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Nos Audietis, Episode 327: What a f-cking match
67 Plays5 years ago
The Sounders scored a historic comeback against Minnesota United to qualify for their fourth MLS Cup final in five years.
This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", 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.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of No Sadietes is sponsored by Full Pool Wines, a Seattle-based wine seller who recently released their first book, 36 Bottles of Wine. The ethos of the book, a highly curated look at wine categories that provide exceptional value right now, should be familiar to full pool readers. But there's loads of fresh content, and since it's not trying to sell any wine through the book, there's a bit more of a sass factor.
00:00:21
Speaker
And there's food. Lots of it. Fulpul's unique writing style is applied to recipes like leftover Thanksgiving turkey, schmaltz-a-ball soup, and pregnancy nachos. This book can be purchased through Sasquatch Books.
Guest Introductions: Seattle Sounders
00:00:32
Speaker
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? Hey, Ocean! Let's go! Jordan Morris getting in behind Florian Youngford. Jordan Morris! Scores!
00:00:50
Speaker
And how's this for a save from Steph and Fry? Here comes Roy Diaz through the middle to crowd it to Seattle. What do the Tigers dream of? They take a little Tigers in. It's the Sounders and an S-Com. I feel a lot better than both of them.
00:01:18
Speaker
The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle. And the hills the greenest green in Seattle. Like a beautiful child growing up. Welcome to another edition of no audio to sponsored by full blue wines. This is episode 327 and we're recording on Wednesday, December 9th, 2020.
00:01:44
Speaker
I'm your host, Jeremiah Shan, joining me as usual as Aaron Campo and our engineer, Lickit P.
MLS Cup Comeback
00:01:49
Speaker
The Sounders are going back to MLS Cup, the fourth time they've been here in five years, and they'll be looking to become just the fourth team to repeat his champs. The way they got here was considerably different than those other three trips though, needing to overcome a 2-0 deficit to beat Minnesota United with three unanswered goals in the game's final 20 minutes.
00:02:07
Speaker
It's two days later and frankly, I'm still buzzing after that, Victor Aaron. What, what did you make of it? What do we, I mean, is it, is it good they got here that way? Is it make you more worried about Columbus on Saturday? I don't know. What are your emotions following, watching that game?
00:02:25
Speaker
I mean, it's, it's probably the first time I've had anything approaching a normal level of sounders emotions about the sounders of the season. So that was, that was good to remember that I could say things. Um, you know, I think, uh, it, I wouldn't want to win every game like that, but in a season like this one, uh, it felt fitting and it was probably a little easier to deal with than it would have been in a, in a normal season. I think, um, just because it kind of feels like everything's house money to some extent, uh, this year.
00:02:55
Speaker
You know, I think that the Sounders did not play well for the first, I don't know, 80 minutes or so, 75 minutes or so, but they didn't play poorly. I don't think they necessarily deserved to be down 2-0, but I don't think they had anybody to blame but themselves, you know, they just had some pretty uncharacter, well,
00:03:19
Speaker
reasonably uncharacteristic mistakes, I guess we can say, you know, Minnesota punished them very effectively. That free kick from Reynoso was not, you know, a whole lot you can do about that other than not give up the foul in the first place. So Minnesota was lucky to be in the lead, but also kind of deserved it, if that makes sense.
Sounders' Resilience Under Schmetzer
00:03:38
Speaker
But, you know, I think that one of the things that's characterized the Sounders under Brian Schmetzer, and I think especially this core group of players that we have right now,
00:03:48
Speaker
um is just they they understand how talented they are and they find ways to win um it was an off day i think for the sounders i think that's fair to say i think the dallas game was as well um but they know that they're better than the other teams that they're facing off against and they just sort of will themselves to win and i think that's a testament to the character of the players i think that it's a testament to the way the team has been constructed where
00:04:12
Speaker
It's not a team of like 35 year old grizzled gray beard type dudes, but veteran players that know how to win. That are in their prime, mostly. Yeah, in their prime. And it's a testament to Brian Schmetzer as well. I mean, I think that his ability to motivate veteran players to
00:04:35
Speaker
to go above and beyond and become more than the sum of their parts and conduct themselves in a way that's just conducive to winning games like that. It's impossible to think that it's a fluke at this point.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think you can discount what Brian Schnitzer has accomplished.
Debating Schmetzer's Coaching Prowess
00:04:54
Speaker
You know, Alexi Lawless got a lot of press, or I don't know a lot of press, but he got our attention for sure this week when he made a comment on one of the broadcasts that said, you know, he was asked
00:05:07
Speaker
Is Brian Spencer a good coach or is he a good coach in Seattle? And he said that he was a good coach in Seattle and he kind of gave his case. And a large part of that case was he hasn't really been tested outside of Seattle. And I guess to a degree, that's fair. And I think it's a fine discussion to have. But when you just take a step back, what you seem to be saying by discounting his success is that there's some sort of magical
00:05:36
Speaker
unlocking code that he has because he's from Seattle. The players don't care that he's from Seattle. In fact, I would even argue that some of the players hold that against him because they feel like he wants to be liked too badly. And if anything, I think that creates in some ways an extra burden of proof for him that he knows what he's talking about and that he deserves this job, not just because he's the local boy made good,
00:06:06
Speaker
And I would think that if you give him similar circumstances anywhere else, if you pluck them into Toronto FC and you surround him with capable coaches, with a capable front office staff, with a talented roster, he's going to get a similar level of success. And conversely, if you put them on an awful team, you put them on a mismanaged team, the success probably isn't going to be there. But I think that is the way it is for every coach.
00:06:36
Speaker
And no one says Greg Vanny is only a good coach in Toronto, even though he's only coached in Toronto. No one says, I guess it's in some level, you're always unproven until you are proven, right? He hasn't coached outside of Seattle, but I just think it's a silly discussion at this point because he's got so much success. He's got, he's already equaled Bob Bradley's
00:07:04
Speaker
playoff win total in roughly half as many games. That's an amazing achievement. He's tied for the third most playoff wins of any coach in MLS history. That's amazing. The guys that are ahead of him are literally Sidney Schmidt and Bruce Arena. Two literal coaching legends who are both in the Hall of Fame. And I think it's fair to put him up in those categories. And if anything,
00:07:30
Speaker
I what I find really interesting and refreshing about him is, you know, they we asked him after the game, like, what do you make of this? And he's just like, you know, I make of it that the players really wanted this game. And it's like, it's not he doesn't try to come up with some crazy theory as to like what he did at the coach, even though his subs, you know, the guys that he subbed in changed the game, right? He's not trying to take credit for that. And I guess that's where in some ways the
00:07:59
Speaker
that maybe comes back and bites him when he's trying to get a new contract. But yeah, I mean, I think Brian Schmetzer is an impressive coach. I suspect that he would have similar levels of success no matter where he was. And this was just another example.
Coaching Success Beyond Seattle?
00:08:15
Speaker
I think the thing that's frustrating for me about this conversation is the
00:08:20
Speaker
the sort of unstated opinion that there are some coaches that would have success everywhere they go. And I mean, we've seen that that's just like there are coaches that are regarded widely as mean geniuses that have just completely fell flat on their face in certain jobs. The circumstances are always going to matter, whether it be working for a functional organization.
00:08:38
Speaker
If Brad Schmetzer went and coached in Houston, do I think you'd have the level of success he's had here? Of course not, because the sound is a winning organization that spends money, that evaluates talent well, that has a productive academy, etc.
00:08:52
Speaker
you have different expectations based on the circumstances that are out of your control. If it were a different group of players, like if the Sounders said, you know what, we're going to go full on youth movement with this group of players, do I think you'd have the same level of success? I don't think he would. I think that he's probably a coach that's more comfortable working with veteran players, which ultimately is most coaches because veteran players are veterans for a reason, right? They're proven that they can perform at a certain level.
