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Episode 366: Craig Waibel sits for an extended interview
70 Plays2 years ago
Craig Waibel took over as the Seattle Sounders' third-ever general manager during the MLS era about three months ago. Although he had previously served as the team's sporting director and as such played a significant role in the current roster build, he has put his fingerprints on the team in ways that fans don't usually see.
Most of Waibel's work has been done behind the scenes, attempting to rebuild an office culture that took a hit during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic that led to the Sounders going 100% remote.
One of the biggest aspects of Waibel's directive has been encouraging more in-person interaction that isn't necessarily a meeting. He keeps his office at Starfire Sports Complex rather spartan, with just a stick-figure picture that he drew himself as one of the only decorations. He says that's because he doesn't want it to feel like "his" office, as much as a place where he happens to work and anyone else is welcome to use it.
We sat down last week for an hourlong conversation, the first half of which can be found here. The other half of the interview is being made available only to paid-subscribers to our Substack and can be found at NosAudietis.Substack.com.
Sponsors
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)
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsors
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest. Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to Nos Arietes.
00:00:32
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
Interview with Sounders GM Craig Weibel
00:00:50
Speaker
Thanks to Watson's Counter for sponsoring this episode. Located in Ballard, Watson's Counter is your neighborhood specialty coffee shop, brunch spot, and now, coffee roaster. Sourcing exclusively high scoring coffees, Watson's Counter has started their coffee roasting project to showcase amazing coffees grown around the world. Their first featured coffee is the beautifully complex washed Ethiopian Odola.
00:01:12
Speaker
Follow them on Instagram at wantsonscounter to keep up with all the upcoming releases or check out their website at www.watsonscounter.com. Whether you want to stop by for your daily coffee to go or sit down for delicious Korean inspired brunch, Watson's Counter has got you covered.
00:01:29
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of NOS Adiatus, sponsored by Fullpool Wines and Watson's Counter. Today, we're going to be talking to Sounders GM Craig Weibel. This is the first half of the interview and is available to everyone. We're also going to be putting out an extended cut that will only be available to paid subscribers over sub-stack.
00:01:46
Speaker
If you're already one of those, now might be a good time to subscribe to that podcast feed, but the episode will also be sent to your email, so be on the lookout for that. If you don't know what I'm talking about, allow me to introduce you to our substack. We launched it a couple months ago and have slowly been rolling out new features. The core product is a newsletter we put out once or twice a week that is designed to give you everything you need to know before and after Sounders games.
00:02:11
Speaker
You may have also noticed that we've been doing more episodes, something that has been made possible through the support of our listeners. Not only are the paid subscribers underwriting more content for everyone, but they're also getting exclusive access to several new features including an organizational depth chart, detailed injury reports, and tactical summaries of each game. We'll likely be adding more in the coming weeks and months.
Weibel on Creativity and Interaction
00:02:36
Speaker
In the meantime, we'd love for you to join us at nosadietes.substack.com, either as a free or paid subscriber. Now, enjoy the episode.
00:02:48
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of NOS Adietes. I am Jeremiah Chan joining me today in his, in his very, uh, Spartan office at Starfire is, uh, the new Sanders GM Craig Weibel. Uh, welcome to the show and thank you for doing this. Uh, we were having a really nice conversation about the rather undecorated nature of your office.
00:03:09
Speaker
I like to describe my office as a place where people's, they have the freedom for any thought that comes, I don't block their thoughts out, you know? We have a lot of blank walls for them to run with their creativity. I don't need to guide creativity here, you know? Let's run wild. I do see one, is this drawing something that, is that even your family? That is an authentic Craig Weibel drawing. That is a one-off.
00:03:34
Speaker
I was at one point told that my office lacked decor. So you made that. So I drew that. Yes. I'll paint a picture for the listener. He has a marker drawn stick figure of a soccer player looking like he's maybe getting ready to hit a bicycle kick, but maybe he's going to chest trap it. What's happening in that photo? Does it tell us anything about you?
00:04:00
Speaker
Well, it's it's obviously a picture of myself, obviously reminiscent of Escher's, you know, crystal ball. Yeah. Self portrait. And if people would just, you know, use their imagination to imagine the incredible detail that's involved in this. So you can I mean, you can even see the hair and.
