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Episode 291: Talking to acclaimed author Matt Pentz
60 Plays6 years ago
Hi guys, long time no talk. The last time we recorded was back in November when the Seattle Sounders were getting bounced from the MLS Playoffs. Seems an awful long time ago, doesn’t it?
A lot has happened since then, including the Seattle Snowpocalypse, which kept both Likkit and Aaron from recording this week. We don’t hit on all of the news, but Jeremiah was joined by Susie Rantz to talk about the Reign moving to Tacoma, the Tacoma Defiance getting a new name, some of the roster moves and the Sounders’ preseason up until now. It’s a show packed with lots of information.
We also interviewed author Matt Pentz about his soon-to-be-released book “The Sounder and the Glory: How the Seattle Sounders showed Major League Soccer How to Win Over America” (pre order here).
We should also remind you that Yachtcon: Nights is a little more than a week away. Tickets are about 80 percent sold out, but definitely still available. We’re raising money for the Seattle Children’s Hospital Autism Center again and will be announcing guests very soon. (Buy tickets)
This week's music: "What do tigers dream of?" - Cristian Roldan, "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Perry Como - "Seattle", RVIVR - “The Tide”, Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)
Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.
Want to hear the music from the show in their glorious, full versions? Check out the Nos Audietis playlist on Spotify!
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Transcript
Introduction & Sponsorship Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of No Sadietes is sponsored by Fullpool Wines, a Seattle-based wine seller who recently released their first book, 36 Bottles of Wine. To eat those of the book, a highly curated look at wine categories that provide exceptional value right now should be familiar to Fullpool readers. But there's loads of fresh content, and since it's not trying to sell any wine through the book, there's a bit more of a sass factor.
00:00:20
Speaker
And there's food! Lots of it! Fullpool's unique writing style is applied to recipes like Leftover Thanksgiving, Turkey, Smaltz of All Soup, and pregnancy nachos. This book can be purchased through Sasquatch Books. Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to... There's no study at this. What do tigers dream of when they take a little tiger snooze? Do they dream of mauling zebras?
00:01:16
Speaker
I think we're going to have to sign off
Weather Challenges & Host Adjustments
00:01:21
Speaker
on that one.
00:01:21
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of Nosy Adiathis, sponsored by Full Pull Wines and our broadcast partner Bootstrapper Studios. This is episode 291, and we're recording on Tuesday, February 12th, 2019. I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan, and due to weather-related challenges, Lickett and Aaron won't be with us. Filling in, though, is Rite of the Valkyries and Coffee and Valkyries, Susie Rance. Later in the show, we have an interview with Matt Pence about his book Sound and Glory, how the sounders showed how
00:01:48
Speaker
to win over America. So it's been a busy few weeks in the world of Puget Sound Soccer. The Sounders and Rain unveiled their New Jersey sponsor. Two universal applause I think we can call it. The Rain announced that they're moving Tacoma where they will play with a newly rechristened Tacoma Defiance and the Sounders are now a couple weeks into training camp even having played their first
00:02:11
Speaker
official preseason game which was a three to two loss to use in dynamo we'll go over all these things uh lots to unpack but let's since we have susie here with us this is i think the most important news of the offseason we're going to go ahead and start with the most important news
Rain FC's Unexpected Move to Tacoma
00:02:30
Speaker
Rain FC, moving to Tacoma. Susie, what was your, like I suspect you had an inkling of this before it came out, but this was kind of dropped as a bomb on the Seattle soccer public. Yeah, I guess I would say I had an inkling that this was something that was highly likely in 2020. The fact that it came in 2019 was a bit of a shock and we can talk a little bit more about kind of
00:03:00
Speaker
what led to all of that but um a shock and I don't I don't think many had much of a heads up myself included that it was going to be unveiled this year so I'll let's get into that a little bit you know I I talked to Bill Predmore the owner of the the rain I think they gave a rather detailed explanation that went through their whole thought process on this but
00:03:27
Speaker
did it feel like maybe they were playing it a little too close to the vest that this felt like a out of nowhere move? Like it wasn't like people expected the rain to move because everyone knew they couldn't play it at Memorial Stadium this year. And it was just a matter of where then people could kind of draw their own conclusions like, well, Tacoma makes the most sense. But instead it really came as like, whoa, wait, hold on.
00:03:56
Speaker
moving out of out of King County, do you feel like they handled it the best way possible? I think for the most part, yes, I think there could have been a little bit more transparency and like planning in the weeks leading up to the announcement, whether that meant, you know, like co branding the announcement, which would have obviously given a little bit of of it away. And we've talked about this a little bit on the website, but like, maybe
00:04:26
Speaker
taking season tickets off of the, off of the rain website when it still was connected to Memorial. But the reality is they really did heading into 2019 think that they were going to be at Memorial Stadium for this, for this season and have been really long-term looking at, and over the last two years, really looking at what options were out there for a long-term stadium and facility.
00:04:54
Speaker
and had been looking at Tacoma, but it just so happened that the league itself was not seeming to be willing to grant the rain another waiver to stay there at Memorial this year. And this offer just came together so last minute and was available for this season. So there's kind of little they can do really to remove those factors and really plan for it. But I do think probably from
00:05:21
Speaker
Like, you know, the few weeks when they knew this was a reality and leading up to it could have done a little bit more.
Announcement Strategy & Fan Reactions
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I think there's there's two parts there. There's one part where I agree. Like, I don't think like if we
00:05:36
Speaker
take Bill at his word, and I don't know that there's really any reason to doubt it, but it sounds like this really came together a few weeks maybe before the announcement. It's not like in August when they were telling everyone we're planning on playing at Memorial that they were lying. I don't see any evidence of that. And that this was basically a deal that came together right around the NWSL draft, which was early in the month in January.
00:06:05
Speaker
But I also can't help it. And I think maybe not much changes, but I do feel like there is so much focus on making this a surprise that controlling the message and controlling the way that it came out
00:06:26
Speaker
that maybe they did themselves a little bit of a disservice. Like you said, they didn't co-brand the event. And so it makes it look like it's a kind of add-on to this event, when in reality, it's kind of the focus of the event. I think this means they probably, I'm trying to remember, when was the Zulily announcement? It was after, it must have been after, right?
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, like mid like later in January. So they must have already known at this point that they were and it all kind of makes sense now. But it just it did feel like they were so focused on controlling their part of the message.
00:07:05
Speaker
that maybe it felt like fans were more blindsided than they needed to be. Is that just kind of like, do you think that would have ended up really changing the way people perceived it is if they hadn't been quite so focused on kind of controlling the way it came out?
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's a hard balance because I feel like if people found out too much in advance, then they create their own narratives a little bit. And the chatter perhaps goes in a direction you don't want. But I do. Yeah, that's a good point. I saw a lot of conversation around the event because it was branded. I guess I can't remember. I guess it was initially branded sounders, right? And then Tacoma Defiance and Rainier's.
00:07:52
Speaker
that people felt like the the women's
Tacoma's Support & Long-term Stability
00:07:55
Speaker
team was getting um like like you said like an add-on and it wasn't really a part of the focus and i feel like that is a narrative you could have really easily controlled by just being more a part of whatever like decisions were made about the backdrop and that sort of thing right just make it feel like a little bit more of a joint announcement because it was once you watched the press conference and once the mayor got up there on her pedestal which was awesome
00:08:23
Speaker
It was a rain event. Yeah, it was. And I think it was. And I should say, I think the mayor of Tacoma was more effusive in her praise of the rain than maybe any Seattle politician has been in anything like a comparable setting. I don't remember any Seattle politician losing their mind quite like that over excitement for the rain.
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, I'd agree. And like other, other representatives in the Tacoma area have already been, you know, celebrating on social. And I just don't remember that when the rain moved to Memorial.
00:09:02
Speaker
Right. No, I don't either. And I feel like the rain, unfortunately, up until now have always, I feel like there's always been something like when the NWSL launched, I don't feel like it got the, it didn't feel like this big event in part because I think the NWSL was kind of trying to downplay aspects of, you know, well, we don't want to oversell it. Like maybe we did with the WSA and the WPS and, and we know we're kind of.
00:09:29
Speaker
were like in the shadow of two failed leagues. So we don't want to make too big of a deal of this. And so the rain kind of came out and it wasn't treated as quite of a big deal as it should have been. And then of course that was at Starfire and then they go to Memorial and it's now like, oh, well they're playing at Memorial. That's great. But it's this old facility, which brings me to this.