00:09:20
Speaker
And I think there could be situations where there is a similar talent level, similar expectations, where, for whatever reason, Brian Schmetzer maybe wouldn't be effective. But that doesn't mean that he can only be effective in Seattle. And conversely, their coaches in MLS that I think are widely regarded as being pretty good coaches that I don't think would have the same level of success in Seattle. And it has nothing to do with where Brian Schmetzer was born.
00:09:47
Speaker
I do think maybe there's, to some degree, it's easier for him to sort of claim credibility or tap into the fact that he's connected to the organization in the way that he is. I mean, like if you're trying to inspire players by talking about how important this is in the community, if you've been involved with the Sounders and soccer in Seattle since the 70s,
00:10:14
Speaker
you have a little more credibility, right? I don't think that's crazy, but it's so small compared to everything else. And I think it's just, I understand the point that I guess Alexi is trying to make in that there are definitely advantages to being the coach of the Seattle Sounders that are the same advantages you get when you coach any big club with big expectations and budgets to back it up.
00:10:39
Speaker
But there's also expectations. And if you don't move up to those expectations, you lose your job. I mean, the Sounders fired Ziggy Schmidt, a Hall of Fame coach that's a legend in the field, as you said, you know, because he wasn't living up to expectations that Brian Schmidtzer has. And he succeeded everything Ziggy did, in fact.
00:10:57
Speaker
Uh, it's just, uh, it's my, my theory on this and it's my theory of a lot of things in American soccer is that if you're not somebody that has a past connection to the national team or is somebody that people like to dream of, of being involved with the national team, you're going to be, you're going to be discounted. Um, and Brian, you're not going to be a national team coach, you know? And so I think, I think that hurts them in terms of his, uh, his reputation. Yeah. Uh, I think, I think that's fair.
00:11:27
Speaker
And one thing I'll add is ultimately what started the discussion was whether or not Schmetzer is going to get an extension. And this is not on Alexei. No one said he doesn't deserve an extension. It should be clear. I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth. But the question was, if he doesn't get signed, why isn't he getting signed? And the assertion that Alexei made was,
00:11:55
Speaker
Well, it's because the sounders feel like someone can do the job better. And, and I think that that's true. If Brian doesn't get signed, it's because the sounders have convinced themselves someone can do the job better. And that's what I'll say is a little bit more crazy. Like how much better is someone like, what's the standard? Can you imagine following like, let's just say Brian doesn't come back next year. What are the expectations of that next coach going to be like?
00:12:21
Speaker
If getting to four MLS cups in five years is going to fall short of expectations, what is it? Because right now, where we sit, if the Sanders had won four supporter shields in five years, but no MLS cups,
00:12:37
Speaker
Do you think the fan base would be happy with that? I don't. Right. I mean, I think it becomes a question of, is Brian Schmetzer objectively the best coach that the Sounders could plausibly hire? I mean, probably not. I think the Sounders could be an attractive job for a lot of coaches.
00:12:58
Speaker
That's a different question than, is Brian Schmetzer a good coach? You know what I mean? I just think. Yeah, it is. And, and, and I think, and I guess more to my, like, whether or not they can hire a better, let's just say.
00:13:11
Speaker
I don't know, who's the guy that was at Bournemouth that seems to be Eddie Howe? Like, let's just say for the sake of conversation, the sounders were like, you know, we're going to go and get Eddie. Eddie Howe is available. We're going to go get Eddie Howe. He's like, to me, he's probably like the highest plausible target you could shoot for in MLS is, and I don't think he would come to MLS, but let's just say he's the highest possible target you could shoot for. And the sounders convinced themselves they can go get him.
00:13:37
Speaker
Well, okay. So you get him and, and, and maybe his X's and O's are a little bit better, but what is the standard that you're going to measure him by? I mean, you're going to measure him by how many MLS cups he wins, right? You're going to measure him by how many wins, how, how well he does in the regular season. And, and if you're telling me that that coach is going to exceed what Schmetzer did, I think that's going to be a really, really high bar to reach. And I'm skeptical.
00:14:04
Speaker
that you're going to replace him with someone who's going to immediately come in and do better than that.
Defensive Depth and Strategy
00:14:09
Speaker
And I guess that's kind of more my point.
00:14:14
Speaker
But along those lines, it looks like Gonzalo Pineda. And I think we're going to probably start hearing more of this, is Sounders, like Sounders assistants haven't been picked up. They're having, I mean, I guess maybe that's, and Sounders have been a remarkably stable staff ever since they've come in. You know, Brian has been there from the beginning. Tommy Dutrow has been there from the beginning. Jimmy Treori has been there for I think the entire length of Brian's time.
00:14:40
Speaker
Uh, Gonzalo Pineda has been there the whole time. You go down the list. There's a pretty crack. He's been there since I think 2000, the beginning of 2018. Uh, so they have a long, like the tenure of their coaches is pretty long. Uh,
00:14:56
Speaker
But when they leave, they don't tend to go to other head coaching jobs. In fact, no former standards assistants or head coaches anywhere. Ezra Hendrickson is maybe the closest to that, and he's an assistant in Columbus right now. But Gonzalo Panetta is being prominently mentioned as a head coach at DC United, and I could see him eventually succeeding
00:15:19
Speaker
Uh, Brian Spencer as, as the sounders head coach and I've really come, you know, you and I had this conversation a while back, maybe it was entirely offline or off air, but I really have come to think that whoever the sounders bring in after Spencer has probably needs to have some ties to the organization in part, because I think that's become such a big part of what the sounders are is like the culture of the club.
00:15:47
Speaker
I get nuts. Sorry, I lost my good button. Yeah, I mean, I think you're definitely right. We did talk about this on the last episode. And I think the consensus was, as much as I would love for Gonzalo Pineda to become the next coach of the Sounders, you're probably not going to be able to wait it out, to convince him to wait it out. And it's probably a good idea that he gets some head coaching experience somewhere else before you do that. If he can have success with DCU,
00:16:16
Speaker
He's probably got some promise as a head coach. I kind of hate it for him because I think that's just such a tough ask to turn that club around. Although maybe it's not. I mean, Ben Olsen was their coach for about 900 years and had a little bit of success on occasion. So maybe, I don't know, maybe it's not that tough of a job, but if they have, there's some support there, right? They're willing to spend a little bit of money.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's a strange organization at the very least. I don't quite know what they're trying to do there, but I would think Pineda would be a reasonably good hire for them. I think he could have some success, but we'll see. So all this coaching talk, I think, has got us
00:17:07
Speaker
Fairly, but also a little bit off topic. I want to bring us back to the game that we just watched. Minnesota United, you mentioned that the 2-0 deficit was probably against the run of play, but not unfair. DC Minnesota United took their goals well. A perfectly executed free kick. We can quibble about whether Shane O'Neill should be jumping from the wall there, but we'll leave it alone. Great free kick. Similarly,
00:17:38
Speaker
A second free kick where it's a perfect delivery, a perfect header. It wasn't like he completely lost his mark. I don't have a lot of quibbles. We can talk about the fouls, whatever. But what I found remarkable about the Sounders ability to come back in that game was that so much seemed to be working against them. They had a goal disallowed, which let's talk about the disallowed goal a little bit.
VAR Controversies
00:18:03
Speaker
I think it was a fair, if that was the call on the field, I would have had no problem with that.