00:04:19
Speaker
the hair and those are hand like things that he has around. Yeah, suggested, you know, you drew some you drew a joint it appears on or something. Yeah, there's elbow joints. I mean, it's again, it allows people's imagination. Yeah, I like I feel like we could do a whole episode about this, this drawing. We don't even there's no background. We don't even know where that is.
00:04:45
Speaker
I know it's on, yeah. So it's on
Working Preferences and Environment
00:04:47
Speaker
a, on what would best be described as like a office max purchased a table. Yes. A 1983 designed Royal sized desk. That is way too much for me. A lot of desk space, a lot of surface area, a lot of surface area without much, but you do have a standing desk, which I feel like probably also says something about you. Um,
00:05:14
Speaker
but yeah it's it's it could say anything it could say I'm too lazy to sit down right cuz I walk in who knows right I gotta get the sense that you you probably don't spend a ton of time in here
00:05:28
Speaker
Is that true? I do my best to spend as little time in here alone as possible because just with the way the world's gone over the last couple of years, we've all, I think, learned our best forms of efficiency.
00:05:44
Speaker
and I can work on my own in a coffee shop and get quite a bit done. I love coffee shop atmosphere and I love just sitting with that background noise and hammering through emails and planning and
Transition to GM and Leadership Style
00:05:56
Speaker
you know as long as I've got a dark corner where no one can see my screen I can actually work on some very relevant things but no I think look the office needs to be
00:06:07
Speaker
In our environments, it's integral to have communication and interaction. And we live in a world where we're talking about a lot of little decisions that add up to big decisions every day and every week. And so I spend a lot of time in here with the door open and I try and fish anyone who walks by in the hallway. I try and throw a hook and get them in here.
00:06:32
Speaker
Well, you had an interesting answer. I thought someone asked you what was one thing that you implemented this year as the GM. And I thought it was actually, I thought it was pretty interesting. You talked about having one
00:06:45
Speaker
I guess one meeting that's not a meeting or one interaction that's not a meeting, it sounds like trying to get people back in the habit of interacting with one another without it feeling like we're only doing this because we have time carved out and we have to get something done.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, look, the last couple years have been wildly difficult on everyone. In our world, it didn't necessarily take us apart from one another, because we were still training, we were still in, but it really made you psychologically view time in a much more constrained
00:07:20
Speaker
way and and when you view time and efficiency that way you you can dehumanize your interactions just to a business point why you know we're only gonna interact this long we gotta leave and you know the world kind of in a lot of ways it slowed down but in our world in a lot of ways it sped up you came in you did your job there was no one else in the building you left
00:07:42
Speaker
And so it wasn't the dehumanization on purpose, but it was this lack of this integral part of what we do, which is the interactions. I mean, sports takes a lot of time that people don't see. It's six days a week, a lot of times seven that we're here. And whether it's for two hours or 10 hours or six hours or eight, there's a lot of days that we are at this building that a lot of people don't see.
00:08:07
Speaker
making sure to try and recapture some of those moments where we treat each other not as co-workers is important, but it's also difficult. We all have real lives and a lot of us have families and a lot of us have schedules and
Winning Culture and Player Selection
00:08:22
Speaker
a lot of us have other responsibilities. And so just bringing back to light,
00:08:27
Speaker
We need to consciously interact in a way that isn't just problem solving. I have been accused many times before of being as a manager, as a leader. I interviewed for a position once and the person in charge of the interview at one point stopped me and said, man, you're really touchy feely.
00:08:49
Speaker
And I said, I don't know if that's good or bad, right? Because I'm not even sure what, what it meant. But if that means I'm human, great. That's all I want to be. And so how effective do you think that's been so far? Like, have you seen change this year that you felt like, like interactions that you weren't seeing a year ago that have assumed the ideas to make this become organic?
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, obviously when and with the new facility being planned is, you know, we how much can you implement knowing that change is coming in a year in terms of environment interactions and sightlines and things like that. But I don't think I'm changing it as much as the world is changing it. We are.
00:09:27
Speaker
getting back to whatever version of normal is going to resettle us. And so I think I think just, you know, being the guy that kind of verbally reminds people out loud, hey, not everything has to be about soccer, not everything has to be about problem solving. And not everyone has to participate. Because some people
00:09:48
Speaker
aren't small talk people and some people aren't socialization people. They need their alone time to actually focus me better at what they do. So getting back to those core beliefs that you can be an individual.
