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FIFA's decision will DESTROY the game
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In this episode, we break down the biggest threats standing between the Seattle Sounders and a 2026 Supporters’ Shield run. Who should we be most worried about, and can Seattle stay in the mix? We also dive into a key lineup question ahead of this Saturday’s matchup vs. FC Dallas: Could Jesús Ferreira slot into the No. 10 role if Albert Rusnák is sidelined with injury? What would that mean for the attack? Then, we dive into our discussion about the oligarch class continuing to price gouge every possible facet of the World Cup, including concerns over rising ticket prices and lack of transportation support and outlandish costs for fans.
In this week’s Agenda Check, Ari shares some trade regret regarding Georgi Minoungou. We had another frustrating VAR controversy in MLS – what needs to change? Does Stuart Hawkins deserves a bigger role moving forward? We close it out by talking about the “Save the Caps” movement and how supporters can push back against the potential oligarch relocation of the Vancouver Whitecaps.
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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.
Contact: lobbingscorchers@justoncemedia.com
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Transcript
Seattle Sounders & FC Dallas Match Preview
00:00:00
Speaker
Well sir, we got a scorcher today. Gonna be a real scorcher today. Quite the scorcher today. Well it's gonna be scorcher.
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome to the Sounder at Heart studio in the ID. We are laying this one down on Thursday evening before match day 10 in Major League Soccer. And we've got a lot to get to. The Seattle Sounders are back at it on Saturday when they host FC Dallas at Lumen Field. We're going to assess the biggest threats to Seattle's Supporters' Shield aspirations this season. The oligarch class is still trying to move the Vancouver Whitecaps. We're going give you an update on that. USMNT fans are in shambles as Christian Roldan demonstrates what a great guy he really is. And then we got a couple of headlines regarding the World Cup. We got an agenda check to get to as well. So Noah, a lot to talk about here tonight. What's up, man? How you doing? It's a packed show.
00:01:01
Speaker
It's a great day for us Roldan believers. I am out here every single day defending his honor. So we'll talk about that. The World Cup's coming. They're literally installing lampposts outside of the studio for the World Cup. It's just, it's a spicy little podcast we're about to get into. So let's jump into it. Let's
Podcast Sponsors & Breakfast Experience
00:01:22
Speaker
do it. Without further ado, ah I do have to let you know before we get into it though, lobbingscorchers.com slash coffee, lobbingscorchers.com slash sauce, two links that are a great way to support the show. And shout out Podium Menswear and Full Pull Wines, our other sponsors. Can I can i say something on that? Yes, please. What I did this morning, what did I do?
00:01:41
Speaker
I had eggs. I had toast. What did I have on those eggs and toast? I had hakes and ferments. Lobbingscorchers.com slash sauce. Lobbingscorchers official sauce on those eggs, on those toasts. What was I drinking with?
00:01:53
Speaker
the eggs, with the toast, with the hot sauce, QED coffee, lobingscorchers.com slash coffee. We were made for mornings. We were made for mornings. Please go support our friends. Please go support our sponsors.
00:02:05
Speaker
And it helps us, helps the show. And it just tastes delicious. It just tastes delicious. All right, Noah, let's ah let's jump into the show for the evening, and we're going to start with ah a couple of Seattle Sounders-related news
Impact of Albert Rusnak's Injury
00:02:18
Speaker
items. And this one this one could be of consequence for this FC Dallas game. I already ripped a huge preview of this FC Dallas game with Sam Hale of Toros Talk and the FC Dallas Radio Network. So if you're looking for a more in-depth preview of that game, please go check that out. But we do have something kind of and something of a new development to talk about from training this week, which is that Albert Rusnak, you know, he he took a knock in Seattle's last match, came off early in the 50-something minute, and apparently did not fully participate in training this week, according to J.O. and the reporters that were out there. And that means that Jesus Ferreira
00:03:01
Speaker
There's a very good chance that he could be the starting number 10 on Saturday. We'll see what happens with Albert Rusnak. Maybe it's a precautionary thing and they give him his normal workload. I tend to think if he hasn't been training in full this week, that probably means that he's either going to be rotating out this game or have a limited role. So, Jesus Ferreira, come on down. You might be starting as the number 10 against your former team. So this is always a big week for Jesus Ferreira. He obviously came up playing for FC Dallas. It's his boyhood club, club he played for for his first, what, five, six years as a professional. And now he's kind of stepping into a centerpiece type role in all likelihood. You know, like I said, maybe they, Albert Rusnak is back starting and it's the dual tens, but it could be Jesus Ferreira. And one of the things J.O. was writing about Noah was the kind of mission that they're on to make Jesus Ferreira more gold dangerous. which is something I've been talking about even more the last couple weeks as he continues to rack up assists week by week. ah But he still has yet to score a goal in 2026. He was close. He was close. He's been getting closer, and we'll talk about that. But here's a quote from training this week per J.O. Jesus says, the coaching staff would like me to be
Jesus Ferreira: Playmaker or Goal Scorer?
00:04:14
Speaker
a little more goal attacking. That's something I want too, but right now I'm being the facilitator. I'm the guy getting the assists. Whatever I can do to help the team, that's what I'm going to do. Thankfully, I'm in a group of people who trust and believe in what I can do.
00:04:26
Speaker
That gives me the confidence and the ability to do my own thing. He goes on to talk about it a little more. But Noah, what do you think of Jesus potentially being the starting number 10 on Saturday? And just in general, the notion of trying to unlock his goal scoring more. Five goals in 50 some odd games with this team, which is not as many as we would expect or like. His playmaking and his assist total has been excellent, but ah we would want to see him find the net a little bit more. So I guess it's nice to see them acknowledging that and trying to work to make that a reality. What do you think?
00:04:59
Speaker
I think that's exactly it. It's something that we want to see. So why not work on it? It's the fans have been yelling. They've been saying from the mountaintops, Jesus Ferreira. I thought he was a number nine. He's wearing the number nine on his back. Ari, why isn't he scoring? And I've often said, I don't really care as long as he's playmaking. But with that opportunity to move into the number 10 role, he's getting more looks on goal.
00:05:24
Speaker
And I think once he starts to slowly rack up his
Paul Rothrock's Goal-Scoring Improvement
00:05:27
Speaker
goal total this year, that could open the floodgates. I said it to you in the press box. feels like he has the yips like just a little bit. He's getting in good positions. The ball's falling right to him, but maybe he's just not striking and finishing well.
00:05:42
Speaker
I think that he has the opportunity to rack a ton of goals down the stretch of this season. Someone who has been working on goal scoring as well as Paul Rothrock. There were times last season when Paul Rothrock, you hoped he would have finished and all of that. He worked the whole offseason with the staff and outside of the staff with getting his goal scoring ability up, and that's clearly paid off. So I believe i believe in Jesus Ferreira. I've been a longtime believer in the Jesus Ferreira will score so many goals. Plus, this just helps my potential MVP candidate status for Jesus Ferreira if he could start racking goals. Because I'm sorry, Messi, he's better than you, brother. Jesus Ferreira is better than Messi.
00:06:22
Speaker
That's all I'll say. I don't think that's a controversial take. That one's going to get clipped clipped up, but i I admire the gumption on that take. ah But, yeah, like you know I tend to think of it how you were saying. like As long as the team is scoring goals and there are soccer balls going into the net for the Seattle Sounders, it's not really all that much of my concern who who is technically the one scoring it. So if he's if he's the playmaker on this team, if he's the facilitator on this team, that's fine.
00:06:53
Speaker
But I do think that they need to get more goal production out of him just because there's no reason not to. He has 60 plus MLS goals to his name from his time at FC Dallas. It's not like he forgot how to score. Yeah. I think it has been a bit of a process getting him acclimated into his role on this team. And it took a while for he and Rusnak to learn how to play together.
00:07:19
Speaker
But I think that has come his role in this wide channel has come at the expense of it's not just that he hasn't been scoring. It's that he hasn't been even getting in positions to score or even taking shots. So it has been encouraging. I think the stat was he's got five shots ah in his last couple games after taking three shots total leading up to two games ago. So that's ah that's not enough. And hopefully this is a a platform here against FC Dallas. to to get that rolling. I'm trying to manifest a Jesus Ferreira goal this weekend, regardless of if Albert Rusnak plays or not, because I, you know, I think the reality is the first choice 11 with this team right now is them playing together. And if Jesus Ferreira is the facilitator in that setup, great.
00:08:04
Speaker
I'm all for it, but let's get the man in position in front of goal with some opportunities to, to get that rolling. And I think this game is a good opportunity for it. You know, you got this one at home, which I'm excited for, in all likelihood he's going to be starting. So, uh, let's, let's see if they can get it going. It is unfortunate though. Albert Rusnak was just kind of starting to look like Albert Rusnak again. And, uh, then he goes down and he, took over that Tigres game. He did, man. He took over. This is what we've been saying. He is a player who can't take it Honestly, I want to take a second. Ari, I want to take a second.
00:08:41
Speaker
I need to write a formal apology. I need to write a formal apology. Albert Rosnack. my love, my liege, the honorable designated player of the Seattle Sounders, I doubted you.
00:08:54
Speaker
I was down on you. I said, Albert, I don't know. Maybe maybe the brigade is right. Maybe they're speaking some facts. I took a sip. I took a sip. I was like, hmm, maybe that doesn't taste too bad.
00:09:07
Speaker
In the second that I took that sip, my stomach started to hurt, and you passed me a Tums. I took that Tums, and I felt better. I gotta say, designated player, designated player. He's still got it. He absolutely still has it.
00:09:21
Speaker
And that's where I stand right now. Okay. We can go back and forth on our takes. I think that's fair, but I have to issue the apology. I was wrong. Yada, yada, yada.
00:09:31
Speaker
Um, no more, no more Albert Rose next slander on man. No more Albert or Saxlander on Maine. I was interested to see how the brigade was going to react to the Tigris game because I was like, you know, this is going to be an interesting case study because he was so undeniably good in that game. In a game that undeniably counts, you can't really tell me that Tigris in a CCC knockout game... On grass. You can't tell me on grass. You can't tell me that that doesn't count. So I was i was kind of keeping tabs on that. Like, you know, let's see if they just...