00:18:08
Speaker
Rui Diaz bumps the box on the back. He goes down. He gets an advantage. He scores. But to me, it wasn't like an egregious foul. I was a little surprised that VAR overturned it because it didn't feel to me like it was so clear and obvious that it would justify an overturned call, even though I think it's a foul. I agree it's a foul, but I mean, I feel like a consistent
00:18:38
Speaker
application. Yeah, I mean, I think VAR is increasingly not being used the way it's ostensibly supposed to be used. And that's everywhere, not just MLS. I mean, I think it's being used to correct little tiki-taki minor things where referees said, oh, yeah, I guess now that I've seen it. I mean, it's not
00:19:00
Speaker
I think you're right that it's probably a foul, but I'm entirely comfortable with that not being called a foul too. I don't think there's any consensus that referees should all call fouls the same way and in all games should always have the same line for what is and isn't a foul. There's no way he wasn't looking right at it. That's where the ball was. It's a very obvious decision.
00:19:27
Speaker
There's no way that's clear and obvious to me. But again, VAR is increasingly not being used the way it's supposed to be used. It's being used for false precision and correcting minor things and giving things a second look. And I'm increasingly convinced it was a terrible idea, but that's a different topic. And this is the wrong game, I think, to argue in VAR's favor, because after the senders pull one back,
00:19:55
Speaker
through a really well-taken goal, I think, by Will Bruin. It looks like he may have actually saved the goal to begin with. Like, some of the replays make it look like Rui Dia's initial shot may have been going in if Will hadn't blocked it. But he makes an amazing recovery. Yeah. And, I mean, it's a really impressive play, I think. It's a great shot. Five holes box hole, or nutmeg box hole, depending on how you want to call that. But then,
00:20:25
Speaker
This is it's too one at that point gets into the 85th minute. I believe it is around the 85th minute and for me. That's a pretty clear and obvious penalty that Christian rolled on, but it's the kind of play where I don't love those penalties. He's going away from the. He's going away from the goal. He doesn't have control of the ball, but he absolutely gets fouled inside the penalty area. And again, if that's if the disallowed goal was.
00:20:53
Speaker
clear and obvious. How is that not a clear and obvious? It absolutely is. And it's one that I'm ultimately, I think I'm mostly okay with referees choosing to let go because it's a foul, but it's a foul in the same way that the Ruby Diaz call was a foul where it's a foul that doesn't get called 30% of the time, probably.
00:21:14
Speaker
And there's a tendency, I feel like, in soccer officiating to have a higher standard for awarding a penalty than overturning a goal, which seems exactly backwards to me. Yes, I agree. But whatever. And I just think it's the lack of consistency where the clear and obvious thing to me in the game was Shane O'Neill probably should have had a red card.
00:21:38
Speaker
right of all three of those calls that's the one that to me is the use case for bar even that i think is marginal because the justification is while the referee saw it he gave a yellow card he decided it wasn't a red card like i think that's fair i i would have sent him off i mean well i i wouldn't have but an objective version of me would have sent him off um but that it's you know it's within discretion i think the other two are also within discretion but
00:22:06
Speaker
if you're gonna use them for one and not the other two, it's just, it's confusing. And I certainly don't think that there's inherent bias against the sounders or any other team that I follow, but you're always going to feel that way in a moment. And it definitely felt, you know, felt that way. Now in hindsight, not having O'Neill get sent off is probably the biggest break of the three, but because I think it's much harder to mount that comeback, but
00:22:35
Speaker
It's very frustrating because there really is no sense of what the standards are and what constitutes something that can be reviewed because a lot of the time there's something that looks like it's reviewable and the decision is, well, it's not clear and obvious and that's fine. And I could accept that if it were a consistently applied standard, but it's just clearly not.
00:23:00
Speaker
Right. And I think that that's what's so frustrating about it is that I just want consistency in this because I agree the centers kind of caught a break. You know, I guess you can argue that they were two for one for three on on VAR potential reviews there. But what I bring it all up because
00:23:19
Speaker
It was the adversity that the Sounders were kind of facing in this game. It seemed to be a game where the brakes just weren't going their way. And they kept pressing
Rudy Diaz's Crucial Goal
00:23:29
Speaker
and they kept pressing. They had hit the post twice. First, Jordan Morris absolutely just murders the post. He's had a few of these now where he just hits a laser
00:23:41
Speaker
Only to hit the post, keep it out. I wish you would shoot that ball more often. But that was right before the second goal. Easy to hang your head, I think, in that situation. Similarly, easy to hang your head when you don't get that penalty call. Then they had another one where Rudy Diaz had a ball deflected and then goes off the post again. It just was feeling like for all the pressure the Sounders were applying, they weren't getting the brakes.
00:24:07
Speaker
And then, and then Rudy Diaz, a ball falls to Rudy Diaz at the back post. And what was amazing to me, uh, credit the Levy films for getting the, the, the great angle on this. I don't know how he squeezed it inside the near post. It's just, there was no room there. Uh, Dane St. Clair did an amazing job sliding over and cutting off the angle. And yet somehow Rudy Diaz finds it into the, into the near post equalizes there. And then at that point.
00:24:34
Speaker
I don't know about you, but it did to me feel like it was the Sounders game at that point. You know, who knows what happens if it had gone to overtime, but, uh, Svensson's header was, you know, about as well executed as any corner the Sounders have taken this year. Uh, but it, it also was starting to feel a little at that point, but I don't know. Amazing. Amazing.
00:24:58
Speaker
Go ahead. Uh, just two winners from, from corners, uh, from headers on corners and two games is very fun after the, after the way the season has gone. But that's always the way it goes, right? Like, yeah, I know that the centers have had, it's, they have four goals off set pieces in the, in the, in the playoffs, uh, which is a lot, uh, they weren't bad on set pieces during the season, but I wouldn't say they were particularly good on set pieces either. Um,
00:25:23
Speaker
Definitely not their rep. Big center backs, or I guess not center backs in Svensson's case, but you know, he's like a center back on a set piece, I would say. Yeah, yeah, very much so. But you know, it was one of the most amazing stats that I came up with looking at the game and after the fact was, you know, the centers are 8-0-1 against Adrian Heath, I think.
00:25:47
Speaker
that had been pretty well documented that the Sounders had done well against Heath's teams. What was remarkable to me is not only is that the second time or not only is that the second time that the Sounders have won a game against a Heath coach team in which they trailed in the 88th minute, which is just like kind of mind blowing. It's that they're
00:26:09
Speaker
Heath's teams have scored first in five of those nine games. They're 0, 4, and 1 when they score first. Across football, the winning percentage, if you score first across football, it's like 71% win percentage. And he's 0 for 5. It's interesting because it's like he seems to have a decent idea of how to get to a positive game state and no idea what to do once he's there. Right.
00:26:37
Speaker
That's the easier part, as far as I'm concerned. Figuring out how to take a lead against the Sounders, especially on the road, is tough. Holding a lead, not as much, but you know. I think I saw a stat on Fox Talk. It was something like the Sounders had trailed for a total of
00:27:01
Speaker
like 55 minutes in their six previous conference final match in their, like during the Brian Spencer era. And they, they basically trailed for that much in this game alone. Um, you know, getting a lead against the Sounders, especially at, or maybe that was 55 minutes during their 15 game home winning streak. That actually may be what it was. And, and so getting a lead against the Sounders at home and the playoffs is really, really
Sounders' Dominant Final Minutes
00:27:27
Speaker
hard.
00:27:27
Speaker
And Adrian, he did it and they were managing the game and but you know you look at the chalkboards from the second goal forward.
00:27:35
Speaker
And it's it's stark. You know, basically what happened was Minnesota stopped attacking like they they not only did they not complete any passes near the Sounders in the centers offensive third or in their own offensive third, but they were barely even attempting passes into the offensive third. They took one shot. It was a very speculative shot from distance over the last the last 20 minutes or so and the Sounders took 12. The Sounders out John 12 to one from the 67th minute on.
