we would still have at least two defenders back, um which seems like risky business to me. um You know, Reagan's capable of delivering a good ball.
00:57:15
Speaker
um I don't I don't know how many good six foot six crossers of the ball there are out there. That's what I'm saying. Like, like, yeah, I hear what you're saying about ah Schmetz's answer, but it felt like the outcome of it was like more than a couple of situations where you had Jackson Reagan, like attacking from the flank, like Alex rolled on, like which is just, I don't know if that was what was intended from it, but that's kind that's what happened a few times.
00:57:38
Speaker
If you've decided that you can sacrifice one of your center backs going forward and you're putting in a lot of crosses that aren't having a lot of luck, it seems like the answer would be to have him attack the middle. um But I mean, with just with Reagan's speed for all his other good qualities with his speed, I wouldn't have done it at all.
00:57:56
Speaker
I mean, i was I was sort of continually saying as I was watching this, you know, Jackson, go back, Jackson, Jackson, go back. Uh, and it, it kind of bit us on that last one, but you know, there was some good fight in there too.
00:58:09
Speaker
Um, you know, KKR, Pedro De La Vega, a good combination for the goal there. Um, atrocious camera work on the part of MLS, you know, they're showing a replay or something and all of a sudden the ball's in the back of the net and I'm like, Oh, that's classic.
00:58:25
Speaker
I was, I didn't, I was there, so I didn't see that, but that's, yeah. Yeah. You know, they, they, they interrupt the replay for the commentators screaming, uh, It's like fine work there, guys.
00:58:37
Speaker
um But yeah, I mean, in terms of the protest, i
00:58:43
Speaker
what I think the players need to do is sort of explain why they agreed to that clause in the contract. And I don't mean that like a negative way. What I mean is like there was obviously a reason that they agreed to it. I don't think we didn't conceive of the fact that there could be more money.
00:58:59
Speaker
makes all the sense in the world. I mean, so when I read through the CBA, when all this started going down, what it says is, you know, you're, you get 50% up to a max of a million dollars for any, uh, required or optional tournament basically.
00:59:15
Speaker
And sort of my first thought was what they're trying to do is prevent the really rich teams from hosting bogus tournaments. So that you don't have the Arthur blank invitational with a $10 million dollars bonus.
00:59:28
Speaker
And then if they can just evade the salary cap that way, i mean, I don't know. That's kind of what I was thinking. But I would like to hear the players sort of explain why they agreed to that. um Because like I said, I think there's more of a reason that he, and again, not in a negative way. It's just there was a thought process behind that I'd like to know what it was.
00:59:47
Speaker
um I don't know that I like hearing them say, well, you know, we're not feeling any motivation to go out and advance in this tournament. when your fans have spent, you know, maybe a thousand bucks to take their family to one of these games.
01:00:02
Speaker
I completely agree with them. I would like to see them get more money. um I think they deserve more money. I would much rather have it go to the players rather than paying down the Long Acres debt.
01:00:15
Speaker
But I don't know that they're going about it the right way. I don't know that they're winning people over. Yeah, that's what I was saying that I was interested to see like how much, like how much the public perception of it will change if at all from it.
01:00:30
Speaker
um I do, ah I do understand like the notion of this added tournament is it's like, you know, added wear and tear on your body.
01:00:44
Speaker
It's like adding a bunch of games to a season where you already have a ton of games. And I understand the frustration of feeling like you're not being compensated fairly for that.
01:00:56
Speaker
It does seem like they're kind of caught with the CBA a little bit. Like the powers that be don't have to accommodate this at all. So I don't know. What it did you but did you think? ah Didn't it seem like Schmetz was saying that ah he was heavily implying that it was a distraction during the actual game? do Did you catch that slash agree with that?
01:01:18
Speaker
Yeah, I...
01:01:20
Speaker
I don't particularly, i mean, I don't know. You know, like Schmetzer said, he's he's not in their heads. He doesn't know. But I think that the problems that we saw in this game were problems that we've seen before.
01:01:35
Speaker
You know, the one Schmetzer talked about is is way too much passing and then ball watching. That's problem we've seen before. Over-relying on crossing and hoping, that's a problem we've seen before.
01:01:47
Speaker
Even some shaky defending. You know, how much that is Reagan coming back from an injury? How much of that Bell just... Look, I like Bell. He's a good $100,000 player, but is a $100,000 player.
01:02:00
Speaker
you can't expect perfection. KKR sure didn't look like he was distracted. Right. Yeah, exactly. but Christian. I didn't think looked distracted. um Kent. I didn't think was any good. i didn't think he looked distracted though.
01:02:14
Speaker
So what do you think is ah what do you think is going on with him? Is it just like ah teams have scouted him up and are more prepared for it? Or is there anything like more to it than that?
01:02:26
Speaker
Well, I mean, you have to look at, when he burst onto the scene, you know, the first game was against St. Louis who are a bad team. So bad they just fired the manager. And then Houston, which was nil nil up until they went down to 10.
01:02:41
Speaker
um And so it's, you know, it's um not the hardest competition. And then I, the, the last few games, I don't think he's been effective. I do think it's,
01:02:53
Speaker
I think it's something that you know teams have gotten scouting on him, but I've noticed this pattern for a long time. i mean, I think it happened with Chu, I think it happened with Rothrock, and I think it happened with Georgie, where they come in as kind of an X factor.
01:03:05
Speaker
They're able to, you know, they play without fear, um but they don't get support. I mean, this was something that, Georgie, I noticed a lot during the playoffs last year, you know, knew who's not the best. He's a tremendous defender. He's not the best in the support and, um you know, brigade talking point, but Rusnak doesn't offer the same support that Ladero would have.
01:03:29
Speaker
I was watching through some, some chew highlights a while ago. And i noticed that Ladero was always doing something, you know, he was either yeah making a run for him or he was, he would, uh, uh,
01:03:42
Speaker
One that really sticks out to me is the the goal they scored against LA, which is kind of a long distance shot. um Ladero plays a little one-two with him, and then Ladero takes off down the left wing, which pulls a defender off, which allows Chu to cut in, which gives him that shot.
01:03:57
Speaker
That's just not something that Rusnak ever does. I mean, the the support's not there either in terms of um certainly not an overlapping run, but really not even runs into the box. And so that's just a recurring problem that we have with our wingers, is they get put out on an island, and they have to try to beat two, three guys.
01:04:17
Speaker
um you know if we can if if we had somebody more mobile at the number 10 and if we had a brad smith type player on the overlap i think that that would open up a lot for for the winger yeah it's a good point um james i got a car in the queue behind you but uh anything else that you want to do hit on with this uh with this game uh the white caps game coming up the white caps in general anything at all One thing that I caught in Schmetzer's press conference when he was talking about Hanauer, he said, you know, Hanauer's put a lot of effort and a lot of energy and a lot of life into the club.
01:04:52
Speaker
He didn't say he's put a lot of money into the club. So I'm wondering if he started a little frustrated. I'm wondering if Schmetzer started getting a little frustrated with the transfer budget. That's funny. I didn't and didn't catch that, but you're right. he didn't He didn't say money. Did he say resources? or yeah he put like It was like he was talking about passion.
01:05:09
Speaker
we question actually wrote it down because I wanted to save my notes for the conversation. That's how highly I think of you, Ari. I prepare for these. appreciate that. But he said effort, energy, and life, and not money, not resources. so Kind of funny.
01:05:25
Speaker
Effort, energy, and life. That's deeper than money. it's going deeper that's deeper than money but Fair enough. Fair enough. All right, James. Great call as always, man. Appreciate you. harm and um and have a good night yeah We'll catch you next time.
01:05:40
Speaker
All right. We got Parker up next and then, and then no one else in the queue. So if, if anybody wants to hop on and lay down some takes by all means, like I said, it genuinely does, does help me out on nights like these. So I'll,
01:05:57
Speaker
Toss that link in there one more time. Now now we got Hunch in there, so we got an actual cue working link right there if you do want to cue in. And we're going to bring Parker to the stage right now. Parker, can you hear me? Give me that thumbs up.
01:06:10
Speaker
All right, got you. Brought you to the stage. Parker, how are you feeling after 3-2 defeat at home to Minnesota United that also featured a pregame player protest in the form of a shirt with the Monopoly guy on it?
01:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, I am really glad that they wore the shirt. um Obviously, it stirs the pot. ah Lots of emotions behind that. I'm not a player. um What i will say, though, is ah with, by the way, thank you. Good to good to see you. Good evening.
01:06:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah. um Yeah, um a little bit of a mix of emotions and and I want to apologize a couple weeks ago or a week ago when I was on, I was a little, little bit sour, a little bit negative. I want to give a little bit of context.
01:06:56
Speaker
So I live in Idaho. I'm from the sale area. I grew up grew up in Lake Stevens. My family has season tickets there. I have season tickets, but my tickets cost me 15 grand a year. Which is a lot.
01:07:08
Speaker
yeah And so like I try and make it to games when I can. If I can't, I'll give them away to like friends or family or like just sell them on Ticketmaster. um I can't like do the ticket exchanges because the front office is tightened down on that pretty hard.
01:07:22
Speaker
um Anyway, and so like... To this example of the players not having any motivation, I'm one of those people where I'm like putting my money where my mouth is or like where my actions are because I really support this team.
01:07:37
Speaker
Like it is i am i is everything to me. And so like when there's weeks where we're not putting all the pieces together, it sucks. But at the end of the day, like I'm not mad at them at all for wanting a piece of that back.