00:09:51
Speaker
Take away the personal feelings you may have, that I may have, that a lot of Seattle rain season ticket holders must have. It does organizationally feel like a great move, doesn't it? Oh, for so many reasons. I totally sympathize with people who are going to have a harder time getting to games. And I don't want to discount that at all. But from the fact that Adrian Hanauer has been wanting to,
00:10:22
Speaker
to step up and become a minority owner in the rain for a while. And it sounds like they've been in those conversations for quite a while, but was concerned about long-term stadium plans and whether that meant the rain were sustainable. So this move brought in new ownership that wouldn't have existed, I think, if they stayed at rain. And that's so, so critical for the rain's long-term sustainability in the region. So that alone is awesome. But for the players to have
00:10:51
Speaker
grass pitch to play on versus that Tar Fett Memorial, which was a pretty tough turf surface, is really awesome. The fact that they can, I know it seems silly to a lot of people, but the fact that they can sell different concessions and beer that you can bring to your seat, I just think creates an expected soccer environment that you've heard from... Oh, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say...
00:11:18
Speaker
I'll just, I'll go. So I just think that, that, that aspect, I know that they've made lots of jokes about the beer and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I, and I get, it's kind of funny to that, but I do think that the beer is emblematic of a whole host of problems that they had at Memorial, which was, yeah, we can't sell bitter, but we can't sell anything really. Like they had to bring in food trucks. They have, you know, like their, their team store is basically a pop-up stand.
00:11:46
Speaker
you know, it all felt so temporary. Yeah, there were a handful of, you know, concessions that they could sell out of the concession stands, but their revenue streams must have been almost, you know, 95% tickets there. And that's just not a way that you can't sustain a professional sports team in 2019 on just tickets. Yeah. And as Bill and Teresa were talking about, um,
00:12:14
Speaker
When we, when we had them on our podcast, uh, they were talking about now they can sell ticket packages that tie in concessions with them, you know, like a family ticket package where you can get a hot dog and a drink or something, but they just didn't even have that option before. So it just opens up also sorts of new possibilities. Um, and I think just having some shared
00:12:39
Speaker
Support across the three organizations is going to be really interesting to see also, you know, the rain have to be a pretty lean organization from an administrative operations staffing perspective and having maybe other people who can support them with content and that's shared across the three teams. Like all of that, I just think it's going to be really huge for them for marketing as well.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, so one of the big questions I think that's lingering about this, and it's maybe not as close to a finalized deal as we'd all like it to be, but that they potentially will be playing in a soccer-specific stadium
Future Stadium Plans & World Cup Impact
00:13:19
Speaker
not too far down the road, two years down the road, that has to be a pretty big aspect of this too. Where Cheney ranks among the NWSL stadiums is certainly debatable. I would guess it's probably maybe not much higher on the list than the memorial was. But if they are playing in a 6,000 seat soccer specific stadium, all of a sudden,
00:13:49
Speaker
That's looking like one of the better setups in the league, except for other than maybe the thorns who the only reason their setup is better is because they can sell 17,000 seats. Whereas I don't know that the royals or the or the pride are necessarily in better situations because they don't sell out their stadiums. Yeah, it's hard. It's sad to see the red stars which play at Toyota Park, but don't share ownership with the fire, but they
00:14:18
Speaker
have such a giant stadium and so few people in the seats and it's hard to see from an optics perspective. Yeah, but I mean, that has to be pretty exciting though that the possibility of playing in an appropriately sized soccer stadium. I agree. Yeah. And like, I remember the games.
00:14:39
Speaker
Um, around 2015, when there was the woman's World Cup bump at Memorial, where you're packing the stands a little bit more, it was still like 6,000 people. It wasn't cool to the max, but that was loud. And it was like such a, like a really cool environment. And to have a soccer specific stadium where you can fill the stands, have 6,000 or 5,000 people, they're kind of on a consistent basis. So it allows them to create this atmosphere that
00:15:06
Speaker
we hadn't really seen in the last few years at Memorial, not for lack of trying for all the supporters that do show up every day.
00:15:14
Speaker
Right, I think I went to the first two Portland Thorns games at Memorial where they drew really good crowds. The Thorns obviously brought their visiting support and they were loud and they were singing, but it just felt like a real soccer atmosphere. Memorial, when you could get 6,000 people in there, felt like a solid home field advantage.
00:15:42
Speaker
but at the same time, you were peeing in toilets that you were scared, like I was scared, I was legitimately scared to take my daughter to the bathroom. Yeah, the bathroom situation. When I first walked in the first time at Memorial, I thought the floor was flooded because it had this like weird sheen on it that was just like this, I don't know what it was, but I'm not gonna say that at all. Probably nothing good, probably nothing good.
00:16:09
Speaker
Uh, so let me ask you this. I think this is the big question a lot of people are going to have. And I don't think this is necessarily what determines the success or failure of this. I think the successor failure is going to be determined by like the business metrics for like not to be too, uh, to gauche about this. But I do think that's ultimately what determines if this was a good move, but a lot of people are going to look at attendance. What do you, what is your prediction attendance wise going to be this year?
00:16:38
Speaker
It's really hard to predict. I mean, I will say we have at least evidence of S2 moving from Starfire to Cheney Stadium last year and seeing a pretty solid bump there in attendance. Not that that translates directly to the rain. I think it's going to be a hard year in particular to predict because it is a World Cup year and we may get a bump from that also. But the last two seasons,
00:17:07
Speaker
attendance has kind of stagnated and actually gone down a little bit at Memorial. So I don't, I could very much see a scenario where attendance is equal to last year or even a little bit better. It's really hard for me to say though, but. Do you think somewhere in the 4000 a game ballpark is at least doable? Yeah, it seems very doable.
00:17:36
Speaker
Well, I think if they were able to do that, it would be even more of a knockdown drag out kind of victory. I was kind of, my suspicion was that it might do something, like I was guessing it would be somewhere between what they were drawing at Starfire in year one and what they drew kind of at the peak years of Memorial. So somewhere in like maybe the 3,500 range, but I think close to 4,000, that would be pretty impressive.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, it would be. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more in the 3500, but the great thing from a financial perspective is that they'll be able to, as you mentioned, make more money with merchandise and concessions and all that sort of extra money that they weren't necessarily getting at Memorial. So slightly transitioning into the other kind of joint
00:18:31
Speaker
uh, announcement that we had this in the last few weeks was the Zulily sponsorship. Now, I think my sense is that these were received very differently by the rain and sounders fan base, but since.
Zulily Sponsorship & Brand Perception
00:18:47
Speaker
And we'll talk about how it's been received in the centers fan base, but I'm curious how has this, like, what was the reaction like among fans about Zulily and maybe even beyond that, the it being the same as the sounders.
00:19:01
Speaker
Um, I think you mentioned this at the intro and I kind of was laughing on the inside of universally celebrated Um, maybe maybe not from a sounder fan perspective, but I will say yes from a rain fan perspective. Um The the recognition that it's incredibly hard to get by as an independent club in the nwsl
00:19:25
Speaker
if you're not attached to an MLS side, that there's so many restrictions based on how much you can pay players and what your operations budget can be, et cetera, et cetera, to have a partner who's so willing to give you just money, but also a commitment to an ongoing partnership. It was so huge for the rain. So I think all the fans
00:19:50
Speaker
A lot of fans also, I would say that we're rain pants hadn't really heard of Zulily, just like maybe Sanders fans, but they don't really care. More money in the door for their team is really what they care about. And that this was to a lot of rain supporters, a real signal of what I think we've talked about a lot, but it hasn't been really evident of
00:20:13
Speaker
ongoing collaboration between the Sounders and the Rain. I think Rain fans have felt like that has been missing for the last few years. The Sounders maybe haven't given as much public nods or recognition or partnerships to the Rain as people wanted, and this is a really big signal that maybe there's more to come there, and it's definitely something that both clubs care a lot about.
00:20:37
Speaker
Yeah, and I love the idea of both themes. I think it spoke a lot to Zill Lily's interest in being the sponsor, that they were willing to kind of have both the sounders and the rain. And for me, I think this kind of gets back to my personal feelings about the sponsorship going into this whole thing, where
00:21:00
Speaker
Whoever is willing to pay the most money and whoever wants to be a decent partner and hopefully their logo is unobtrusive.
00:21:08
Speaker
And I think that Zulily hits those three areas. Now, how unobtrusive the logo is, I guess depends on how you feel about cursive fonts. And I can't believe how much conversation we had the other day, like when this happened, how much conversation we had about cursive fonts, because my initial, I'll be honest, my initial reaction to this was, oh yeah, it's kind of a girly looking font.
