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Nos Audietis, Episode 293: Talking Game of Thrones with Lamar Neagle
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Hard to imagine how the season could have started any better than it has. As the Sounders enter the first international break of the season, they find themselves atop the Supporters’ Shield standings as the league’s only 3-0 team. They’ve outscored their opponents 10-3 along the way, including a 4-2 win over the Chicago Fire last weekend.
The goals are flowing like perfectly heated chocolate from a fountain, and the front four of Raul Ruidiaz, Nico Lodeiro, Victor Rodriguez and Jordan Morris have combined for a rather astounding eight goals and seven assists. Fullbacks Kelvin Leerdam and Brad Smith have even gotten in on the act with a couple goals and an assist between them.
In addition to discussing the Sounders’ awesomeness, we also talked to Lamar Neagle about his new team, Game of Thrones and his thoughts on Sounders fashion.
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.
Want to hear the music from the show in their glorious, full versions? Check out the Nos Audietis playlist on Spotify!
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Transcript
Introduction and Full Pool Wines Book Release
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! Fullpool'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.
Meet the Sounders: Roldan and Morris
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. Fuck! Hey, Ocean! Let's go! Morris runs right by him and sticks in and slots them for a roll! Fantastic for George Morris!
00:00:55
Speaker
Here's Morris! Morris! Think of an ant! What do tigers dream of? They take a little tiger's hand. A blue with skies you've ever seen are in Seattle. And the hill's the greenest green in Seattle.
00:01:24
Speaker
like a beautiful child growing up. Welcome to another edition of Noce Adietes, sponsored by Full Pole Wines. This is episode 293, and we're recording on Wednesday, March 20th, 2019.
Sounders' Strong Season Start
00:01:37
Speaker
I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan, and I'm joined as usual by my co-host, Aaron Campo, and our engineer, Lickett. Later in the show, we'll be joined by 253 legend and massive Game of Thrones nerd, Lamar Nagel.
00:01:48
Speaker
Hard to imagine how the season could have started any better than it has. As the Sounders enter the first international break of the season, they find themselves atop the supporters shield standings as the league's only 3-0 team. They've outscored their opponents 10-3 along the way, including a 4-2 win over the Chicago Fire last weekend.
00:02:03
Speaker
The goals are flowing like perfectly heated chocolate from a fountain, and the front four of Raul Ruy Diaz, Nico Lidero, Victor Rodriguez, and Jordan Morris have combined for a rather astounding 8 goals and 7 assists. Fullbacks Kevin Lirdum and Brad Smith have even gotten in on the act with a couple goals and assists between them. All in all, we're watching a lot of fun soccer! Is there anything not to like about this, Aaron?
00:02:27
Speaker
I don't like the fact that we have a bye week. Yeah, that's kind of a bummer. Yeah. But no, I mean, I think that everything people were worried about coming into the season. How is Jordan Morris gonna look? How, you know, how is he gonna fit into the team? How is he gonna recover and start? That was that was a big thing. How's the midfield gonna look without Aussie Alonzo was a was a concern for a lot of folks.
00:02:53
Speaker
Those I think were the big things people worried about. And maybe the defense not being quite as good as it was last year has something to do with Aussie Alonzo, but I don't think that I am convinced of that yet.
00:03:08
Speaker
And I guess the only thing that isn't to like is that the defense hasn't been as dominant as it was last year. But I think part of that is that the Sounders are playing a much different style. They have a much different approach to the game than they did last season.
Upcoming Challenges and Tactical Changes
00:03:22
Speaker
And I also think part of it is just that
00:03:25
Speaker
uh you know the game in which they looked the worst in Chicago last weekend um was a 10 a.m start on an in-way game uh and that's that's always going to be kind of rough um and i just kind of expect them to to sort of round into form i don't think they're going to be the dominant unit they were last year for
00:03:41
Speaker
um you know for a few reasons but i think they'll be fine so um and you know frankly i would rather have a team with uh a defense that's a tick below elite that can score goals like this than you know than the other way around yeah and i should say i don't know that the defense looks that different than it did late last year you know the the cylinders as good as they were down the stretch their defense wasn't
00:04:10
Speaker
like just completely destroying people. And I think that's kind of what the centers have given up three goals in three games. That's a, you know, if they, if they finished the season at that pace, they'll have allowed 34 goals, which would be very almost exactly the same. I think is what they allowed last year.
00:04:26
Speaker
And, and that's not a bad defense. That's, that's usually right around the league leaders is maybe not the best defense, but it's, it's pretty good. But I think after this last game, especially there is some room for concern. They, they gave up a lot of chances. They gave up a lot of pretty good chances. Uh, but overall, I do think that this has been.
00:04:47
Speaker
really like there's not any major red flags for me I guess if there's one thing it's that we still don't I don't think have a really good sense of how good the opponents they've been playing are I'll say that that went over FC Cincinnati's looking a lot better right now than it did at the time the Colorado Rapids look perfectly competent that was at home though so you know maybe they're not great away and Chicago hasn't looked
00:05:12
Speaker
awful. So I think that they're beating decent teams. They aren't necessarily just beating up on bad teams, but they haven't really been really tested yet, I guess, if that's maybe the one area to be a little wary.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's
Schmetzer's Tactical Adaptability
00:05:27
Speaker
completely fair. I mean, I think that you never know how well this is going to work until you against the best teams until you play the best teams. Right. Right. Even though the teams that the Sounders have played probably aren't as bad as maybe we thought they would be coming into the year, it's going to be a different
00:05:44
Speaker
a different ballgame when the Sounders have to play a team like Sporting Kansas City that is both very competent as a soccer team and built to stop teams like the Sounders from doing what they do. They haven't played a team with the attacking firepower of LAFC. They haven't played a team with the tactical genius of Frank DeBoer playing the strings. So yeah, I feel very good about it. And I think largely I feel good about it because
00:06:13
Speaker
they haven't just been beating these teams for the most part they've been very destroying them yeah and the chicago game is a little different because you know they made it close um the sounders got a late goal kind of
00:06:27
Speaker
uh, very much, I guess, against the run of play, um, to, to sort of seal it. But it was, it was nerve wracking a few minutes, but, um, in the first half, they were utterly dominant. Uh, and, and I think that part of the reason that the sounders
00:06:43
Speaker
struggled more in the second half was because of some of the changes that they made tactically and substitution wise. And I think the Brian Schmetzer has acknowledged that it didn't work out the way they expected it to. So I would expect them to maybe change their approach later in games that they're winning comfortably. So yeah, I mean, if they were
00:07:05
Speaker
you know, 3-0 and eking by teams, I'd still feel, you know, pretty good about things because winning games is hard in MLS. But the fact that they're just dismantling these teams that then go out and look pretty competent against other decent teams is definitely encouraging.