00:28:04
Speaker
Like you're not going to win like that. You're putting yourself under a lot of trouble if you're if you're letting if you're getting outshot 12 to 1 over the final 25 minutes of the game.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's that seems like a mistake that teams and I don't know if it's a mistake or just an inability to switch to a really defensive posture while still maintaining the ability to attack. But you have to present some kind of credible threat if you if you want to hold on for as long as Minnesota we're attempting to hold on for. I mean, I think that one of the one of the major frustrations that
00:28:35
Speaker
we used to hear with with Sigi's teams when they tried to sit on leads was that they just completely went into a shell rather than at least attempting to to counter when the opportunity presented and then it ended up costing them a lot of the time and I think that it's a similar thing here and it's a it's a pretty common complaint I don't want to single out Sigi's teams but you have to find a way unless you are one of the best defensive teams in the world that makes grinding out results one of your
00:29:05
Speaker
your, you know, identifying characteristics. If you're a team that likes to attack in Minnesota as a team that likes to attack, I would not say that they're an elite defensive team, considering that one of their midfielders just doesn't play defense at all. You have to still present some kind of a threat, and they just didn't do that at all. And when you don't do that, you can get all 10 outfield players involved in the attack, and it just makes it really difficult to hold up against
00:29:35
Speaker
Yeah, you look at the sub patterns and I think if there's the criticism of Brian that's fair, it's that he uses a sometimes maddeningly conservative sub pattern. He oftentimes leaves his starters in too long and he doesn't use all the subs that he has at his disposal very often. It worked out great in this game.
00:30:01
Speaker
you know, so maybe he knows what he's doing, right? But I'll tell you, if I'm a Minnesota United fan, I'm frustrated. Basically, they used one sub in the first half, which was forced when Hasani Dutson came in for Roman Mettinier. But then they didn't, the only other sub they made that was of any real consequence was after they scored, they brought on Kai Kamara for Ethan Finlay, which I guess was the idea was that he was going to
00:30:28
Speaker
win headers. Any one of few headers, I guess it wasn't the worst move. But then, I think it's hilarious, 94th minute after the Saunders have taken the lead, they bring in Aaron Schoenfeld for Robin Laud, which is like, what are you doing? Yeah.
00:30:48
Speaker
I think too like that, when you bring in a big target forward like that and you're only putting them in because you're just committing to punt the ball to him and hoping he can flick it on into space. In the 94th minute by the way. Yeah, I just, I don't know man. I think they talked so much during the first half, especially after Minnesota took a lead about how
00:31:11
Speaker
Adrian Heath was hammering, you might not have this opportunity again. We just can't compete in the West financially. And so we've got to seize this opportunity. And then he just completely shifts the bed in terms of how he managed the game. And I think you have to give Minnesota credit for how they played. I think you have to give him credit for designing a pretty good game plan at the outset.
00:31:34
Speaker
But just completely he was just completely out of his depth, you know, as soon as it was apparent that the sounders were mounting a comeback, it was just like he threw his hands up and hoped. Yeah, I mean, he didn't I think what's remarkable is that he didn't try to do anything to stem like he didn't do the professional timeout thing where
00:31:53
Speaker
like you just do something to break up the, you know, to break it up. The Sounders scored three unanswered goals and he made no moves. They didn't make any changes during those 300, that's, to me, that's just, that's maddening. Well, and I think even before the Sounders had scored their first goal, it was very obvious that they were going to. Yeah.
00:32:16
Speaker
If not scored, they were just going to spend the rest of the game pepper in the goalie. And you just, you can't let that stand as a coach, you just can't let that stand. But as far as what it says for the Sounders, I think if anything, it would, like I wrote about this in that
00:32:34
Speaker
The level of self-belief this team has must just be kind of off the charts right now. You know, they could fall behind 2-0 to the crew, especially if it's early. And I think that they're going to feel like, no, we have the better team we can do. I would like to not do that, to be very clear. I would like them to win this game easily and not make my heart explode. But I mean, I just think that they
00:33:00
Speaker
they know what they're about right now. And I don't even know, I don't even think that what they're about is some sort of like real specific game model. It's like, and it's like cliche and boring, but like they're about a mentality. And that mentality is just like grinding. And I feel like that understates some of the pretty things they're able to do because I think they do a lot well.
00:33:29
Speaker
some good soccer and I like I saw someone compare Brian Spencer to a west coast Jose Mourinho and I just was like what like is that am I crazy that that feels like a really wrong comparison I think that stylistically it's I get the sense that it was not a stylistic comparison so much as a mentality comparison and a
Sounders' Mentality Compared to Mourinho
00:33:56
Speaker
But the way that the teams approached the game, I mean, the hallmark of Mourinho's teams and when he was still good. I mean, I guess his team is at the top of the Premier League right now, so I shouldn't just count it like that. But when, you know, when he was classic, Mourinho was just, his teams found ways to win. And a lot of the times, by overwhelming teams, stylistically, I think you're right. I mean, Alexei, after the game, said, well, you know, with the Sounders, we know it's not going to be pretty. And it's like,
00:34:22
Speaker
I don't, I just don't understand that. It's so like, yeah, like the playoffs are often not that way. That's just kind of the way it goes. I mean, it certainly was two games ago that you just blew LAFC's doors off. Yeah, it's just, it's very bizarre. And like the team is like the best striker in North America.
00:34:41
Speaker
one of the best playmakers in North America. Lots of great attacking talent, you know, throughout with Jordan Morris. Joao Paulo is a wonderful sort of deep-lying playmaker, a Jesus-type player. I would say the most dynamic, deep-lying midfielder in MLS media. Yeah. I mean, he's up there with Darlington Nagme. I mean, he does different stuff, but I think he does a similar kind of thing. And we spent the last episode talking about how refreshing it was to see the Sounders win ugly.
00:35:11
Speaker
But it's just, I mean, I don't, I know we spend a lot of time and have spent a lot of time over the years talking about the weird perceptions of the sounders that people have nationally, but this one is just the hardest for me to have wrap my head around, man. I mean, like, this has not been a
00:35:30
Speaker
dirty, pragmatic to, uh, you know, the detriment of entertainment team this year at all. It's, it's been the complete opposite. It's, it's very strange. Again, I think it's because people just aren't capable of thinking that Brian Schmetzer is, is capable of playing sophisticated enough soccer. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Like I think in fact, that some of those Bruce Arena teams that I think were a little bit more fairly deemed pragmatic and they won like a dozen games, one zero.
00:35:59
Speaker
The Sounders have won one game this year, 1-0, and it happened to be the last game. And a game that we sort of, I think, was universally considered to be not your typical 1-0. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so I'm pretty jazzed about this. It was funny. There was a moment in the 70, I want to say, right after Brian
00:36:26
Speaker
made his first subs, which was to bring in Kelvin Leardom and Brad Smith as fullbacks. And I was like, okay, I, at the beginning of the, I said, nothing that can happen today is going to make me rethink how well constructed the scene is. And I don't know, maybe if your best move is bringing in two fullbacks, that's bad. Uh,
00:36:47
Speaker
But maybe in fact, and maybe that was actually a pretty, like maybe it was actually a key to the victory to bring in kind of two more dynamic outside backs.
00:36:58
Speaker
Lyrdom, I think, really changed the game a lot. Bruin, I think, touched the ball a lot. Yeah. I don't think Smith hurt. I think Noohoo had a pretty good game, but he's not an attacking player. It's the smart move to make. Bruin, I thought, really changed the game. But I think, to me, the lesson for me was
00:37:23
Speaker
maybe you should go with your better players over the players that have been hot. And I think I had this discussion with a couple different people, both on and offline. I'm kind of glad, in retrospect, that the game played out the way it did, because I think it gives you the incentive to switch up the lineup.