00:21:38
Speaker
But then I immediately had to check myself and it's like, well, why is this what makes this a girly looking font? And you look at all these other kind of like manly brands like Eddie Bauer and Budweiser and Cadillac and you can go down the list and they all have cursive fonts and they don't look all so different and
00:21:57
Speaker
I do think that there is this kind of mental block that we have as sports fans and it's like, well, that's a female centered brand and therefore it doesn't belong on a men's shirt. And I just can't help but feel like that does seem backwards. It's not like it's, it's not like it's a straight up female product. It's just a
00:22:22
Speaker
shopping site that is focused primarily on women and I do think that it's kind of exposed this kind of unfortunate like mindset that we have about shirt sponsors that seems really frankly quite silly and I'm actually genuinely like I'm not surprised that people were upset about Zulily because I think there was always going to be this
00:22:45
Speaker
kind of push back because Xbox was seen as this kind of like platonic ideal of a sponsor because it was relatively clean looking. It was a brand that a lot of the target demo of the Sounders fan base associates either uses or at least is very familiar with. And it's kind of like has this global recognition, not they don't sponsor other TV or other other teams on and on and on. It was it was seen as a really good sponsor.
00:23:15
Speaker
But in a lot of ways, I kind of think Zulily may end up being a better sponsor if for no other reason than they actually are interested in being the sounder sponsor. Whereas Xbox was really only interested in it purely as a way of putting their name out there. They weren't really interested in working with the sounders particularly closely. I don't know, what was your kind of read on the reaction to the announcement?
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was an, there's like a really interesting, like you said, reflection for, I think not just male soccer fans, but women, like what, what, like we're so used to seeing brands on.
00:24:01
Speaker
sports teams that maybe do target men a little bit more sometimes or sometimes are just totally gender neutral and it's never been an issue. And so like you're kind of having to check yourself and flip that switch when it's a product that is more geared toward women. I will say like, yes, Zulily as a product is definitely created and was initially geared toward women more, but nowhere in the announcement
00:24:29
Speaker
Did that word ever come up? And they sell lots of men, like explicitly men's products. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like, we're kind of projecting some societal norms about gender onto a product that never said it once themselves. So it was, I think just a really interesting and obviously in any situation, the online debate is going to be a little bit more heated than what you may hear in like day to day conversations.
00:24:58
Speaker
I have had actually like three or four different instances where I had a sounder's jersey or jacket or something on and someone asked me about the Zulily sponsorship and I was like, Oh God, where do I want to go? So I like answer it really neutrally, but actually all of those conversations were like,
00:25:21
Speaker
If they got the money, I'm more than happy to see them on the jersey. So I was like, Oh wow, this is a much different tone than maybe what we saw around the launch. Yeah. I mean, I think that ultimately most fans get it. Like they understand that.
00:25:38
Speaker
a shirt sponsors a shirt sponsor they give you money and you promote their brand it's not the other way around and i think that people kind of convince themselves like well what i loved about xbox was that it increased the sounder's exposure well that's great and i think there's some truth to that but
00:25:53
Speaker
But let's take a step back. Why does a brand want to buy sponsorship so they can promote the team? Like that's not how it, like that's just not, that's not like the normal ecosystem of how shirt sponsorships work. The whole point is the shirt sponsor is giving the team money so that they can help build up their brand. Now, when they collect, you would like to see them collaborating together and you'd like to see them kind of helping each other out and it should be kind of a symbiotic relationship.
00:26:20
Speaker
But at the end of the day, only one side is spending money. The other side is just kind of receiving the money. And I think most fans get that. But I think I was genuinely taken aback by how mad. Not that people were upset, because I think I was expecting people to upset. But there was genuine anger. And one thing that I found really interesting was someone said they were talking about a car brand. And they said, well, Chevy is a neutral
00:26:49
Speaker
is neither male focus or female focus. And it's like, wait a minute, you're telling me Zulily is a female brand, but Chevy is a male brand, even though 90% of their marketing is to men. Who cares? Maybe 50% of the people who buy it are women, but all their marketing is focused at men. Yeah. Yeah, that's really good.
00:27:13
Speaker
Like this is like what we, what we see as gender neutral is really like male focused, but, but women use it. And, but a female, but like to have Zulily it's like, well, it's female focused.
00:27:29
Speaker
that men happen to use, so it's a female brand. And it's just like, there's this very kind of like unfair description. And I guess we can get into like the deeper discussion of like, well, who cares if a women's brand is sponsoring a men's team? Like that's not, like that's a whole other ball of wax, but like even just taking it one level farther of saying like, well, why are we insisting on this being a women's brand just because their marketing is
00:27:57
Speaker
mostly aimed at one gender over the other. I don't know. I just I just found the whole thing kind of fascinating. And maybe I don't want to say I guess I was a little disappointed because I'd like to think that if any team can have kind of can be more progressive in the way that they think about this, you'd like it to be a team that's based in Seattle. But it's still like at the end of the day, it's still like men's soccer. Right. And that's kind of like who the fans are as men's soccer fans.
00:28:26
Speaker
And I don't want to be totally dismissive of people's frustrations with it. But I do genuinely hope that people take a second and ask themselves, why do I feel the way I feel about the font, the brand itself, all these things, and just start asking. Because I felt like it was a good exercise for me to go through. Because I had, I think, the same reactions that a lot of people
00:28:54
Speaker
men had, which was to say, like, oh, well, that's that's a weird sponsor. And but then if you ask, well, why do I feel it's weird, you know, I don't know. I don't want to go ahead. No, I was just going to add one one little point, which is I thought it was an interesting argument that a lot of people were making.
00:29:15
Speaker
that, well, I'm not going to use that product and I'd want someone on my Jersey sponsor of a, like a product that I use. And I just like think about all the Jersey sponsors out there of different teams. And like, I don't know what, what didn't LA galaxy was life. Yeah, they're like, uh, yeah.
00:29:36
Speaker
They're multi-level marketing. They're multi-level market. They're Amway. I mean, they're not Amway. They're like AdvoCare. They're basically like a, they sell, they're a multi-level marketing company. Yeah. And a lot of like health centers sponsor other jerseys around the country and like, okay, so you might use them. But I just thought, found that argument kind of silly, but I, but perhaps as you mentioned, that does just harken back to
00:30:06
Speaker
that some fans did feel connected to Xbox because of that. And maybe that's where some of those feelings are coming from. Well, and again, I don't want to over, over like apply the anecdotes, but I did think it was interesting that some people after the announcement of the Defiance sponsor, which is Medi, Medicare.
Tacoma Defiance Branding & Community Response
00:30:33
Speaker
So no, it's not called, it's not Medicare. It's,
00:30:35
Speaker
something care. Yeah, it's, it's some sort of health. I guess it's like, great. So it's some, it's like, this is kind of getting to my point. It's a nondescript, health, you know, clinic type of situation, they do, they work in in the world of, of medicine. And someone's like, well, that's a great sponsor.
00:30:59
Speaker
And it's, and I said, why, why is that a great sponsor? And they're like, well, you know, it's a, it's a company that I think it's just, I think it's a better fit. And it's like here, like, I don't know that much about them, but looking at the reviews online, I don't know that the company is any more respected than Zulily within their field. I'd never heard of them. I'm never going to use them.
00:31:20
Speaker
they they have like you know sure I guess their shirts look fine but like the logo looks fine but it's just is it is it I don't think you can really call it better and yet there were people that that's like yeah I don't care if I think ultimately it's not about do I use it it's ultimately it's not about do I like it it's not about how the font looks or any of that stuff it's just like
00:31:45
Speaker
like neutral is somehow clearly better in that it's like, I had no feeling, I had no idea who this was, I have no idea who it is now and yet somehow it's better, but. Yeah. Anyway, which I guess we should probably touch on this. What did you think of the Tacoma Defiance rebrand? That got some like mixed reactions too. It was either like, I love it or like a lot of folks in the design community were like,
00:32:15
Speaker
Yeah. And I should say I went on the record and made this observation. And I think it's a fair observation, but I didn't and I worded it very poorly. I made it sound like people that like designers opinions are not important in this case. But I do think that people that are in the design community who are both professional graphic designers and who have an eye for that kind of design
00:32:49
Speaker
the random fan. And the more I talk to people, I think I get it. It's because it doesn't look as polished as you maybe would want a logo to look and that it had, you know, like the lines aren't quite as clean. There's like some of the elements aren't balanced the way they are perfectly. But to me, I look at it. I think it's kind of a cool look. I like, I don't necessarily get the story that the logo is telling, but I just think it looks cool. And that worked for me.
00:33:06
Speaker
definitely did not like the logo as much as kind of the
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah, I will say in observing the design community, I think it's like an ongoing frustration. Is that a lot of companies or organizations, not just in the sports world, take advantage of people who are willing to do things for a little bit cheaper?