00:07:21
Speaker
Yeah, and to be fair, they're not gonna get anything like a test, I don't think, until... I don't think we're gonna feel like they've been tested, whether or not they win these next three games. Until game seven, they host Toronto FC. Even then, I don't know if that's...
00:07:37
Speaker
necessarily a huge test. It's at home. It's against Toronto FC. The next week, though, they do play at LA FC. I think that's going to be the first real, real test. But again, you know, they're going to get through the whole first half of the season, only have like, they're going to play at Minnesota. And then they're going to play
00:07:58
Speaker
at Sporting Kansas City, but that doesn't come until the end of May. There's not a ton of games in the first half of the season where I feel like they could build up a pretty significant lead potentially before we really get a serious sense of them being what they look like week in, week out against the best teams in the league. And I'm not complaining about that.
00:08:22
Speaker
Uh, what I'm saying is we should enjoy this ride as long as it, as long as it takes. Uh, and the sounders they're writing an eight, like it's, it's funny to put it this way, but they're writing an eight game winning streak. When you can, when you add in the five games at the end of last year, uh, you know, two more wins and that's basically the.
00:08:40
Speaker
the modern record for consecutive wins. Last year, of course, they won nine. It was all in one season. I think that should probably stand up as the modern record now. But in a lot of ways, it does feel fair, though, to link this team to last year's team because it's so much the same team. Other than Alonso and Morris, it's basically all the same players.
00:09:05
Speaker
And that was one of the things I wanted to talk a little bit about is that in some ways it's not the same team and in those ways are more tactical. And I think you brought this up in our
00:09:18
Speaker
what do we call it, our pre-production meeting? Yeah, let's go with that. That makes it sound very formal. But we've said this, we've talked about this kind of broadly, but I think this is one of those cases where we have some real evidence that Brian Gismetzer is more astute tactically than he's usually given credit for.
Mid-Season Strategies and Player Additions
00:09:39
Speaker
I absolutely agree. I mean, I don't think that Brian Schmetzer is Marcello Bielsa by any stretch of the imagination, although he doesn't have some of the downsides of Marcello Bielsa, which is nice, but he's not, there seems to be this perception with national media, but also a lot of Sounders fans that he just says, well, go out and play, you know, you've got a great, you've got a lot of talent, you're a great team, you're
00:10:04
Speaker
Veterans your experience, you know what to do and I'm sure that that that's partially it and I don't think that that's necessarily a criticism either I think that being able to say hey these guys know what they're doing and getting out of their way is a benefit Kim McCauley the other day basically said hey, that's the thing that a lot of coaches can't do And it's to their detriment. So I think you should get some credit for that But if you look at the way the Sounders have played under him, you know, this is now
00:10:34
Speaker
the fourth season that he's at least he's been in charge for at least part of the season and And I would say that every season they've sort of had a different identity and a different tactical approach, you know the 2016 season They were tough. They they grinded out games They scored goals in big spots. They were impossible to break down At least you know after after they stopped losing 2017 same caveat about the losing early
00:11:04
Speaker
you know, they were similar to that, I would say. Um, last year after Royal Ruby Diaz showed up, they were very much a possession team. Um, and they, and they sort of, you know, they, they relied on that to, to dominate games. And this season, um, we're seeing a lot more pressing, you know, we're seeing, um, they, they still do like to control the ball and have possession, but I think they're a lot more willing to try to spring counter attacks and, and,
00:11:30
Speaker
you know, get players in behind. And yeah, I mean, I'm sure that that's partially explained by the fact that they have Jordan Morris back and healthy and they have that vertical threat that they haven't had before. But the fact that, you know, they weren't trying to do that when he wasn't around as much. And now that he's back, they're trying to do it, I think shows Brian Schmetzer's ability to adjust to a different situation, adjust to different personnel. Again, I don't think that he's, you know, going to write the follow up to to inverting the pyramid or anything, but
00:12:00
Speaker
It's hard for me to think that he's anywhere close to being below average for tactical sophistication in MLS coaches. And I'd probably put him in at least the top third. And when you consider all the other things he does so well, I just think that you have to give him a ton of credit. And he's never going to get that from a lot of people. So we have to be obnoxious about it. And we're as a fan base pretty good about that.
00:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And I don't know if, I mean, I don't know that it's all, all the credit belongs to him. I'm sure Gonzalo Pineda has a fair amount of input. Preckie probably has a lot of input. Jimmy Treori probably has a lot of input. But I think there's also something to be said for
00:12:42
Speaker
like accepting their feedback and and using all that and that's kind of what a head coach is to me and i think that one of the funny things is that the coaches that are always that are oftentimes hailed as these geniuses are are kind of one trick ponies in that they have a system and they plug their guys into their system and it and it works or it doesn't work but they they're lauded for like having a system and and just kind of making it work
00:13:08
Speaker
And the coaches who are willing to adapt and change things around oftentimes get written off as, as not as tactically astute. And I wonder if, if maybe those are coaches are a little bit more tactically astute that, you know, the Bryant semester here is, you know, and I think what we were seeing is a very modern take on, on
00:13:27
Speaker
on tactics right now. You know, they're not necessarily doing, they're doing something somewhat similar, I think, to what Greg Barhalter is trying to do at the US national team, which is to kind of morph a 4-2-3-1 into a 3-4-3, but he's doing it in a different way. Instead of kind of using the right back as a de facto central midfielder, he's doing more of a, you know, he drops
00:13:52
Speaker
Gusas Svensson into kind of a third center back position. And he lets his wings just bomb up the field. And we're seeing a ton of possession. And what I think is kind of astounding is that, and you alluded to this, is that for all the possession that they have, they're getting out on a lot of counter attacks. And you don't see a lot of teams that are able to do that. How many of their goals this year have come in transition, it feels like
00:14:19
Speaker
you know, two thirds of their goals have probably come in transition. And for a team that is holding 55% of the ball, that's not easy to do. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I think to your point about great coaches being able to be flexible, um,
00:14:33
Speaker
There are a lot of coaches that do kind of get the credit for being tactical innovators. And in a lot of cases, fairly. I mean, the example I was going to use, I think definitely fairly, but Pep Guardiola, right? So because Barcelona teams played a very, very specific, intricate possession style that fit the players they had, that fit sort of the tactical trends in world soccer at the time. And they were extremely successful. And then teams figured out how to
00:15:00
Speaker
beat teams that played like that. And they figured out counters to it. And if you look at his Manchester City teams, I mean, they play a completely different style of soccer. It's not anywhere close. And so I think that that ability to change and adapt as the game changes and as trends come and go, and depending on who your personnel is,
00:15:19
Speaker
is critical, because there are so many coaches that are sort of lauded as these great tacticians and an upcoming geniuses, and they do just kind of stick with the system they have and they get one big job, they flame out. And then they get a series of, you know,
00:15:36
Speaker
less impressive jobs you know maybe they'll go from a club like ix to right and then you're going alice and so yeah i mean it's i'm very happy with brian schmetzer's entire toolkit
00:15:52
Speaker
And I think even if he wasn't competent tactically, and he was just saying, hey, go out and have fun and play and win games, and they were getting results, he'd still deserve credit for being a great coach. I think that the perception of who he is as a coach, and not just in this sense, but in a lot of senses, is off. I don't think he gets nearly enough credit.