00:37:43
Speaker
in the next game. Alex Roldan has been great this season, but he had a rough, rough game. Shane O'Neill had a very rough game, made some
00:37:56
Speaker
pretty costly mistakes, I think it's fair to say. I think the midfield looked a little rough at times, a little overrun at times. So, you know, I feel a lot more comfortable shifting it all down out wide and having sense and in the middle in the next game. So, you know, I think I understand why you continue to play the hot hand, but I think it's fair to say the hot hand cooled off quite a bit in that game. And maybe you can switch things up a little bit.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I would totally echo that. I think if I suspect that Lirdum, maybe not guaranteed to start, but feels real likely to start. Svensson feels even more likely to start. I think probably the only reason Svensson didn't start this one was he had only been in training for a few days.
00:38:43
Speaker
He also confirmed that he'd tested positive for COVID-19. Apparently he was asymptomatic, but quite- Yeah, I wanted to talk about that actually really quickly. How lucky are the Sounders that they've had two key players this season test positive that both of which were asymptomatic. I mean, knowing some of the people that we've known that have gotten it that are maybe not professional athletes, but healthy, active, younger people had serious consequences. That's pretty fortunate, I would say.
00:39:12
Speaker
Very fortunate, and both of them scored in their first game back, which I think is kind of wild. Not too bad at all. But yeah, it's very lucky. So I think goes to Lirdem and Svensson, I think are almost guaranteed to start. I would really like to see Ariaga start. I think he's the better option than Shane O'Neill. I think Shane O'Neill, as good as he was the first two games, I think reminded us a lot of his shortcomings in this last game.
00:39:42
Speaker
Uh, but on the other, on the other token, it, it is kind of a neat little note that the sounders started four different players in the defense, uh, from their MLS cup winning team. And that they had either four or five players starters from MLS cup last year on their bench, which is just like an amazing set. I guess there was must've been four.
00:40:04
Speaker
Four players starters from last year's MLS Cup on their bench for this game uh just kind of speaks to the depth and the uh you know that you can bring a Will Bruin, Gustave Smedson, Kelwyn Lierdom, Brad Smith uh bring those guys off the map you don't even play Roman Torres uh it's you know that's those are those are those are good problems to have uh I would say but um we uh have some questions that we're gonna uh
Listener Questions and Answers
00:40:31
Speaker
get to right now, and we'll be back in a minute. Full Pool Wines are based in Seattle, owned and operated by Sanders fans, and have been sponsoring Nos Adieras since 2011. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest. Their model is simple. One, they email compelling offers.
00:40:58
Speaker
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00:41:18
Speaker
Welcome back to Notes Adietta. So got a bunch of MLS Cup preview questions. I'll go ahead and get us started. This one's from Bill Jones. He says, Schmetz raised the question, where does that win rank in terms of greatest Sounders wins? For me, last year's cup will be first for the unforgettable experience of being there, winning a cup at home. But this one seems really big.
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think winning the cup at home outranks it. I think winning the cup on the road outranks it. I would probably put beating LFC last year over it just because that was so unexpected. I think it's probably top 10. And I think it's going to be highly subjective because
00:42:04
Speaker
For me, things that happen this season don't register the same way that things that have happened other seasons. But I think if you're just looking at it in isolation in terms of what it means for the season, it's a much bigger deal. And I think the fact that nobody was there to see it is also detrimental. But just in terms of the
00:42:28
Speaker
The actual circumstances and the events and how it transpired. This would probably be like a top three for me if it weren't happening in 2020. Yeah. Um, I mean, I, I will say, I think it's, you know, you got me thinking cause immediately my reaction was, well, yeah, it's like right up there. Maybe right after MLS cup, like I was inclined to believe I was, you had to agree with that one. And, and in some ways maybe it was even.
00:42:57
Speaker
it's so hard to remove yourself right from the recency of it. And it felt big, it felt really, really big. And, but at the same time, like I remember being at the stadium in 2010 when we won Open Cup at home and 2011 when we won Open Cup at home. And when we won Open, when we beat LA on the last game of the season to,
00:43:24
Speaker
win the supporter shield and when we won the open cup that year and you know, you started going through and it's like, Oh, you know, I mean, that's a big win and it was really exciting. And I guess in some ways time will tell how history kind of talks about this game. But if, you know, in five years, I don't know, or where are we going to put this one?
00:43:52
Speaker
I think it'll be a top 10 game. I wanted to say it was like top three, but the more I give it thought and the more I kind of try to remove myself from it, I don't know.
00:44:01
Speaker
It's got a lot of confidence. There's been a lot of really good games in Sounders history. So I don't know. I don't have a good one. I think that a lot of the time, the Sounders are still, as an MLS entity, are still new enough that people think of them as though there isn't all this history. But I mean, we're getting there, right? We're starting to have a fair amount of it. So it's been 11 years now. And we've been consistently competitive in those 11 years.
00:44:29
Speaker
So next one is from Eric. I hope I'm not butchering this too bad. Eric Delfel on Twitter. That starting 11 felt stagnant for large portions of the game. Not awful, but not our usual active group until the subs came on. Do we shake up the lineup or and who do we change for the final?
00:44:48
Speaker
So my hope is that the lineup changes. I think the sounders need to change things up. You alluded to this in the last segment that in some ways struggling early on was maybe a good thing because it gives Brian an out to make a lineup change that my suspicion is that he probably wants to make anyway, which is getting Svensson on the field, getting Lyrdom on the field. And I think really the only question is, does Ariaga start over Jane O'Neill?
00:45:17
Speaker
Yeah, I would tend to agree with that, I think. And I'm leaning towards thinking that it's probably going to be O'Neill, but you know, we'll see. Yeah, I mean, based on what we've seen, that's my suspicion too. I hope I'm wrong. Because it makes me feel like
00:45:38
Speaker
Like I don't know, I'm a little worried for the long, like I'm a little worried what it says about the roster build if you, because it's like, if you're really that committed to Shane O'Neill over Javier Arriaga, like is that who your starter is going to be next year too? Like that seems wild.
00:45:55
Speaker
Crazy to me. Not great. Yeah. No. So, but I just think, I just really think Ariaga gives you the better chance to win this game is my main issue. This one's from Dave Clark. He says, last night's heroes were a goose and a bear. What animal will be the hero in MLS Cup? Do we have any other animal names? Please. Do I? Please. Raul Rui Diaz is known as the flea. Oh, well, yeah, there you go.
00:46:22
Speaker
There you go. It works for me. I don't know if Columbus has any animal named players. Let's hope not. Yeah. So yeah, we'll go fleas. A flea is, you know, it's an animal of a kind. Yeah, yeah. Next one is from Andrew Connect. Another name I'm probably butchering, so my apologies. What's the biggest danger Columbus poses to the Sounders? Can we learn anything from the long-ago and eco-less second game of the season?
00:46:52
Speaker
I don't think there's a lot to gain, like there's not a lot to glean from that game. I mean, it was March 8th, it was, Josh, it was almost eight months, it was over eight months ago, nine months, almost nine months ago. And not even just that it was nine months ago, but Columbus hadn't really come into the form that they ended up being in. I don't know that there's a lot to get from that game.
00:47:20
Speaker
If any, and again, in similarly, I think you look at the time these two teams played last year, Sanders won on a stoppage time winner from Nico Ledero. That was kind of an ugly game. They had a very heavily rotated lineup in that one, I want to say, but the crew were bad. They've made some changes since then. So unfortunately, I think this is almost like starting from scratch. Yeah, I would tend to agree.