00:10:04
Speaker
admit it, you know, right? Like, and they, they did not. And I, and I was like, okay. Well, if we're coming up with reasons why like that game doesn't count, then I don't think we're, I don't think we're having a serious, this is an unserious discussion. If you can't just admit that that was a good game, then I don't know what we're talking about. You know, the, the St. Louis game, obviously, you know, they're going to say doesn't count. Yep. But if you're going to come up with a reason why Tigris and CCC doesn't count, I just got ah i got nothing on that. But like outside of the brigade discourse, it was nice to see him heating up because there there is the reality that he didn't start off the season very well. And honestly, I think the worst moment was the the Cody Baker disallowed offside goal. that really i won't apologize. for that. that was I won't apologize that. Well, if you drew up the like quintessential brigade situation yeah that would create a brigade crash out, it is Albert Rusnag not getting back on side to rob an academy kid of his first and MLS goal, Cody Baker in this case. So no, like that wasn't, that wasn't a great moment. And he also had not been producing really at his normal rate. I think it's fair to say for the first few games. So I think we acknowledged it when that was the case, but I think on the flip side of that brigade should be able to acknowledge that he was fantastic against Tigris. And then also, you know, obviously they're going to say St. Louis doesn't count, but that was still, to me, that was affirmation that like,
00:11:32
Speaker
all right, we're putting that slow start to the season in the past. And he's looking to me, i don't know about you, but to me that the Tigris game in the St. Louis game, I'm like, okay, that's essentially the player that he's been the entire time he's been on this team as far as I'm concerned. So Yeah.
00:11:48
Speaker
No, I agree. He showed what his value was. And, you know, many such as myself are now sitting here saying, well, you know, you got hand it to him. like And when he does get back healthy, I'm excited to see how the sort of dual 10 setup with Ferreira runs. And, you know, we'll see what happens. We don't know that he's out for this game, but i don how are you feeling about it? Just gut feeling wise. I feel like I would rather them be careful when you have Jesus Ferreira. This Dallas team is a different team, though. like this isn't This is a dangerous Dallas team. like
00:12:23
Speaker
They have players. Petra Musa is incredible. There is a situation where you look at this Dallas game and you go, oh, we want our strongest lineup.
00:12:36
Speaker
I still think Jesus Ferrer gives you what Albert Russenak can give you in that position with very minimal drop down. It's just the fact that you can have both of those players on the field at the same time that you're like, oh man, I wish we could have that. This FC Dallas offense is no joke. I talked about it with Sam Hale, but you have Pete Darmusa, who is, i think, the he's kind of the gold standard for number nines in the league right now. There are other guys you could throw in that discussion. Sam Surridge is in there. There's a few other names. But Pete Darmusa is up there with the best of them. They did play midweek, and they got shut out last night by Minnesota United, which...
00:13:17
Speaker
Now we're gonna have to start doing stuff again about how Minnesota United thinks that they're good, which that's just really unfortunate. But FC Dallas, that was at home and they got shut out by Minnesota United at home. Now they have to travel up to Seattle where they've struggled historically. So hopefully Seattle is able to take advantage of that, get the offense going, keep a clean sheet, keep Peter Musa off the score sheet, which is no easy feat, but the loons, they loons just did it. So we'll see if Seattle can do it. Noah, speaking of Albert Rusnak,
Christian Roldan's Team-First Mentality
00:13:50
Speaker
uh,
00:13:50
Speaker
We got a couple of heartwarming good guy stories related to the Seattle Sounders. Albert Rusnak was part of ah of one of them. As he and Christian explained after the game, Christian rolled on, scored a brace against St. Louis City SC, two goals 15 minutes apart in the first half. So he was on a hat trick when Paul Rothrock drew a penalty in the 50-some-odd minute of that St. Louis game. And we were talking in the press box when Rothrock drew the penalty. I think you were saying, let Christian take it, let Christian take it And I was kind of like, I mean, Christian's penalty kick track record is not super great. And you're also you're only up to zero. So you really kind of you need this third goal to dust the game away. So just let Rusnak take it and make sure it goes in. Rusnak does end up taking it and making it. But some people were saying, like, man, you should have let Christian take it. he should have let Christian take it. As it turns out, ah Albert Rusnak himself.
00:14:46
Speaker
offered the pk to christian rolled on he said hey man you're on a hat trick you want to take this and christian said no bang it in we got to win this game just go take it something like i i would rather win i just want to win like yeah like i would rather win you you go take it and christian yeah he did explain it after the game and i you know i thought his answer was it was very christian rolled on but it was like he couldn't even process the idea that he would take a penalty kick just to get himself a hat trick right he He was like, no. He's like, dude, that's not how this works. I would not do that. Like, I don't care about my own goal total that much. I don't really care that much about the hat trick. And then he also said, it's important for us to get Albert Rusnak going, too. Probably more important than it is for me to get a goal or to get a hat trick.
00:15:32
Speaker
So I thought I thought that was good. But then I also i appreciated the gesture from Albert Rusnak. That's like that's being a good teammate. That's not concerning his own goal total over anything else. That's looking out for your guy who he he was saying Christian rolled on, especially I think.
00:15:49
Speaker
How many opportunities is he going to have in his career where he's sitting on a brace and then there's a penalty kick for the Hattie? So ah good good good camaraderie right there. Nice gesture here by Albert Rusnak. What did you think of the whole penalty kick thing? I really do wish that he would have taken. I know it's not Christian Roldan. He's just not going to do it. And i I know that he's not the best penalty taker, but if he takes that penalty, scores that, he's MLS player of the week.
00:16:16
Speaker
undoubtedly he ah he was on a brace messi was on a brace messi ends up winning player of the week which prince uwosu had three assists in a goal he should have won player of the week but we don't even need to talk about that mlssoccer.com that's not our ace fault but you know what i mean i think that's a bad i think that's ah a bad take but uh i just wish he could have beaten out messi again just asserted his dominance against messi again But frankly, it makes so much sense. And this is honestly why Pochettino, Pochettino, Pochettanto, as we all love and know him, he loves Christian Roldan. Christian Roldan just wants to win. He doesn't care about his individual stats. Like,
00:17:03
Speaker
Pochettino wants guys on the national team who absolutely want to win at all costs. They don't care about looking like, oh, I'm Captain America. i play for Juventus. I play for PSV. He cares about guys who are going to show up there, bleed red, white, and blue, just try and win. They don't care about people remembering their name. They care about the wins and the losses.
00:17:26
Speaker
That's literally Christian Roldan. This is exactly why he is the guy to get called up and he should get called up. And you actually, you asked Christian about his World Cup aspirations after the game. what we would Tell the people what he what he said. Yeah, Christian just said, you know, I'm i'm not a lock by any means. yeah You know, he's an outsider looking in. He wants to prove that he is worth bringing to the World Cup. He spoke with Brian Schmetzer. Brian Schmetzer said, listen,
00:17:53
Speaker
If you have this goal, let's start with smaller goals. Let's break it down. Let's go one game without making an errant pass. Let's go one game where you score a goal. Let's go one game where you have two assists. Like, small, bite-sized things.
00:18:07
Speaker
And Brian Schmetzer said, I don't think I see a single pass that Christian Robon put wrong in this game. He also noted to the haters, I feel like...
00:18:20
Speaker
Brian might be reading my Twitter feed because it seems like he almost addressed this Twitter account at MLS hater, Greg Beerholder, who has just constantly been cutting up Roldan mispass clips. You've been in the trenches battling this yeah this guy.
00:18:33
Speaker
He like will post a Roldan mispass clip and then just cut off what happens after that. like Nothing will come from the mispass they collect, he runs back, whatever. Brian was literally like, yeah, there's people online who are posting missed pass or they want to highlight every little tiny mistake that Christian does, but they don't know anything. That's the easiest thing to see.
00:18:54
Speaker
That's the easiest, like lowest soccer IQ thing to see. And that's the truth is like Christian Roldan brings more than just, is he the perfect player? No.
00:19:04
Speaker
But what he is is a player that's well-rounded enough and has the right mindset enough to to make it into this national team. So I think Christian wants this more than a lot of people want this, and that is going to, in my opinion, drive him to get on that squad. Is he going to play like 10 minutes in the World Cup? Probably. Is that going make a lot of people upset? Definitely.
00:19:26
Speaker
Just as a side tangent on this, if you're the type of person who lifts individual clips from a game of like an errant pass or one bad sequence, and then you use that one clip of one play in a game to prove a point or an agenda or try and prove a point or an agenda about a player or a team, you are stupid.
00:19:49
Speaker
Yes. like I hate it when people do that. like you can You can pull up an individual clip from any game that you can use to support your agenda. It doesn't mean it means anything. you know You see people do this all the time where You saw it with ah there was the goalkeeper howler on the Diego Luna goal. Yep. A couple like I think that was last week. Yep. And you had people posting it, you know, saying, oh, MLS defending. like And then literally that same weekend, there was a Premier League clip that was exactly the same. Well, and you like do you really think that MLS is the only league where a goalkeeper howler happens? like Anytime someone posts a goalkeeper howler from MLS and uses that as like an illustration of MLS being trash or whatever, that you can disregard that entirely. You think I couldn't pull up a goalkeeper howler from any of the other leagues that you're talking about? Like you said, there was one in the Prem that I think was arguably worse. It was definitely worse. Yeah. Yeah. So that's just something about like, you know, the Twitterification of all this where I'm just like, OK, I congratulations. If you do that, you're proving that you're a moron that doesn't know ball. But that's neither here nor there. We did have one more Christian rolled on is a good guy story to get to in this we're film on this show with good guys. Yeah, I mean, i mean you know, it so we had two instances of Christian being a a good guy.
Roldan's Off-Field Impact
00:21:14
Speaker
This one, he got a, we saw this on the Sounders Twitter feed and socials. He got a letter from a cute kid saying that Christian Roldan is his favorite player, and he explained why Christian is his favorite player. And then Christian, actually, they had him respond to the kid, and he's getting a signed jersey from the whole team, and they're bringing him out to a game. He's not from around here. I think he's in Pascoe.
00:21:36
Speaker
ah Yeah, I mean, something something like that. Not Seattle. So they're bringing him in from out of town to go
International Teams Training in Washington
00:21:42
Speaker
to the game. That was nice and cute and heartwarming, too. What did you think a good guy Christian with the responding to the cute kid's letter?
00:21:49
Speaker
I am here to do pro-Christian rolled on propaganda. That's that's what this segment is. There is not a day that goes by where I am not doing pro-Christian rolled on propaganda, and I don't care. I will lay my life down on the line for that man. He is my king, and this is just what you expect from the king. That's all I got to say.