00:16:13
Speaker
You know, I think there's too much time oftentimes spent on trying to figure out the numerical formation that a team is in. But I did want to pick your brain about this a little bit. Matthew Doyle, MLS analyst, who I really do think is a good read.
00:16:30
Speaker
he suggested that the Sounders are playing like a 3-3-4 in the attack and I guess what he's suggesting is the fullbacks are so far up the field that they're actually almost acting like forwards and that Ledero and Rodriguez are playing kind of like dual tens. I didn't really see that. I think this might, if anything, it's more like a 3-4-3 where you have
00:16:54
Speaker
The fullbacks are not playing forward. And at the same time, Rodriguez is, I don't think, playing much of a 10. He's basically a winger.
00:17:07
Speaker
So I think he's maybe overthinking it, but do you have a sense of maybe where he's coming from, or do you just have a completely different take on that? I have a sense of where he's coming from. And for the record, I do think that Doyle is actually a genuinely good analyst. He gets stick sometimes, and I think that stuff like going that next step and saying that they're playing a 3-3-4 with the dual tens is part of the reason why he gets stick. Yeah, like overthinking it by one step too many.
00:17:34
Speaker
Right, right. And I think that's the case here. But I understand his, his logic, the logic and reasoning behind it. The fullbacks are pressing much higher than you would typically see from a 4-2-3-1. And they're consistently staying higher. Gustav Sensen
00:17:53
Speaker
I don't think, I think that my biggest nitpick with it is that I don't think Gustav Svensson is playing as a center back when the Sounders are attacking. I think that he's playing as a very, I don't want to say traditional, but what has sort of become like the definition of a true six. Yeah. I think, yes. Okay, go ahead.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he's not joining the attack very often. But he's not sitting back at the midfield line either. Right. And I think that that's a critical difference because it's one of the things that allows the Sounders to snuff out counter attacks so quickly. If he's playing with the center backs,
00:18:30
Speaker
even, there's no, he's not going to be able to rotate to cover the wings as well. He's not going to be able to cut out things coming through the middle. So I think it's a pretty key distinction. I think that
00:18:44
Speaker
that Morris Rodriguez and Ruby Diaz obviously are all playing as forwards. I don't think that saying that Rodriguez is playing as a 10 is accurate. He's not getting forward as much as Morris and he definitely does sort of drift into that.
00:19:02
Speaker
central sort of false nine kind of space but that's fairly common for wingers, especially in an attack that's as unbalanced towards the left as the sounders tends to be so I don't think he's wrong in his analysis I just, I'm not super into his terminology and I, I think sometimes that
00:19:21
Speaker
I think the Sounders play a 4-2-3-1 and I think overthinking, or a 4-3-3 actually, I would classify it more as a 4-3-3 because I think that Rodriguez and Morris especially are playing really as wide forwards. And so I think that saying, oh, the formation shifts between attack and defense is kind of inaccurate because
00:19:43
Speaker
I just don't think it does. What the players are doing in the Sounders version of this formation is different than you see in other versions of the formation. But for it to be, you know, a 3-3-4 or a 3-4-3 or whatever, I think that Lierdom and Smith would have to be playing really as like true wing backs and I just don't really think that's what they're doing. I think they have too many defensive responsibilities for that.
00:20:04
Speaker
Um, I, I read the piece. I thought it was a good piece. I just, that definitely kind of stuck on my craw as being maybe one step too far. And Svensson has too many offensive responsibilities.
00:20:15
Speaker
along the same line. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I wanted to share a few stats with you. You actually saw this and I don't know how I missed this. It feels like this is one of the things I would have caught. I think it was like two days after the game at like 10 o'clock and I was just thinking about it. I feel bad for not recognizing it sooner, but you pointed out the sounders are 17, two, and one in their last 20 games. 17, two, and one.
00:20:42
Speaker
That is a crazy, crazy stat. It kind of blows your mind that they'd be on pace for 88 points. And more than the fact that they're on pace for 88 points, they're two thirds of the way through that 34 game set. It's an unbelievable pace to be playing it. Yeah, I mean, it's...
00:21:04
Speaker
It's not something I think anybody can expect them to keep up, right? It's not necessarily intended to say, this is the caliber of team the Sounders are, right? Isn't this amazing?
00:21:25
Speaker
But what it is intended to say, I think, is that the idea that the sounders somehow over- I mean, they did over-perform down the stretch, right? They won 10 games in a row, they had this crazy run. But this idea that they're sort of like, it's an Emperor has no clothes situation, like they're not this good, but they don't have to be this good to be a historically good team. They could be two thirds this good and still be the best team ever.
00:21:49
Speaker
Right, right. I mean, I think that if this is their true talent level of this is what they're they're capable of, of playing at, at this level, you know, they're going to have injuries, they're going to have games where they're without players in the international break, they're they're just they're going to run into into tough opponents on the road.
Lamar Nagel's Career Insights
00:22:09
Speaker
But if they can play at this level, I think they have a very good shot of challenging Red Bull's single season points record. And I think they have a very good shot against any team in the playoffs.
00:22:20
Speaker
And I think there's still a tendency for people to want to just believe, well, they got hot in a way they couldn't sustain last year. And this season, they've played very weak opponents, and you expect them to beat these opponents. But we have enough of a sample size now. And as you mentioned earlier, this team isn't fundamentally different in a lot of ways. You could argue that Morris makes them better in the attack if he can sustain this, and that maybe they got a little bit weaker in the midfield with losing Alonzo.