00:47:46
Speaker
I'm getting all the easy names. This one's from Ryan Johnson. He says, what's the likelihood the crew parks the bus on Saturday? I think pretty unlikely. I mean, they're playing at home. I would say that they're inherently, we're just naturally
00:48:00
Speaker
more conservative, I guess, than the Souders are. And Caleb Porter tends to play a fairly pragmatic style, we'll call it. But I don't think they're going to bark the bus. And I don't think they should. I mean, they're not a team that's built to do that, really. They're a good attacking team. They have good attacking talent. So I think they're definitely
00:48:24
Speaker
I don't think that breaking down the bunker is gonna be what the Sounders have to worry about in this game, at least from the outset. So next one's from Dudes B. Do we like Kayla Porter more than when he was the Timbers coach? Beating him in the MLS Cup final seems like it would be deeply satisfying. I think we like him, we dislike him less. I don't know that my affinity for him has grown, but the deep-seated hatred of him maybe is
00:48:53
Speaker
slightly diminished. He's still prone to really ridiculous statements. He apparently told the press yesterday that he's never lifted
00:49:06
Speaker
the conference trophy or, and I didn't really understand his point. He made it sound like, he said, I never lift the trophy. That's for the players. There's of course many, many pictures of him out in the world of him lifting MLS cup. I assume that he has touched actually, what a weird thing to,
00:49:27
Speaker
Like what a weird, like unless he's saying like the conference trophy is somehow inherently the players and the MLS cup is not just for the players. I don't, I don't really understand the point. I didn't get the whole context of what he was saying, but it seemed ridiculous. And it seemed like something that Caleb Porter would say, but so yeah, I mean, I think we can still dislike him plenty. I would say that I, you're right that it's not as like,
00:49:53
Speaker
burning because he's not coaching the rival. I don't have to think about him that often, but I think that I might, my opinion of him may actually be lower because I don't have, like my thing with Gio Savarese is I think that I actually really like Gio Savarese, but there's like a
00:50:13
Speaker
because he's the timbers coach, I can't. So my attitude is adjusting my opinion of him to being just sort of neutral on him, right? And with Porter, I always had to ask myself, do I hate this guy so much because he coaches the timbers? And it's very clear that I just don't like him. And I think he's a big prick. So, um, it's a pure hatred. It's a pure hatred. Yeah. And I really don't like the crew either. So maybe there's still some bias there, but he's just,
00:50:42
Speaker
He sucks, man. I don't know. He's a good coach. He's not as good as he thinks he is, though. He's not as good as most people think he is, I would say. And it will be very satisfying if we beat them. Yes, definitely will. All right. So this one is from Garrett Amini. He says, who's your season MVP?
00:51:04
Speaker
I think if you'd asked me this a month or two ago, it probably would have been Jordan Morris, but he slipped, his level slipped I think down the stretch, it's fair to say. He was still great, but I think I probably put Nico above him now, all things considered. Just because I think Nico, it's not only the top line numbers, the goals and assists and what have you, he's just so,
00:51:31
Speaker
I think the thing this, I don't want to spend too much time talking about this, but this MLS 25 thing came out today. And the most, um, I think the, the emission that Sounders fans are most upset about is probably Diego Ledero. And there are players like Sebastian Jiminco, Diego Valeri on there that are.
00:51:52
Speaker
maybe not exactly the same kind of player, but are talked about in the same sort of way. And Niko maybe doesn't quite put up the absolute numbers that those guys do in terms of goals and assists, but he also plays defense. He's involved in the buildup much more frequently. So I think he gets judged by a lot of people as a number 10 when really he's just an insanely productive number eight kind of player. And he's actually played as an eight.
00:52:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But you're not seeing what you're not seeing Gio Vinko do. Right, exactly. I mean, I think when you look at his numbers in production in the context of what his actual role in the team is, he becomes much more impressive. But so I think it goes to Nico. But I think if you want to be like super hot takey and go against the grain, you could you could also say I show up all up because I think he's allowed the Sounders to play a completely different style than they played in the past and has been just
00:52:45
Speaker
I don't think he's in the caliber of player that Nico is quite, I think he's a tier below. And he certainly hasn't, he's not as dynamic of a player as Jordan Morris is. He certainly hasn't put up the goals and assist numbers, but in terms of what he's allowed the team to do and how much differently they can play now, I think that he's been, you know, a game changer.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah, a couple of months ago I did a kind of deep dive into Zhao Paolo's contributions and not so much what he's doing himself but what he allows the other players to do. He allows Nico to be higher up the field. He allows Rui Diaz to be higher up the field. He allows Jordan Morris to a certain degree even to be higher up the field. So I think there's an argument to be made for all those players. I'm gonna go in some ways the more obvious but also maybe the less obvious way. I actually,
00:53:36
Speaker
in the playoffs, I think Raul Rui Diaz might be, you know, if you look, and it's not just the goals, it's just that he is so dangerous, so consistently dangerous. And, you know, you look at the way he played in the Minnesota game and he had the one goal, he had the one goal called off, but he also was the guy who was putting Minnesota under the most pressure consistently. And,
00:54:04
Speaker
he does he just a fun fun player to watch and I don't know if MVP is who's the one player you can least afford to miss I suppose Nico is probably that player because there's not really an obvious like for like replacement but Rui Diaz is right there with him and I you know and I and I guess maybe this is the argument why you know why the sounders none of the sounders drew a lot of support for the actual MVP I mean
00:54:31
Speaker
White Morris and Lidero both finished top five, but we're nowhere near beating Pazuelo, even if combined their scores. But I suppose it's because they have too many good players to choose from. And the fact that you can make a case for at least four guys on this team, you might need to be able to, if you really wanted to try, you could maybe even make a case for Christian O'Donne being the most important player because he does so much and he does so many different things.
00:54:58
Speaker
It's a fun team, man. It's a fun team. I don't think that you could make a case that Raul is... Sorry, you cut out there.
00:55:14
Speaker
Still there. No, you think you go. You can. Yeah, can you hear me. Well yeah, so I was just gonna say I don't I don't know that you can make a case that role is the most important player but I think you could probably make a case that he's the best player that's ever played for the Sounders, just in terms of pure ability and talent. That's a good way of putting it.
00:55:36
Speaker
So next one is from Grady City Sounder. Too early for 2021 roster questions. Best bets on right back and left back for 2021 would be interesting. Well, I think left back is simpler than maybe at first glance. I think it's going to be an open competition to me. At least this is my read on it. It's going to be an open competition between New Who and Brad Smith. I fully expect both of them to be back.
00:56:02
Speaker
I don't know that I think if you're looking for a off the board, not obvious player who could leave, maybe Jovan Jones. I don't know what his contract situation is, but I could see the sounders maybe wanting to upgrade that spot and they don't really need him as a left back anymore. So I think that's a question. I think right back is interesting one.
00:56:27
Speaker
Two weeks ago, I would have said Kelvin Lirdham is almost certainly out, but I think he's potentially starting MLS Cup. I think you probably got a... If he starts MLS Cup and he plays well, I think you got to at least consider bringing him back. I think Alex Roldan has absolutely cemented himself as
00:56:49
Speaker
at least the number two right back, so I don't necessarily expect a change there. But if Lirdom doesn't come back, I would imagine the Sounders bring in another player to compete with Alex Roldan. But I wouldn't be shocked if Roldan was the starter next year. Yeah, I mean, I think that that Colvin Lirdan is clearly a better player than Alex Roldan right now.