01:07:51
Speaker
it's In my opinion, it's ridiculous. like Yeah, 40 grand is better than a kick in the shins, but like it should at least be the inverse of that. 80-20. 80 to the players, 20 to the... And I know the inverse would be 90-10, but...
01:08:06
Speaker
like
01:08:09
Speaker
I mean, like how would that be? Like, i mean, this is probably an uneducated opinion of me, but it's not like the owners did anything but besides fronting some cash.
01:08:21
Speaker
I mean, I know Hanauer is a different story, but we're not just talking about Hanauer. Like they haven't been the ones putting their blood, sweat and tears in. I think it's a passion project for most involved on the ownership level.
01:08:34
Speaker
And, you know, some of the other owners that we have, I'm pretty sure, correct me if I'm wrong, Russell Wilson is still a parcel partial owner. Yeah, i think, yeah, he is. I don't think he's doing anything. You got Macklemore in there. Yeah. And, like, Macklemore is more involved from a community standpoint, but it's not like, you know, okay, so Wilson gets half a million from this $9 million cut, you know?
01:08:56
Speaker
It's a good point, yeah. Like, I don't know how that all shakes out, but I'm sorry. That should absolutely go to the players. like no questions asked he has like i'm glad great for putting some money into it because of that we earned the right to be in the club world cup and it's not like and and if there is liquidation of the team then he can cash in then don't cash in now that's insane um you know or sell ownership or whatever it may be um so yeah it's and and then like and then it's even in more crazy if we do advance
01:09:31
Speaker
you know, these next rounds are even more lucrative. We're talking, you know, 25 million in a game, 40 million a game, whatever it is like, and you're going to cap us. And they would still be capped. Like that is kind of kind hard.
01:09:44
Speaker
And, and because it's per tournament, that million bucks, that means that the players might get 0% the next game and the game after. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. like that's like even even with the knowledge that there's very little chance that they go far at all in this tournament it's just like the uh there's the principle of it but then also uh the reality of it if like what if they do like beat modafogo and then like somehow get through you know at that point it's like i think that is it's like a real that's a problem
01:10:18
Speaker
Well, yeah, and it's not like, okay, me professionally, I'm a huge fan of getting paid what I earn. If I'm kicking butt, I want to make bonuses. Like, none of these players want to ride off into the sunset as has-beens.
01:10:32
Speaker
Let them have their shot. Like, let them do their thing. And, like, yes, we have this appeal with the community and the club and the locker room, and that's why we're getting these people.
01:10:43
Speaker
But, like... We're also getting the people with the drive to win. and it's such a disenfranchised view. It's such a tone deaf take where it's just like, it is what it is.
01:10:58
Speaker
Honestly, I think our ownership should be fighting for our players. I think our our ownership should be advocating. but shouldn't be our players wearing the shirts. I'm glad they did. But our players should be going back to the players. Our our ownership should be going to the players' union and saying, look, hey, I know we signed this.
01:11:15
Speaker
Let's figure this out. Let's make this right. like Why is that on our players? It is tough to ah to sympathize with the corporate oligarchy in situations like this because it's like, ah i mean, the people that we're talking about, like, like give the amount of money that we're talking about that would be going to the players, like... It's offensive, honestly. I'd be so pissed.
01:11:40
Speaker
I'd be so mad. It's just, ah I feel like it wouldn't make any difference, honestly, to an to an owner or FIFA, whoever it is, to just like pay fairly.
01:11:54
Speaker
i know technically you don't have to, apparently, but like I don't know, still, it's kind of... figure out a way around it okay yeah that's what I'm saying let the players pick their charity right let them you know set up a trust and the the players on the field or however that works like they cash out over 10 years like there's got to be There's got to be some sort of common sense solution, but right honestly, it doesn't the ah lack ah the complete lack of dialogue seems to indicate that there's not going to be much of a like change in how this goes.
01:12:35
Speaker
um No, yeah, unfortunately. and like ahead, sorry, go Oh no, you you go for it. Well, like like as a human being, i like i think as critical thinkers, we have the ability to put ourselves in both people's shoes.
01:12:51
Speaker
And so like I can see the greed. wanna be careful how I talk here. I'm not calling ownership greedy, but like I can see the incentive from an economic standpoint to to shut up as an owner, to not encourage discourse, because it's like a few more weeks and decisions done.
01:13:12
Speaker
like Even if they have like conflicting feelings eternally, they just have to stay quiet for a couple more weeks and you know Wilson's getting an extra 500 grand. like I don't know if that's how that works, but I'm just i'm just saying.
01:13:24
Speaker
um ahead, sorry, and then I have a couple other takes. Uh, yeah, I was just going to ask you if you had anything on the, on the game itself that you wanted to get out there or, or the Whitecaps game or anything, anything ball related.
01:13:40
Speaker
Honestly, to not watch the Whitecaps game. I mean, honestly, smart decision. i meant, I also, I meant, I meant, ah oh, you didn't hear what happened? Uh-uh.
01:13:51
Speaker
Oh, brother. no Oh, brother. I'm about to lay it on lay it on you right here. ah They lost five to zero, and it wasn't even that competitive. Dang it. They got beat as bad, I think, as I've ever seen a soccer team get beat. It was incredible. is that even possible?
01:14:08
Speaker
I don't know. I feel a little hoodwinked because I was on record, as I've been saying repeatedly. I didn't guarantee they were going to win or anything, I thought they had a great chance based on how they played all season and through CCC.
01:14:24
Speaker
I loved their chances in the game. I didn't think Wizards' role was that much better than them. And not only did they lose, but like they got just steamrolled.
01:14:35
Speaker
It was ridiculous. That sucks. Yeah, pivot here. ah Good news for MLS and them is now they're going to play with a chip on their shoulder for the rest of the season. that Bad news for the Sounders because we're in the same conference.
01:14:49
Speaker
But I mean, that's not that's, you know, I'm trying to look at the positive side. OK, new who. So on Wednesday's game in particular, and I saw it a little tonight, um he doesn't have his third pass planned.
01:15:03
Speaker
So we all know Nahu's athletic, and he's running down the left side playing like a winger, and he keeps doing these one-twos. The problem is he's one-towing. He's doing a give-and-go off of Kent.
01:15:16
Speaker
Kent is the last guy that you have Kent do a give-and-go to you. You don't use him as your bouncing board. and And what ends up happening is, like whether it be to Kent or Resnack, this is an expression of an observation of news activity that may bring a little bit of disappointment. so So he's expecting it so much that he doesn't realize how far out of position he's forcing himself.
01:15:48
Speaker
So um he's and he's like upset when the give and go isn't given back to him. And it's like, dude, you're miles out of your space, which proved to be an issue tonight.
01:16:01
Speaker
He did not run back. It caused problems. He's trying to hurry up the left side, maybe get a cross in. And it's like. We have one of the best potential soccer players of all time on our team, Ryan Kent. yeah And you're just like trying to have your moment in the sun. like And that's the thing about Kent pivoting from that is, ah so yeah, let's say Nahu gets the ball. He doesn't have his third pass planned.
01:16:33
Speaker
like It's just, oh, let me figure it out once I'm there. But Kent is not selfish. And in this scenario, that's a problem. because we have people who are wanting the ball and he's just giving it to them.
01:16:47
Speaker
But like, I want to see him take on more people. Another, going to rapid fire Georgie. He had a talk into closer to you know three, four games of the season after he's breaking people's ankles where Schmetz was like, if it's one-on-one, take them. If it's two-on-one or three-on-one, maybe pass it.
01:17:09
Speaker
How they're lining up for him is it's a one-on-one, and then you have two people behind that first person, maybe 15 yards out. I think he should still go for that one-on-one, because if you beat one, and then it's just another, it's just another one-on-one.
01:17:23
Speaker
I don't think he should... And he can win those. Oh, exactly. he he But he's in his brain thinking, i mean, obviously, I'm assuming I'm not in his brain, but he's thinking, oh, there's three people there. It's like, no, like they're lined up in a triangle.
01:17:38
Speaker
You can get past this first guy and then evaluate that. um So I want him to be more selfish there and then to have anything else.
01:17:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's ah pretty much all I got. I want to see more from Kent. Oh, oh if this is it. ah and So like, we I think a lot of our players playing out of the midfield were getting stage fright giving the ball to Kent because he was missing a couple, you know, this or that or the other.
01:18:11
Speaker
But it's an unfair conclusion when they were just dumping him every ball. He came out of the field, got butts out of chairs, and then for the next like three games, every single ball was given to him out of the backfield.
01:18:28
Speaker
Get it to Kent, get it to Kent. it's It feels like they're spamming it right now. Right. and And then in the moment, when it's like and instead of spamming it then, use him to be more intentional.
01:18:43
Speaker
And there has to be a balance there. not like it like You can't have stage fright because, oh, he didn't take care of those other balls. It's like, no, you were just literally sending him everything without a plan. so anyway, that's what I've got.
01:18:57
Speaker
Parker, great stuff, man. Appreciate you hopping on as always. And ah ah by the way, no need at all to ah to apologize for the last call. You were totally fine. I didn't even know what you were but you were referencing. So don't even don't even worry about it.
01:19:13
Speaker
Appreciate you tapping in and we'll catch you next time. Later. Thank you. Take care. All right, we got ah we got a few people in the queue here. going to try and ah get to all you guys. We got some rando here.