00:33:38
Speaker
Um, and don't always get the best product because of that, but they kind of are, if someone's willing to be paid a smaller amount of money, I'm just going to do that and call it good. And that's frustrating for a lot of professional designers in general. I like see that reflected in their, their critiques of this process, like.
00:33:57
Speaker
if you had gone kind of with a full branding process and worked with professionals to go through it all, you'd have a more polished look and you'd be paying professionals to do to their job. So I totally get and respect that argument. I also do love like a semi-pro team taking a more lighthearted approach to a logo. So I love it for that aspect as well. But I definitely see and appreciate both sides of love it and frustrated by it.
00:34:26
Speaker
Yeah, and I do think that Tacomaans, people from Tacoma can relate to this. I think it will work for them. I think sometimes we can get a little too wrapped up in the story that a logo is telling because I don't know that the people who are buying the gear care that much about that stuff. And I think in this case,
00:34:56
Speaker
The Rainiers very much ran the show on this. They, I think, knew what they wanted. And they probably directed this pretty much. It was very much in-house. And I think that that probably shows is that it was it was something that was conceived of by people who aren't really designers and who just kind of wanted something that they could sell.
00:35:18
Speaker
And I think that they got that. And I think the logos look great. I think the name works really well. I had heard that they were gonna go with something a little bit more generic, but I think that this is a great way to go. Apparently, Defiance was very popular suggestion that they got from something like 30% of the thousand ballots that were sent in, which is kind of a remarkable number
00:35:49
Speaker
Like it was just like a kind of like open-ended question as to what do you think we should call the team and Defiance apparently was on quite a lot of them. But we'll close out this segment before we get to the Matt Pence interview, talking a little bit about the Sounders and the actual team that the show mostly focuses on.
Sounders' Preseason & Player Performances
00:36:09
Speaker
But they have a game tomorrow against the Timbers. You may be listening to this after that game so we don't know
00:36:17
Speaker
what happened in the game but they did play the dynamo already they actually play the dynamo twice on the same day they played a 60 minute scrimmage and then a 90 minute scrimmage that featured 60 minutes of the first team and then 30 minutes of what you could maybe call the fourth team it was to even call the the team that they fielded the last 30 minutes backups is probably being
00:36:40
Speaker
really kind because none of them are on, no, I take it back. Trey Muse was the only player who was on our first team contract. There are four guys that weren't on any sort of professional contract. And I think nine of the 11 players who originally came on
00:36:56
Speaker
at the line change were teenagers. So it was maybe predictable that they got beaten 3-0 in those last final minutes and they lost the game. But let's focus on those first 60 minutes. What were your big kind of takeaways from that as far as admitting this is the first preseason game that they've played? So I don't know how much you can take away, but what did you think of what you saw? I think from an attacking perspective,
00:37:25
Speaker
So fun to once again see Victor and Nicole Ledero and Raul Reedy odds like really sync up and some of those real tight space quick passing come in their first preseason game together was encouraging for what we may see for the rest of the season. Should they all fingers crossed remain healthy? You know, you know, for a game where you're rusty and like those passes are typically a little off maybe in your first preseason game, it was cool to see them
00:37:54
Speaker
click like, like they had been doing it for a while. Um, and I, I think, um, it like, for me, it was really exciting to see Jordan Morris back on the field. We, um, maybe perhaps didn't get to see him utilized a lot. They seem to really play on the left side of the game in the game a lot. Um, but for me, just having Jordan Morris touch a soccer ball in a real,
00:38:22
Speaker
game environment is like all I ask of the preseason. So getting him more reps with the team and getting back into game shape and thinking about game time decisions was really exciting as well.
00:38:38
Speaker
I'll stop there because I have lots of thoughts, but I'll add that Jordan Morris was very like I like what we saw generally speaking from him. I think we also saw some some real rust. You know, there was a couple heavy touches. There are a couple balls that are chances that he got in where if he makes a slightly different touch, you know, maybe that's a goal scoring chance, but I'm with you. I think that what we saw.
00:39:05
Speaker
Was what we were kind of promised, which is a player who's going to stretch the field. And I think it did help open up space for, you know, the more technical players that are on mostly the other side of the field, uh, the standout for me. And I don't think I'm saying anything out of turn here, but Brad Smith, I think.
00:39:22
Speaker
you know, if he plays like that all preseason, it's hard for me to see how new who unseats him. And now new who I think is a clearly a better defender. But man, Brad Smith, the runs that he makes like the run that he made on on Rudy Diaz goal is kind of remarkable. It starts in the in the in like the middle
00:39:45
Speaker
of the sounder's own half and he starts off on the inside of Victor Rodriguez and he doesn't actually cut to the outside of Victor Rodriguez until he gets to the top of the penalty area and then he cuts back into the defender, receives a pass from Rodriguez, hits a first time pass perfectly to Rui Diaz. I mean that's the kind of stuff
00:40:06
Speaker
that we haven't seen from our left back. It was such a smart run, such a perfect pass. And if he's going to make plays like that, you can almost forgive the defensive stuff.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking too. I totally agree. And I, what I loved about that run too is it wasn't just like a pure sprint. Like you mentioned, he had to sort of bend his run, then he held it for a second and just timed it perfectly with Victor. So all, I think that was Victor. So all of that was just really encouraging to see from an attacking perspective on the planks. I think that, um,
00:40:44
Speaker
Like an interesting thing to think about from a defensive cover perspective is that maybe Roldong's now sliding back into center midfield alongside Svensson, which just gives you more, I think, ability to provide defensive cover just because Roldong can run everywhere and be everywhere. So it does provide a little extra that maybe they didn't have last year that gives
00:41:10
Speaker
a little bit more freedom to make those runs up the flank without worrying about his defensive responsibilities at the moment.
00:41:19
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that the question is going to be how they adapt defensively. Because in this game, I'm curious as to the thinking behind playing Kim on the left side. Clearly not his preferred spot. I think there were some miscommunications there. Most of Houston's best attacking moments came attacking the Sounders left.
00:41:44
Speaker
I kind of liked the idea of Kim being on that side and being able to interact with Rodriguez and Smith and kind of forming this kind of trying, like being able to form triangles and move the ball up the field and be a little bit more aggressive on that side. At the same time, I probably could do with without some of the chances that Houston generated. Although I guess I looked at the box score, they didn't have as many shots as I thought that they did.
00:42:14
Speaker
um from either side but and i haven't watched the game again since i watched it originally um but i kind of remember some of their best chances being kind of bad giveaways on the sounders and like just kind of a bad pass in a dangerous spot which is all correct like pretty easily correctable yeah no i i would agree with that um what what did you think of of roll dawn's first game kind of as the
00:42:44
Speaker
kind of like, I don't know if it's not his first game. It was the, because he has played this before, but what did you think of Roll Dawn and Svensson together? I guess I didn't think of them much. It was just probably a good thing. Yeah, that's a good thing. You know, like that I remember them being involved and Roll Dawn really helps play a role in that second goal from what I remember.
00:43:13
Speaker
the team winning the ball and moving it further back on the field. It was a counter attack chance, so I think you're right. Yeah, I think yeah. And he was again kind of like everywhere and super hard to push off the ball. All the stuff you remember on breaking up plays. But I actually just also just don't remember them doing anything fantastic, which sometimes it's great when you don't remember the folks that are sitting a little bit deeper in the field.
00:43:44
Speaker
Well, that's that's probably a good place to call this a segment. We're going to come back, talk to Matt Pence about his book. Then we're going to take questions from you guys. You're listening to no idea this.
00:44:01
Speaker
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00:44:21
Speaker
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Sounders' History & Key Figures
00:44:43
Speaker
the show
00:45:00
Speaker
So I read this book. It was a, I would say a satisfyingly quick and easy read. I mean, it just, I thought it went by very quickly. I'll just tell the listeners out the, when does the book come out? First of all, March 5th. So it's, it's not out in stores yet, but you can pre-order it through Amazon and I feed through other means.
00:45:20
Speaker
Yeah, and through the publisher website, which is ECW Press. And it's a little bit more expensive to ship that way because it's out of Canada. And they said that doesn't make that much of a difference to go through Amazon. So that's fine. It's on Amazon, probably the easiest place to preorder.
00:45:34
Speaker
that's
00:45:56
Speaker
brand new revelations, but there were a few. I mean, and I thought, and we may as well just start here. I thought one of the more interesting and kind of fun anecdotes was your little story about, or the little segment about Nelson Valdez. And first of all, you detail this kind of most interesting man in the world history that that Nelson Valdez has that I was kind of, I had kind of forgotten about, but he does have this air about him of being like just having these amazing stories.