00:57:12
Speaker
But I think if you think that rolled on can develop into an above average to good right back. I think right now he's around average, which is that term. I feel like when I use it is different than the way a lot of people when they're talking about soccer players use it. Average to me is like good. Like you have to have average players on your team. Right. And you're starting lineup in a salary cap league. So that's not a.
00:57:35
Speaker
bad thing to put words in your mouth I'm guessing by average you mean he is something like the 13th to the 10th best right back starting right back in MLS or just
00:57:49
Speaker
You know of all the players in the MLS player pool right on all the rosters He's somewhere in the middle right like either either one of those I think works Probably more fair to compare them directly to other right back. She right So yeah, I mean I think I think you're okay there and it gives you flexibility and maybe the ability to upgrade more significantly Because if you bring weird on back, you're probably not going to be able to make a mid-season upgrade at right?
00:58:14
Speaker
like you're probably committing unless you cut ties with them at that point, which seems unlikely for the Sounders to do, or you're limiting yourself in what you can do. So if you value that flexibility, I think it makes sense to see what you've gotten enrolled on and upgrade if you need to mid-season, if you'd rather have the consistency and just sort of the sure thing.
00:58:37
Speaker
maybe just commit to rotating a little bit more as it gets a little older and you also want to see what you have and hold on that that makes sense as well. Otherwise, I think you're right. I don't think there's going to be a ton of turner.
00:58:49
Speaker
Yeah, the other changes I think are going to be much more on the periphery. I wouldn't be shocked if Sensen doesn't come back. Yeah. Just because I think he's probably looking to get back to Sweden. He's a little on the older side too. He doesn't have a ton of time left. I wouldn't expect Miguel Obara. I would be shocked if he's back. This is our more tail end of the roster types. But of the big contributors, I would think
00:59:16
Speaker
Leardham, Jones, and Svensson are the players who are most on the bubble for coming back.
00:59:23
Speaker
Yeah, I love Jovan, but I think it's probably time to go in a different direction there, just because I think you can, I think everybody would probably agree that you can upgrade at that spot. And the flexibility, like you alluded to earlier, is just not as important. All right, so this one's from emeraldchamp supporter. What do you guys think about Garber's state of the league comments stating that MLS revenues are down by a billion dollars? That's such a significant number. It scares me for out of the league survival.
00:59:50
Speaker
So I think at the outset, I don't think it should scare you for the least survival. I think that we're at a point with ownership groups in MLS where this is a long-term investment for them. They're comfortable taking losses. They have enough capital that missing out on the revenues is not going to kill them. Now, if they have to go another full season without revenues, it gets a little scarier, obviously. But that seems unlikely at this point to me.
01:00:20
Speaker
Aside from that, I think the important thing to keep in mind is revenue and profit are not the same thing. Yeah, revenue is probably down by that billion dollar number, but expenses are also down, not by billion dollars. They still have to pay players, but a lot of teams laid off staff. A lot of teams took loans from the federal government. A lot of teams have done furloughs. They don't have to pay game day operations people.
01:00:45
Speaker
I would imagine that some clubs have gotten tax breaks and things like that from the states they're located in. A billion dollars is a big number. It's a lot of revenue. It's also spread across every team. Most of the ownership groups are very well capitalized and the expenses just haven't been as high as well. Very tough for them, obviously, for MLS, but a lot of businesses with a lot less
01:01:12
Speaker
capital and that are on more of a day-to-day rather than long-term investment plan have managed to survive, I think MLS will probably be fine as well. Yeah, and I think what comes back to me is that you've got a bunch of teams that are valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars and
01:01:31
Speaker
If you let's just say let's just take it at face value that each team is losing a billion dollars, you know, you're looking at a fraction of their, you know, not a small fraction, but it's just a percentage of the team's worth that most of these
01:01:47
Speaker
owners are losing and so to just throw your hands up and say I'm giving up is walking away from a significant amount of money. A lot of these teams also invested a lot. They've got a they're kind of pot committed at this point to not walk away from these teams you know and you just put up 125 million dollars to buy an expansion team you're not walking away over losing you know 10 or 20 million dollars. You know you've got a lot more invested in this than
01:02:14
Speaker
And some of these ownership groups have put in a lot more than that because they've built stadiums and things like that. So no, I don't think the league is going to fold. Now, should you be worried if you're an employee of this team? Yeah, I mean, hey, that's of some concern, sure. But for the league's just basic survival? No, I'm not really worried. Next one is from Michael Leiper.
Future of Sounders' Crest
01:02:41
Speaker
Would the Sounders ever rebrand their crest? Should they?
01:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think they should at some point. I have never really been a huge fan of the crest. I think that the most likely scenario is in a few years, maybe, I don't know, maybe their 20th anniversary, something like that, they will come up with some sort of reimagined
01:03:04
Speaker
version of their crest, MLS more than other leagues is not, you know, is prone to making these changes. I don't think the centers are going to go through like a dramatic rebrand, but I don't see why they shouldn't, you know, update their crest like
01:03:20
Speaker
Most yeah at this point have. Yeah, I think the the crest that they have is very was instantly dated like it looks very 2007 2008. Yeah. Yeah. I think of all the examples of that time period of that sort of stuff. It's a very good example of it. Like, I don't think it's a bad crest. It's just
01:03:40
Speaker
it looks like it was designed in 2008. And so I would love to see them go in a different direction. I don't think they need to do a full rebrand, but I would like to maybe see a little bit of a reboot on it, but we'll see. I mean, I think one of the drawbacks is that it includes the Space Needle and getting the rights to use the Space Needle is a huge deal that I don't think is cheap. So if they had to redo it, I think they would have to either stop using the Space Needle or renegotiate that deal.
01:04:06
Speaker
which maybe didn't want to do, I don't know, but I can't imagine that would be a deal breaker. Yeah, and I don't know. I get why you want to use the space needle in your crest. It's like a very visibly, like it's a very obvious
01:04:24
Speaker
like landmark that's super like simple, like it makes it immediately communicate Seattle. But I don't think, I also don't think the centers have to use the space now. I think using Mount Rainier, I would much rather see a Mount Rainier focused crest. I would prefer they not frankly use the space table. I think it's a little hackneyed. It's kind of for Asian, but I also understand why teams would want to do that. Or if you go to all the trouble of getting the rights to doing that, you might want to
01:04:51
Speaker
I mean, the Kraken aren't using the Space Needle. The Mariners aren't using the Space Needle. The Seahawks aren't using the Space Needle. I don't know why the Sounders should feel like they have to. Yeah, I would definitely prefer they didn't. Just because I think it's important for teams to be connected to the identities of the city. But the Space Needle is just such a...
01:05:12
Speaker
cliched sort of. And frankly, your name is the Seattle Sounders. It's not like, it's maybe, it's at this point, one of the more unique, or that's not one of them. I realize that's bad English. It is a unique name and it is one of the more
01:05:32
Speaker
Like I think it communicates where you are as well as any nickname in all of North American sports. Like I don't even know who I would put up there in like in the running with them, but Sounders is a great, great name. I think that you can do a lot with that and it doesn't have to have anything to do with space.
01:05:54
Speaker
Yeah, I know like the 90s Orca-centric branding, talk about dated. Yeah. So I don't necessarily, but I think like some sort of nod to like Orcas or something like that would be very cool. Yeah, sure. And you can go, I think, you know, and I remember it, not that we're going into a rabbit hole in this, but I remember one of the first, the first scarf that Sandra Hart did had an Orca on it. It was like a Native American styled Orca and,
01:06:24
Speaker
And someone was pointing out that, that had a question that had kind of like a tortured tie to the sounders past. And, and I, even this was like 2010 and I was like, or 11 and I kind of shrugged my shoulders like, it doesn't really bother me. And if it didn't bother me in 2011, it definitely doesn't bother me now. For sure.