01:19:26
Speaker
Who's this guy? I'm ready to be on. i'm ready to be on the show. Can I be on the show now? You're on the show. Sorry, guys. i it's been a rough It's been a rough one in the NOAA household, so I had to go play some pickup.
01:19:39
Speaker
But i wanted to I wanted to chat a little bit about the game. wanted to chat a little bit about the protest. wanted to chat a little bit about how beautiful Ari is. And I wanted to chat a little bit about how the Vancouver Whitecaps will never be the Seattle Sounders and how no one apparently will ever be the Seattle Sounders. So how does that sound, Ari?
01:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, no, ah take take it away for a minute here. I'm going to get some water and absolutely matthew yeah and I'll be right back. So currently I'm in my kitchen because I'm about to cook up this absolutely super hot fire. ah These super fire takes here. But yeah.
01:20:13
Speaker
I think that this game ah got away from him. I think it was unfortunate. And honestly, I need to do a rewatch of the match because I was dealing with the news of the day, which was these these shirts, right? Like the the shirts and the protests and all of that. So I was managing going semi-viral on on Blue Sky and X and and all of those ah kind of inquiries and working with Jeremiah to make sure that article got out.
01:20:42
Speaker
So honestly, like I missed a lot of the match, so I'm going to have rewatch it. but So those takes we're going to put aside. But i wanted to to briefly chat about the... I think that this is good color for the general feeling around this protest.
01:21:02
Speaker
I have never seen a more like scrambled group of individuals than the ownership when those got those shirts got rolled out.
01:21:17
Speaker
I was standing on the field getting some photos of the shirts and I see, here, here this is my reenactment.
01:21:27
Speaker
Who is that? It's Adrian Hanauer. I've never seen him on the pitch of the game like so intent before. I've seen him there. Obviously, he goes to the matches. He's he's a sounder through and through.
01:21:39
Speaker
But like I had legitimately never seen I've just I've never seen Adrian that huffy and puffy, man. Like he was huffing and puffy. It was crazy. So to give some context, I go down from the press box to take some pictures of these shirts so that we can get them up for the blog post.
01:21:57
Speaker
And I run into Adrian. I'm like, Oh, Hey man, how you doing? Cause like, I'm trying to like work that like one to get them on the pod, but two, like, it's never coming on the pod. The best way to like, as a journalist, in my opinion, to get information out of someone is to just like strike up like a bullshit conversation with them.
01:22:15
Speaker
Like you can kind of just like start to pull out random shit once you disarm them. You know what I mean? Maybe Ari, do you, do you, do you hear what I'm saying here? Yeah, I think it depends on the, uh, depends on the context. Absolutely. But an MLS owner, I think might be a little bit trickier, but I mean, but it's like Adrian's like a little bit like, I don't know. He's more down to earth than you yeah he's like, it's okay to hate him. I get it. Like we've said it before. Like he's a rich oligarch guy frame. He's a frame oligarch. I think the the criticism he takes is actually for the opposite, uh, Yeah, because he's broke. Right. yeah Okay, fair enough. But but like I think generally when it comes to MLS owners, he's like pretty like ah he's like kind of a chill guy.
01:22:56
Speaker
um But I don't think in this situation he was a chill guy by any means. I've never seen him so angry and upset and frustrated. He was... legitimately so tilted.
01:23:07
Speaker
i like was trying to strike up this conversation with him. And you know what you see just like your stress and anger in somebody's eyes? i was just staring him down in the eyes. And he has these like ah one-off Sounders Sambas.
01:23:18
Speaker
And I looked and I was like, oh dude, these are sick. Did you guys make that when when you you know when you were designing these other shoes? He's like, oh, yeah, um yeah, yeah. And then he immediately gets pulled away by PR to discuss the talking points and situation, obviously.
01:23:34
Speaker
But what was crazy to me, and this is something that I've never seen ever in my life. So Ari, feel free to direct me if you've seen this before. I'm sitting in the post-match press conference. Brian Schmetzer is about three minutes into his conversation.
01:23:48
Speaker
The door, the side door opens. And who is that? Walking out. It is the one and only Adrian Hanauer. And he comes and sits right behind me in the presser. And his eyes are just beaming on Brian, just absolutely staring through him, piercing him like a goddamn madman.
01:24:10
Speaker
And at this point, the question had already been asked about ah the protest. And Brian was like, I see it both ways, blah, blah, blah. You know, scripted ass answer. i get it. He's kind of like caught in the middle um because, know,
01:24:24
Speaker
what are you supposed to do, right? And
01:24:29
Speaker
literally, Brian, out of nowhere, once he kind of realizes that he's he's there, he kind of like picks it up a little bit. And he hits back with the, I think that this protest was a distraction. i think that he kind of was like jabbing at the players a little bit once he noticed that Adrian was in there. And maybe this is maybe this is reading the tea leaves. Maybe this is like a bunch of bullshit.
01:24:49
Speaker
I'm not claiming that this is exactly what happened, but that's what it felt like to me. I've just genuinely never seen that before. And then immediately i watch Adrian walk out.
01:25:02
Speaker
And then there's kind of like a thorough way, like doorway between the players locker room, ah like a back entrance. And so I watch him sat with PR and then go in there and the locker room is closed for like kind of an extended amount of time.
01:25:16
Speaker
And then I'm like waiting, we're waiting, we're waiting, we're waiting. It's not unusual to wait a little bit, but this was like, this was like long, this was like a long time. And we were waiting and waiting.
01:25:28
Speaker
And the doors finally swing open. And like, there's like 12 Sounders players all standing together. And that's going to be the presser. They did it as a group. But I was like, man, did Adrian just go in there and like,
01:25:41
Speaker
have a conversation. i don't know. This is like genuinely the craziest drama I've seen since Raul Ruedia has decided he, he was going to crash out.
01:25:52
Speaker
Like we haven't seen anything like this, this season at all. So um for one personally, um I'm a journalist, so I'm not allowed to be biased, but I stand with the players.
01:26:04
Speaker
um So that's, that's my unbiased take. I think that they're not really asking for that much. And I think that, Honestly, if I'm being honest, like the way that I'm reading it too, it seems like Major League Soccer themselves have a lot more to do with this than any individual owner. That said, I do believe that if Adrian wanted to, he could find a way to pay his players extra.
01:26:26
Speaker
That's what it seems like to me, but it's just we don't know. we don't know like anything. We don't know. That's my kind of I kind of am struggling to formulate an informed take on it because of just how much we don't know, you know, but. I mean, it's hard to...
01:26:45
Speaker
are interesting details ah from the game like just about his sort of demeanor and body language can't imagine he is please right now and it's like ah i mean you know we have no idea what goes on behind closed doors like no in a in a dynamic like this but this is like a unique situation to anything that i've ever seen and it feels like the tension levels between players and owner are ratcheted up in a way that i just haven't really i don't think i've seen i've i've never i've never seen this from the sounders and like ah honestly like i think that
01:27:26
Speaker
this This group of players is not the type of people to like do something like this unless some shit went down. And I really truly think that Major League Soccer and the ownership is just trying to run the clock out.
01:27:41
Speaker
And so they they they did it the right way. They tried to hit them in private. use their union, chat about, you know, like, hey, let's let's make this fair.
01:27:51
Speaker
I don't think the players are even asking for 50%. I think the players are probably asking for, like, four, three, or four. Like, I think they're willing to settle for a lot less than everyone else is expecting.
01:28:05
Speaker
And and just I just find it wild.
Financial Disparities in MLS
01:28:08
Speaker
And I also find it wild, too, that, like, you're telling me Inter Miami and Leo Messi are cool with 40K to play in this tournament?
01:28:18
Speaker
You're telling me they're okay with that. I mean, does that seem real? I mean, I would kind of think about it like the opposite way. ah Like ah players like Messi, Busquets, and Jordi Alba and all them, they've made more money than they could ever. yeah they got more money than God. Messi's got like Apple money. I don't think like. Bro, he's got the Moss Plus. The the Club World Cup.
01:28:40
Speaker
the club world cup payout doesn't affect players like that as much as it does like a guy on the sounders like like a guy like uh you know john bell or one of the lower end salary guys like exactly this stuff like make it does make like a real difference well it's crazy because you have guys making like 42 43 000 year and I think the league minimum is like $80,000 now. but yeah Okay, $80,000 a year? like Dude, like that's like... In Seattle, like you're not really living nice. You're not living well here. Gotta have like a second job. Yeah, like like no one's having a second job in MLS, but like yeah no you're not like...
01:29:21
Speaker
you're not like living large. And I saw a lot of this commentary online about like, Oh, he's rich soccer players want more money. I'm like, but they earned it, but they earned it, man. Like what, what are we talking about? And it just, it's just ridiculous to like, why would you not want goodwill with your players?
01:29:38
Speaker
Why would you not want goodwill with your players? Like that, that question just about the root of the whole dispute in the first place. It just makes me feel like, like you said, there's ah stuff went down where it's going down that we just don't we're not prettyvy we're not privy to but I think that it's genuinely getting bitter and I think that it's like I've like I was lingering in the locker room afterward.
01:30:08
Speaker
And let me tell you, the vibes, they're not good. They're not good between players and and and and ownership right now. Like, I don't i don't see it going well.
01:30:20
Speaker
um And i i don't think this is going to be the last protest. I'll tell you that much. Unless they get a deal done, this is not going to be the end of it. It's going to get worse. This is just getting started.
01:30:32
Speaker
You know, I think it's funny, too, that like Brian commented and said, well, this is a distraction. This is a distraction. This is a distraction because Steph had a really good comment to respond to that.