00:22:49
Speaker
But that's I mean, you know, that's kind of an even switch, I guess, if you think that that they did get weaker and midfield losing Alonzo. So there's just no reason to think that this team can't be a historically good team or at the very least that they're not a very real, legitimate supporter shield contender.
00:23:07
Speaker
One of the things I also thought was interesting about this 20 game run, nine of those games, so not quite half, but close to half of those games have been played on the road. So it's not even like they just happened to hit this really home heavy portion of the schedule. Now I'm sure you could look, if you look at the strength of schedule, maybe it's not quite as good as
00:23:25
Speaker
as you might expect for a whole season, but I thought it was interesting. What's also interesting about it is during that time, they've scored 47 goals. That would be a pace of 2.35 goals per game. That's a pace of basically 80 goals in a season, which would be
00:23:44
Speaker
by far the most that an MLS team had scored other than the 1998 LA galaxy who somehow managed to score 85 goals in 32 games. And I don't know if that's counting like every shootout game as a, or every shootout that they won as one goal. I don't exactly know how that breaks down, but, um, so it's the highest total in 20 years. Um, and what's even crazier it's like in since Rudy Diaz, Rudy has actually made his debut in 19 games ago. So one fewer game and.
00:24:14
Speaker
They're even better, they're 17 and two in those games. But anyway, it's just this amazing run of form that they're in. It's a lot of fun to watch. What I keep saying, this is exactly what we have been hoping for the last few years. And I guess the big question is, is they have room on their roster to make changes and maybe we get into this later. But I actually feel very, like I can't help but think that if they had added someone
00:24:43
Speaker
this offseason, like, it couldn't be making things better. Like, what would they, like, who would, I mean, like, don't say that they're perfect. But like, if they just added another Tam level player, I kind of feel like it would maybe be creating some sort of tension that would be
00:25:03
Speaker
you know, as it is, like Will Bruin hasn't played a single minute, Hondwell Buona hasn't played a single minute, Harry Ship, you know, hasn't been playing a ton. They've got guy, the Roman Torres hasn't got to start yet. You know, they have all these get new who is has only played once. You know, they have this whole linear all these players who are starting caliber players in this league, I'd say, who can't get on the field.
00:25:27
Speaker
I still wanna see them add someone, but I'm not aching for it right now. And I realized like if they're one injury away from feeling like they need that player, but I don't know what the player is. I don't know what position that player plays. Right. I mean, would I feel better if this team had a better right back backup? Yeah. Or another attacking midfielder that can, especially one that can be maybe more of a direct threat wide.
00:25:55
Speaker
or maybe an upgrade over Jordy Delem. Sure, I mean, yeah, absolutely I would. But I don't think that that's, I think that the backups at all those positions are as good or better than most teams have. Most good teams even have an MLS. And I think the flexibility that they have, you know, waiting until the middle of the season is worth it, you know, and there just isn't that obvious hole the way there has been the past few years. And so,
00:26:23
Speaker
Even though I think it worked out OK, and I'm increasingly convinced that they expected to be a lot worse than they were, especially in 2016, 2017, they didn't expect to be as competitive maybe as they ended up being down the stretch because they were kind of in a retooling, rebuilding mode.
00:26:46
Speaker
I just, it's very, like, I feel like the rebuild is complete. And so now it's about adding a complimentary piece when you have a better sense of what your team looks like. So yeah, I'm with you. I was a little disappointed before the season started when it became apparent that the object, but I get it now. I definitely get it now. I mean, I think it's natural to be disappointed. It's always fun to add more talent. I'm just saying like in hindsight, it's hard to imagine how much better that player
00:27:15
Speaker
Obviously, I'm not saying there's no player in the world that would make the Sounders better. I'm just saying, looking at the type of player the Sounders are likely to add, that player is unlikely to make them better right now. Now, in the summer, who knows? If they want to sign a DP in the summer, who knows what that player might look like. But I think that's the challenge right now is figuring out what position you want to upgrade most.
00:27:41
Speaker
That said, we're probably a good place to call this a segment. We're going to talk to Lamar Nagel about his new signing with the Stars. We actually talked to him a couple of weeks ago, so he's now played a couple of games with the Stars. We're going to talk Game of Thrones. We talk fashion. Lots of good stuff in this Lamar Nagel interview. But you're listening to No Sadietes. We'll come back on the other end, and we will take your questions.
00:28:09
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:28:49
Speaker
Welcome back to Nos Adietes. We are joined by Lamar Nagel. We are at the Taquilla Starbucks on this glorious sunny rainy sunny rainy day. Well, hopefully the weather is going to hold for us. Thank you for coming on the show, Lamar. Yeah. Great that you're still in the area. Let's start here. You just signed with the Tacoma Stars. You had your debut game last Sunday. Yeah.
00:29:15
Speaker
How how has that been and and how did like walk us through how that came about? Um
00:29:22
Speaker
Pretty quickly, I mean, I've been to a few stars games. I've known Darren Sawatzky for a long time. So last year we came to a few. My son ended up loving the games. He loves soccer, any sport that's on. So that's a nice way to kind of introduce him to soccer. It's a little bit closer. It's inside. So we went to a few there. And then actually like a few weeks ago, we went to a game where my
00:29:49
Speaker
My great uncle was being inducted into the Washington U soccer Hall of Fame, John Duggett. And so we went to the game and I saw a bunch of the guys and I think that's, I ran into Lane and we just said hi and then. Lane Smith owner of the stars. Yeah, he called me a few.
00:30:08
Speaker
a few days later, asked what I was up to, asked if I wanted to meet up. So we met down in Tacoma at Shenanigans, and we're resting away right by the water there. And yeah, he offered me a spot on the stars and
00:30:24
Speaker
At first I was pretty reluctant to take it. Just not knowing, I still had a few offers from U.S.L. teams that I was going over, but really at this point wanted to stay in the area. There wasn't really anything that I was too keen on taking, so still I was still undecided, still wary of making the transition to
00:30:46
Speaker
there. This is the stuff right here. I know. I know. Tuckwell parking lots. I'm not sure I can ask for two. I can be too picky. Yeah. But go ahead. Yeah. So there wasn't, wasn't much. I was looking to take and wanted to stay in the area for a little bit, trying to decide what I wanted to do. If I wanted to transition into some coaching and some, you know, something other than playing soccer or
00:31:11
Speaker
If I wanted to try to stay in shape and do that, and I think ended up being the stars, let me kind of do both of those. I'm still able to.