00:22:06
Speaker
ah All right. A couple of World Cup headlines as well. Then we're going to hit our first ad break. ah Noah, we got a couple of teams staying in the great state of Washington for the World Cup. you got Belgium is training at Long Acres. That's pretty cool. I did have a great graphic for that. Thank you to everyone who appreciated my clickbait. I had Kevin De Bruyne with a Sounders logo behind it.
00:22:30
Speaker
Oh, that did numbers. You know, people still bring up the show that we did last year where we were talking about the potential of name chasing. And I was saying that KDB is one of the guys where I would be all for the name chase. People still bring that up. They're like well, you said the sounder should go get KDB. And I'm like, because, you know, we're not always we're on kind of one side of the ambition discourse that a lot of people aren't on. So people always hold the KDB thing over my head. I like, you know, it's KDB if you get KDB, but you got a month to convince him to move here. You put KDB on the graphic with the Sounders logo and you were not very popular in the comments section for that, but it got a lot of views and likes. So that was a W for lobbing scorchers. But it'll be cool to have Belgium. Belgium is, I mean, this we talked about this on that famous KDB show. They're my favorite national team to watch still. And they're the they're the national team that really got me into this sport. Like, at the 2014 World Cup, I was into soccer at the time, but not like in into it. And watching that team with ah Prime KDB and Eden Hazard and Lukaku, man, and those counterattacks at that World Cup specifically, that was some of the greatest footy I've ever seen. And their team now, watching the friendly against the USMNT that they had, where I think they beat us five to...
00:23:50
Speaker
One, five two. Famously, Robon played the second half. That 2014 team was like the peak of their golden generation. And then I feel like they kind of fell off that level a little bit. But then I think going into this World Cup, they're kind of, I don't know if they're back back, but they they looked really good against the U.S., which I don't know how much to read into that.
00:24:08
Speaker
But they're going training at Long Acres, staying somewhere in Seattle. So that'll be cool to have them. And then you got Egypt in Spokane. Correct. Yeah. Mo Salah going to be staying in the the great state of Washington, the great city of Spokane, which I think that's a little that's kind of a funny visual. It's a kind of a random place to see Mo Salah taking up residence. But so they're going be staying out there and then flying in for the games, which is what is that like an hour like an hour hour flight Yeah. So i you know I would have thought that they would be staying closer in the area, but if you think about it, it makes sense. like All they have to do is hop on the charter, and then they're right here the The conditions are closer to Egypt because they're in the desert.
00:24:51
Speaker
That's good point. I hadn't thought about it through that lens, but I think you know it's just cool to have teams like Belgium and Egypt staying in the state, you know big-time stars like KDB, like Mo Salah. Hell, yeah, is what I say. Mo Salah's about to go to – he's transferring to – You got a good graphic for that one too. You had the Mo Salah with the Gonzaga logo. That was a good bit. So we got good content. Mo Salah's going back to college. That's his retirement plan.
World Cup Transit Pricing Debate
00:25:19
Speaker
ah Noah, we were going to talk about the transit situation with the World Cup too. Tell us what's going on with this. Well, I'll start with this. Right, Seattle is known for its transit and I am happy to announce and I've confirmed this with Mayor Katie Wilson, Seattle is not changing its prices on any of the transit, any buses, any trains, anything during the World Cup. It'll all be the same price and if you are a part of the media or a volunteer, you get transit in the city for free.
00:25:51
Speaker
Here's the thing though, ah That's not the case for a lot of places. I believe it was New Jersey or New England or something like that. Jersey.
00:26:01
Speaker
They were charging what was normally like a $5 ticket, $150 during the World Cup price gouging on public transportation. Let me say that again.
00:26:14
Speaker
Price gouging on public transportation. I think it just brings us to a larger conversation here, Ari. Is this World Cup a disaster?
00:26:26
Speaker
And it hasn't even started yet. And is that disaster because of the greed that has infiltrated the oligarch class and the oligarch soccer class?
00:26:38
Speaker
I mean, I guess it depends what you mean by disaster. ah it It's not going to be a disaster for the oligarch class because they're going to gouge everyone into making their bottom line even bigger than it already was. But i do there's there's just a vibe for me of like, this whole event is only going to be accessible for rich people. no one but rich people can go to the games. And now they're gouging you on transit too. And it is just like, all right, i mean,
00:27:08
Speaker
Do you vultures have to gouge every... You already gouge us on every single thing in our lives outside of soccer and outside of the World Cup. do Do you have enough? Like, what is enough money for these people? I don't understand. They could make no money off the World Cup and they would all still be disgustingly rich beyond are their wildest dreams or any amount of money that I could ever spend in 150 So I don't understand the motivation, but what I've come to understand is that once you hit a certain threshold of wealth, I think it kind of just consumes your whole consciousness and your whole being. And you become just this bloodthirsty maniac that's all encompassed with squeezing out every single last little drop of a penny that you can get out of every last little single drop of a thing. And that's just kind of the approach that they have for everything. But it's funny that like I was listening to Don Garber the other day. and of course, you know, he he's defending the ticket prices. He has to. his whole thing was, well, you know, if you look at other large scale events like this, such as the Super Bowl. Those are top rate prices too. And this is an event on that scale. So he was basically saying it's, they're not doing anything that's outside of the norm for an event or a match this scale with to which I say like, okay, but yet that's it. It shouldn't be like that. not Like you're, you're defending a status quo, like for them keeping to the status quo, but that shouldn't be the the status quo. Like,
00:28:40
Speaker
The Super Bowl should be more accessible. It should accessible. I'll say it. yeah like People look at that and they're like, well, if you expect to be paying anything less than $14,000 for a Super Bowl ticket, then what are you even expecting? I don't know. How about just like a reasonable goddamn society?
00:28:55
Speaker
How about that? How about that? is that the craziest thing that yeah you've ever heard? so like Don Garber, like he has to defend the oligarchs. He is beholden to the oligarch. He basically is an oligarch, so whatever. But I...
00:29:08
Speaker
Anyone saying like, oh, this is just how it is, that's how it has to be? No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. It really doesn't. they could they The oligarch class could make the whole event ah way more affordable for everyone, and normal people could go, normal fans could go and experience this event and get to watch their countries play in this tournament. And every single one of the people who set these prices, nothing about their life would change. They would still have more money than God or more money that they could spend in a million lifetimes. And they just they willfully choose not to do that. So I think we should just be clear about that. Like this this is about greed and nothing more or deeper than that.
00:29:45
Speaker
It's just disgusting. Like, I look at FIFA. How do you look at yourself in the beer every single day? Every single person who had a hand in creating this situation, you thought, oh, you know what's fine? We'll charge a little more here because we're in America. We'll charge a little more there. How about this, man?
00:30:04
Speaker
America, highest housing cost in the world. Highest homelessness rate in the world. Let's talk about this. highest Some of the highest food costs in the entire world. Average people every single day getting just slapped and slapped and slapped. What's the one thing that's supposed to like bring the world together? like We're supposed to experience society.
00:30:27
Speaker
How are we getting priced out of experiencing society? What
Exclusivity of World Cup Attendance
00:30:32
Speaker
makes a World Cup cool? It's other people from other countries coming here. Well, God forbid that too, because you're going to get deported because you look different than us. Like the whole thing is just a fucking disaster. And it just shows me.
00:30:47
Speaker
It just shows me what really matters at the end of the day, and that's money, power, greed, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. We can sit here and yell all day, and guess what? What'll FIFA though?
00:31:01
Speaker
not let us in the stadium. They'll track us like they do at Madison square garden and like not let us do that. Cause guess what? They did that to me. and I made FIFA look bad one time, one time I made them look bad after they made a mistake and I'm up in the four hundreds and they're like, Oh, ah ticket sales are good. Ticket sales are good. This is for the club world cup.
00:31:21
Speaker
There's a photo of me sitting up alone in the 400 section and it goes around and people are like, look, no one's a lone fan in the 400 section. They can't sell tickets. They banned me. They banned me and they told me to go sit there. So they are absolutely cowards. They have no one to answer to either. That's the problem. It's like all of these city governments I could talk to our mayor and she's like, well, I can't bad mouth FIFA. You know, like I can't do anything about this. Even even like Zoran Mamdani is out here like... We need to do something about these ticket prices. No one can do anything.
00:31:54
Speaker
Everyone signs their lives away to FIFA. And it's it's despicable. FIFA is a non-profit. They literally are not going to pay a single dollar of tax. They don't pay local taxes. They don't pay federal taxes. They don't pay taxes, period. so All of this money that is being extracted away, the little money that you saved up for the last four years, guess where that's going? It's going back to Switzerland, back to Gianni Infantino and all of his oligarchs pockets where they live tax-free without worry.
00:32:28
Speaker
It's disgusting. we've we We have ruined society. We have ruined everything. And I think just this is like the perfect encapsulation of it. Something that is once in a lifetime were supposed to be. The thing that you're supposed to be able to go to, experience, supposed to change your city. It's about supposed to change the way you see a sport.
00:32:47
Speaker
You know what it changed for me, Ari? What? it It let me know that I don't know how tenable this is long term. I don't know how long this is going to be around. How long am I going to be able to access MLS?
00:33:01
Speaker
Because if they take from FIFA, what FIFA has told everyone is okay. Good luck. Anybody going forward. Like it's just, it's just, it's disgusting in the way. And and I'll end with this.
00:33:15
Speaker
And I want to, um want to hear your thoughts on this too. FIFA angles this and MLS angles this is, this is going to be the greatest driver of growth American soccer has had since 1994. In 1994, tickets were accessible to the average person.
00:33:33
Speaker
They were accessible because no one gave a shit about soccer in America back then. People do care now. And so what do you do? You say, Let's make sure that no one is actually a casual fan is able to come and join. it You really think that it's going to change anything in this league or in in this sport in the world? I haven't seen it. Yeah, not if no one can go.
00:33:55
Speaker
Like, that's that's the reality. And I just always i always find myself thinking in these situations, man. like Like I said, how much is enough? How much do you need? I just feel like I would reach a ah threshold of money where I like i wouldn't care anymore.
00:34:11
Speaker
I've always felt like that. like I don't understand how this like insatiable need for just more, more, more. And it's just it's escalated to crazy point. And...