00:10:03
Speaker
You don't have to donate all your time, but as humans in this building, we have to humanize each other. And the only way to do that is to not talk about soccer sometimes because man, for anyone that thinks we don't spend all day, every day thinking about this.
00:10:19
Speaker
I assure you, we are warped. This is all we do. I mean, you know, we watch practice and we go home and our coaches obsess over the one touch that this guy took that wasn't right. And I should I go over it on video or will how will that impact them psychologically or will I make them think too much so they're not taking now they're not taking the right touch because I, you know, they do that. And I think all day about how do I make this place a little more smooth? How do I grease this kids? How do I make this joint work a little bit better? And and so
00:10:49
Speaker
It's an obsessive world that that we live in. So what's your favorite thing? If you're if you're interacting with someone who's maybe that you feel like you need to draw them out, what's like your favorite? What's your what's a go to subject that you will bring up with people?
00:11:06
Speaker
I mean, the simplicity of what do you wanna do? I mean, how many people get into sports because it looks cool? Sure, why I got into it. And by the way, it is cool. It is, yeah. But it's not always what people think. There's so many avenues. I mean, this is a real business. There's the sporting side, there's the technical side, there's the medical side, the sports performance side, the nutrition, the ticket sales, the sponsorship, the management. I mean, you go through all of the different arms,
00:11:34
Speaker
It's just like any other corporation or business you get into it might be run with less people. But when people get into this, you know, as we educate ourselves in any environment, we also start to
00:11:47
Speaker
have opinions. And
Player Deal Pursuit and Scouting Process
00:11:49
Speaker
one of my favorite asks is not like not about soccer and not about their personal life. But where do you think this goes? Like, give me give me 710 20 years from now. Like, are you sitting on a beach? Are you still in this office? Those types of things. I think it allows people to use our imagination. And it challenges people to not give me the canned answer of
00:12:11
Speaker
You know, I think he wants me to say, okay, I'm, you know, Josh Gerke, who does a great job working with the Defiance and the Administrative side. Well, I think he wants me to say, I want to be the first team admin when, you know, whenever Grant turns 95 and decides not to do this anymore.
00:12:28
Speaker
You know, but that's not that's not the answer. You know, I want to know everything about him. So to open him up, to catch him catching people off guard is not necessarily the intent, but catching people off guard is kind of fun. Sure. Because they don't always expect me to walk in and say, hey, let's not talk about soccer.
00:12:48
Speaker
Let's not talk about the budget line. Let's not talk about the money we spent here and here and here and can we more efficiency and all these catchphrase words. That's my favorite thing, you know, walking in and asking someone a real question.
00:13:02
Speaker
It's kind of neat. Yeah. I feel like now I'm under a lot of pressure to ask you a real question. So, uh, what's your goat? You're, you're, you're out at a, at a cafe. This is not a real question, but you're out at a cafe. Uh, what's like, what's your go to, what's your order at the cafe when you're like slinking into the corner so that you can work for easy 12 ounce mocha as hot as humanly possible to make with a curse on. Okay. Yeah.
00:13:28
Speaker
Absolutely. A hundred percent. Like that's eight out of 10. Okay. And so are you a, you'll spend, is that you order once at the beginning of the day and then you're just like, this was my rent that I rented this space for three hours. Or do you view, is there like a clock? Like I'm going to have to order something else in an hour or two.
00:13:44
Speaker
I think if I ever have three hours in a block, it ends with pinball, but it starts with probably an hour and a half or two hours on the computer. I actually did that last week. I drove over to Paul's Bow and sat in a coffee shop and I had about three hours. I was like, okay, I'm going to
00:14:02
Speaker
I'm going to sit down at the Paul's Bohemian coffee shop. It's great little location and get a coffee, sit down, start doing work. But I'm definitely going to walk down the street, play some pins. I never got to the pins. Oh, that's rare though. I mean, you know, most of the time when I'm on my own two hours, two and a half hours, you can get a lot done when you're on your own and focused. So.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, but I'm not afraid to go back for a second cut. It's always a fine line between am I getting too jittery to work now, and I do feel some pressure to continue to pay for this space. Well, you can't be afraid of the decaf, though.