00:46:24
Speaker
his life story is amazing. He grew up incredibly poor in Paraguay, used every single cent that he had saved to fly to Germany for a trial with no promises whatsoever, and managed to latch on and then ended up becoming this great European player, fired his country into a World Cup, he scored that goal, comes here, and even his Sounders crew was so cinematic because he was so struggled
00:46:49
Speaker
so so much and then he was kind of a hero in the end of it whenever he kind of had those great playoff goals and that's what people will probably remember despite the fact that he scored like one goal in like 34 league games or whatever. And what's also funny is that he scored that goal
00:47:04
Speaker
and his debut
00:47:20
Speaker
the regular season of playoffs, Open Cup, and Champions League. It's not a long list of players, and yet he has like six goals, but he's scored in all those competitions. Yeah, an amazing career arc, just specifically here in general, but even in Seattle he kind of had this really interesting path, and so it was a good character. And he has all these things like he thwarted a carjacker, and he saved the family dog out of a fire, and just
00:47:44
Speaker
this long list of kind of almost too good to be true and yet believable because once you meet Nelson Valdez it all kind of fits together. But you had a funny little anecdote in there and it was I guess after the Orlando City game, the Senators had just won this very important game and ends up being kind of a transformative game of the 2016 season. But Nelson missed a absolute gimme of a goal in that game.
00:48:10
Speaker
Yeah, it was probably his worst miss of the year, which was not a short list as it turned out. Yeah, exactly. It was the one where it was like he could have walked it in almost and somehow managed to miss. And in any case, he, and I should say that afterward he made a bunch of comments that were very like self, like, I can't believe I missed that thing. Like he was always willing to stand up to it. But, you know, I'll let you go ahead and tell the story of what happens after that game.
00:48:36
Speaker
Yeah, so Eddie Johnson, and there was a lot of background there, because Eddie sort of rejoiced in Nelson's struggles. Because Eddie was perpetually thought that he was underpaid and taken advantage of by the Sounders. That was his whole thing. Valdez comes in, he's making $1.5 million a year, and then struggles in the way that he does. And so he sort of like on social media was just picking at him all year. Every time he'd have a bad game, Eddie was online saying something.
00:49:05
Speaker
And then in the Orlando game, they have this great win, but Nelson has this horrible miss. Eddie lives in central Florida. He had been at the game and he wanted to go into the Sounders locker room to say hi to some of his former teammates. Nelson hears that he's out in the hallway waiting to come in.
00:49:22
Speaker
kind of goes crazy flies out into the hallway tries to go after him some teammates have to kind of hold him back to prevent him from like tearing Eddie apart essentially because Nelson's a pretty big guy he's a very strong very physically imposing guy they got him back in the locker room I think that story would have probably been more prominent and came out more had the season continued to kind of tank
00:49:44
Speaker
But it was kind of this footnote and what ended up kind of being the turnaround game for the Sounders they won three one Clint scored twice Jordan had a great game And then they ended up kind of taking off from there So I think most of the Sounders kind of just thought it was funny because it was after this big win and so it kind of just became this footnote of sort of a remarkable season and
00:50:05
Speaker
Well, it does also kind of bring up a larger point of reporting this story. Now, you started reporting it, obviously. You were still the beat writer for the Seattle Times. Yeah, throughout that season. Throughout that season. And so you had probably done a lot of firsthand reporting when it was happening live. But then you spent another two years basically writing this book, or at least kind of finishing up and doing all these kind of things.
00:50:30
Speaker
How much access and how did you go about re-reporting that, and how much of that were you relying on your original notes? Crowe Yeah, I think that most of it ended up being original reporting in one sense, and I had all of these notes in quotes. Thankfully, I kept them all from my time at the Times.
00:50:48
Speaker
Yeah, I know so I had all these files going back years really and then I sort of went back and re-interviewed almost all of these people to kind of just update it and get their own take on it and so almost everything it's based off of Reporting that I had I have no idea how I would have done a full book I have no idea how people do it from scratch
00:51:09
Speaker
Because this seemed like enough of an endeavor. It was based off stuff I already kind of knew. But yeah, it was mostly going back and re-reporting stuff that I'd either heard about or covered firsthand beforehand. Was there anything that you felt like when you looked back at your notes and you thought, oh man, I need to dig more into this? Or what were some of the things that you went through in the process of kind of going through those notes and re-reporting everything?
00:51:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean the biggest difference in writing a book is it's so much more scene-based, which was a pretty drastic shift from being a newspaper reporter where it's just sort of like day-to-day, news or style. So really the hardest thing for me and probably the first month was spent just rewriting the first chapter over and over and over again because you're trying to paint scenes and make it consumable that way.
00:51:58
Speaker
So then I went back through my notes and kind of tried to figure out what scenes you can kind of build around. So that was probably the biggest reporting thing for me was figuring out what was sort of visual, what you could sort of add color to, because that was a big shift in writing style that I wasn't really used to.
00:52:14
Speaker
One of the other things that I think readers will find interesting that maybe they won't have access to going into it is a lot of the Siggy Schmidt stuff. And we've seen bits and pieces of that come out, whether in The Athletic or in Howler. But you got some really good access with Siggy. Siggy clearly took some time with you, took you through the paces. And especially early in the book, a lot of it is from his perspective.
00:52:42
Speaker
What did you get out of that meeting with Siggy and clearly this is a guy without a lot of like he didn't have to do that at that point. He wasn't working for the Sounders. He was kind of on his own at that point.
00:52:54
Speaker
For sure. And yeah, this book would not have come together, especially not in the way that it did if it wasn't for Ziggy. So I definitely owe him a lot. And that was even going back to my time on the beat. I mean, he always kind of went above and beyond to be more gracious than he needed to be. But yeah, in the spring of 2017, I got to go down to LA and sort of hang out with Ziggy for a couple of days. And that's where a lot of this came from, is
00:53:17
Speaker
He was very open, but I thought it was sort of telling, too, that I hope that he doesn't come across as vindictive in any way in this, because he certainly could have been at that point, because it was, what, six months after he had been let go. They won the championship. He was unemployed at that point.
00:53:33
Speaker
And he was very open and sort of provided a lot of helpful background But it never felt like he was just doing it to sort of like stick it in the Sounders back Which I thought was very telling of him in the way that he conducted himself. I would agree I thought that he came off in a positive light but not in a Look where everyone messed up and I should have been there kind of there's never the sense of him
00:53:57
Speaker
having any animosity towards Brian, for instance, who obviously took over for him. And I don't know what, it sounds like they've maintained a friendly relationship and so that maybe shouldn't be surprising, but I don't think, I think it's not surprising in part because we feel like we know Ziggy and he isn't that way. And that speaks to his character and I think that it's, I don't wanna get too far into this tangent, but that is one of the sad things I think about his untimely passing was I think he had a lot still left to offer, even if it wasn't necessarily as a coach,
00:54:27
Speaker
Did you get any sense of Siggy the Man in doing some of this re-reporting that maybe you didn't get to when you were on the beat?
00:54:35
Speaker
For sure, I think that it just sort of underlined how much he loved soccer in a lot of ways. Like that was really like that was his thing. I mean, it was his passion in life. And you can only get so much of a sense of that in the day to day whenever he's doing his job here. But going down and hanging out with him for a couple of days on his own time when he didn't have a team to prepare for anything. And he was still so soccer centric. And that's really sort of how he oriented himself. And that sort of was telling, I thought.
00:55:04
Speaker
You know, and I wouldn't say that this is a conspicuous absence in that I certainly wasn't surprised to not have this perspective in there. But, and I definitely understand why there wasn't more of this, but Clint Dempsey does not end up playing a very prominent role in this. I mean, he's definitely mentioned and he plays a part in it.
00:55:20
Speaker
But I don't get the sense that there was any special access to Clint for this book. What was your read on Clint's space and that whole thing? And part of it is because he wasn't really on. The bulk of the game action of that 2016 season that drives the narrative of the book, he's not there for. He's kind of this ghost, this specter that is, you talk about him running around the field in Toronto.
00:55:49
Speaker
while the team is preparing for their biggest game of the year, obviously. Yeah, and that was definitely more pieced together from different interviews. And he was actually in a very introspective mood ahead of the 2017 final, which is when I was finishing this up, so allowed to kind of provide a little bit more of that perspective. But yeah, I mean, he was always so standoffish with most things. But I mean, he was always true to Clint. That wasn't anything new. The one Clint thing that really stood out, though, was I talked to Ante Razov.