00:34:22
Speaker
it's escalated to a crazy point and These games are going to suck. There's going to be no atmosphere. You think a bunch of rich people are going to create an atmosphere for ah for a soccer game on a for a soccer tournament on a scale like this, the World Cup?
00:34:38
Speaker
Hell no, man. Hell no. There's going to be no atmosphere. It's going to be dead. It's not going to be like good to watch. It's not going to be a good product, but that's not something that they're taking into account. so Yeah, that's the problem, too, is like they are literally...
00:34:53
Speaker
I get six emails a day from their PR team. It's like, oh, we're doing another last minute ticket sale. We're doing another last minute ticket sale. They're like, slowing the prices barely, slowly. they're lie They're literally committing fraud for certain people. They're like, you're in you're in section one. You're in like the top tier pricing that people are paying $1,000 to end up in the nosebleeds. And then the seats that they saw before that they were supposed to get are now being resold for like $800 to someone else. And it's just this whole scheme and scam.
00:35:30
Speaker
The atmospheres will suck. There will be nobody at these games. And even if there are, at what cost? At what cost? Way too high of a cost. Yeah. No, I mean, there might be people there, but it's it it's not going to be the real people, you know? No. And that's what makes the World Cup great. Like, it's it's taking away what makes the World Cup what it is, what makes it great, what makes it fun. So, you know, oligarchs, if you're watching this,
00:36:03
Speaker
How much is enough? How much is enough? What do you need? What do you want? What are you trying to accomplish? Okay. Like just wait till the soccer fans rise up. that You should ask yourself, but like before you just get in this vulture bloodlust for as much money as you can possibly get. i don't know. It's ridiculous. And with that, now a word from our sponsors. well We're going to take an ad break. We'll be right back.
00:36:29
Speaker
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00:36:45
Speaker
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00:36:57
Speaker
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00:37:11
Speaker
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00:37:24
Speaker
People who know what they're doing who can tell me what to buy. It's super easy. You join their mailing list, they send out a newsletter covering what they have, and you pick the ones you want to either grab at their warehouse on first or have shipped to you.
00:37:36
Speaker
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00:37:47
Speaker
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00:38:02
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00:38:16
Speaker
Welcome back from an ad break that you definitely did not skip. Noah, let's get into our little thought exercise for the night. And it's going to be centered around a ah trophy that we don't talk about as much as some other trophies, but one that has been getting talked about this year, I think more than previous years for the Seattle Sounders.
MLS Supporters' Shield Contenders
00:38:38
Speaker
And that is... the Supporters' Shield. As it stands right now, the Seattle Sounders are on 16 points, which is, it is four, eight points off the pace of Supporters' Shield, I'm not a math guy, eight points off the pace of Supporters' Shield leading San Jose Earthquakes, which is still a funny thing to say. But Seattle has two games in hand right now on the Quakes and at least one game in a hand on everyone in the West because this RSL game was rescheduled for CCC. So Seattle is actually technically behind LAFC and Minnesota on the West table right now, but they have two games in hand on both of those teams and they're ahead of them on points per game. Seattle is at 2.29 points per game and LAFC and Minnesota are at 1.89 points.
00:39:27
Speaker
And so the point is Seattle is actually in the supporter shield mix later in the season than they usually are. They usually have these slow starts or there's usually a team that's way ahead of them. And we kind of don't even really think about the shield most years, but this year, you know, still early days, but they are in the mix as it stands right now. And if they keep performing, I think how they have been performing, they will be in the mix throughout the season. Usually what you need to be to be in the mix is around two points per game. And the shield winner is usually ah at two ish or 2.1 2.2 points per game so right now they are right on that pace so what we're going to do is we're going to go through it we're going to talk about the teams that we see as the biggest threats to the seattle sounders supporter shield push that's what i'm going call it i'm going to call it the supporter shield push because uh we it's seven there's seven games into the season and we're usually chalked on this discussion by this time and now we're not might as well farm it while we can't We're going to farm it while we can. Exactly. So ah let's talk about this. It could be a supporter shield. So either conference, we're going to go through which teams we feel are the most threatening to Seattle as they try and actually make a play for the shield this year. So I have, I have someone starting out that I want to throw up into conversation because this is a team that I don't feel
00:40:46
Speaker
I don't feel is competition. Okay. But I want to hear what you have to say. yeah This is going to be controversial. Inner Miami, I do not think is a supporter shield threat. It's good to start with.
00:40:58
Speaker
They have fired their head coach, or he walked away. Mutual parting of ways. Mutual parting ways of their head coach. There's a little bit of turmoil going on. Their number nine is bad. Their $15 million dollars number nine is not good. He's not scoring.
00:41:16
Speaker
They are effectively operating with 1.5 DPs. Let's be honest, Ari. They're not the Seattle Sounders, so they can't operate with 1.5 DPs. What do you feel about it or Miami? Do you think they still on nine games, 18 points have a chance only plus four goal differential. That's not very good.
00:41:35
Speaker
Do they have a chance to actually win the shield? It's tough. As recently as a week or two ago, I was pretty much on the page of, man, the vibes around this team are not that of a shield contender at all. The whole thing with Mascherano and him mutually parting ways, That doesn't necessarily sink you, but that's not like a good sign for the vibes when your coach ah gets fired or mutually parts ways this early in the season. And they also, their their level this year has not been of certainly not of the team that set the points record or, you know, one leagues cup or one and MLS cup. Felt like they were not on that level.
00:42:18
Speaker
But you know seeing how these first couple games without Mascherano have gone, even watching this ah last game that they played at Real Salt Lake, which they won 2-0, I was thinking to myself, man, like the top end talent is just so high that they can win any individual game. And when you have that ability, you can get hot and you can rattle off these runs of form that puts you into shield in the the shield mix. And on top of that, I do think Bert Arame is looking better. He scored his first couple goals for them. He got on the score sheet in the ah RSL game. And I thought the RSL game was kind of going to be telling because ah RSL looks really, really good this year. that's We've talked about that.
00:42:59
Speaker
a lot. in Real Salt Madrid. That game was at, yeah, Real Salt Madrid is in full force. That game was at RSL. So that was going to be, that was like a kind of prove it moment for Miami. You got this new coach, you're going into one of the better teams in the West and a really, really hard road trip as we saw for Seattle. That's not an easy place to go win with the yeah altitude and the environment and all that. So I was looking at that game as a little bit of a measuring stick of where Inter-Miami are at in this post-Mascherano era. And they went out and they won the game 2-0. And Berterame scored. They looked a lot better. So while I do think that they are not what they were last year,
00:43:40
Speaker
I think they're starting to look closer to that now than they did previously to start this season. And so while I don't think they're the biggest threat to win the Supporters' Shield or to challenge Seattle for a Supporters' Shield type pace, I do actually think that they are kind of a threat again.
00:43:58
Speaker
You know, Messi is going to be Messi. He's going to score. He scored an incredible goal at Colorado that won them that game. And that's kind of the thing, like in any game, even when they're not playing well, he can just do that at any time. So I'm a little I'm a little more. I kind of feel like they're probably going to turn it around. But it's what I would say is it's a very open question right now. Like one of the guys that scored in the RSL game was Luis Suarez, who that was an incredible goal. You got to give it to him. He's also 46 years old and has been known to spit on people. So you just kind of never know what's going to happen with that. And also, there's ah you know a lot. We're just having this discussion early. There's a lot, a lot more games. to go. So can a team that's kind of built around these older guys, or at least a couple of old guys in Messi and Suarez, can that withstand an entire season? We're going to find out. But the other thing like you hit on their depth is they're, they're one injury away yeah from potentially fully cratering, but failing that, I don't know. Like they're, they're just, they've, they've got such good top end talent that they can win any individual game. yeah, Here's my saving grace, and in my opinion, for them.
00:45:11
Speaker
They are in the East. And I'm going to be honest with you, Ari. The East is kind of bad. The East is actually really bad this year. and People are starting to admit it, too. Which I had said at the beginning of the year, the East is not even really a competition at this point. like You have...
00:45:27
Speaker
One top-end team, I would say Nashville, is like an absolute juggernaut right
Nashville SC's Strong Season Start
00:45:32
Speaker
now. Inter-Miami, they're like a B++. plus plus like I think they could get into that a tier if they continue their run of form.
00:45:43
Speaker
But I'm just, again, like you said, the depth, the cautiousness, I don't feel it. BJ's got them Nashville boys playing completely. differently so let's talk about them next because i think they're they might be the shield front runner like we'll talk about the quakes we'll talk about the white caps but man this nashville team what they're doing right now is very impressive you can't deny it i mean they are in the ccc semifinals which honestly i think that alone the fact that they became the first and mls club to ever win at club america and they're on this ccc run they still haven't been in the league that long So you got to hand it to them for for just that alone. But then they're at 2.38 points per game in league play. Six wins, one draw, one loss. Yeah, even while juggling CCC. So I think that team, I mean, we know we've known that they're for real, but it's like the Christian Espinosa thing has just worked out perfectly, as perfect as we expected. God, it should have been a sounder. Yeah. Should have been a sounder, but that was a cook by Nashville to bring him in. And like it's it's one of those things where you you think about it on paper or the idea of it, and you're like, man, like that would be electric. And then this really has been as electric as we expected. And it's taken them to the next level.
00:46:58
Speaker
And i don't know, where do you where do you think about Nico and I were kind of comparing Seattle to the Western Conference adversaries on kickoff this week. We didn't really talk about the East as much. But like, where do you what do you think about Seattle stacked up against Nashville right now? Because I feel like Nashville, they're sort of they're sort of maybe in this different class right now compared to not even just Seattle, but like.
00:47:22
Speaker
Anybody? Yeah, I think it's undeniable that the best offseason right now is looking between Nashville and San Jose, which is funny when the best player on San Jose went to Nashville. And that's just not generally what you would think of a best two offseasons. But again, like I said, they're in the East. They're playing nobody. And, you know, if anyone has Messi's number,
00:47:45
Speaker
it's Reed Baker Whiting. So I have a lot of faith in that Nashville team. I think Nashville is your biggest threat because you you you're not really facing Nashville on a week-to-week basis. They're not really facing that great of competition. It's just one of those things where like,
00:48:02
Speaker
They're set up for success if they can maintain their momentum. Anyone in the East doing anything for you? I mean, this table was rough. After after Nashville and Miami at the top, and Miami hasn't even been playing that well, they're 0-0-2 at home. So they're five one and one on the road. That is very impressive. But they played two home matches and drawn on both. And they're... I think we can all agree that Inter-Miami has not been top-level Inter-Miami so far this year. They crashed out of TCC at the hands of Nashville. and you know they're They're still at two points per game in the league, but they look a little sketchy. and It goes down to New England, Chicago, Charlotte. i believe Listen, okay here's my this is not related to the Shield. I don't think they're going to contend for the Shield, but my dark horse this year is Chicago.