00:14:43
Speaker
Right. Oh, I mean, it's it's it's it's always there's some soul searching involved when you when you say that. Yeah. But but I mean, you know, I've gotten to the point where the bottom of the cup is very cold and you have to I mean, that's when you got to go back. Yeah. You got to you got to go pay your pay your due. Yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker
So you've been in this job now for I guess about four months, three months, maybe three months, maybe even less. But what's been the biggest difference, you think, between you were the technical director, you were pretty involved, as I could tell, when Garth was the GM. What's been the biggest difference in terms of
00:15:20
Speaker
that change like your your upgrade you're you know being a well it's it's an interesting one because i think humility is a it's it it both enables you in a lot of ways and it limits you and others and so uh you know when when you're working for garth um it's it's i've said this many times he's the best
00:15:40
Speaker
I look in league history and anyone like I would love to have that debate if anyone tries to debate it. You know, you look at his results in terms of as a general manager, it's insane. The guy never figured out how to lose. And so it's this wild standard to walk into in terms of results. But everyone has their difference in leadership styles. And so, you know, I think I think in many ways, I learned a lot in that that
00:16:09
Speaker
interview that I referenced earlier where I was, you know, kind of stopped and I was told, you know, you can't touch your feely as a manager. Like you really like to know how people are going. You know, that's, that's a style. That's not really one I choose. It's, I just have this insane interest in, in the people I work with. And, you know, it's one way to do things. And I think Garth was really it. Well, he wasn't, I don't think this, he was, he was amazing.
00:16:36
Speaker
at getting people to perform at their maximum level in a different way. And whether or not that's good, bad, and different, we'll find out. Only time tells in my position. But that kind of changing the interactions takes a while for everyone that's worked here for a long time. Leadership change is not always fun. I've had a lot of little challenges to figure out some of the structures and also
00:17:04
Speaker
looking forward a year when we go into this new facility figuring that out. So there's some little some little kinks in the hose, so to say to speculate and kind of predict. But for the most part, you know, for me, it's been I think it's been a lot easier than everyone else. Everyone else that has worked here for a long time worked for Adrian and worked for Garth, there's been a lot of continuity. And so this is
00:17:27
Speaker
this is a bigger change than any change. It's only happened once before from Adrian to Garth. And so it's only the second time that this position itself has been changed. So I think for me, it's been, I don't want to say smooth sailing, but the relationships I was able to build over the last year and a half being here have led to a lot of really honest and really productive conversation. And so is there anything like it does seem like you and Garth have different styles like Garth, like when
00:17:57
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe I'm projecting here, but when I, at one point I, after, after, there's blank walls. Yeah. After he, so after he left, I interviewed him and, and I was asking him about the, like the work from home policy at
Reflecting on Leadership and Team Success
00:18:09
Speaker
Atlanta. And he made a comment about how he had asked about it. And they said, well, here in Atlanta, we work from work.
00:18:15
Speaker
and uh and it seems like and i kind of because he struck me as someone who really enjoyed being able to go home and work from his home office and sort of like and and kind of direct in that way and he was here sometimes but it also seems like you're present in this facility a lot more than than he was and and that's not a good thing or a bad thing necessarily but
00:18:36
Speaker
I mean, is that an accurate read? And how do you think, but it also sounds like when you're here, you're not in your, like, you don't like to be in your office. You like to be like, I have to be in my office at times, but, but look, Garth was when, when you,
00:18:51
Speaker
When you do things at such a high level for as long as he did, you know, he was at the level of he was a conductor, right? I mean, he could be off site and still know where every piece of this was and know how everyone was feeling and really direct it. And I think that's a skill set that you build over time. You know, I ran real Salt Lake for many years, but.
00:19:14
Speaker
It was a smaller staff. It was a different venue. We were separated from the business. So many things there were different. So I'm a little ways away. But look, our styles are a little bit different. Because he got to the point where he could conduct from distance at such a high level, he did it. Could I try that? Yeah, I could try that.
00:19:40
Speaker
I'm not sure I would be as successful as he was in the short run, but it impacts the way everything works. Me being here on site more, it impacts other people. It impacts what they were asked to do. It impacts what they were. Some of the cases people really loved that Garth wasn't here every day because it allowed them into spaces and into roles and responsibilities and tasks that perhaps are perceived to be more fun than others.