00:31:21
Speaker
to try to figure out what I want to do, what my next step will be if soccer has come to an end. But I'm 31. I still feel fit. I still feel like I can play. So this is a nice kind of transition for me to actually keep me interested in soccer and keep my mind going, which is pretty cool. Learning from some of the older guys on the Tacoma Stars, just the dynamics of indoor is a lot different and obviously getting my first
00:31:46
Speaker
first run in with the indoor game was very interesting. It was a little bit of a frustrating game, I think, for us. Not that I'd know, but the other guys seemed frustrated with how it was going. And so, yeah, just trying to stay in shape and see what opportunities kind of arise once
00:32:07
Speaker
once the indoor stops. So the indoor game is very different. Aside from there being a ball and you not being allowed to use your hands, it's really a pretty different sport. A hundred percent it's an absolutely different sport. I mean there's different dynamics, formations, yeah you're playing with the same ball with your feet but I mean you're kicking it off a wall, there's you know running substitutions between you and the offense.
00:32:33
Speaker
There's power plays where you're down a man, so it's very different. Just like in soccer, there's very little difference between the highest level and levels below that, but it's the small instances of you staying ready and you staying into the entire game. And indoor is just that amplified because it's a smaller space.
00:32:56
Speaker
I mean, it's quicker because it is a smaller space. There's guys that even for me now jumping into it, I don't know my opponents and I don't know the teams and stuff like that. So staying on track really has to be a point that I take and I gotta try to learn and transition as quickly as possible.
00:33:12
Speaker
But you're still in the same league as Landon Donovan and Jermaine Jones, which I guess is kind of the league you've been in the whole time. That's true. Yeah, there's a connection there. Yeah, there's a few similarities. So what was the was there like how much did you play in that first game? Was there a moment where you thought what have I got myself into just in terms of like it being so different?
00:33:34
Speaker
So I trained with, actually last offseason, I trained with the Stars for quite a bit. So I knew, I knew what I was getting myself into, but, and I knew that it was, I was going to be in over my head to start with, because I trained with the reserves twice before that first game. I didn't even train with the first team. And with the reserves, I mean, they're going to the championship. And so they're a good group of guys and I actually did get
00:34:01
Speaker
a lot of insight and a lot of help from them just in the basic movements and motions. What I didn't realize is that they play a different way than the first team. And so I'm thinking, yeah, I'm confident in this. I know I get the gist.
00:34:15
Speaker
We're playing at the Tacoma Soccer Center, and we're doing like little scrimmages. And I'm like, oh, it's easy, like it's casual. And then when I get to the first team in that game that night, realize how much quicker. And it is the difference between, you know, USL, MLS, it's a similar kind of disparity. And so, yeah, going in, if you get stuck in a few different rounds, because usually, you know, you go in on offense,
00:34:43
Speaker
you either score or you lose the ball, you play defense, once you win it back, you get out for a line change, the necktie goes in. But there's obviously times when you win it back, then you lose it, and so you're stuck on. I got stuck on a few times and was absolutely dying. And so I'm like looking to the side like, what do I do? And you just have to stay on, you got to fight through it and you got to trust that.
00:35:06
Speaker
the guys are going to, you know, help you along the way. And they definitely did. And, um, I don't know how long I played or what's, you know, the minutes were, but it was, it was enough. It was enough. Yeah. So you've got a few guys on that team that you probably know from past, uh, past experience or maybe you don't, I don't know how many of these guys actually cross paths with you in the sounders. Do you know any of the guys on the team?
00:35:31
Speaker
Well, like I said, I was training with them the last couple of years, so I know quite a bit of them. I haven't played with them, obviously, for extended periods of time, but just being in and around the area, it's mostly guys from this area, and so the soccer community is very small once you kind of get into it, and so I know a lot of these guys, so it's nice.
00:35:52
Speaker
and like Rafcocks I've known for a long time. Adam West, Steve Moen, guys like that I've known for a very long time. So it's kind of nice to have that camaraderie in the locker room. It's a very good locker room, which is nice too, like just enjoying soccer. There's a lot of stress, MLS politics. It's still there in indoor soccer, obviously, but it just feels like it's more of a, it's a tighter nick.
00:36:16
Speaker
because they're all in the same positions. There's not a lot of salary disparity and stuff like that, everything that goes along with soccer. So yeah, it's been nice. I'm looking forward to just training and having some good times with some guys and playing the game.
00:36:33
Speaker
So you said you had some opportunities in the U.S.L., I don't know how much you want to get into that, but it sounds like you're not retired, you're not quite ready to hang up the outdoor boots. Yeah, I've been close, I've told my wife a couple times I'm done, but I just keep kind of coming back.
00:36:51
Speaker
I mean, there wasn't opportunities in the MLS for me to be straightforward. And I thought that was pretty frustrating. The last few times I've gotten long runs of minutes in DC, I ended up being the leading scorer. And so it's frustrating.
00:37:07
Speaker
And that can account to a lot of stuff. That can account to differences in teams and coaches and the way the league is going. And there just might not be an opportunity, really. For a lot of guys, that's the extent of a career. Is there an opportunity at this time? No, okay, well then you gotta do something. So yeah, there wasn't a lot of opportunity. So I was hesitant to do anything,
00:37:33
Speaker
to kind of call it quits because I did feel like I can still play. I still feel healthy. I never had a knock on wood, any like surgeries, any injuries that have kept me out for extended periods of time. So I've, yeah, dodged bullets there and I feel good and I still feel like I could play. But I understand that if the opportunity still doesn't come, you know, then
00:37:55
Speaker
And it is what it is. I got to roll with the punches. I think I've done a good job of that my entire career, even though it's been with soccer. But I still roll with a few punches here and there and made life work. Yeah, you've certainly shown a willingness to go where you needed to go. Yeah. You weren't drafted out of college. You signed with the hometown team.
00:38:16
Speaker
didn't come back so you went to Finland you played in Charleston yeah I mean you've had a lot of it's been an interesting career I think yeah very least but I guess one of the you know what was it was it ever a possibility of you playing at Tacoma Defiance or was that not really something you had explored what was the situation so that wasn't like I said I was more inclined to get on an MLS team and
00:38:39
Speaker
I let the sounders know that when we parted ways at the end of the year and so I wasn't even really looking towards that and then the Tacoma Stars gig came about and
00:38:54
Speaker
Lane kind of laid it out for me like these are the you know time constraints and they weren't very drastic and so I mean they'll end in April and so it gives me a chance to kind of figure out what I want to do because like I said the MLS thing wasn't really working out so I was getting ready to retire instead of USL but then a few USL things popped up and so I was still kind of on the fence but yeah.