00:48:44
Speaker
i think they could Are you still feeling good about that? They didn't start all that great. They're back up to fourth in the They're back up fourth in the East. They're they're about to play sport in Kansas City. just Just mark the win down on the thing. like Four wins, two draws, two losses. I think that's a fair enough situation to get yourself into the running. but It is hard. But, dude, like past Miami, past Nashville, the Revs, Chicago Fire, even though I like them, eh. Charlotte, who I thought would be a good contender, they're kind of sputtering. Toronto Ruffs,
00:49:14
Speaker
We don't even have to talk about that. Josh Sargent has added something to their game, but they're three draws in a row. I guess they're they're unbeaten in five. They're not a Shield contender. They're not a Shield contender. New York City FC looks terrible. The Red Bulls are fun to watch. They've got great individual players, but I think they're still just a year two They've been pretty erratic. Both of the New York teams have like looked good at times, but also bad at times. They're not Shield yeah material. Yeah.
00:49:37
Speaker
Shambles, terrible. D.C. shambles, terrible. F.C. Cincinnati shambles, terrible. Orlando City. Now we're getting into the worst teams in the league. CF Montreux. And we're still... The East is bad. That's my takeaway from this exercise so far. It's so bad. It's bad. Like, you get down past...
00:49:53
Speaker
Fifth. Second. looks You get down past second. Second. Yeah. And it's like, then it's a bunch of shitters. It's just different levels of shitters. So I do think that Nashville is the biggest. Why is the East so bad?
00:50:05
Speaker
What's going on? thought it was supposed to be We need to investigate this. Everyone always told me how good the East is. It's the anti-East bias. What's going on with this? But I mean, okay, so let's talk about some of these teams in the West. Because I think this is where it gets a little more interesting.
San Jose's Rise in MLS
00:50:18
Speaker
Yeah. At the top two you have San Jose and Vancouver. What are you thinking about their kind of shield prospects? They're both over 2.6 points per game. Both only have one loss. And you know who who was each lost to?
00:50:32
Speaker
Is it the Seattle Sounders? The Sounders. Well, the Whitecaps was worse san jose than CCC. true. But so i can I don't know who they lost to in the week. They lost to San Jose. Oh, okay. Yeah. So here's something that's the communicative property, the Transitive property. San Jose are the first team in MLS history to win eight of their first nine league matches. Sorry, San Jose. Could have gone nine nine. What was their one loss? Can you remind me? It was Seattle Sounders at...
00:50:59
Speaker
san jose who want who scored the game winner ari that would be paul rothrock i so that's that's one of those let's talk let's uh stay on that real quick because yeah a few weeks ago when we didn't realize the quakes were this good seattle had to go to you had some inklings i will say you should take some credit you did have some inklings you're like i think i think this timo werner thing might actually be better than i was making it out to be I might have said that, but that was based on like the first, the kind of the first glimpses, Adam. And then I thought in the Seattle game, that Seattle game, Seattle goes down, wins it 1-0. Paul Rothrock, game winner. And at the time, I think we were like, damn, that was a really good win. The Rone Show is going well. But now looking back on it, that was a hell of a win. It was an incredible win. And think we should be real about the fact that it was one of those games where the team that won was arguably not the team that played better or had the better chances. San Jose was very much on top of Seattle for a lot of that game. They had the better chances. They probably had the better of the run of play. And, you know, I make no bones about that. I don't care. Winning a game like that on the road where another other team is on top of you That's one of the most important skills you can have in MLS. So I actually think it's better for Seattle's future prospects as far as character building and having to gut out a win like that. But also they did that now looking back on it, they did it against what is the best team in the league right now.
00:52:30
Speaker
I think the Supporters' Shield frontrunner and the first team in the history of the league to win eight of their first nine league matches. So, I mean, i think San Jose is very much a real threat to anybody's Supporters' Shield aspirations.
00:52:47
Speaker
I might even rate them a little over Nashville right now, but what do you what do you think of that kind of that win over the Quakes in hindsight, now that we know that they're an absolute wagon? Yeah.
00:53:00
Speaker
It's a great win. I think the Quakes are absolutely, the right now as it stands, the biggest competition in the West. I still want to see how it keeps going and keeps building. Like I still might have a little bit more confidence in the Vancouver Whitecaps to win the shield than I do the quakes just because it's still hard for me to get out of my mouth. The San Jose earthquakes are genuine shield contenders. That's just feels weird.
00:53:28
Speaker
Bruce arena though. He's that guy. You just, you can't, what, what did he say? We'll never know, but you know, He is that guy. That worked out for the for the Quakes, because I think you have to give Bruce Arena a lot of credit for what they got going on down there. I think you gotta to give you got to give it to Timo Werner. We kind of were thumbs down on that signing. I dismissed it as desperation. I said it was name chasing. I didn't think there was any way it would fill the void that they lost with Christian Espinoza and Chicho Rorongo. But like outside of ah you know the wins that he's contributed to, he just doesn't he look juiced? He looks juiced. You know who else looks juiced is Diko Tusseris. And that was the second... Tusseris. That was the second thing I was going to say, which is that that kid is...
00:54:16
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, like he looks like any like great imported number 10 that they could have gone out and got he looks as good or better than any of those players in my opinion. I was very impressed with him in the Seattle game. I thought he was given Seattle hell and that's what he's doing every week. This is a homegrown Academy number 10. You know how many times have we had the discussion of like, yeah, but like, you know, we've talked about with Seattle, like we love the the Snyder Brunelles, the Danny Leivas, Josh Atencio's, you know, Obed. You could go down the list of the success they've had at that position. But like when I watch the curious play, I'm like, man, they need to develop a a guy like this. Yeah, because San Jose is cleaning out on that right now. He legitimately looks like one of the better number 10s in the league. And he's a 22 year old Academy product. I mean, I'm telling you, if you haven't watched a lot of quakes this year, just turn on some quakes next weekend and watch that. Watch number 10. Like he is.
00:55:12
Speaker
so legit like uh sam sam hale and i were talking about it he is going to be a usmnt player and i think he's going to be a really really good one like that's how highly i rate him right now that's a big reason why they're doing what they're doing he has eight goal contributions already he's sick can i say something about this team too yeah this is literally like a full mls team like preston judd la or la galaxy guy Came up through l LA Galaxy, all of that. Now, obviously, here. Nico Tissaris, homegrown.
00:55:46
Speaker
ah Buddha. Super draft pick. Yeah, Buddha. bunda what You know what i mean. budha Buddha. Buddha. Super draft pick. Also, George Umanongu's teammate on Burkina Faso. Fun fact. That is a sick winger duo for them. Yes, it is. And, you know, Timo Werner, who's obviously coming in and being like that rah-rah guy.
00:56:05
Speaker
But everyone else, like... They didn't sign anybody. That's insane. That's why everyone was so down on this club when they started. It's a lot of super draft picks. A lot of academy kids. Bo LaRue?
00:56:20
Speaker
Do you know who that is? Yeah, exactly. No, he's not some big name. I do, but most people don't. Yeah, he's an academy prospect. You know? Like... It's it's just it's they have say it like they have a Daniel Mooney, Daniel Mooney, San Jose earthquake lifer. um You also have Jamar Ricketts, who is a San Jose lifer. Both of those two players have combined for five goal contributions.
00:56:45
Speaker
Like, what are we talking about? These are these third dudes. If you look at the FOTMOP page with no face doing the thing. So they're basically doing the Sounders method. Better than the Sounders right now. Exactly. like it's we How often do we talk about this with the Sounders about how, you know yeah, they don't spend money, but they win games and they win trophies. And you know you don't you don't have to be the spendiest to go do that.
00:57:12
Speaker
I think this Quakes team is kind of it's sort of affirming our agenda on that They look like the best team in the league right now. And yeah, it is with homegrowns. It's with MLS lifers and veterans like Preston Judd, super draft picks like Usaini Buda. So, you know, i think that's cool. For winning LAFC, by the way.
00:57:33
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. is, at in my opinion, the best team in the league. Well, okay. So let's keep going down the list here. Because I think, you know, we both, all right, we both buy the Quakes. We think they're going to be among the bigger threats. and You know, San Jose and Nashville, yeah they're both first in their respective conferences. So it's not a hot take. But like, you know, if we're talking by herself, we're buying both of them. And I think we're both buying the Whitecaps as well. i don't know. Do you have anything on the white I think that's just a continuation of what we saw last year. Like the Whitecaps are a team who, what else do they have to focus on? They crashed out of CCC early. They are a team that starts really hot, no matter basically what the season is in the last few seasons. They're pushing and they're a team that's really good. They've got...
00:58:16
Speaker
They've got Tommy, Tommy Mule, who obviously we love, Brian White, who we love, Seb Berhalter, who there's no way they keep him in the summer. I mean, that's going to be one of the problems. I think their their summer window, their selling window, I'm not sure they're going be able to keep a lot of these guys.
00:58:32
Speaker
they I agree. they do Don't they feel like they have kind of the vibe of, ah you know how Seattle's gotten to this point where they're not as affected by...
00:58:44
Speaker
losses and absences yeah as some MLS teams. I feel like the Caps haven't had Ryan Gald for like two years no at this point. no And they have still been doing what they've been doing. So, you know, that's not to say that they can just lose Seb Berhalter and be fine. But I do think they're they're much, much more likely to be a team that can lose Seb Berhalter and be fine than a lot of other teams that I could... think of they they've had been without ryan gald for like two years they've had to play without kubas a lot they've had to play with without pedro vite a lot before uh before he left so i think that i think they could still stay in the mix even if that happens but that is something to keep in mind is they might not be the same team uh that they are right now later in the year so i think that's their only caveat to why maybe they
00:59:32
Speaker
aren't competing, whereas the Sounders are only going to get stronger bringing back Petra de la Vega
LAFC's Challenges with CCC and League Play
00:59:37
Speaker
in the summer. I think that is my little question mark around the Whitecaps where San Jose, it doesn't feel like that at all.