01:30:45
Speaker
Jada Evans of The Seattle Times, she's been doing amazing reporting on this. Huge shout out. You guys should really go and check out her reporting. Other than the fact that I love her and she's an amazing human being. Yeah.
01:30:57
Speaker
She asked, she said, you know, Steph, you know, ah Brian said that this was a little bit of a distraction for you guys. um And he said, yeah, it is. i think christian Christian said that. is or Yeah, it was Christian. Yeah, Christian or Fry, they were both talking. Apologies. But, you know, Christian said, yes, this is a distraction.
01:31:15
Speaker
So figure it out. Let's figure it out. It's it's it's not that hard. Let's figure it out. It's. We're not asking for a lot. and And that's that.
01:31:25
Speaker
And yeah, the fact that fucking Russell Wilson could be getting like 200K from this. Are you joking? Like, come on. Come on. are you are we are we Are we serious?
01:31:36
Speaker
Did we not get rid of him once already? Like, that's that if you're a fan and you're like on the fence, just think about it. We're about to make a solidarity payment to fucking Russell Wilson. be Like, that we that can't happen.
01:31:48
Speaker
That can't happen. It's happening. But this is going to this is a Lobbing Scorcher storyline. Like this is good drama. um We are in contact with the Players Association.
01:32:00
Speaker
We're going to try and get an interview, try and get something going with that. and We will obviously reach out to see if Adrian wants to come chat. Adrian, if you're watching. 0% chance that happens, but, uh, floor is open brother.
01:32:13
Speaker
we were take that We would be more than happy. We will come to long acres. We'll come to your house. We can do it at my crib, whatever you want, boss, you, you make the call. Um, and listen, if Adrian, if you want to buy the podcast,
01:32:26
Speaker
with some of that club world cup money like we'll give you good coverage like that's all i'm saying like you know what i mean like i like as much as and anything i would just love to hear what he has to say on the topic uh because i have a hard time believing there's not like some sort of hand trying reason that he would can i can i and i put out a conspiracy theory yeah sure i think Obviously, we've this has been like ah ah kind of a bullshit rumor with no standing that Major League Soccer wants to take 50% of each club's earnings from the Club World Cup.
01:33:03
Speaker
If that is the case, and the club is then only guaranteed, what, $4 million, $4.5 million, dollars something like that.
01:33:16
Speaker
Maybe there's a case to be made there. Maybe. Maybe. But honestly, even then, it's like, Hanover should be mad at the league and standing with his players. Like, God forbid he gets fined. All those players are going fined today, by the way.
01:33:30
Speaker
all Every single one of those players is going to get fined, whether it's internally from the Sounders or externally from the league. It just... there's There's no world where it makes sense, man. There's no world where it makes sense. Like,
01:33:42
Speaker
you It's just shocking. like Even if there's something going on behind the scenes between Major League Soccer trying to take a shit ton of money and you know ownership not getting a bunch, or maybe there's like a loan involved. Maybe there was like a loan that they took out to buy the rain and build long acres, and they're like, that due date is coming up, and maybe there's an issue there.
01:34:05
Speaker
But it's like, you've got to communicate that, big big dog. You've got share that, because I'm tell you what. We have a video on here that is one of our most viewed videos ever that is talking about the degradation of the the like quality of going to a match, right? like the the The Sounders are kind of like selling out their team. like they're just they're They're not doing the things for the fans that make it worth it.
01:34:32
Speaker
And you know there's fans who haven't renewed. They're raising prices on fans. Club World Cup tickets are super high, right? All this stuff. If you're now going to start beefing with the goddamn players, Over money?
01:34:43
Speaker
i mean, I just don't see how that i just don't see how that plays. I don't see how that plays at all, and I don't i don't know. Definitely doesn't seem good. yeah i don't think... ah public massive financial dispute between the players on your team and the owners.
01:35:02
Speaker
That doesn't end positively. No. And we can, you know, Ari, you might want to remove yourself from the screen for this one, but Major League Soccer is very anti-union. Like, they are very anti-union to their core. That is just, that's a fact. That's not, like, I think they would state that as a fact.
01:35:17
Speaker
They do not like their referees union. They tried to dissolve their referees union this past season. If no one remembers that, we did a whole interview on that. You can go back and listen. ah They've multiple times tried to ah dissolve the players union and they do shit like this to the players union.
01:35:32
Speaker
um And the reality of it is major league soccer wants to control every single penny that comes into the league. And they don't like it when anyone else has a say about their own bag and it's an issue.
01:35:50
Speaker
And so I think regardless of if this is fair or not, um the way that major league soccer thinks about this is if the union is able to win their players a fair amount of money or more money against us, and we continue to look like the villain, the union is only going to get stronger.
01:36:09
Speaker
So it's way worth way more worth trying to fight this out, run out the clock so that the union can like, kind of lose some steam, if that makes sense. Like, they'll be like, well, you didn't get this done for us. Like, players might be like, well, you might you didn't get this done for us.
01:36:24
Speaker
I truly think that plays a part in it, too. Like, there is a lot of calculation going on to all of this over, I'm sorry, I understand that $10 million dollars is a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, you just signed a $10 billion dollars fucking TV deal.
01:36:37
Speaker
Like, let's let's be so for real. Like, they're nickel and diming out here. Like, what are we doing? what What are we doing? I agree with that aspect of it. So, i don't know.
01:36:48
Speaker
It's crazy. And then the last thing... It's crazy. The last thing I wanted to talk about ah was... um Vancouver Whitecaps, Ari. I'm sorry. um We were evangelizing them, and... We were, What a disappointment, man. What a disappointment.
Vancouver Whitecaps Criticism and Listener Interaction
01:37:04
Speaker
But also, at the same time, a win-win for Sounders fans, because, like... no one else No one else can do it. We're the only team in the world who can ever do it. And, you know, oh, Vancouver had the harder path, Ari.
01:37:15
Speaker
Vancouver had the harder path. I guess it was just too hard. I guess they couldn't do it. I guess they needed an path. That was flying around. That was flying around. Seattle's path was easy. Vancouver's path is more impressive. They have the most impressive run of any team in MLS history. Well, I'm so glad that their run was impressive.
01:37:31
Speaker
I was... ah and Because it impressively ended with a 5-0. They got Champions League, We've given the Caps as much respect is as anybody, and I think that you still you still have to respect the season that they've had so far, not just the ah Champions Cup run, but what they've done in leagues play. It is not easy to make a CONCACAF Champions Cup final and average 2.3 points per game in the league.
01:37:58
Speaker
But that was just... ah you know It's one thing to lose that game, but that was as that was as much as hard as I've ever seen a team get beat.
01:38:09
Speaker
It literally dude it looked exactly like the other Champions League game. I was like, holy shit, we're just doing a cheap knockoff now? like that's That's crazy. I can't believe we we're doing a cheap knockoff. What do you think happened?
01:38:22
Speaker
I don't know. Because they're not they're not that bad. No, but they're not they're not that bad. To me, it looked like the moment god got too big for them. yeah i think here's They weren't ready. They weren't up for it.
01:38:33
Speaker
I want to save this for the pod. So going to leave now, give this back to you, get some other callers in. Much love to chat. I'm headed out.
01:38:47
Speaker
Bye, guys. Sounds good, man. Have a good one. see see you tomorrow for pod. Thanks for hopping on. Yep.
01:38:55
Speaker
All right. Got a couple of callers in the queue. If anyone else wants to queue feel free. I'll be hanging out for not all that much longer, but a little bit longer.
01:39:06
Speaker
We got Hunch Punch next in the queue. Hunch Punch rocking no video as always, but I'm just going to bring you to the stage. Hey, how's going? Okay, I got you. me How are you feeling ah about a 3-2 defeat to Minnesota United that featured a ah player protest with shirts with the Monopoly guy on them?
01:39:26
Speaker
So, yeah, let's let's let's go around a bit. First, I just want to say people should like and subscribe to the channel. And if you're not a member, you should consider becoming one. And thank you for having this after-match show. It just a joy to be a part of. Good point.
01:39:43
Speaker
I want to talk about the match, but since the the looming topic seems to be this this pre-match and Club World Cup, I want to make a couple points here and then get back to the Vancouver match. But first, it's going to sound like I'm playing devil's advocate, and I'm not.
01:40:02
Speaker
No, please lay out the ah yeah lay out the whole perspective. So I do think MLS players are underpaid criminally in some sense. Like the minimum should be like a hundred K easy, but that's part of the negotiations.
01:40:16
Speaker
And as far as, you know, how it goes, you know, you, this, this CBA was signed in 2020. ah It's an eight year agreement. We're five years into that. So you're, you're past the majority of what they agree to as far as that goes.
01:40:31
Speaker
But as we can already point out, like the legalese, the writing, the specifics, is just fundamentally bad. And they're going to learn from this, but you know, I, I I'm, I'm siding with the players here, but they kind of made their own bed in this situation.
01:40:48
Speaker
And right now, that is a fair point. Like that is a fair point. Right now, they don't have leverage. So what you do when you don't have leverage, regardless of the situation, I mean, it could be anything.
01:40:59
Speaker
That's why you have strikes when it comes to any kind of union is because you want to bring it to the public to bring attention to the the opposition that you have. And that's exactly what they're doing because they don't really have any other leverage. When they talk about not bringing anybody to the table, it's because they don't have to come to the table.