00:56:18
Speaker
early in 2017 when I went down to talk to Ziggy. And Ante had taken Clint out on a fishing trip that winter to kind of see if he was ready to wrap it up or if he thought he was done. And really Ante was pretty adamant that he had more to give and he was still going to be this guy. And then Clint comes back a month later, scores a hat trick for the national team, has a great year with the Sounders. And I thought it was a really interesting perspective from an assistant coach who
00:56:45
Speaker
Because with Clint, you always got to have to report around him. I think that's one of the challenges. I don't know. It's a challenge. You kind of accept that you're not going to get a lot from Clint. He's just not going to give it to you. No. So it's kind of talking to people that know him well and kind of filling it in that way, for sure. Was there anything that you found to be like an aha moment in terms of that informs the way you perceive
00:57:12
Speaker
the team now and you know whether it be dynamics or whether it be background or or whatever it may be I mean I just have to imagine you got to know a few people or some of the motivations behind various things better through this process. For sure I mean I think the thing that carries through to today is especially just how important Nicholas Ledero has been for them because he just you could you talk to a bunch of different people about a Denver Vicha guys and it's pretty rare that
00:57:37
Speaker
everybody is sort of adamant that this guy does it the right way inspires all of his teammates, he makes a big difference. And really across the board, everybody was like, Yeah, he came in, earned everybody's respect immediately. And that is really what allowed them to rally behind this guy. And then you look at it still today, and he's still sort of that central guy. But
00:57:57
Speaker
That was the one thing about that year where it was sort of a convenient narrative that he came in and everything fell into place, but you never know how much of that's actually true. But everybody was pretty adamant that he kind of was as important internally as it seemed like he was externally.
00:58:12
Speaker
Speaking of convenient narratives, his whole, his literal arrival at Starfire, I think, is one of those things where it, on paper, almost seems too good to be true that here's this ultimate savior, for lack of a better term, of the season. Yeah. Literally crossing paths with Siggy Schmidt as he's walking out of the building.
00:58:33
Speaker
Yeah. And that is probably the most, that whole chapter where you talk about that kind of ships crossing in the night, for lack of a better term. It probably has the most color. It has the most powerful kind of imagery. But yet that is how it played out. There really was this moment of the new player walking into the old coach's office and them having this kind of little exchange
00:59:01
Speaker
And it somehow felt perfect, almost too perfect, but yet it is really how it happened.
00:59:08
Speaker
For sure, and they did actually kind of have a preexisting relationship, which, again, it could have just seemed coincidental, but he did know Ziggy. Ziggy had coached his old coach at Boca Juniors for a while in Columbus, so they had that personal connection, and Ziggy had played an active role in bringing him in. So it wasn't just that they crossed paths in that way. It was a little bit poignant in that this guy that Ziggy kind of helped bring in to save the season was arriving right whenever it was too late for him.
00:59:35
Speaker
And so the same part of that chapter is if there is an, I don't know that there ends up being an antagonist through the whole book. I mean, it doesn't really play out that way. But in that chapter, in that section, Garth does kind of become the antagonist of the story a little bit. Did you get that sense? Like, I don't know. What was your read on that whole situation?
00:59:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't know that. I mean, as they both sort of have said forever that there wasn't necessarily like a big blowout between Ziggy and Garth, but any time you have to line, I think you may have actually used in the book that there was no singular moment to build a narrative.
01:00:13
Speaker
Yeah, it was like they just sort of they saw the game differently. They're two very strong personalities who wanted to build the club in a very specific way. And there was always going to be some tension there. And then just the way it played out with Ziggy kind of being ousted. And yeah, I think there was never going to be a clean break one way or the other from like Sounders 1.0 to whatever it is now. And it sort of was a little bit messier than they might have hoped. But that's just kind of the way that it went.
01:00:42
Speaker
Did you, you know, you told me a story about that segment of the book coming out and it being kind of creating some headaches for you. Yeah, a little. Well, it was just kind of the first thing that came out is that it come out in Haller and Garth is we talked about it very briefly. But sort of that portrayal of him might come across as negative in that very standalone sort of segment of the book. But then you get into it and hopefully throughout the whole book you get a fuller picture. There's a whole chapter on him later on.
01:01:12
Speaker
that kind of fills in the blanks on Garth and what makes him tick and how he sort of put his own stamp on the team. So yeah, so it might seem like early on that he's sort of this antagonist within this book, but I hope that when you finish it, that maybe you think a little bit differently than you did when you came in. It's funny because I think probably in my notes, I wrote something along those lines. And then by the end of the book, I was like,
01:01:37
Speaker
, and
01:01:57
Speaker
his vision and about the way he approaches the team. And one of the things that I had, I don't know that you said this explicitly, but I think I got the sense of, is I got a better sense of why Garth might really like Brian Schmetzer. And it's that Garth clearly has this idea of looking at the organization as a whole. And it's not, how do we win this game? Do we win that game?
01:02:25
Speaker
Are we improving the health of the team? And in some ways, Brian fits into that really cleanly. And that here's a coach who doesn't seem as worried about his personal legacy as he is concerned about building the Sounders organization. And in that way, they don't necessarily strike you as, at least they don't necessarily strike me as really two peas in a pod type. And yet, you can see how they maybe share a vision at the same time.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's a good point. I mean, they maybe come at it for different reasons. Garth, just with the way that a general manager has to act, has to think longer term. And even in that first chapter, kind of get into the different dynamics of a coach and a general manager, a coach kind of has to live week to week and they get more attached to their guys. So that's a good point that Brian with his longevity, with the way that he kind of looks at the Sounders as an institution, it's probably wired less that way.
01:03:22
Speaker
than almost every head coach is, just because he's so unique in so many ways with the way that he's so wedded to this team and this city. I mean, I think that that's the way that it comes out, for sure. I would imagine you got to know Brian a little bit better during this process, and he does play a prominent role, obviously, in this book. Is there anything that you think you maybe learned about what makes Brian tick and why he might feel that way?
01:03:50
Speaker
Well, I think that the thing that struck me is that I think that he's much more formidable behind closed doors than you would think. And just sort of he's such a nice guy and such a sort of community oriented guy and seems so happy go lucky.
01:04:05
Speaker
But I don't think that he could do his job if he wasn't winning these really intense professional athletes' respect. And I think winning over Clint in the way that he clearly did on some level, the way that he got Lodaro to buy in, he can't just be this bumbling, nice, local guy and succeed in the way that he has. So I think that I got more of a sense for that in the way that the players, they don't just like him because he empowers the players. They respect him.
01:04:33
Speaker
on some level that can maybe get lost in sort of the persona that he has. So this book clearly is about the 2016 season. The epilogue includes a bit about the 2017 season and kind of how that whole thing played out. But does it still inform you the way that you think of the team now, the way that you report on the team? Are there things that it kind of maybe changed your perspective on anything in terms of today's team?
01:05:01
Speaker
Yeah, well, I just think the way that the organization has moved, because I do think the 2016 season was a little bit transformative, not just because of them winning the title finally and having Garth come in. That was definitely part of it in the way that they sort of changed gears. But it's within the context of what they're trying to do long term.
01:05:19
Speaker
And how they're trying to keep excitement going and how they're trying to they announced that fall their big plan to try to sell out century link within 10 years It really kind of was like a mile marker year in the history of the club more generally And yeah, it's got an interesting it does definitely inform the way I look at it now because yeah, they have these grand plans and it can be debatable sometimes how far along they are but it does sort of inform my view of that because they have a
01:05:47
Speaker
spoke in this big game about what they want to do within the next 8-10 years.
01:06:04
Speaker
upward momentum the way that you might have expected it to and yet I also get a sense that maybe the foundation is stronger even though like they're not drawing 65,000 for a random game and some of the you know Atlanta has started to do that with
01:06:19
Speaker
Shocking regularity. Yeah. But do you do you get the sense that this is still an ambitious club that still has visions for that? I mean, like from your like, do you get sense that this was all talk or was it? Do you feel like there is a lot of action behind some of these ambitions that they stated?
01:06:35
Speaker
I think that there is a lot to it. The big question that you have to ask about the club now, and I get in a little bit to some of this alluding to LAFC and Atlanta coming in and how they shifted the way the Sounders have to act. If you look at them as a standalone organization, yes, they're ambitious. They continue to improve, and they keep doing all these little things to keep improving from within. But in the context of MLS, that's the big question.
01:07:02
Speaker
How ambitious are they compared to some of these newer teams? Can they afford to do that? And that part's a little bit unwritten. But I think that when you look at that season, I think that if the Sounders had started to fall off a little bit and had a couple losing seasons and hadn't had these playoff runs,
01:07:18
Speaker
They have kind of held steady, but maybe that's when it started to dip because it had sort of seemed like it had started to plateau. They maybe needed to kind of get over that hump to maintain the buzz locally. And they did that even if they haven't necessarily taken off from there. And now it's on them to find a way to get that last piece of the puzzle to kind of continue to trend upwards here.