00:59:45
Speaker
What do you think of LAFC? You just said you still think that they're the best team in the league, but they are This is interesting one because they are not doing very well right now. You're finally starting to see them get hit with that CCC. Yes, d drum exactly what I was going to say. And look, man, look.
01:00:02
Speaker
People aren't going to want to acknowledge it ah because they want to think that if you go out and you spend a bunch of money on young Sun Hyung-min, it's going to turn you into somebody who's like immune to the perils of MLS. But what we are seeing right now is that no one is above it. No one is above it. l LAFC, they've lost...
01:00:24
Speaker
Two what two league games in a row and then they had a scoreless draw against the Colorado Rapids and also had a scoreless draw against Austin. Yeah. So they are going through it right now. There's no question about that. Now Minnesota is going to absolutely troll them this weekend. yeah Oh, is that who they have? Yeah, they're dialing they're playing the Lions. Okay, so they're definitely not going to score a goal in a really frustrating 0-0 draw. But like like I was watching Happy Foot, Sad Foot last night. Shout out to the boys. Shout out the their fan base is starting to be a little like, wait a minute, what's going on? like
01:00:59
Speaker
Marky Two Saints, Mark Dos Santos, like, what ah what are we doing? We were we were pro Marky Two Saints, but he's starting to feel some heat, I think, from the fan base a little bit. i'm not I don't think alarm bells are ringing, but, like, they are absolutely dealing with a CCC doldrums-type situation, and we know better than anyone that that can turn into a full-on hangover, and they're still in it. They have the semifinals and potentially a final, So they got a lot writing on that because they're looking like it's affecting their league season. And that is probably going to continue to be the case. I kind of think they're i'm not going to say they're out of it for the shield, but they're i would be sketched out if I were them like about that.
01:01:41
Speaker
I absolutely agree with that. I don't think that the shield is even in their mind. I don't think it's possible for them to. The thing is with the shield is like you can't really slip and fall. You just you can't like everyone else around you. Again, the East is at such an advantage with how many just dog shit teams play.
01:01:59
Speaker
You're losing or drawing games that you need to win. You're losing to the Portland Timbers. You can't lose to the Portland Timbers. They lost the Timbs. You can't lose to Portland Timbers. To be fair, that Timbs game, that was the one game where they rotated lot. They didn't have lot of the boys out there. I think it shows that CONCACAF Champions Cup is their goal, which is an honorable and admirable goal. But the thing is, they're going to give everything to this Toluca series because that is the final.
01:02:30
Speaker
I'm sorry. Whatever you think of Nashville, whatever you think of Club America... or not Club America, whoever they're playing doesn't even matter. Tigris. Tigris. Whatever you think of those two teams, these are the two best teams left in this competition right now. Toluca is absolutely a monster. LAFC, absolutely a monster. You have to give everything in the tank for these. You think they're going to show up for Minnesota at 1.45 p.m. on a Saturday before they have to go midweek and play Toluca? There's kind of no chance. We could be wrong about that, but Yeah, you and then you go, you know, you play that and that next weekend against San Diego, who San Diego were not that good, but like...
01:03:07
Speaker
Good luck. You know what I'm saying? And then you've got to play Toluca again. And then you're you're off to Houston? ah Or no, you're at home against Houston. But like still. Yeah, they have two road they have two road games in between. They're going to Minnesota.
01:03:23
Speaker
then they Then they'll play Toluca at home. Go to San Diego and then play Toluca away. Good luck. Yeah. Good luck. I don't think they're a shield contender anymore. Maybe they'll prove me wrong, but they're definitely not going to be. I think the Sounders will finish above them in the table.
01:03:40
Speaker
I mean, as you go down the table past that, you know, you got Minnesota isn't fourth right now. We don't even need to. We just cut the cameras.
01:03:52
Speaker
I can't, I can't do Minnesota United when they were rolling their way to the relevance. See, they beat LAFC with the troll method. It's going to be the calm. It's I'm not, how are you in fourth place on a negative two gold differential?
01:04:07
Speaker
How are you in fourth place on a negative two goal differential? fans are going to say... like like um i was already getting the... When I was talking about this a couple weeks ago, people I brought up the goal differential and people were like, well, yeah, it's because we lost 6-0 at Vancouver. So if you take that out, then our goal differential will be better.
01:04:27
Speaker
Why would you take that out? That's not how that works. We have lost the plot with the it doesn't count stuff. Well, if you take the mean and you plot it on a graph and...
01:04:38
Speaker
ah yeah Well, yeah, if you took away our worst, most embarrassing game. are Where we actually tried to play attacking soccer. Yeah, if you take that if you just take that out for absolutely no reason, then we our record and our goal differential would be a lot better. like i just What do we... what do we what do we why did that that's Again, that's neither here nor there. but like there' if that team wins the shield...
01:05:00
Speaker
I will shotgun five White Claws stream. I will, again, if they win the shield, get the loon tattooed on me. I just don't think that's happening. So, like, out of the rest of the teams in the West, RSL is the only one that really scares me as far as... I think that's fair. I think RSL is a talented team. I just... I don't know if they're ready shield. don't think they're ready for the shield. They're of young, upstart-type team. They are really good. They're a lot better than I expected. A lot has to go right for them to ascend to the level of the shield. They're at two points per game right now. They also have conceded 12 goals, so that tells me that they're getting these wins despite it kind of being shootout-y type stuff. I want to loop back to the Sounders once you're done with this, unless you're done with that take. That was it.
01:05:47
Speaker
This is why I still think the Sounders are in contention for the shield. I think goal differential says a lot in this circumstance. It means you can defend and you can score the things you need for the shield. It's also the tiebreaker, right?
01:05:59
Speaker
The Seattle Sounders have scored 10 goals and conceded three goals. And if we want to talk about goal differential just purely as it pertains to the quality of the team, if you factor in CCC, which I think that you have to if you're trying to get like an actual gauge on the quality, you can add eight goals scored to the to the total. And then they gave up. Yeah, and three conceded. So that would be 18. Four conceded. Okay, four conceded. So 18, seven 11.
01:06:29
Speaker
That's really good. here's Here's the stats on the teams that we do believe are shield contenders. San Jose Earthquakes are at plus 18. 22 scored, four conceded. Vancouver Whitecaps, same position. 22 scored, four conceded. That's kind of weird.
01:06:43
Speaker
San Jose has two games in hand or has two games. Sounders have two games in hand on San Jose and one game in hand on Vancouver. And then Nashville is on a plus 13 and they have one game in hand on the Sounders. So the Sounders obviously have a little ways...
01:06:58
Speaker
they They have a little bit to make up. But again, here's the other thing. The Sounders have played the majority of their road games. They went on the road, got this. They only conceded three like three goals on the road.
01:07:11
Speaker
One of those was at home last week. But, you know, two goals on the road. i don't know what to tell you. That's why coming that's why coming out of the road show at 3-1-1 on the road was important because you banked a lot of points that you're going to need to... We're not having this discussion unless the road show was able to pull yeah that
Seattle Sounders' Supporters' Shield Ambitions
01:07:28
Speaker
out. So let's say let's let's end it with this.
01:07:32
Speaker
Are you hot, medium, or cold on the Shield race right now? I would say... I'd say I'm actually kind of hot. um i don't It's not really something that we get to think about or talk about a lot as Seattle guys, but you know I'm looking at it. this This point in the season, seven league games in, and the fact that they're at 2.29 points per game, you are...
01:07:58
Speaker
in the mix by definition. And also, ah the schedule coming up, I think, gives them an opportunity to sort of pad this, to keep it going. You know you got four out of five home games, I think, coming up. a couple of them are against teams that are not that good.
01:08:15
Speaker
so I'll be able to answer it better as we get into May a little bit, but right now I'm, I'm, I see that 2.29 on the points per game section and I'm kind of hot on the, on this.
01:08:26
Speaker
It's hot. I'm right there with you. I think this is an opportunity. The Sounders can take it. You have teams ahead of you like LAFC who have a rough road ahead. San Jose earthquakes, I think are the team to beat Vancouver whitecaps. I'm still a little questionable about in the longterm. Nashville FC seems hot as well, but you never know what's going to happen with CCC, especially if they make it all the way to the final.
01:08:48
Speaker
The hangover is real, folks. The hangover is real. We're going to do one more ad break, and then we'll jump back in with a agenda check and a very special, a very special note about the Vancouver Whitecaps. We'll be right back.
01:09:01
Speaker
Welcome back from an ad break that you absolutely did not skip. This is the first time we're re-recording this intro. I mean, recording it, Ari totally didn't mess up a couple of times. We don't need to worry about it. I definitely didn't crash out about potentially thinking we lost the audio, but we didn't.
01:09:15
Speaker
It's time to check some agendas. You got two. I brought one. It's a shorter one today, but feel like we've been we've been talking a lot today, so we can make this one a little quick. I'll start it out, and my my agenda is regarding a
Lionel Messi's Jersey Exchange Promise
01:09:30
Speaker
one Georgie Manungu, who is his best friend. As we know, Messi's best friend. They swapped jerseys after ah the miami story the Rapids. I don't i don't know. so the last time that the Sounders played Miami, when Georgie went down there to Miami, they had a conversation and he asked for Messi's jersey. And Messi said, well, the next time if we play ever again, I'll give you my jersey. And so Messi was a man of his word. He was a man of integrity. So you know what?
01:09:58
Speaker
You got to give it to the GOAT, a man of his word. let let Let's give it to the GOAT there because, you know, it's no secret we've had our differences with ah the Inter-Miami fan base. And they're not, we're not the most popular with them. And we've not had necessarily positive things to say about them. Fellas like Luis Suarez and Javier Mascherano at different junctures. But I will say i can appreciate that gesture from Lionel Messi. He does not have to give Georgie Manungu the time of day. No one would really say anything about it or think much of it. Yeah.
01:10:42
Speaker
jersey he they got a cute picture where messy looked happy to be in the photo so i can i can appreciate that from someone of his status But what I wanted to talk about with Georgie was, you know, Noah, I was watching that game, ah the Colorado Rapids versus Inter-Miami, and I was obviously, I've been watching the Rapids with Georgie keeping an eye on it, and I got to tell you, and that game especially,
01:11:08
Speaker
He looked good, he looked good. He was beastin' out there, he was doing his Georgie thing, and that was the first time the thought my head ah popped up, where i was like, man, like I kinda don't know about this trade, like I don't know about this trade. And he has been looking good for them in their other games too. So there was that element of it, but then also, when I saw the sound bite that he gave saying his goodbye to the Seattle Sounders fan base where I don't know if anyone's seen it's on our Instagram.