01:41:15
Speaker
And that's because they're stuck, meaning the the players are stuck. And they really only have one more match to make an example. But then it's away in the case of MLS or in case of Seattle. Now, that said, where are the other teams who are in the Club World Cup? You know, why aren't they saying something?
01:41:31
Speaker
Well, so LAFC just got in. no yeah, fair. ah in Inner Miami, it is interesting that I have not heard anything from there about them having any sort of issues with this. I think that, like I was saying earlier, there might be an element of that on that this inherently affects a guy like Lionel Messi or Sergio Busquets or Jordi Alba less than it does a guy like ah like John Bell or whoever's...
01:41:59
Speaker
whoevers Making way less money. But there are guys on Inter-Miami that are like that. But the union is obligated, meaning the players thereof are obligated to act in the best interest and should take direction from union leadership.
01:42:13
Speaker
Meaning it shouldn't be the Sounders arbitrarily deciding on their own to make this statement. It should be something that's coming from the union and not for nothing where we talk about four MLS teams. The union did put out a statement ah right after, right afterward, but I, I don't know if that was coordinated or if the players just sprung this out and then, and then they did. I mean, i don't know.
01:42:35
Speaker
But what I'm thinking is if the union's going to act, it shouldn't just be the Sounders acting. It should be the union in solidarity acting, even if it's only going to benefit those. And arbitrarily, in the future, could benefit any of those other teams that happen to qualify for this. Which, by the way, I don't know when the next Club World Cup is. It may be after 2028, which would be after the next CBA.
01:42:56
Speaker
So this is maybe a once-in-per-CBA tournament at this point that this exists. Yeah. So i who my point being is it shouldn't be just on the Sounders players.
01:43:09
Speaker
And secondarily, we shouldn't be just villainizing. And I'm not trying to defend the guy. Hanauer, people have thrown his name out there and suddenly he's become a target. it's a single entity league. He owns a minority compared to what MLS owns of the club.
01:43:22
Speaker
And even if he decided, and I'm again, not defending the guy, but if he decided to do something arbitrarily, potentially he risks making the other league owners that are on the other teams that in the club world cup look bad.
01:43:34
Speaker
And then MLS has to say, well, you, you come to us, Adrian, to arbitrate what you want negotiated for in terms of how you get what you get. If you're going to go out and do this thing as a Maverick and make other owners and us look bad, then what are you doing?
01:43:50
Speaker
Like, why are you an owner in our league? you you You give ah you have the league the the ah ability to do that. So I don't know how many hands are tied here in this situation, but it's I don't think it's as straightforward. So the players are doing what they can to try and leverage it, bring it to the public.
01:44:04
Speaker
That's where we're at. um Noah also pointed out, you know The league just signed some massive TV agreement for $10 billion. dollars i don't know what the actual amount is, but that's the league's job. It's literally – I think it's like – it's a few bill.
01:44:20
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the point is the players want the league to do that. The league wants to do that. They should be going out there and get as much money as they can. I mean the the CBA happens to be eight years, but doesn't matter. They want to incentivize the league to go out there and do what they can to get as much as they can so then they can turn around and renegotiate and say, hey, two years ago you signed a massive contract.
01:44:39
Speaker
Let us renegotiate the CBA now that it's expired. So, you know, just because um numbers change and things escalate doesn't give you the right to go back on something that you signed that's an eight year agreement.
01:44:53
Speaker
Again, devil's advocate, not against the players here. Really do think ethically there should be some consideration, especially with this kind of tournament, that they make more. I'm just not sure there's non-precedent setting room for that to happen.
01:45:08
Speaker
No, what you're saying is not like anti-player. Yeah, no, not at all. It's reality of the situation. Yes. Not to mention FIFA set this number. FIFA could have said it's a million dollar tournament and every club gets a million dollars.
01:45:19
Speaker
Then we're not having this conversation. FIFA decided it's $10 million. dollars Therefore, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now we need to re-talk about this because yeah ml that's a problem. Exactly. That's what I'm saying like when ah when I'm talking about like you wish you wish measures of common sense could be applied where the the technicality of the CBA can be acknowledged but not like the not Not just used as this like – what's the word? Just chip that can't be worked around or negotiated in the interest of a situation that was unanticipated and pretty unique when we're talking about just how much prize money is involved here.
01:46:03
Speaker
And that's why you have eight-year agreements is because you can't afford to every six months renegotiate, not to mention – should something happen and maybe there's a detriment to the league and there's less income, well, the see the the players are going to you're not reducing our salaries now. We agreed to this for eight years. we Hell or high water, you still owe us if we're playing. and like That doesn't happen halfway through. So because this has gone the other way, it's its It's easy, especially as Americans, for us to say, let's look out for the little guy. Let's look out for the union. let's let's These guys are are hard done.
01:46:36
Speaker
They deserve more because the big owners are really raking it in. Understandably, like that's a reasonable approach, but that's not why you have agreements. So ah as much as it sucks, that's the situation. It is a poor agreement overall, I would say. you know It's... it's they the one that was it 10 was max million. It wasn't even a percentage. Is that right?
01:47:00
Speaker
A max million regardless of the tournament payout. Yes. It's capped at a million regardless of the payout. And then they, they divided among themselves. but I mean, you can easily say, okay. If you, if you think about it, like it's,
01:47:12
Speaker
it's probably not going to actually end up affecting the numbers in the sense that like Seattle is in all likelihood, not going to go super far in this tournament. But I think one one thing that Fry was saying that I think you have to take into account is just that they're like the, the implications of what's currently agreed on are that you could have, ah you could have them in a situation where we're talking about tens and of millions of dollars of prize money. If they make a run where they're still capped at splitting a million dollars, like that, but that is that I feel like that is, if I'm looking at that objectively, that does not seem fair.
01:47:54
Speaker
Which is why they should have written in the contract that it's 10 or it's a, you know, a million dollar cap or, you know, 10% or whatever, you know, whatever's higher. and Like, and I guarantee you in the next CBA, that's how it's going to be written.
01:48:05
Speaker
Like, it won't be just a firm cap. But let me ask you this. We already played in the club World Cup. There weren't protests the first time. Would they get paid for for that one? I mean, I don't i don't remember, but ah that's my point efa FIFA pumped so much yeah yeah more into it this time to generate interest and to try and incentivize teams to take it seriously hundred percent and all that stuff.
01:48:29
Speaker
So it just sort of it became something that it wasn't anticipated to be, it seems like. yeah all All I'm saying is is the players didn't protest having to play it there. And again, I'm not against the players here.
01:48:40
Speaker
I'm just saying now that the numbers have changed, suddenly it's, oh, it's a big deal. this goes back to the bad agreements they made to begin with. um And then, you know, I'll leave it on this.
01:48:51
Speaker
We talked about, I know I hate this as much as anybody, Russell Wilson getting whatever payout. Owners are in this to make money. Like whoever they are, whatever, are like their whole point is to make money. So as much as it sucks, yeah, of course.
01:49:04
Speaker
But that comes back to how do we pay the players appropriately? And it needs to be something considerate. But they also need to represent themselves better at the table because there's all kinds of negotiations. We want less travel.
01:49:16
Speaker
We want chartered planes. so Everything is give and take. So anyway, I'll leave it there. I'm sure you guys can have a podcast or maybe even under the lights or something coming this week. It sucks that we have one more game before couple of people being Vancouver, as important as that is. But i moving on to the match.
01:49:32
Speaker
and Yeah, yeah. No, go for it. no go for it Yeah, I thought we i thought we'd pinned them in great in that first half. I really did. um And then coming out in the second half. But see, that's the that they they they like want you to do that.
01:49:51
Speaker
It's like accepting getting pinned in so like a as like a strategy, I feel like. But they had 11 behind the ball. like It wasn't like 9 or 10. It was all 11, well within their third or their half of the field.
01:50:05
Speaker
but It comes back to like we weren't generating even shots, let alone on goal. And I'll give you a perspective in terms of how effective they were versus we were. You know how many corner kicks we had?
01:50:16
Speaker
how many? I don't know. It's like nine. You know how many corner kicks they had? Did they have any? Zero. one My point. Yeah. They make the most of their chances. And matter of fact, if you recall in the first half, that header off the crossbar, like we could have been down one, nothing real soon. Yeah.
01:50:32
Speaker
Yeah. and And not that that would have changed our game plan. We still would have played the way we did, but it would have been as playing from behind. um And, you know, what was crazy about that, that early header off the bar is that like, you know, I, I felt like based on the ah research and my interview with Jeff Reuter, I had a pretty good idea of how they were trying to play.
01:50:50
Speaker
or going to try and play, but you could see it right off the jump. Seattle had possession in there and was knocking it around for, it felt like five minutes. And then the first time Minnesota gets going on the counter the other way, Gressel whips the cross in.
01:51:05
Speaker
And i think it was Tawny puts it off the bar. So it's just like, that is, that is how they play. And it, and Seattle knew that, but it felt like they weren't like once the game was actually going, they,
01:51:20
Speaker
they didn't deal with it like they needed to to be able to to win the game well if you if you're them you're going to take advantage of the fact that our c our cbs are like maybe wonky in terms of playing together and also not knowing that reagan was coming to me starting but probably predictable it's like take advantage put the big guy in the middle make them try and figure out who they're going to mark and then get away from it he clearly was unmarked being in that kind of contact that he had with the force that had bounced off that bar so that that was pretty predictable but It just goes to show that like our shots are kind of questionable.