01:07:41
Speaker
So would you say that there's any angles that you would have liked to have pursued that maybe you just weren't able to get into for time or space purposes? Yeah, I mean, I think in this will probably be a continued narrative going forward. It's just like that big question about like,
01:07:56
Speaker
How ambitious are they within the scale of MLS? And that's kind of a really hard thing to answer definitively. And the sounders are very, they're very good at talking the big game and backing it up at least enough that it's hard to sort of definitively answer that one way or the other. But that's something that I want to continue to pursue and that I would have liked to have probably expounded a little bit more length upon.
MLS Considerations & Adidas Criticism
01:08:19
Speaker
But hopefully, at least I answered some of that in there.
01:08:22
Speaker
terms of Adrian's vision and where they fit into the hierarchy and everything else. So you know I think that this like I said I would really recommend any Sounders fan has to read this book I think it's a great narrative I think it does a really good job of recounting that 2016 season and yet I still feel like it has a lot of relevance to today to the team going forward and I think this is an important
01:08:46
Speaker
you know, time. And I just wanted to say that I really wanted to congratulate you on a really compelling book that could not have been easy to put together. And it's I think it was, you know, I think you should feel proud about what you what you put together here. Well, I really appreciate that for sure. It was definitely. Yeah, it was a labor of love. It's a first book, which is always exciting. And is there a second book on the way? Not as of now. I'd like to. Eventually, I would. But nothing in the works as of right now.
01:09:15
Speaker
Well, you can read Matt on The Athletic now. You can also read him in places like ESPN, I guess, still. Yeah. Obviously read this book anywhere else that you want to plug. Just follow on Twitter. I usually send out all updates from there. But yeah, main thing, Athletic, and then sort of filling it together from there.
01:09:32
Speaker
And we'll have a couple copies of these signed copies at Yacht Khan, which is February 21st, in case you haven't heard. And I look forward to seeing you there. I look forward to seeing more work from you. Thanks for doing this, Matt. Yeah, for sure. Anytime. All right, you listen to Nos Adietes. Queen Anne acupuncture has over a decade of experience healing the injuries of athletes.
01:09:57
Speaker
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Speaker
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01:10:33
Speaker
We'll go back to Nos Arietes. You may hear my daughters in the background, but Susie and I are going to be taking your questions. I'll just get us started. This is from IM333. Wants to know, what pieces do we still need to fill out the team before the season begins? I feel like the team is pretty...
01:10:57
Speaker
pretty well positioned. I guess that I, the question still remains to me is sort of the, the bench impact. And one thing that I think Morris, Jordan Morris will certainly help with, but I felt like was missing last year is we just, we didn't, we're not a counter-attacking team in any sense of the word. Um, and having that ability to, if you're having to absorb a lot of pressure from another team,
01:11:27
Speaker
Um, being able to counter, I think is something that they've missed. So I think we have that a lot more when we have Jordan on the field. Jordan and Brad, and we saw that, you know, the, the second center's goal, you know, came right after a dynamo chance. And when you have, and I think if you have Smith and Morris, all of a sudden you have two speed pieces that you didn't really have, or two kind of attacking pieces, potentially on a counter attack that you didn't really have before.
01:11:57
Speaker
And, and I think that's what makes making an addition right now so much more difficult is that there's not an obvious hole on the, on the starting part of this team and so you're, you're looking for more of a backup player. And then, so you're bringing in a player who
01:12:12
Speaker
potentially is okay with, with not being a starter, but you're probably going to spend a fair amount of money on. And so it's like, how are you, you making sure you're still getting value for that money. My suspicion is that they're trying to sign a defensive, another defensive midfielder to just kind of bolster that part of the field, but it's not, I don't think it's an easy kind of needle to thread. Yeah.
01:12:39
Speaker
This is gonna be a trip. So I'm just gonna, this was from stardevfc. Apparently, Cincinnati think their first match is against Portland. So the question may not matter, but presuming they show up, what defiance players on the cusp of making the main roster before kickoff? It was a roundabout question. Ultimately, the question is, do we think any players in the defiance will make the first team roster?
01:13:07
Speaker
I don't think at the start of the season, there are any that I could see them signing. I think there's a lot of, a lot of players who were getting to see in preseason and had really great seasons last year when the Defiance was us two who have a chance, but I don't really see it at the beginning. I don't know how you feel about that.
01:13:29
Speaker
I feel the same way. I think Sam Rogers probably had a pretty good chance of making the roster at the beginning of the year, but he suffered an injury at the U20 camp and he hasn't been training at all. Best I can tell.
01:13:42
Speaker
And so I think the centers are more than happy to let him go with the finance. And if they end up needing them, they'll bring them up. But I don't think there's going to be any defiance players that make this first team roster, at least not right away. This one's from Multley69. He says, the 7-1 preseason loss to Atlanta, they play mostly first team. We use 32 players, including academy kids. Different objectives, obviously. Why do we think Garth was apologizing or upset by the result
01:14:11
Speaker
A recent interview. I did not see this or hear this interview. Well, but I will add he did kind of apologize and Spencer did the same thing where they basically said you don't want to lose seven to one to anybody, but
01:14:28
Speaker
Well, I think I do feel like it's really important if you're giving young players the opportunity in preseason to see what a professional environment is like. It means holding them to the same standard that you'd hold professional players to. So you don't expect, even if you're putting in people who have no experience at this level, you're telling them, I feel like you're ready. I don't expect us to lose seven to one. So I could see it in that sense a lot. There's a ton of talent on the young
01:14:58
Speaker
emerging sounder squad. So I think you set that expectation.
01:15:04
Speaker
And I think it goes back to this idea that the expectations of fans and the expectation of teams and players are very different things. And I think it's like, it's, it is ridiculous. I think for fans to get upset about that loss. And I think it's equally ridiculous for them to say like, well, see, Brian didn't want to lose seven to one either. And it's okay. Sure. But I don't think Brian stayed up late at night. I don't think Schmetzer stayed up late at night. I don't think Garth lost any sleep over that seven to one loss.
01:15:33
Speaker
Just like I don't think that they lost any sleepover, you know blowing a 2-0 lead to the dynamo I was gonna say on that and what you just mentioned on the dynamo if the if the people on the field were not like trying to implement the system that you have put in place that would be an opportunity where I would be really harsh on them and while while the backup backup backup sounders
01:16:02
Speaker
struggled defensively against the Dynamo actions, that there was a lot of promise in the attacking end that was exciting. Yeah, I did too. I did too. I thought that they could have easily scored a couple of goals. And it would have actually been a lot of fun to see that. But yeah, I found more encouraging than discouraging in that last 30 minutes. This is from Bill Jones. Trumpet, he says, why will the 2019 Sounders have the most explosive offense of any Sounders team? Ooh.
01:16:31
Speaker
That's a big bar. It is, it is a big bar. But you know, it is, it's kind of a funny thing because, you know, I wrote this story a few weeks ago about the pace that the sounders were on during the last, I guess, 19 game or 18 or 19 games of the season was
01:16:49
Speaker
Like on a historic, you know, if they were to maintain that for a whole season, it would be among the greatest, uh, goal scoring seasons, let alone, uh, you know, points per game performances of any team in MLS history. Um, and that's, you know, right up there with Atlanta. I don't know that they can do that, but they, I think there is reasons to be really excited about this offense. I think so too. And I was just thinking as I was reflecting a little bit more, I think a lot of times when you see.
01:17:19
Speaker
Um, teams do really great things. They have a lot of repeat players from the last season. And there's so much cohesion going into this season of players getting to know each other. So, um, that, and where they kind of finished their season at the end of the season, blends itself well to believe. And they're adding Jordan Morris into that picture. So they could do it.
01:17:42
Speaker
No, I totally agree. This is from Lady Jake. She says, thoughts on maintaining Seattle support, the Seattle support base while growing Rain FC support in Tacoma? Gosh, it's going to be hard, especially for folks, I think, in north of Seattle and that base that was where Memorial was a lot easier. I think that as we, like,
01:18:09
Speaker
see the rain step onto the field and remember all of the reasons why the kind of current set of supporters became fans of the team in the first place. It's not going to be as difficult convincing people to try and make the track to Tacoma, and it's going to be sort of embraced as a regional team that we can all support. That's my hope, and I'm optimistic that that's true.