Georgie Manungu's Appreciation for Sounders
01:11:40
Speaker
ah Georgie gave a heartfelt goodbye to Seattle where he was explaining how much the club and the fan base means to him. And, you know, it got me thinking just about the kind of notion of playing for the badge and culture and all these things that we always talk about this, that that the Seattle Sounders have benefited from. And I think there's a lot to be said for, you know, having guys on your team that, know,
01:12:03
Speaker
that love the badge, that love the club, that that would fight and bleed for it. And part of what Georgie was saying was kind of that that's how he feels about Seattle. And I watch these other teams around the league, like Atlanta, that struggle with culture so much, and they have these guys that don't play for the badge. And I just think you want as many of those type of guys on your team as possible. And I think RBW, frankly, falls into that category as well. And so I was thinking to myself, like, man, like he looks...
01:12:33
Speaker
really good. He loved the club. he would fight and bleed for the badge. I don't really know if i'm if I like this trade. And I was having the same thought. I've been on record the whole time. I wasn't a huge fan of the RBW trade. But just kind of thinking about the the culture the club culture aspect of it had me questioning it. And then...
01:12:54
Speaker
I ended up kind of coming back around to, well, well, first of all, he has looked good for Colorado, but I was watching the broadcast like last night and they were having the discussion of like, man, you know, Georgie Manungu has done some exciting stuff, but let, you know, he's got to do it more consistently. And was like, all right, like the, it's probably, it's looking like a pretty similar situation, but it's also like, if he had stayed on this team, he would not have gotten,
01:13:23
Speaker
an extended opportunity to, to show that like he will in Colorado. And I think that is the case regardless. So I came back around to like, I, I understand the trade, why they did it, but Watching him ball out like that, I'm not going to lie, the thought popped into my head of, like, I don't know if they did the right thing by moving off a guy that I think still has a lot of potential. And also, he loved the club. Like, yeah he talked about extensively how much he valued his time here and how much he appreciated the support he got when he had his eye surgery. He talked about that, too. He was like the fan base in Tacoma Defiance and everybody. They were there for me through that. And if there was no like Seattle Sounders or Tacoma Defiance in my life, I don't know if anyone would ever be talking about Georgie Manungu again, because I might have retired. So I guess it's it's cool that he feels that way, but it also is it all it is sad.
01:14:16
Speaker
it's sad i like georgie as a person i like georgie's astoria like who he is and i think the move was correct like the sounders were in a position where they were being offered amount of money that made a lot of sense for them to take then you have the opportunity cost of like he wants to play like he has only so many years of your life you get to play you need to do right by the player so I think that's i think that's the right choice. like That's what you have to do.
01:14:47
Speaker
And at the end of the day, would I say that he's somehow immediately jumped on the Rapids and is some superstar?
Georgie's Performance Post-Trade
01:14:55
Speaker
No. He has an assist. He had an assist in, was it his first game? His first yeah. And since then, he's been okay. In that Inter-Miami game was the first time he played a full 90. He, I mean, he had 14 for 19 on passing.
01:15:16
Speaker
he had a zero for one on shots accuracy. He had four for seven on successful dribbles. He was zero for three on so accurate crosses, zero for one on accurate long balls. He was dispossessed twice.
01:15:29
Speaker
if you believe in XG is XG was very low, like not even 0.1. And, you know, I mean, he just was losing a lot of ground goals. Like, I think, I think the reality is like, he's still that player that he was here. He's still not,
01:15:47
Speaker
there yet and if the rapids are able to give him enough time to shape him into a great player it will benefit not only him but it will benefit the sounders because if he is somehow this player that we can sell on for millions of dollars they're still getting a sell-on fee and they still did get a good amount of money for him and i think it's just the business piece of it right like the business of soccer is ruthless and that's just like how it's gonna be and uh I don't know. I don't know what more else to say about that. I mean, I do think too, we do have to see how they use the resources in this war chest to make a full judgment because even if Georgie Manungu breaks out and becomes a superstar for Colorado, but Seattle uses the war chest to meaningfully improve their roster, don't
01:16:31
Speaker
then that's still a good outcome, even if he breaks out and becomes a good player. So we'll see what happens. But I, you know, I thought he was fantastic in the Miami game and it was looking like, man, this might be actually where Georgie breaks out. It hasn't quite happened like that yet. So we'll see if it actually does. But,
01:16:51
Speaker
I don't know. it was It was sad watching his heartfelt goodbye because it really kind of drove home. Like, man, he really he really loves and appreciates this club. So I appreciate that
Debate on VAR's Impact
01:17:03
Speaker
about him. ah All right, Noah, I got i got another agenda here. And this is not a Seattle Sounders agenda. This is a league-wide agenda. But this one is regarding v ar There was no dudes in boxes in Dallas. The dudes in the trailers in Dallas eating Twix. We had another one of these situations in the Atlanta United versus New England Revolution game where that's a that's a bad, tough watch. It was a tough watch, but I watch a lot of Atlanta United. So I was watching. Shout out to Scarves and Spikes.
01:17:35
Speaker
Shout out Scarves and Spikes. This guy was on the Revs, scored an absolute golazo. Like one of the better goals that I've seen anyone score in MLS all season. The Revs were celebrating. It was a great happy moment for them. Sick replays. you know Great for um Major League Soccer to have guys that can score goals like that. And they did another one of these things where they were looking for a reason to disallow it, and they found out that Rev's player was like kind of in the sight line of the Atlanta goalkeeper, and so they stopped the game for an hour and a half, and then they ended up disallowing the goal. So this great highlight, this great electric moment for the Rebs is disallowed and it's like it never happened.
01:18:23
Speaker
And if you look at the circumstances under like which they made this call, they're saying you know it was obstruction, but if you actually looked at it, there was a defender that was like exactly in line with, or like an Atlanta player that was exactly in line with it. So the goalkeeper sight line would have been blocked anyway. So it didn't affect the play at all. And more than that, it's just like, we we got to stop doing this. We got to stop doing this. I i remain pro VAR, and I do think you have to have it in the game, and I'll stand by that. But you can't...
01:18:58
Speaker
Fans don't want to see that. They want to see sick goals. And you can't be looking for reasons to disallow a goal like that. And my thing is, like, if if the ref catches that obstruction on the field and he calls it on the field, then sure, he caught it.
01:19:14
Speaker
All right, I can live with that. But, like, there's no way, there's no way that it can be the protocol that they're telling the VAR to go in and disallow a goal like that. You can't have it. You're like to the point where like they need to have a serious talk with these VAR crews, show them that situation and be like, you guys cannot disallow goals like that. You can't do it. And if you do do it, you are going to like get in some sort of disciplinary. We're going to take away your Mountain Dew. We're going to take away your Mountain Dew. We're going to take away your air conditioning and your shipping container in Frisco, Texas. We're going to, we're going make sure that we, we're going to give you non swivel chairs.
01:19:53
Speaker
We're going give you non-swivel chairs. How about that? Like there there needs to be a come to Jesus on this, man, because ah you got to get the calls right and you got to have VAR, but you can't be going through and looking at every ghoul, looking for reasons to take it off. Like you they need to stop this. I'm anti-VAR. I've been anti-VAR. I'm done with it. It's terrible. You have dudes sitting in a box in Frisco, Texas, dictating a game in Atlanta, Georgia. Why in the hell do they have their sticky little fingers over this game? The referee is at the game. He understands the players. He understands the context.
01:20:28
Speaker
He has everything he needs to do to make a decision. He has assistant referees. How many damn eyes do we have on that, okay? If you want VAR, it needs to be completely, like,
01:20:40
Speaker
rethought. The VAR people should not be able to communicate with the center official. That is my take. They should not be able to talk or influence the center official. I also think the problem VAR is it makes the center officials lazy as hell because they don't want to get anything wrong.
01:20:57
Speaker
They don't want to get anything wrong, so they always just defer to VAR to make the decision. That is wrong. That is wrong. There is a beauty to what the referee sees. There is a beauty to getting things wrong. There's a beauty to getting a boost.
01:21:11
Speaker
That's what's great about soccer. I don't want an XG. I don't want... Oh, well, we won because we had more XG. No, we won okay one because we scored. And you know what? Sometimes you get lucky in scoring. Sometimes you should have won because you had better opportunities, which is the XG thing. It's like, no, man. I want a little variance. I want a little bit. Sometimes a bad ref screws you. Sometimes a bad ref helps you.
01:21:34
Speaker
That is the tradition that we are losing to the oligarchs, Ari. We're losing it to the oligarchs. and Why are we losing it to the oligarchs inside of a McDonald's?
01:21:45
Speaker
in Texas, we got it we gotta stop this. See, i so I can't really get there with the with the human element argument, like we like the beauty of the game is actually in the mistakes. I think that's something that we say, but like when there's situations where there is an egregiously, egregiously missed call that affects the outcome of the game, and it negatively affects your team, that is...
01:22:13
Speaker
You're going to remember that boiling, frustrating. Yes, but you're going to remember that. That's the beauty of the game. That's the beauty of the game. No, that's the beauty of the game. I disagree with that. That's the beauty of the game. I think you let one thing come down to one call and you lose a game by one call. You're the problem. It's not the referee's fault. I'm sorry, but i See, there are some calls that are so bad that you need some sort of mechanism to rectify. I really do think you need that. like there are ah You have ARs, you have a fourth official, you have the referee on the field.
01:22:44
Speaker
i just don't understand. like What would be a situation? like The 98th minute of a final and a referee awards a penalty to a team for them to win the game? like i don't I don't know. There's just there's situations where where teams score goals and they get called offside and they're not offside at all and the goal should have counted. like I you think you need to be able to fix that. I agree, but that's automated. You can automate that. That's not VAR. Automated offsides is not VAR.
01:23:14
Speaker
VAR is for on-field calls and refereeing decisions. That's the problem. You have other people chirping the referee. Why? I have a better advantage point being in the stadium. I should be able to talk to the referee and tell him what to do. i just It's just stupid. I just think it would be pretty easy to just improve the system so we're not doing dumb shit like we saw in the in the Atlanta game. But I disagree. what like if If he called that as a goal on the field, it was a goal on the field, and that's fine.