01:51:53
Speaker
I'll say going to the second half, giving up that second that first goal early, not great. I love the comeback, but that PK was soft as anything. The ref didn't do us any favors. I think if the officiating is a bit better, it's a 2-2 match, and that's probably a fair result. I didn't mind i didn't mind the the PK call.
01:52:11
Speaker
I didn't like it. The ball was gone. We cleared it out, and then the player went down. It's just one of those ones where the the CB... Like when when you go into it like clumsily like that and you clean the guy out, it's just you're putting yourself in a bad situation, i would argue. He got the ball and it was cleared first. And then the if you look at the Minnesota player, he turns – Bell is coming to you chest first.
01:52:37
Speaker
You're looking at him like if you're from the camera. He's coming chest first. He clears the ball with the right foot going down. Their player turns his shoulder so that he's back to chest, leans back in the belt, and then goes down forward.
01:52:48
Speaker
Like, it is very much like buying the PK. But yeah he the Minnesota player did not play the ball. Two didn't get fouled, no foot contact, nothing below the waist, as matter of fact, and just crumpled. Like, I think if that gets VAR, it gets overturned.
01:53:02
Speaker
I think it was soft. Nevermind the second yield that shouldn't be given previously, blah, blah, blah. um Another point, Kent. We've talked about Kent.
01:53:14
Speaker
I think he's been scouted a little bit. And I know you've made mention, you probably, you didn't really play soccer growing up, right? I mean, I did when I was a kid, but not like, not into my later life. So when like the best player, cause you can have free subs, you know, you're not off for the, for the whole match or whatever.
01:53:31
Speaker
You can have free stuff. When the best player on both teams comes on the field, like everybody knows it. Everybody knows it. And everybody's play changes. Like your your team who has that player ah has more runoff. They try to get that player the ball.
01:53:45
Speaker
They make runs. They do things. They wait for him to juke somebody, whatever it is. The other team is like clamping down defense. The difference is now other players, other teams have scouted him to the point where they know how to play against Kent.
01:53:59
Speaker
our team doesn't know how to play with Kent. And we're leaving him out there and I feel like he's trying to do too much as opposed to being supported in the way that's best for him, but also not putting too much on him. Because, I mean, you will see in the previous match, going back one, Alex Rodon feeding him the ball.
01:54:18
Speaker
And it's like, that's not a mistake. Like, that is direction, that strategy. Hey, if he's got a clear up opening, cross the field from our defensive third to the attacking third to Kent if he's open.
01:54:30
Speaker
That's a lot of pressure, not to mention there aren't five or six other people that could receive that ball like in that duration like just don't dump it on him not to say i don't want him to have the ball but it really feels like we're trying to uh run it as though he's running through the middle despite him being just on the left wing and then new who of course maybe not the best support new new who Hates making a pass where he can't immediately get the knock on. And you could see him get flustered when he throws the ball with his hands up trying to ah make a pass and somebody hasn't made the run so that he can then be forward for it.
01:55:08
Speaker
he He hates dribbling up and then making a pass forward where he's no longer connected to the play. And I think Kent has spoiled him a little bit in terms of like giving him that play style.
01:55:19
Speaker
But I would say overall, we had three matches in a row that are going to be tough. And we really needed to get a result from this one because the Vancouver one is going to be even tougher.
01:55:31
Speaker
And you have to say. You think so, though? Because like. Yeah, especially now. Well, so I but I think that could go both ways. I think what you're saying, it could be true that they are going to be pissed off and looking to rectify the situation and take it out on their next opponent.
01:55:49
Speaker
It could also be like, well, first of all, we all know that like. like the hangover that happens from that tournament after it's, it's affected a lot of MLS teams before this game. I would have thought that they would be a team that wouldn't have to deal with that as much.
01:56:04
Speaker
I just think that loss was so demoralizing. Like that was, a that was just, that was beyond like a normal L. Like if they if they went out there and had like a super competitive game and were scrapping and fighting to the very end and lost it, barely lost it, or even even if they were any more competitive than that, then i think maybe their mentality is different, but I think it will. And then you also have to take into account, ah that they're going to be missing like eight or nine guys, I believe, with for national team duty.
01:56:38
Speaker
So you combine those. Yeah. So like you combine those two things together and i i'm I'm looking at this game that it's much more there for the taking for Seattle than, than I would have thought if,
01:56:52
Speaker
if that game against Cruz Azul had gone differently or if they had like their full side. Yeah. As MLS going on an international break for two weeks, is it all of MLS or is it just certain teams?
01:57:05
Speaker
I'm not exactly sure what's going on with the international break. I'll have to like look into that. All I know is i like, it's been confirmed that they're going to be missing a lot of guys for the game.
01:57:18
Speaker
Well, so so one, I have to think we're setting up. We don't want to put anybody out there that we don't want to risk getting injured for a club world cup. One, two, I actually think it'd be worse if Vancouver had won, because then you could see them having the sort of like, Hey, but this is, we're just going back to an MLS match. Who cares?
01:57:36
Speaker
Now they're coming. Remember when Seattle, like like remember when Seattle won it and their first game back, it was at FC Dallas. They lost the game. They put out like a rotated side, but it would get they never They never got like the their level back that season, so we'll see what happens. But they won, is my point.
01:57:54
Speaker
Now they've been Vancouver's putting their place, and if they're going to have a two-week break, I can see the coaching staff at the very least coming out saying, let's go out on a high note here before we have two weeks off. And then against a rival, not to mention Vancouver's in first.
01:58:07
Speaker
Let's not underestimate them. but Oh, definitely not under it. Yeah. They've been the far and away best team in MLS all year, and it's not even been particularly close.
01:58:17
Speaker
But, i mean i did I mean, how much of the game did you watch tonight? Oh, Vancouver, none. I didn't even realize it was. All right. So, just to give you, like, the full context of how bad it was, like – like i'm I'm telling you, Hunch, it was about as noncompetive of non-competitive a soccer game as I've ever watched.
01:58:38
Speaker
And I'm not even like yeah and i'm not even like exaggerating that. It was that bad. It was that bad. It was unbelievable to to see. i mean, how bad was it the first half? it was horrible It was horrible from the jump. They conceded eight minutes into the game, and it was 4-0 at half. 4-0 at half, I believe, yeah. Okay.
01:58:58
Speaker
I just think you want to come back for that. And and reasonably, you could argue that they didn't even truly play the second half. I'm just thinking like with us, where where're the we're the rebound. I mean, look what Portland did two years ago when they were on their losing streak and suddenly they beat us and they go on and they go to the playoffs. Like, yeah it's like we have a notion for it. And I just think we're going have an eye towards the Club World Cup and we aren't going to risk anybody, especially who's close for injury and that we will try and get out there with we can. But I have to think Vancouver is going to be just pissed off, I'm being honest. and and i mean, yeah, I think so. But, ah I mean, it'll be interesting to see how they channel what happened to them because it was ah it was just the one of the biggest flops you're ever going to see on a big stage like that.
01:59:39
Speaker
Hunch, I got a couple other people thank you in the queue here. did did you Did you have anything else you want to do um are you got You want to say anything about what's your upcoming schedule, especially around Club World Cup?
01:59:51
Speaker
Is going to be going have shows or anything like that we should know about or any live feeds or anything that we should be engaged with post Vancouver? Yeah, no, we'll let we'll we'll let you guys know like the exact schedule and details, but we're obviously going to be covering the hell out of the the Club World Cup. We're going to keep covering the the beef between ownership and players. Obviously, I think that's become like the biggest storylines around in the team right now after today.
02:00:20
Speaker
so We're going to be covering it all. and will be The normal schedule, the normal the normal rhythm of like kickoff, under the lights, and post-game lives and stuff, or at least for Vancouver, should be the same. and i'll let you We'll let you guys know about any ah alterations to that.
02:00:37
Speaker
All right, man. Thanks for the time. And yeah, I'm looking forward to hear what other people to say. Like i said, not trying to laud the ownership or or make the the players seem out, you know, and like they don't deserve what they're asking for, but I just don't see how it's going to work out in a way that's favorable for them at this point, not till the next CBA.
02:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think you, ah you brought up points that are, they at least have to be considered when you're talking about it. So, all right, hunch. Thanks for calling in, man. Appreciate you. Yeah. Take care.
02:01:09
Speaker
All right, we got Jeremy up next from Cascadia FC. It looks like he's in a car. Jeremy, you're not driving, are you?
02:01:17
Speaker
give me ah Give me a thumbs up if it's not you who's driving.
02:01:26
Speaker
I can't really see you.
02:01:31
Speaker
The streetlights, you know? like Jeremy, I hear you. I hear you now. are Are you, are you in a car? I am in a car. I'm in my own car. have to clock in in 20 minutes, but I've had such a wonderful day and I had to, I had to hop in here and talk about, and what one I don't want you, ah I don't want you streaming and driving. Like is the phone, like, Oh no, it's fine. It's on a, it's on one of the like little hanger things. You've got it set Okay. All right. Yeah. It's set.
02:02:03
Speaker
We're good. a I am probably going to have to sit down a little bit just to like get my badge out because I got to clock in little bit. But most importantly, ah Vancouver, you know, ah they have the same amount of shots in a CONCACAF Champions Cup final as the Portland Timbers. Did you know that?
02:02:22
Speaker
Wait, say that again. They have the same amount of shots in the final of a CONCACAF Champions Cup as the Portland Timbers do. but Yeah, I mean... what did you ah yeah you know you You cover all of Cascadia, Cascadia FC, so you know the Whitecaps as well as anyone who's not a Whitecaps fan. What do you think happened with that?