00:39:19
Speaker
And so you did come back on first kick for the 2009 kind of commemorative kind of situation. What was that like? Have you kept in touch with many? Some of those guys have been relatively recent teammates. What was it like getting back together with that 2019? Yeah, it was a mix because some guys I haven't talked to
00:39:42
Speaker
you know, in eight years. But it's always good to see those guys. It's always good to, you know, relive those memories. And obviously we had some good times back then. And then there are guys obviously I'm closer with and have talked to over the years. So it was pretty cool of them, of the Sounders to do that. It was amazing to see how many guys ended up coming back. There was a dozen guys or so, right? Yeah. So that was cool. And then to be,
00:40:12
Speaker
I mean, it's weird because I still say I want to play soccer, but it was kind of cool to be outside of.
00:40:18
Speaker
outside of it and see kind of what it looked like from that perspective. And I think that was another reason why I was like, well, probably retire and be fine with it, you know? Obviously, no matter when anybody retires, I feel like as an athlete, you probably regret it a little or miss it a little bit, not regret, but miss it a little bit. So I always know those feelings are going to be there. But it was cool to see to see the fans and obviously the Ziggy thing was awesome.
00:40:49
Speaker
And so, yeah. And so, when you look back at that 2019, does it feel like when you have 10 years of retrospective on it, does it feel like you were kind of in a, like, does it feel special? Does it still feel like I was really, like, I don't know, what are your emotions around, like, thinking back on that 2019? I think it was just surreal for me. I mean, they were showing, like, the first game. And for me, I was in college, still. I was watching the game in my dorm. Uh-huh. Or not in my dorm. I was watching the game with my, um,
00:41:19
Speaker
teammates. I remember talking to one of my college teammates and be like, man, that'd be cool if I got on Seattle. So they announced they were playing Chelsea. And I vividly remember being like, man, that'd be cool if I got on Sounders and played against Chelsea. And little did I know that would be my very first game.
00:41:40
Speaker
like a few months later and so that whole part of me transitioning from college to being a pro to playing Chelsea and Barcelona in the same year in that 2009 thing for me it's probably a lot different than for those guys because then even though I was on the team I wasn't getting any minutes I was
00:42:01
Speaker
I always joke with Zack Awani about this. I was playing right back against Zack Awani every single training. There was no way out. They were getting on the field. Yeah. Not good for my confidence. Not good for my career. Nothing. No wonder I went to Charleston after that. Yeah. So for me, it was a, I feel like it was a lot different emotion. Still really good, obviously, because I ended up becoming a pro and playing against these crazy teams and playing with a great group of guys that I now can look back on. But, um, yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker
So, you know, another kind of past team I wanted to pick your brain a little bit about is that I think most Sounders fans compare virtually everything now to that 2014 team. You were obviously a big part of that, nine goals, nine assists that year. Yeah. Kind of the third musketeer. Yeah. The Oba-Clint situation.
00:42:52
Speaker
What was that year like? Third wheel, yeah. Third wheel, sure. We want to call it Third Wheel Words. No, that's good. I'll be a Third Wheel of the Clinton Oba. There's words barking just to be a Third Wheel on. But what was that year like and what was the dynamic like between a Clint, when you have Clint and Oba who take up so much of the kind of the energy and the focus and then you have the rest of the team and you guys obviously achieved a ton that year.
00:43:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think the teams that I've been on that have been successful, there's just a feeling about them when you're, especially on game days when you're walking into the stadium and you're warming up.
00:43:33
Speaker
There's no doubt in your mind what's going to happen during that game. For me that year, it wasn't like, are we going to score this game? It was who's going to score and how many are we going to get? I'm getting the goal. That's the mentality. You never go into a game questioning yourself. And that season was absolutely like that for me. And even, I think it was the 2011 season
00:43:56
Speaker
where it was like, we went down almost every single game. But then we knew that we were going to score three in the end, make it like an exciting game. But that type of feeling, 2014, obviously, with the players that we had, it was amazing. And it's such a shame that we didn't go further. That's one of the ones that I've been on a couple of good teams, but that was the one that I thought for sure would have made it all the way.
00:44:24
Speaker
You know, and I was having this conversation with someone a while back and we were kind of comparing the 2019 roster to the 2014 roster. You know, looking at it from, I guess it's very similar to the 2018 roster. Yeah. You have a pretty good knowledge of. Yeah. How would you compare them? I mean, just on a talent level, it seems like they're at least like maybe the current roster is a little deeper, but how would you compare those teams?
00:44:48
Speaker
I think, yeah, I think it would be a little deeper. I mean, with the way the MLS is going, and the players that they're bringing up through academies and stuff like that. And obviously, the people that are bringing over from overseas, there's more and more talent coming in. And so obviously, the teams are going to get better. And so that's definitely part of it. But I can't really speak to how it feels in the locker room and around the team this year.
00:45:16
Speaker
obviously and compare it to the 2014 team that I was just talking about. And I think that's a big part of it is the team mentality, the culture of the team, how they deal with each other and how they deal with adversity. And so if they have that right, then these guys, I mean, even from the first two games, you can see there's something special about them, so. Do you still find yourself, would you still watch the Sounders? Occasionally, I don't do a whole lot of watching soccer, I haven't.
00:45:46
Speaker
which is very surprising to a lot of people for a long time. I think a lot of people don't watch their work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Go back in and watch it. I don't think it's that crazy. Yeah, watch other people working on the same thing. Do their job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But for athletes, I guess it seems like people are a little wary of people who don't.
00:46:08
Speaker
like go all in and are completely passionate. I think I spent a lot of time around the game and and I think I I like to keep my hand in other things like other interests. We've talked about a few and yeah yeah and you know two of those interests that I wanted to get into today. We'll start with this one since I can I can link it to the the 2009 celebration. You came in wearing
00:46:29
Speaker
A pretty spectacular leather jacket. You have a pretty good sense of style. Back in the day, you and Josh Ford and DeAndre Yedlin were kind of one-upping each other a little bit. Do you still consider yourself, has fatherhood changed your sense of fashion? A hundred percent, yeah.
00:46:48
Speaker
100% it has. It's more like kind of tactical. Okay. Yeah what you need compared to what your kids need really. Sure. And you know I'm not putting on like nice shirts all the time because it's just spit up and there's you're cleaning up poop and maybe when the kids get a little older I can they'll be dressing themselves and I can dress myself again but right now it's like you get comfortable and in some different clothes than you were wearing.