01:18:36
Speaker
Bill did not talk a lot about this at the press conference but he did seem a little bit more open to it when I talked to him afterward about potentially having some sort of shuttle surface and he seemed to like the idea of you know potentially having a shuttle that would take
01:18:55
Speaker
uh rain fans like it to me might make a lot of sense to do something like set up a shuttle at the at at the north gate transit center and you know if you have one shuttle bus you make it available that might not be such a bad deal um you know it takes about an hour to get to to Cheney from from that spot in the uh
01:19:22
Speaker
spot in Seattle and it's like a reasonably accessible place for people all over Seattle as well as people from the north. Yeah. You know and I would say if you can get uh you know 50 to 100 people at most games that's got to be like from the Seattle area I would think that that's that's a pretty good target. Yeah yeah I know that like Bill and Teresa their roots are in Seattle they care about Seattle
01:19:49
Speaker
So they're going to want to do whatever is possible to keep that connection. And I know that they've confirmed to you and me that they're definitely looking into that option. So it would be a really great bonus. So this one's from Just Gale. What's the minimum amount of production Morris will need?
01:20:12
Speaker
Shh. He says, what's the minimum amount of production Morris will need this year to get his hype train back on track? And you predict he will have shown enough come the summer to be included in the US Gold Cup squad. Oh, numbers are hard for me to feel like I'm coming up with. Do you think that's a realistic goal for him to get into the Gold Cup squad?
01:20:40
Speaker
I think that's realistic. And I think it'll be hard just because it's a pretty short amount of time to make this case. In terms of production, what I would love to see out of Jordan, this isn't answering the question directly. That's okay. We do that a lot on the show. Being involved as a playmaker and getting more assists this season.
01:21:05
Speaker
So I would love to see him balance like his goal production and contribution to other goals as like a really good evidence of his growth as a player. Yeah, I've been saying something like 12 combined goals in assists this year would make me feel like a pretty positive. And if it's even if it's like five, if it's five goals and seven assists, I actually think in a weird way that might be more encouraging because it to me shows that he's capable of
01:21:34
Speaker
growing his game in ways that he, like he's never been a high assist guy. Yeah. And I think that's a part of his game that he could potentially develop. I don't necessarily think he'll be in the gold cup, but I did think it was encouraging that Berhalter called him into camp, at least just to kind of get the lay of the land.
01:21:56
Speaker
Um, yeah, it means he's like still paying attention to him, which is, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, so this one's from DXD home. He says, what is the end game with Roman? He's not in Arizona. Uh, do we think a trade's going to be announced soon? It sounds like all signs point to the fact that there are kind of multiple teams interested in him at the moment. And that was the latest possibility.
01:22:23
Speaker
But I don't I don't have any inside information on that one. No, it's it's kind of I don't have a ton of inside information on that either other than I know the sounders are very open to the possibility of trading them and
01:22:39
Speaker
You know, I don't think it's a great sign that he is left training camp. I would say that's a good thing. But so hopefully a trade is in the works because I think at least if it means there's not a trade in the works, it probably means something has gone awry. Let's just say that.
01:23:00
Speaker
Um, this is from O8 Nick Garcia says anything noteworthy to take away from the first team performance in the preseason match against the dynamo. Um, I guess we kind of, we kind of went over that one. I should have done a little more editing of these questions. Um, this was from El Capitan blog. What's an easier recipe for a slow cooker, chili or meatloaf. And I'll go and say, I don't think I've ever tried to cook meatloaf in a slow cooker.
01:23:26
Speaker
I am the worst cook. I'll say that in general and I don't have a slow cooker, but just intuitively, chili seems easier. I would say that I've never, like I said, I've never done a meatloaf. I guess I could see how you could do it, but chili definitely a pretty easy
01:23:46
Speaker
a pretty easy slow cooker meal and I'll just give a quick shout, a real quick recipe, the key to any good slow cooker meal is to brown your meat and veggies in a pan before throwing them in the slow cooker and then you throw in your things like
01:24:08
Speaker
canned tomatoes and things like that. But that way you get kind of that caramelization aspect. So don't try to do that in the slow cooker. That sounds like a good tip.
01:24:20
Speaker
Yeah. So there's, that's my cooking tip of the day. Uh, this one's from Peter of the Otis. He says, since Adidas is discontinuing long sleeve kits, won't be selling goalkeeper kits. How long before we riot and force MLS to find a different Jersey sponsor, just Jersey provider. Sorry. Um, I'll jump in here.
01:24:43
Speaker
Yeah. I'll jump in here. I don't think that I just looked this up today. Adidas, I think is paying something like $10 million a year. Maybe it's even more than that to MLS through 2026. I think, for better or for worse, MLS is stuck with Adidas. And I think MLS is probably inclined to keep being stuck with Adidas as long as Adidas is willing to write big checks.
01:25:13
Speaker
for that exclusive, right? You know, there was a time when MLS did not just have one jersey, that there were a bunch of different jersey providers, and there definitely were more interesting shirts, but they made a lot less money. And unfortunately, this is, that's kind of the name of this game, is getting paid. I hate, like I'm embarrassed by the number of kind of cookie cutter,
01:25:39
Speaker
jerseys that Adidas is putting out this year and it seems like they have kind of made a decision to have fewer options, which probably helps their bottom line, but I wish I could tell you that there was some hope for a New Jersey provider and I just, I don't see it. I think that's unfortunately kind of the way
01:26:01
Speaker
Not just, I mean, like Nike is going in that same direction too. So it's not just. Yeah, it's all the big companies do this. Um, are your kids Adidas or Nike kids? My kids are, I think they're, they're probably team Adidas just because we have a lot of sounders gear that they wear. Um, so that's kind of how that goes.
01:26:26
Speaker
They make such good shoes. Why can't that translate? I will say that the shoes that I buy on my own are usually Adidas. I'm going to be very curious how much of Aviv's talking to me is going to show up on this podcast because she has been talking this entire segment. I can hear it.
01:26:50
Speaker
Yes, it's lots of daddy-daddy. This is from Rev
Hypothetical Scenarios & Fun Discussions
01:26:54
Speaker
Mike Boone. He says, which current or former sounder would you most want to be snowed in for an extended period of time? What are the qualities you'd look for in this role? Hmm. I'm kind of an awkward person in real life. So I want someone who's not awkward and makes me feel comfortable. Oh, OK. Fair.
01:27:20
Speaker
Christian maybe? Christian, he's someone who's gonna like I would think make anyone feel comfortable in the situation like that. He'd be a fun one for sure and he's got you know a youthful vibe still so you could go sledding or go have a snowball fight. Exactly, exactly. I think it would be hard to beat Christian. I'm trying to think
01:27:47
Speaker
Chad Marshall might be okay, just because he's probably got a lot of those dad skills that you want for any Snowden situation. Yeah, you know, he's got a chill chillness about him, that isn't going to get freaked out when the electricity goes out. And
01:28:05
Speaker
You know, you can't get out of your house for four or five days. That did make me think like Marcus Hanneman would probably be really fun. Cause he'd have like, he's got his tree house, right? Or whatever. And probably has a lot of booze. Yeah. Getting stuck in his tree house may be the best. I also give a shout to Harry ship who I believe is the resident gourmet on the team. And so having someone cook would be
01:28:35
Speaker
would be a good one for sure. Yeah, definitely. So we're going to end on this one. This is from another one from El Capitan Vlog. He says, which player do you think you'd want to build a snowman with? Hmm. Do I have to? Well, OK. Any player, it would be Megan or Tino. There you go. But if we're talking about sounders. No, it doesn't have to be sounder. I think any player. OK.
01:29:04
Speaker
I feel like, I mean, every time I've interacted with Megan Rapinoe, I laugh so much. And she's just a really fun person to be around. So building a snowman would be fun with her. When are we going to get her on coffee and Valkyries? Tell me about it. We've asked. We're waiting. She's a high demand person. So hopefully before the World Cup, for sure. Well, I would love to hear her on there. It's about time.
01:29:33
Speaker
But I think we are going to cut our losses, call this a segment. My kids are getting kind of restless. So shout out to Aviv and Emmy. My favorite. Yeah.
01:29:48
Speaker
But thanks, Susie, for doing this.
Conclusion & Acknowledgments
01:29:52
Speaker
Follow Susie on Twitter, at Susie Rants. Read her on Ride of the Valkyries. Listen to her on Coffee and Valkyries. Keep wanting to call him Caffee in Valkyries. I don't know why. And this is No Study Yet This. Thanks to our sponsors, Fullpool Wines and Bootstrapper Studios. I'm Jeremiah O'Shan. Thanks for listening. And remember, you'll never get alone.
01:30:18
Speaker
Green Douglas spur where the water's cut through. Mountain wild mountains and tangents you flew. Canadian northwest to the ocean so blue. It's Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn. Roll On, Columbia Roll On.
01:30:59
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!