00:20:10
Speaker
me being here every day has an impact on that. And I'm conscious of that. I try and be aware of that, but it is a big difference. It's a big difference when you're being conducted and the tightrope I walk and as I meet over the last couple months with all these guys, with all these men and women directors and all the employees, I tell them my style is truth. So let's sit down. Let's talk about truth.
00:20:39
Speaker
And then you go, you go do your job. I don't want to do anyone's job. I have enough jobs to do on my own. So, you know, um, I'm not quite to the conductor phase of the career yet, but, but that, um, that's what, if I base it off of Garth, that's many championships and away. Yeah.
00:21:00
Speaker
No, that's that's totally fair. So, you know, you you alluded to this. The the Sounders have had a remarkable amount of continuity. Really, you can go all the way back to what 2001 when Adrian first kind of bought the team and was running it. And and Brian has been the coach for there's been two head coaches of this team during that entire time. There's been you're just the third GM. And then when
00:21:22
Speaker
When a lot of this hiring take, when the new people come in, it's a lot of people that have experience with the organization or experience that are local or for whatever other reason. And I'm just curious how, you're kind of like a hybrid in that. You had been part of the organization in a previous era. You have local ties here, but you were essentially coming, but you also had ties to Garth.
00:21:48
Speaker
But you were kind of coming in with some fresh eyes and I'm curious how you find that balance because I would imagine you have to balance the idea of this is the way we do it, this is the way we're all going to do it, but yet we need to evolve and we need to have new ideas and we need to sometimes be open to completely changing things if they're not working.
00:22:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, look, I, I think any business has to be open minded to evolve and, and it has to be the leadership positions that lead that and that influence it. And it doesn't always mean it's right. It doesn't always, you know, it doesn't always lead to the best outcome, but I think we need to be open minded to the conversations. And I think over time,
00:22:26
Speaker
the sounders have been a good example of that evolution. Not only have they existed for a long time, they've been good for a long time. And even the years I was playing with the sounders when it was the A League and we played at Memorial and then at Renton, we
00:22:42
Speaker
We were good, we were competitive, it's been a competitive group and that's one thing that's never wavered. And so in order to do that though, you have to be willing to challenge yourself in these positions to evolve. I had connections all over it because I grew up in Lewiston, Idaho, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in Spokane.
00:23:03
Speaker
And then I went to the University of Washington and then I played two years for the Sounders and then I went into the MLS and you know, kind of made my way around California and down to Houston. But the connectivity of this area, it's always been home. My wife grew up in Bellevue. We were back here all the time. I coached a couple of years as an assistant with Jamie Clark at UW. And so there's just all these
00:23:27
Speaker
you know, strings, if you, you know, you put them up on the, on the board and it's like, everything connects. And it, it's, uh, it's in many ways from the outside, looking in Jeremiah, it looks like everything adds up. But the one guarantee in sports is that it never takes you home. It never takes you home. No one goes home in sports. It always takes you all these other places. And so that's been a wild ride for me while everyone else is saying, Oh, this is amazing. It fits in my mind. I'm like,
00:23:57
Speaker
but it doesn't fit in terms of like the normal adventure of this thing that everyone fights to get this opportunity. So it is so rewarding to be in Seattle and to have this opportunity and for Adrian and the ownership group to trust me with this responsibility and
00:24:15
Speaker
You know, working with Hugh Webber, who is an incredible leader with so much experience and Adrian who's, you know, again, the owner of a club that's done nothing but win the adventure. Just it all leads to this point where now.
00:24:33
Speaker
I come in at a time where the league's in a bit of transition, you see, you know, it's not that the Apple deal changes things, but the Apple deal changes things, and the salary cap changes things, and the CBA changes, and we need to evolve with that.
00:24:51
Speaker
In my world, I think it's fun to share. I think it's fun to educate the fan base as much as I can in terms of the decisions we're making, share as much as possible, give as much context. But also, I'm not blind to the, you know, the main goal is to entertain. And if we're going to entertain, people better have opinions. And if they have opinions, good or bad, that's okay. I like the conversations. I don't mind a disagreement. Like,
00:25:17
Speaker
It's art. You're going to see it differently. Well, let's get into some of the things around the team a little bit more specifically. You were part of building it, but you also inherited a roster that was very stable, that had a lot of contracts that were already guaranteed. There was a pretty limited amount of flexibility that you could have had, even if you
00:25:41
Speaker
came in with the idea that you wanted to blow it up, which I imagine you probably didn't. But do you feel some pressure to sort of like put a stamp on this team? Like right now, there's one player who wasn't already under contract, or wasn't already in the organization when you got here. Does that work in your mind? Or are you just like, I don't need to, this isn't, I don't need, there doesn't need to be a Craig Weibel signing.