Sounders' Fashion and Pop Culture
00:47:17
Speaker
But yeah, back in the day, me, DeAndre, and Josh, you know, on game days, you spent, you know, a couple hours trying to figure out, what are these guys wearing? What am I going to wear? You know, that was just the build up to look good, feel good, like walking in confident. Yeah. And so that was actually one of the questions. Like, so we have, we've recently started a column on Sounder at Heart.
00:47:37
Speaker
where we're looking at the pregame fashion. Yeah, that's great. And a guy who's writing it is well qualified to be doing this. It's not me. Yeah. Come on. I totally look at that jacket. I fell into this one.
00:47:52
Speaker
But what, I mean, how much time and energy do you think most players spend? You obviously spent a couple, you would say you spent some time on it. But is that pretty normal? Do you think a lot of guys go into it, like, realizing that whether or not they're going to be photographed, they want to feel a certain way? Yeah, I mean, I guess it all depends on the mentality of the players, right? I mean, you look at some different sports, and it's definitely there a lot.
00:48:22
Speaker
Obviously with soccer coming up and getting to that level, it's gonna be the same thing, same mentality. So guys are gonna spend a little bit more time. There's more visibility. You guys are obviously writing on it now. So guys might feel the need to step up and not get called out. Keeping people accountable, I like it. Yeah, so I think some guys will definitely spend a little bit more time.
00:48:44
Speaker
doing it but for yeah for us it was more of a you're presenting yourself I think especially for me and Josh DeAndre for sure on that side of it and obviously just loves the fashion part still still in it deeply I think me and Josh kind of settled down a little bit with the different lifestyles but
00:49:05
Speaker
He's also moved up in class in terms of what he can afford to do, I suppose. Yeah, for sure. It's a different level. What do you think of DeAndre? DeAndre is very much a fashionista. Yeah, 100%. What do you think of some of his choices that he's making fashion-wise in England?
00:49:24
Speaker
I think he's making it his own. I can't say that it's surprising the way he's gone. I mean, he's always been a little eccentric, even with the hairstyles back in the day. So you always knew it was there. But to have that platform and to be able to do exactly what you want, like it's obviously going to come out a little bit more. And so, yeah, I like what he's doing.
00:49:46
Speaker
Yeah, doing his own thing. So you give it a passing grade at the great least? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't wear it, I couldn't wear it, but I wasn't even doing what he was doing when he was here. Not a lot of us could wear it, but that's not how you judge it, right? That's true, yeah. It's confidence. It's how you wear it, not what you wear. Right. Yeah. So is there anyone on this team that you, or that from last year's team that you thought did a good job with their styling? Steph. Steph. Steph always. Steph always.
00:50:10
Speaker
Yeah, he's an artist. Good point. He's an artist, yeah. He's got that creative mind, he's all about presentation, and he's a goalie, so he's, you know, he's a little, what do you call it, particular. Right. Do you think the guys appreciate the details? Like, will they notice? Will they comment on that? Some guy, so Steph Wood. Okay. Here's some guy, Brian Meredith. He's another one that. He seems like he's got it together pretty well. Yeah. The goalkeepers, I guess, so this is a goalkeeper.
00:50:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think, like I said, goalies are a little particular. And so if they get caught up, I think, on one thing, then it's going to be, yeah, pretty intense. All right, I'm going to put you a little bit on the spot. Is there anyone that you think could use some work fashion-wise? Oh, some work fashion-wise. Like someone you think could be doing better.
00:50:59
Speaker
I think Jordan Morris, he comes out with some good clothes, but I think just with the name, he could do something like DeAndre's. Not like crazy like DeAndre, but like, you know what I mean? He could go to one of these
00:51:20
Speaker
fashion shops and like become the face of it, you know what I mean? Oh, I see what you're saying. So what you're saying is not that his style needs work, it's that he could really be taken to the next level if he wanted to. But I don't know if he'd want to. But I think he's definitely got it. He's got like Jordan Morris, like the Zach Morris. I'm feeling what you're putting down. I think that actually it makes a lot of sense that Jordan Morris has this sound. He's got this wholesome local boy who
00:51:49
Speaker
you can kind of turn into something. Yeah. There's a canvas that's waiting to be painted. A hundred percent, yeah. Okay. Anyone that you really think is just dropping the ball? I, no, I don't know. I don't know if I could call somebody out like that either.
00:52:06
Speaker
It's okay, though. They're not your teammates anymore. That's very true. I got no connection whatsoever. All right, let me think. There's someone under my mind. Come on. No. No, I'm not. No. No? Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. I do. I will say I think Will Bruin seems to be trying making it an effort.
00:52:22
Speaker
Yeah, which I appreciate. I don't know if it's I don't know how well he's doing it, but he seems to be making an effort to like yeah Yeah, impending fall. Maybe it's because yeah Well, maybe it's because you guys are maybe more attention Maybe that could be a couple tweets and it might get your mind thinking about something. You know, I think you're right That's what I'm that's what I'm going with
00:52:42
Speaker
Yeah, so the other the other big subject that I wanted to pick your brain about I don't think I've ever been able to do this on the show and I I wanted I think a lot of our our listeners maybe know that you are Probably the biggest Game of Thrones fan that was been involved the sounders. I don't know is that hundred percent
00:52:59
Speaker
You seem to be the most well-versed in the lore of Game of Thrones. I told you you read the books twice. Yeah. The Season 8 opener is coming up in a couple weeks, right? April 14th, yeah. He knows the date. Yeah. So let's start here. Do you think George RR Martin is going to finish the books? I don't think he's going to finish. Does that bother you as someone who's put time and energy into reading the books?
00:53:25
Speaker
Yes, but I understand where he's coming from in today's social media crazy world. Mike retweets out, it's a nice day and people are yelling at him to get inside and finish his books. And so it's gotta be a lot of pressure to actually satisfy everybody. And then the show being as big as, I mean the biggest show ever. Yeah, I think it's the most successful cable program. Yeah, like how are you gonna compete with that?