02:02:44
Speaker
I think, well, ah Broadcast was very, very, very insistent that it was because Gould and Berhalter were out. Well, Gould has been gone for pretty much the entire season, guys.
02:02:55
Speaker
So I don't think it's him. Berhalter, yes, that's a huge loss. But the the one thing that's made this team so outstanding is the fact that it doesn't matter who is playing.
02:03:07
Speaker
They're just always so good. And i thought that in particular, the player who they needed to have the biggest game from tonight was Kubas.
02:03:18
Speaker
Oh God, he was so bad. He's the one who, yeah, he's the one who gives Cruz Azul their first two goals. And once you have that, And you're already in a 2-0 hole so early in the first half, so early in the game, where the whole goal of a final is just don't concede. That's the most important thing. You don't want to concede.
02:03:38
Speaker
you You don't need to play your full expansive attacking game. You just don't want to let the ball in the back of the net because you have a potentially 120 minutes plus penalty kicks to try and get the win here.
02:03:51
Speaker
So when Kubas is completely at fault for the first two goals, it's kind of mind numbing. And at one point, Cruz Azul, they had ah had four goals on four shots on target.
02:04:03
Speaker
ah i also host a podcast with Box State Footy. In that discord, we were talking about how Takaoka was going to be a huge key to this game. He's the one who lets in those four goals. and Some of them, like ah like, how much blame does he really have for, like, some of them? I don't really know.
02:04:19
Speaker
But it it's clear that Takaoka, who I thought Takaoka was their weakest link on this team because I never really saw him as too much of a match winner. I mean, sure, he's a really good goalkeeper, but you need a match-winning goalkeeper in games like this.
02:04:35
Speaker
When you're allowing four goals on four shots on target, that's really tough. But most importantly, you need your only DP in the lineup who is Kubas because gold still hurt and they haven't filled that DP slot that Stuart Armstrong had. Yeah.
02:04:49
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I think they traded it for some gam or they, they, with the roster thing. So I think that the most important thing that, uh, Vancouver needed tonight was a big game from Andres Kubas.
02:05:03
Speaker
He completely dropped the ball. And, yeah, That's about it. I mean, White can't do anything when he's not getting service, and he didn't get any service. Nelson was a non-factor in that first half.
02:05:15
Speaker
Same thing with Ali Ahmed. The entire team just turned into complete non-factors, and you could say, oh, it's the shock of the altitude, the shock of like other stuff, but I don't really know. i mean, they they're performminated they eliminated two Liga Ameki's teams in this tournament on this run. Like, it's I don't think you can just, it's as simple as like, oh, the road trip was too hard. Or like, if ah that's the same team that Seattle lost to in Champions Cup. And Seattle got 4-1 when they went down there. but But like, that game was 2-1 until like the 81st minute. Like, it was it was like, they were competing. Like, Vancouver was chalked from the, ah like, from the jump.
02:05:54
Speaker
like Yeah, I mean, it's a combination of nerves because, like, obviously none of those players have been in an environment like that before. they've they've never not Not so much the environment as in, like, oh, a League MX away game, but, like, ah a one-off final.
02:06:07
Speaker
Like, the the closest you could say, and I'm going to bring this up because I find it extremely hilarious. The closest you could say that this group has been in a a must-win game, that's playoff kind of, was when they beat Portland five nil last year.
02:06:22
Speaker
And in that game, it wasn't so much a like, oh, Vancouver's just like swarming them and they're just so much better. It's like, I can't believe Portland's playing this badly on their home field. So I know different coach, different players on that team. Like, I mean, there were a couple, but it it's so interesting to me that This Vancouver team, who I thought was kind of trending a little bit downward heading into this game. I think if they do play this game a month ago, it's much more competitive. still don't know whether or not they would have won it, but it's so interesting that the the way this game was scheduled with them kind of coming in on the downslide, you obviously think they're going to have, they they probably might have gold available if you're looking at this game a month ago, but
02:07:08
Speaker
I don't know. um don't know. But it's really funny that they lost five niil in particular. I was begging for two things after Cruisesville went up 5-0. The first one, I did not want... ah One second, gotta grab my work badge.
02:07:22
Speaker
I did not want... Cruz Azul to score a sixth goal because Vancouver beat Portland 5-0 in that playoff game. I didn't want that. I was like, this needs to be 5-0 because that makes it 10 times funnier.
02:07:34
Speaker
The other thing that i didn't want them to do was to take a shot, and both of those held. So i'm I'm really happy with this. ah the The question I heard from ah your last caller about whether or not Vancouver's going really amped up for this, ah it really depends on how many people they do have on international duty.
02:07:50
Speaker
That's all I'm going to say. I think you guys are majorly getting away with one. by having to play this team.
02:07:57
Speaker
I'm sorry? even if Well, i was just going say, even if they weren't missing all those guys, i just I'll be curious to see what the emotional impact is, positive or negative. You know you can either ah dust yourself up, get back at it, and get back to being the Whitecaps that got to the CCC final.
02:08:15
Speaker
ah But I think it's honestly just as likely that like this sinks them. that's That's what I'm worried. Well, I mean, not really worried about because it would be extremely funny.
02:08:25
Speaker
But um and that that's what you got to root for in sports. You always got root for the funniest possible outcome. And ah I think that it's way too early to say this might be a Linsanity run.
02:08:39
Speaker
But the way that they were playing, you could tell they just had so much momentum, unbelievable amounts of momentum. They were just always able to tap into just this inner momentum that they had stored up from the past like three months.
02:08:51
Speaker
And when all of that momentum comes to a crashing halt, in mexico while another team is lifting a trophy after a thousand of your fans have traveled all the way down there but who are undoubtedly having the time of their lives right now um i i think that it this is the turning point of their season and the question is whether or not it turns for better or whether or not it turns for worse but yeah yeah very very interesting for them uh just a quick touch because i'm i'm gonna keep this to like five minutes
02:09:24
Speaker
to get other callers on here because I assume they're more in the queue. I got one behind you, so I want to lay down your... ah yeah In this game, i that the protest is stealing a lot of the headliners. I think everyone's kind of given a similar take to me on that. I do stand with the players.
02:09:42
Speaker
And also, I find it extremely funny that Seattle is getting two Club World Cups for one tournament win. Hey, man, more more merit to it than the other MLS clubs.
02:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, which is true. Like, that's why I'm just like, sure, fine. Give the Sounders another one. Like, cause it's better than at least LAFC having to play one game to get in and Miami, not even Miami just being invited.
02:10:04
Speaker
So I don't have like too much of an issue with it, but at the same time, uh, the players are absolutely right in their protest. Uh, that Schmetzer press conference was one of the more entertaining things I saw today.
02:10:16
Speaker
And to for this weekend in general, cause I've seen a lot of things that entertained me this weekend. Um, But yeah, it it was really interesting to see him just like you could tell how just how infuriated he was.
02:10:29
Speaker
He I think he wished that the players would have like come to him about this because i think I truly believe him when he said he had no idea the players were planning something like that. oh yeah And I understand why the players probably thought they couldn't, but like he just felt so left out and he's kind of on the island right now.
02:10:45
Speaker
Because as as Noah said, when Hanauer enters the room and Schmetzer is all of a sudden just like distraction, distraction, distraction like that, that's not a, he's in a really tough place right now. In addition to someone in that press conference asking about Botafogo, when Botafogo is two games away, not the next one.
02:11:02
Speaker
And he, I think that he like, he almost broke there. Yeah. He almost broke there, but yeah. Onto the game. um Kalani Kosarianzi. I like talk about one thing positive because i think he has won the starting right back spot by now.
02:11:20
Speaker
Even if he doesn't score a goal here, he's just been, it angers me greatly that just another draft pick or just someone like you affiliated with the Sounders has just broken through so effortlessly into the first team. But I think that it's only a matter of time before he becomes like a locked in starter with the team. He's very, very good.
02:11:43
Speaker
um It's been, ah it's been good competition between him and Alex rolled on. I think they've been pushing each other and making each other better. Yeah. i I think it's it's another question for Brian to solve too. But ah the the other thing was ah after Minnesota goes up three one it seems like every single attack that the Sounders were trying to generate to try and at least cut the deficit to one, which they eventually did through, I don't think Georgie intended to cause a known goal, but he did either way.
02:12:14
Speaker
ah Probably a little bit of justification for Schmetzer there. But tons of attacks just going up and down that right wing. And I get it. You want to get Georgie isolated against, um well, Markinick for like a second before he got subbed out right after probably getting a second yellow card. I'm going to be honest there.
02:12:32
Speaker
that That was a second yellow card. But you guys have now joined the Timbers in teams that are like kind of screwed over by Lucas Spala. So welcome to the club. ah not Not as big of a screw over as that LA Galaxy penalty decision, but I'll accept it. Welcome.
02:12:48
Speaker
um I thought that um that if you're going to sub on Ryan Kent, you have to like at least play to his side of the field a little bit more. I'm so confused why they weren't doing that.
02:13:00
Speaker
It just seemed like everything was just go up the right, go up the right, go up the right. And the idea stagnated into the attack because Georgie's going to beat the first man. He's probably going to beat the second man.
02:13:11
Speaker
If there's a third man, and screw it. He'll beat that. He'll beat him too. He's unbelievable. But, um, but What does he do to deliver that final ball? Is he going to deliver an accurate final ball or is he going to finish?