00:26:09
Speaker
No, no. I mean, if I'm doing my job in my mind, in my mind, if I'm doing my job well, the team is winning championships, the fan base is happy. We're selling out the stadium and no one knows who I am. That's the perfect world for me, is anonymity with ultimate success.
00:26:30
Speaker
Now, that is not reality, and I understand that, but at the same time, if all these other pieces are adding up, I don't need hugs, I don't need pats on the back. I would genuinely rather show up at the stadium and have real conversations with fans about, hey, why'd you make this decision? Why'd you make this decision? And share as much as I can. Context matters, the experience is what matters most, and the results are what impact those experiences.
00:26:58
Speaker
For me, I don't need to sign anyone that people go, Oh man, that, that was why bull's guy. Uh-huh. No, I'm not that guy. And, and, and look, there's a huge team here that selects players and we negotiate contracts and,
00:27:15
Speaker
you know, I just think again, as we evolve as a league and as an organization, there's a lot of there's a lot more pieces that go into bringing in one player now, than there were even five years ago when I was or four years ago, whatever it was, even when I was at Salt Lake, the structures are so different on how you attract and really close a deal now. Do
00:27:36
Speaker
I guess, do you ever get, uh, fall in love with the potential signing and in, and then it doesn't come, like come through and is that a player that you, like, how do you deal with that? And like, do you, or do you, as soon as the, as soon as the doors closed, is it just like, that's over and I'm moving on to the next one. Well, let me, let me take everyone back to their first teenage crush.
00:27:58
Speaker
when that person didn't even know your name. I mean, you go from in love to like, wait a second, that person doesn't even know I'm here in a matter of seconds. And it's that feeling of like, whoa, man, I thought for sure we were seeing this the same way. I thought we were in love.
00:28:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, every deal you fall in love with every player you really want, you really have to want them. And, and look at, in this club, we only go after players we really want. There's very few, very few times where you hear us say, Oh, it's good role player, good, good spot. You know, we, we don't need to do that. We're a huge club, we played in the club World Cup, we're relevant, everyone knows who we are. And
00:28:47
Speaker
And we'll know who we are for many years. And so, you know, we we tend we tend to fall in love before we even go after a player. So, you know, this offseason, we we pursued a couple of players. I don't think it's off limits to talk about like Christopher Haugen at Molda, a wonderful left back.
00:29:07
Speaker
unbelievable talent and knew who had just played three pretty darn good games in the World Cup. And I'm sitting here going, OK, the new guy takes over and the left back starts, you know, multiple games in the World Cup and plays well. Oh, boy, here we go. Like.
00:29:26
Speaker
I am not going to have an easy couple of weeks here. And it didn't work out in terms of mid-season, Winter World Cup, all these strange things came up. And so for me, I was selfishly like, okay, it doesn't look like new, who's going anywhere? But we had done all the homework and we were really, really pursuing at the time Christopher Haugen because
00:29:49
Speaker
A, we thought there would be a need, but B, we really liked it. We really liked the way he plays. We really thought that he could come in and add a level of consistency and different attributes, obviously, because new who's, in my opinion, the best 1v1 defensive player in MLS. So clearly, I don't think we're going to replace the best 1v1 defender with the best 1v1 defender, regardless.
00:30:15
Speaker
you know, those types of things come in and then, you know, they work, they don't work for whatever reason. And, um, and there were many things I put into it. I still, I still text with him because he's a wonderful human when I went over and met him. And, and so there's a friendship there that, that outlasted the whether or not we could get it done. But yeah, it like, it's a great question because everyone operates differently. You know, some people can cut it off cold, right? But, um, we tend to,
00:30:43
Speaker
We tend to not just fall in love with the soccer player. We, we do a lot more homework than that. Well, it does seem like the sounders also have a history of identifying someone and tracking them over sometimes multiple, uh, transfer windows. And then all of a sudden it's like, Oh, Hey, remember it. Andres Yvonchits back from 2015. Well now he's available and. Well, yeah. And anyone that pays attention to the Jay league and knows any strikers there that have one goal and two assists in their first two games.