01:23:43
Speaker
And VAR, the VAR is taking away or adding more... more One, it makes the game worse, too. Like, the viewing experience since VAR has been implemented... You can't really, like, celebrate a goal....is, like, genuinely disgusting. It's so bad. It's so bad. Like, all the time, you're just waiting for the referee to, like, have his... Why are we taking 20...
01:24:05
Speaker
Whatever. That's a aside. VAR adds and takes so takes away just as much as the variance of a good or bad refereeing takes away. That's my problem with it, right? Like, if VAR was infallible, I would be like, absolutely. That's why I'm pro um with the, like, automatic offsides.
01:24:24
Speaker
That's great. That's lasers. That's technology. That has no... like That's fine. I'm cool with that. Goal line tech Goal technology would nice. don't know NLOS doesn't have go line tech. don't know. But they have four dudes in a fucking trailer park in Dallas deciding what Atlanta United... How many points Atlanta United gets. And it's like they should be getting zero. So I don't really... like I don't know. I think...
01:24:46
Speaker
normal refereeing and VAR, what VAR was supposed to be and what it actually is. It's like the the variance is the same. Mistakes are made with without them, mistakes are made with them. So what's the point in having them? Like, let's just make the viewing experience for the viewer as best as possible. Cause at the end of the day, this is entertainment.
01:25:07
Speaker
I'm more pro VAR than that, but I do think that they they absolutely need to figure out how to avoid these situations where you're doing lengthy delays for ticky-tack calls that are disallowing SportsCenter top 10 goals. It's ridiculous. We can't have it. ah All right, Noah, you had, ah it looks like, a couple of agendas here. Take it away. What do you got Two quick ones. We don't have to belabor the point here because we we ah have to move on to this final story, but... I would love to see what Stu Hawks has to offer.
01:25:35
Speaker
Great agenda. He is healthy. He's ready to go. Put him in the game. I know Brian said he should have probably given him some minutes in this last match, but he wanted to just let the game go.
01:25:47
Speaker
And, ah you know, secondarily, I think it's time to start Tino Lopez. i think I think he should be starting in most matches with Jackson Reagan. And those are my two defensive position agendas. And you should move Alex back out wide.
01:26:04
Speaker
Okay. I can dig it. ah Fully with the Stu Hawks agenda, I've been saying it. like He's been injured for all season, which is obviously unfortunate. But like you said, he's back. He's healthy. He's good to go.
01:26:17
Speaker
And this is... I think people forget one of the highest upside academy players that they've brought up in the last few years, according to the scouts and the pundits and the people who know youth soccer and the prospects and all that. So, yeah. And he also has looked good when he has played. So let's get Steve. He's jacked. He's like Loki. I don't want to hear because that was the whole thing. The coaches were like, he's too skinny. No, he's not. Not anymore. Get him the field. All right.
01:26:46
Speaker
all right We have got one last headline to hit, and then we're going to call that a wrap for this episode of Lobbing Scorchers. Noah, did you want to lay down the context for this one?
Save the Vancouver Whitecaps Movement
01:26:56
Speaker
Sure. ah There is a movement brewing, Ari. There's a movement that is taking notes from a movement that happened in the past, famously the Save the Crew movement. Do you remember this? i do. There was an owner who we will not name who wanted to move the Columbus crew All the way to Austin, Texas. So a group of fans said, this is an MLS original team. You're absolutely not moving them. They banded together and they ended up forcing that bad owner out.
01:27:28
Speaker
Don Garber said, it's okay, my sweet baby. Here is an expansion franchise just for you. The crew remain. They then went on to have one of their best runs in franchise history, winning famously one, only one MLS Cup. 2020 did not exist.
01:27:46
Speaker
um And so goes the Columbus Crews story. But now, unfortunately, the Whitecaps are faced with a very similar fate. Their stadium deal expired.
01:27:59
Speaker
The group that controls them expired. wants to sell. And it seems like there's a possibility that the Vancouver Whitecaps will no longer be the Vancouver Whitecaps. The Whitecaps supporters group, the Southsiders, the Rain City Brigade, the Vancouver Sisters, the Vancouver Coastal Guardians, and the Vancouver Albion, and fans alike have all come together recently with a campaign to save the Caps. A united fan front with supporter-growing ah with supporters growing every day in all of these MLS markets. this is
01:28:30
Speaker
This is basically a movement to say there is absolutely no reason to move this team out of Vancouver. There's a lot more behind the scenes. You can learn more at SaveTheCaps.com. They have a whole write-up about this and another great article titled Since 1974 is over at You should go take a look at that, where it talks a lot about relocation, the day-to-day responsibilities, the landlords, BC Place, Pavco, Government Crown Corporation. There is lots of Canadian drama happening, folks. So you can go ahead and check that out over at CascadiaFC.com as well. But Ari...
01:29:12
Speaker
Do you remember David Alstead? I do. He was the former Whitecaps goalkeeper and one of the people who I had on a training card when I was a kid. I had i pulled an autographed David Alstead card. Good goalkeeper.
01:29:26
Speaker
He is helping run this whole campaign and... and I think that's cool when a guy who played for the team is now helping keep this team.
01:29:38
Speaker
Where is that? Obviously, so the Seattle fans themselves have experienced something like this with the Seattle Supersonics being relocated and stolen to Oklahoma City, and they have not returned since. It's a heartbreaking thing.
01:29:51
Speaker
When I was a kid, I remember where I was when I was listening to KJR in 2008 when they announced the team was gone. bawled my eyes out. I begged my dad not to go to school. This sports means something to people. They mean something to the community. There is a large community of people who cover the Whitecaps in Vancouver, you know, are friends.
01:30:10
Speaker
And this would disrupt... all of these people's lives in such a negative way for no reason. There is absolutely a way that this can all get settled and it just feels terrible. So Ari, I said a lot.
01:30:27
Speaker
What do you have to say on this? I just think it's unfortunate that it's even necessary to have this discussion. Cause let's, so let's, let's be clear about something. The oligarch class, they want to move the white caps. yeah They're not even really trying to beat around it. They feel like the stadium situation is untenable for whatever reason. And honestly, the only reason they probably haven't,
01:30:53
Speaker
gone through with it already is something that I think they didn't expect, which is that the team is really good. Yeah. And the support that they're getting in the city for being really good is growing. It's incredible. Their BC place is an electric place to go watch a game right now. I saw that, uh, Darby they had against the Portland Timbers a couple of weeks ago. And that looked like one of the most rowdy, craziest atmospheres that we've seen in MLS all season. So that to me, like, you know, it showed what Cascadia soccer can still do, but it also showed that there is, you're like you said, there is absolutely no actual good reason that the oligarchs have for for trying to do this. And but we should be clear about something else. The reasons that they are giving, they're lying, they're lying.
01:31:40
Speaker
they're not those are not There might be something to what's happening with the stadium situation, but that's not a reason why they have to move the team. My contention with them is figure it out.
01:31:53
Speaker
Figure it out. Everyone knows that you can. You all have more money than God. None of this is going to affect whether you're obscenely wealthy or not. You're going to be obscenely wealthy either way.
01:32:06
Speaker
Figure it out. Don't move the team, you idiots. That's not real solution. That's not a thing. Here's the quote from Axel Schuster, who is famously a little bit evil as well. This is the same situation that the Sounders feel as well. Unfortunately, our gap between being top seven in attendance and last in revenue is so significant that this this effort alone isn't the game changer that is needed for a long-term solution.
01:32:31
Speaker
sustainability, sorry. And this is talking about re-signing a lease with BC Place. They don't control the food and beverage revenue. They don't control the sweet revenue. They barely make any money on ticket sales, no concessions, all of this kind of thing.
01:32:43
Speaker
But they've been trying to negotiate with the BC government to get some of that stuff. And obviously it didn't go well, but they're also not willing to find land in an incredibly expensive city and build their own stadium. So they don't really, they say they don't really know what to do, but the thing is they just want to make more money.
01:33:03
Speaker
That's it. There's the anyone saying, well, actually, if you look at white man, shut up, a right Ari, Ari, Ari, the Vancouver whitecaps are actually a business. Yeah. How are going to pay Tommy Mule salary? I don't want to hear anybody or see anybody in the comments section bootlicking on this. All right. This is a bunch of greedy bloodsuckers, just like at FIFA, who are just,
01:33:28
Speaker
they melt down at the very notion of them making even one penny less than they feel that they're entitled to as rich people. And so they're going to throw a hissy fit and move the whole damn team because of that. Like I, yeah I have no time for it. I have no time for it. Uh, save the caps, save the caps and guess what? They want to move them.
01:33:49
Speaker
Indianapolis? Come on. That's literally not a real... so Have you ever been in Indianapolis? No, and I definite plan on going. I have been to Indianapolis many times. No one lives there. It's literally just like a shell corporation of a city.
01:34:01
Speaker
Like, it's not... Indianapolis? Indianapolis? there's like you know There's a lot of cities, I guess, in line, but it doesn't it doesn't matter. like the No team should ever move. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when we even have to have these discussions. What are we actually talking about? You hosted 53,000 people in the Western Conference Final. What are you talking about? You're going move the team.
01:34:29
Speaker
Yeah, and you know you get no one gives a fuck about your revenue either. I'm sorry. it's just No one cares. No one cares. Figure it out. Build a stadium. If you care about your revenue, find a piece of land and build a stadium and stock the plate. You've had how many years? if If this deal was actually that bad with BC Place, how many years have you had a chance to go build a stadium?
01:34:48
Speaker
know what to tell you, man. Like, it's it's stupid. Save the Caps dot com. There's a petition on there. Add your name. Tell the city, the province and the league that this club is not for sale to another market.
01:35:01
Speaker
Every signature is a statement. The White Caps belong in Vancouver. That's their little mission statement that I just read. But. All right, Noah, I think we can call it a wrap for this episode of Lobbing Scorchers. We can pat ourselves on the back, too, because we just saved the caps. We just saved the caps single-handedly. Thank you all so much for tuning in. If you're watching on YouTube, like the video, sub to the channel. Follow us on all socials, lobbingscorchers.com slash coffee, lobbingscorchers.com. Slash sauce.
01:35:29
Speaker
And. Lombscortures.com slash USA. We have an interesting project coming out with U.S. s Soccer. And also use code SCORCHERS at checkout for 10% off your entire order. The World Cup's coming.
01:35:41
Speaker
Thank you all for listening. Thank you all for tuning in. Until next time, we out. Peace.