01:06:46
Speaker
So we're going to close with a question from one of our favorite commenters, one of our favorite listeners.
Hosts' Hat Preferences
01:06:53
Speaker
Oh, there's my dog. I completely forgot you had a dog again. Yeah. Well, I did too for a second.
01:07:02
Speaker
Susie Rants, what's your favorite hat style? So this one is tough for me because the answer in terms of myself is just a fitted baseball hat because I wear lots of fitted baseball hats. But it's not my favorite hat style. It's the only kind that I can wear because I have an enormous head. So when I wear a toque or like a beanie or whatever, I get the reservoir tip condom thing going on, which is not a good look, especially not because my hair is very long.
01:07:31
Speaker
It just, it looks really bad on me. So yeah, a fitted baseball hat is the best that I can do. Even like a snapback, like it just, it looks weird because my head's so enormous. So yeah, that's, you know, those are the breaks. If I had a normal sized head though, I really liked tokes and beanies. I would wear those a lot. I still wear them. It's just not outside of the neighborhood, you know.
01:07:55
Speaker
Well, I am kind of a hat guy. I go through phases where I feel like you've actually gotten mad at me for how often I wear a hat. Yeah, because you have really good hair.
01:08:06
Speaker
And so, and it's just like effortlessly good. And, you know, you're always covering it up. Yeah, I know. I get, the thing is I get really lazy about getting it cut. And so it gets to a certain length and I feel like I have to put on a hat. But I'm a toque guy, a beanie guy. I wear, I love beanies, a good, a well-fitted,
01:08:26
Speaker
Beanie, I love, I love them. That might be my favorite hat to wear. I have, I went through a phase where I was really into cadet style hats, which are basically like kind of round tops and short brims. It was a good hat, but it was very like early 2010s, I think.
01:08:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and I don't wear that hat very much anymore. I also had like a, I don't know, what do you call the kind of like old Boston-y? Oh god, what are those? Those are just like flat something. Flat tops or flat fronts or something like that. Something like that. Anyway, I like those. I haven't worn that one in a long time. I have a few of those. I don't wear them very often.
01:09:08
Speaker
When I was younger, I was very, very into fitted ball caps. But I would say this is one thing I suspect you and I differ on this. I was a really big fan of the tight brim where you bend it down and you'd almost have the brim touching your eyebrows. Yeah. You're probably more of a flat brim guy, right? I'm not flat brim. I do a little bit of a bend. But to me- The different style of hats though. They're distinctly different. They have a different kind of brim.
01:09:36
Speaker
Well, so I'm like a, I'm a new era 59 50, I think is what they are. So just like the, you know, the ones that like actual, the baseball teams actually wear. Yeah. And they come with a flat rim that you, to me, the like very tight.
01:09:51
Speaker
Like the association I have with that is like rednecks from Tom water to do some, some, you know, hate crimes in downtown Olympia. Yeah. I recognize that that's not the association outside of like rural areas, but that's, that's what it always is. My association was me and I'm old enough to where I remember the, uh, the Greek fisherman hat being like the big hipster hat. I had one of those. Yeah. I had one of those. It was good. Good hat. Very good hat. Just, uh, again, a little dated, but maybe they'll come back. I think I still have one somewhere.
01:10:21
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm going to get into the weeds a little bit on this one. So you're right. I think that's a fair association with that style of hat. I grew up in like kind of a farm community, and maybe that's where that came from. But back in the late 80s and early 90s, there was a big schism in the ball cap world, because there were actually two suppliers for Major League Baseball teams. There was New Era, and then there was Pro. And New Era was the more
01:10:50
Speaker
It's like they are now. They're the more traditional or the more common kind of almost flat brim style. They weren't as flat brimmed them, but anyway, that was the style. And then Pro had the more rounded hat. And if you go back and like, I think the classic example of this, you go, you look at like Dave Stewart or Bob Welsh from those late eighties, early nineties A's teams. And those were some tight, tight hat, brimmed hats. Yeah.
01:11:16
Speaker
And that was kind of the style that and that was that was my team in the day and that was kind of the look I was cultivating and
01:11:25
Speaker
Anyway, but yeah, even now, the Tacoma Defiance have this trucker cap that is like, I think it's like off the shelf, almost throw away, like you can like drop ship order these kinds of hats, but it fits really good on me. So I love hats, man. I love hats. I've got a lot of them. I also have a lot of them, but they're mostly baseball hats. I have my favorite one right now, and I think you have this one too, is a throwback Tacoma Tigers.
01:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, I love that hat. That I never wear, because I got it in late February. And I'm like, well, who am I wearing this for? I don't see anybody. So I never, because usually if I'm wearing a hat, it's because I'm going and I'm walking, getting all sweaty and stuff. So I can't wait to get a vaccine so I can wear that hat again. That's the main reason I want to get a vaccine. That's a beautiful hat. And I think that the one I have is also kind of a tighter brim, too. Yours is like a snapback version, I think, right?
01:12:23
Speaker
uh it's the no it's it's not the snapback version but it's not the proper pro fit it's like it's like the flex yeah the flex the flex fit hat yeah uh and that has the tighter brim but anyway so that was the longest portion of this q&a that we got into was hats so thank you it's interesting stuff i like to talk about hats i do too i love i love me some hats but uh anyway uh thanks to our sponsor uh full pull wines uh
01:12:52
Speaker
I just can't say enough about their support during this crazy, crazy year. I hope we have another episode to record. Especially if sounders win, I think we're going to record again. If they don't, who knows?
01:13:07
Speaker
We might, it might be a little while before there's something worth wanting us wanting to talk about, but on the off chance, this is the last show of the year. I wanted to say thank you to everyone for hanging with us. I know it's been a up and down year for a lot of reasons. I know we haven't recorded as regularly as you probably were accustomed to.
01:13:28
Speaker
I hope, I appreciate everyone who stuck with us though. It's been a really nice thing to have this, to have a show that I can just hang out and talk to a friend about soccer and the Sounders. And I really appreciate you guys continuing to participate and sending us questions and listening and doing everything else. Also,
01:13:51
Speaker
huge things to lick it for everything he's done to support us and producing and doing everything behind the scenes, not so much on air with us this year as he had been in the past. But anyway, and thanks to you, Aaron. It's been a lot of fun hanging out with you. It's been good because I think if I did not have this, it would have been very easy for me to lean into being a depressed pile of shit and just not care about anything.
01:14:20
Speaker
I'm glad you didn't do that. Thank you, Jeremiah, and thank you to all the listeners as well. I think we're going to try to do Yacht-Con this year. I don't know if we've talked about that or not, but we are in the process of trying to come up with a format that will feel worthwhile. It'll be virtual,
01:14:42
Speaker
And I know a lot of virtual events don't feel entirely worthwhile and we don't want to do this if it doesn't feel like worthy, but I think Seattle Children's Autism Center probably could use the support now as much as ever. And so we'd like to create an avenue to raise some money for them and have some fun and hopefully we'll be doing that.
01:15:05
Speaker
sometime in February, maybe early March. We'll see how the season is lining up. So stay in lookout for that. I think that's about as long of a exit as I have. I'll have to redo all this again if we record again after Emma's Cup. So anyway, thank you so much. I'm Jeremiah Shan, signing off for Aaron Campbell and Look at P. This is No Sadietes. And remember, you'll never get alone.
01:15:36
Speaker
Green Douglas spur where the water's cut through. Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew. Canadian Northwest to the ocean so blue. It's Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Roll On, Columbia Roll On. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn. Roll On, Columbia Roll On.
01:16:13
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!