02:13:23
Speaker
When you're down 3-1, you need every single ball to go into that box against Minnesota to be accurate. And I just thought that was a little bit confused. um I think the players were distracted a little bit, but not enough to where they could have imploded like that coming out of the second half.
02:13:41
Speaker
I didn't see Minnesota scoring two goals in quicks of section right away. So, oh, well, that's that's back on the training pitch. But now it's just ah little little bit of head butting going on potentially between ownership, coaching and the players, which that happens when there's money.
02:13:59
Speaker
like Money like this. Yeah, it's it is crazy how it's a escalated to this. But all right, Jeremy, thanks. ah Thanks a lot for the call. As always, always appreciate your insight, man. And have a good ah have a good work work shift. Is that where you said you're going?
02:14:17
Speaker
That is correct. I'm about to clock in to a nightly shift as I do five times a day, and five times a week at the United States Postal Service. And i will be out at 730 with probably some bright sunlight. So, yeah. Oh, well.
02:14:30
Speaker
But I got two successful hate watches to keep me powered through it. And there's no better fuel than hate. Hell yeah. That's thats a good phrase to wrap it. All right. ah Good stuff, man. We'll ah we'll catch you soon.
02:14:44
Speaker
All right. Take care.
02:14:48
Speaker
All right, we got Brian up next with no videos. I'm going to bring him onto the stage and then I'll toss the link in one more time. Probably going to start wrapping it up here soon, guys. But if anyone else does want to, but I can take one or two more if anyone wants to lay down some takes. But we're going to bring Brian to the stage now.
02:15:08
Speaker
ah Brian, can you hear me? Yo, what up, man? Yeah, can hear How's it going, man? How are you feeling after a 3-2 defeat that also featured a pregame protest with the Monopoly guy on a shirt?
02:15:21
Speaker
um I didn't actually watch the game. I just seen the highlights. And I will say the goals, like don't know why this year our defense, we're just conceding a lot of goals. Like I looked and we've already conceded 22 goals in 17 games. And like last year we conceded like 30 something. 35. Yeah.
02:15:40
Speaker
So what what happened? break it down because yeah what was the whole game as a whole um Basically, it got decided and at the beginning of the second half when there was four goals in seven minutes, I believe, three of which were scored by Minnesota.
02:15:57
Speaker
And they were very they were just very effective in their tactics of ceding possession, but being just extremely efficient on the counter. And the ah the first goal was poorly defended, but it was good execution.
02:16:12
Speaker
ah But then the second one was a bad penalty to give up. And then the third one came directly after Seattle cut it to 2-1. And that was just kind of the killer.
02:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, I did see the penalty and it it is a bit soft, but also you you can't really be going in like that as a defender in the box. Like they're going to give a penalty for that. So I know some people think it's like not a good call, but I'm not. I wasn't i wasn't too pressed about it.
02:16:41
Speaker
yeah it's just one of those things you can't be going in like that in in the box especially yeah uh what did you uh what did you think of the uh of the pre-game stuff have you caught up on that no i'm actually out of the loop with the whole thing but i did hear what you said like one million to split no matter how far we make it i think that's like BS. Obviously, it's not going to affect us because we're not going to make the final, but let's just say on a miracle we did and we're only splitting one million between the players. like Exactly. I think that's the issue. That's not fair at all.
02:17:18
Speaker
But the problem is that ah as per the CBA that they just negotiated, oh that is the cap that was instituted, so there's really no leverage. And so that's sort of why the yeah the protest is taking place.
02:17:34
Speaker
Sticky situation because... Yeah. I don't know. I don't have much more to say on it, but I feel for the players especially because, yeah. It is... a It's just capped. It's just weird. You never want a situation where your owner is beefing with your even with his players. So we'll we'll see how how it ends up.
02:17:58
Speaker
I don't know. I don't really know what to expect, I guess. I have a question. With how bad our defending, should we be looking to bring in defenders this summer? Cause I think that we may have to maybe freshen something. Cause it's been bad this year. Like, and I don't know. I don't, I don't know if, I don't know if I consider the defense bad as a, as a whole, I still think, know, personnel wise, it's still the same unit that was one of, if not the best defenses in the league.
02:18:31
Speaker
yeah that's what I think there's just been there's been individual games where they are conceding the types of goals that they just didn't last year. And so that to me, like the hope is that it's fixed because we've seen this personnel play play defense at an elite level.
02:18:48
Speaker
ah But your point is taken like the the amount of concessions kind of needless concessions that they've had this year is certainly it feels like like ah it's happened more than it did last year.
02:18:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's so weird how it's just shifted when we have legit the exact pretty much the same defense as last year. So don't know what's really happened this year Well, and then, I mean, you're in a situation right now where Jackson Reagan is coming off injury. You don't have Yammer. So, like, both of your starting center backs have been injured.
02:19:16
Speaker
damn i need to So I'm sure that played that's played into it as well. Yeah, but I will say, even with our backups or our starters, there's been games where it's been just bad. So it's like, don't know.
02:19:29
Speaker
And we are wed better hope for a miracle against the Club World Cup, especially against that PSG team. like hey I don't know. At this point, like, I've never been all that concerned about ah miracle. My hope is just that they... ah they compete with dignity, put on a yeah put on it ghost good show in and like ah the result versus a club like PSG is what it is. I'm not going to, some people are clearly feel differently about it, but for me, I'm not going to, I'm not going to lose all that much sleep over it if they lose to the team that just won you away for champions league. Oh no, I just don't want to see us concede like 10 goals or something like that.
02:20:09
Speaker
Like I just, yeah if we could lose by less than five, I'll take that as a win. mean, they 5-0'd Inter Milan, so if they do any better than that, that's basically a right? Yeah, that's what I'm taking as a win, yeah.
02:20:20
Speaker
Yeah. All right, Brian. Well, ah I'm to start wrapping it up here, but good call, man. And have a good one, and we'll talk soon. See you. Take care.
02:20:33
Speaker
All right, guys. That's going to about do it for your boy here as we pull up on – Almost two and a half hours here. what a What a couple of days, man.
02:20:47
Speaker
I mean, it fee it was just yesterday where Noah and I were doing our first ever watch along
02:20:56
Speaker
for the Club World Cup charity match. That turned out to be some incredible content.
02:21:03
Speaker
If you haven't ah watched the watch along yet, I recommend going through and ah I was trying my broadcasting hat on. i was doing like play by play.
02:21:16
Speaker
Kind of like.
02:21:18
Speaker
Joke play by play. um But that we, I mean, we ended up streaming for three hours and then,
02:21:29
Speaker
And then you get to today where you have Sounders, Minnesota, and the Champions Cup final on the same day. And honestly, like, I was more
02:21:41
Speaker
more looking forward to the to the Champions Cup final than, like, Sounders-Loons in June, you know? Like, I mean, i was ah I was looking forward to the Sounders game, but, like, as far as the stakes of it,
02:21:58
Speaker
Champions Cups, obviously, yeah way there was way more riding on that game than there was on this game. But then we get to the Sounders game and there's a protest. i can but yeah The shirts were pretty funny.
02:22:17
Speaker
I won't lie. I think that should be taken into account here. Like with the Monopoly guy on it. wonder whose idea that was.
02:22:25
Speaker
Who got made it who got those things made?
02:22:29
Speaker
We were sitting up there in the press box and they showed Paul Rothrock warming up and we were all like, whoa.
02:22:41
Speaker
And then, then they lose the game, which
02:22:50
Speaker
Schmetzer said, like, if you're going to do that, you got to back it up. The implication being that they didn't, which they didn't. they They lost the game after doing something that could be perceived as a distraction.
02:23:07
Speaker
They played perhaps a little distracted. I don't know. Christian rolled on, said after the game that, yeah, this is a distraction right now and we need to get it resolved.
02:23:20
Speaker
But now there's a beef between players and owner. I don't, Have you guys ever seen like a player-owner beef like this? I'm trying to think of like a like-for-like situation.
02:23:43
Speaker
There have been owners that have been like, i' I'm talking more just like, I guess, generally across all sports. There have been owners that have like major scandals.
02:23:54
Speaker
But this is like, this was the whole team. This was the whole team wearing these shirts.
02:24:06
Speaker
Look.
02:24:10
Speaker
I don't think it's a ah it's a good thing for the Seattle Sounders be a to be in this situation right now.
02:24:21
Speaker
But it is undeniably good for the content.
02:24:29
Speaker
So definitely gives us stuff to talk about, stuff to cover with the Club World Cup coming up in weeks.
02:24:43
Speaker
Klein out, yeah. Klein out. ah Chad, I missed your question earlier, but hell yeah, when you're here.
02:24:53
Speaker
You can meet up with us. Absolutely. We love it when people say hi to us.
02:25:02
Speaker
you ever see me out and about, you can come say hi. I always have my headphones in, but honestly,
02:25:08
Speaker
it's like it's like awesome when we meet people who listen to the show and like the show. And whoever was asking about kickoff tomorrow, yes, Nico and I are going to be back In about like eight hours time or whatever it is at this point.
02:25:32
Speaker
The Lobby Scorchers kick off.
02:25:40
Speaker
We'll be here. We'll be here.
02:25:47
Speaker
All right. I'm going to call it on that. Thanks for tuning in tonight, guys. Appreciate you all. I mean, I'm going to be back right here at 8 a.m. tomorrow. So I'll see you guys then. Have a good one.