00:31:14
Speaker
They'll track that name too. And have really great names. They already wear jerseys that look a lot like the sounders. There could be similarities. Those types of things, in my world, there's a lot of people that claim Daima doesn't. Oh yeah, I saw that. Oh yeah, we really...
00:31:37
Speaker
I can list very on a very short list how many real conversations we had this offseason because our task was bring a player in that starts because to your point, we have a lot of great players here and a lot of established players and a lot of continuity in terms of contractual situations. So we didn't need to go out and get someone that could come in and challenge, you know,
00:32:04
Speaker
We want we want to play only players that could come in and not challenge we wanted players that we expected to contribute so you know a bear is an example of a guy that with the amount of games we're gonna play with the new league's cup with this with everything stacking on and with his scoring record and you add now you have Raul a bear and Freddie and
00:32:25
Speaker
as options up top. And all of a sudden, that's a heck of a different look than where we were last year when we would catch an injury up top. And now it's like, okay, well, we have this. And Freddie was asked to do a lot of work that in reality, tactically,
00:32:43
Speaker
We wouldn't normally try and ask him to do last year. And he still had a great season, eight goals and this and that. But as an organization, did we wear him down physically by asking him to do some of these other tactical defensive movements or attacking movements that he otherwise wouldn't be asked to do? So adding in players that were expected to play was our task at soft season, which is why there was
00:33:04
Speaker
one or almost two. So what would you say are the characteristics or what are the things that differentiate a potential sounder signing from any other signing that like obviously I would imagine there are certain characteristics that every GM and every league says this is what we like but what do you think makes a sounder like a player that either yours specifically attracted to or in general like it makes them a sounder?
00:33:30
Speaker
You know, look, in the past, very few players have come here that weren't winners already. And as much as everyone wants to go find the, you know, the, let's use like every cliche we can, the diamond in the rough. Oh, this, yeah, this guy was playing on this team. They only won once last year, but we're going to bring him in and he's going to be, you know, environment matters, results matter, habits matter. How do you show up?
00:33:56
Speaker
How do you show up to win matters? You know, it's it's why Wade Weber and Mike Morris do such a wonderful job with the Defiance is because the standards that they hold those guys to are you got you have to win. Like it's not a demonstrative environment, but it's if you can't win here, how do I tell Brian Schmetzer that you should be on that field?
00:34:21
Speaker
And so there's these psychological tests and impacts that players have over time. And then there's cultural impact. And then what it really comes down to is what attributes separate them. Well, we're not reinventing the game. I'm not smarter than anyone else. We can all see a good player. Turn on a Champions League game and tell me which player isn't good.
00:34:46
Speaker
You know what I mean? There's some things and then sometimes you get into the analytics and you say, oh man, this left back plane in Poland is really good analytically, statistically. Okay, well, objectively.
00:35:02
Speaker
Well, that doesn't take care of the subjective part, right? And there's a marriage somewhere in between. And, and so how do you describe one particular player? I actually think homogeny is, is damaging. You know, we, we, we need different cultural aspects in our locker room influence. We need different technical players. We need, we need people that are willing to put their hard hat on. I mean, you know, you guys, you guys have all had Brian as a coach for a long time. Brian likes a hard hat. He sure does. And when I played for Brian,
00:35:32
Speaker
The instructions you gave me before the game were put on your hard hat. So, you know, we need those guys because we need continuity, not only from the front office, from the fan base, but our coaches have to like their group too. And so that's a big piece of what makes a sounder is a whole bunch of things go into it. But I'll tell you at the end of the day, what makes a sounder is you win. No, fair enough. That's it. And that's what people have done here for a long, long time.
00:36:02
Speaker
Thanks to listening to the first part of our interview with Sounders GM Craig Weibel. There's also a second part that we're making available exclusively to paid subscribers of the newsletter. If that's something you're already doing or interested in doing, you can get it delivered to your favorite podcast listener by subscribing to the Substack podcast feed. We'll also be delivering the interview to your email and you can find it at nosadietdes.substack.com. Thanks for listening.
00:36:32
Speaker
Green Douglas, where were the waters 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
00:37:03
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!