00:53:53
Speaker
right with what these guys are doing and they're already past where you've written and so like you have all these fans that believe that that's true even though what he was writing okay does it even matter now um which to a lot of people does to me it does but i understand the pressure and and trying to get in there and actually come up with something that
00:54:14
Speaker
will make people happy but then obviously that's not your job to make people happy so there's got to be conflicting views and yeah I know like J.R. Tolkien you know he created this world and had little tidbits that he never finished and so people were trying to finish and write for him and so
00:54:35
Speaker
I don't know if that would make it easier. Maybe it's good to leave the mystery out there, let people kind of take it where they want. So it's still evolving, yeah. I wonder if his intention, when the series started, I mean, who knows, he had probably no idea how popular the series would be, like the TV series. Couldn't, yeah. But I almost wonder at what point, because it does feel like he's made a decision. I mean, what, five years ago?
00:54:58
Speaker
something like that at some point along the way he made a decision not to finish although I guess he's been writing some stuff but I am kind of so when did when did you start when did you discover the books it was it before the series came out or was it after gosh it's been so long I don't I don't know I think I started reading them when I
00:55:22
Speaker
right before the series came out. Yeah, I did. I did. I started reading them right before the series came out. I think the books picked up some steam and then that's obviously why HBO picked it up. But I started reading it a lot. So were you immersed in like the Reddit world, the YouTube world where people are kind of taking it in their own directions and making guesses about where it's going? Yeah, theorizing. I did the
00:55:45
Speaker
I'll still do the YouTube every now and then. You have a favorite YouTube series? A guy, Emergency Awesome. I don't know, he just does a good job. A lot of people that do it kind of annoy me. But he does a good job of keeping the videos quick and kind of hitting on some good details. But I try not to get into the Reddit stuff because that is...
00:56:09
Speaker
Really deep that'll take you a long time. These YouTube videos are five minutes here, right? Yeah, so did you did like did you have a theory as to who John Snow's Parentage was did you like is that something that you were into that you were intrigued by going into the so I was reading As I was reading the book I'm trying to remember now my thought process and where it stopped because I
00:56:37
Speaker
Oh gosh, I can't even remember. I mean, it made it seem pretty obvious, I think, in the books where he was heading with that. But because I felt like it was so obvious, I was like, it can't be that.
00:56:50
Speaker
he's tricking us here. Cause I mean, I remember reading about like Ned's death and stuff like that and like putting the book down and the red wedding, like just stopping reading for a little while. Like what is going on? Um, and so he does a good job of, uh, making it kind of like realistic. You know, the good guy doesn't always win. Right. Right. Uh, and so do you have any theories as to where we're, where this season, this final season of Game of Thrones is going to take us?
00:57:20
Speaker
Um, a few, I mean, but it's too tidy. Like, again, like... So you think the TV series is maybe being tidier than the book would have been? Yeah, with the storylines and stuff like that, you kind of have to narrow it down, so things have to fit together for your average viewer. Sure. Because they're not going to follow a lot of the stuff. I mean, even my wife, when we first started watching, she's like, who is that? Who is that?
00:57:45
Speaker
And then I gotta explain the houses to her and who this is, and that's the cousin. And so it would be difficult to not make it tidy. So in the show, you would think, all right, John and Daenerys are together. Daenerys is gonna have kids, probably twins or triplets, who knows? That is three dragon. The dragon has three heads, whatever.
00:58:10
Speaker
They win. Somebody dies. But I think Jon Snow is going to die. You think Jon Snow is going to die? I think Jon Snow is going to die because there's been a few things George RR Martin says when people come back, they're not fully back. And so I don't think Jon Snow is supposed to be back. I think he's there for a reason. And then he's got to go. He's got to sacrifice himself. But you think Daenerys makes it through and leads the living to victory? Yeah.
00:58:40
Speaker
or at least the kids. But I don't know if they're gonna flash forward like she has a kids and she dies in childbirth or something like that similar to Liana Stark. Did you find the Rhaegar Liana, did you like that pairing?
00:59:00
Speaker
In the books, they haven't revealed who his parents are. Did you like the way that it was revealed in the show? Did it feel right?
00:59:13
Speaker
yeah i think so i think i mean it's so tidy right sam finds a book brand's there but but brand doesn't know that they were married yet but he knows the name like it was a little it's a little too tidy for me it's not as messy right as it probably would have been or probably will be in the books right um
00:59:38
Speaker
But it's nice to know, you know, it's one of those things where you're like, it's gotta be this, it's gotta be, and then they finally, you're like, ah, okay, I knew it. Well, you know, one of the funny things I think about that, and I won't get too deep into this, but one of the things I found kind of compelling about the R plus L equals J kind of theory, right? Yeah.
00:59:53
Speaker
In the world of 2018, whatever year it was, there's so much discussion about this stuff in pop culture, on Reddit, on YouTube, whatever, that there's all these different detectives, essentially, putting it together, slicing it together, and so yes, it seems obvious, but if this was, you go back to 1990, if this book came out in 1990 and you were reading it by yourself,
01:00:19
Speaker
Yeah. Would it be so obvious? Yeah. We're all in this trying to figure it out. Of course we're going to figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. George RR Martin has everybody fooled. That's not going to happen. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I guess you're right. It's a different world than when he started writing. Right. It's just it's just one of the fascinating things is that it's just so much harder to like trick your audience. Yeah. You know, you can look at Westworld or whatever any number of years. Yeah. Yeah. People are too smart.
01:00:49
Speaker
in the collective, and then we just go to that, yeah. Right, exactly. But I got professors figuring this out. Right, exactly. Well, Lamar, I really appreciate you taking the time. Yeah. Best of luck to you. We hope that this is not the last we've heard of you, and hopefully we'll see you at some Starz games, and who knows after that? Yeah, come out and check out some Starz games, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. Thanks. You're listening to NOS Adiatus.
01:01:14
Speaker
Welcome back to Nos Arietes. Hopefully you enjoyed that Lamar Nagel interview. Really appreciate him spending some time with us. Hopefully we'll be able to do more of that this year. But anyway, Aaron, go ahead. You start off asking these questions. Sounds good. All right. So the first one is from DXDHome. What is the Sounders record coming off of international break?
01:01:36
Speaker
So I don't know the exact record coming off international break, but what I did is I dug into the schedule to see under Schmetzer how they've done when they've been on at least coming off a 10-day break or longer, which for the most part is what we're talking about here. And they're three, one, and four. So not gangbusters. I didn't try to correct for strength of schedule or home away or anything, but three, one, and four.
01:02:04
Speaker
you know, good, not spectacular, but yeah, so I don't know. I don't know that I feel good or bad about them coming off an international break. I will say that it's not super convenient to have an international break breaking up the third and fourth games of the season. Yeah, I would definitely agree.
01:02:27
Speaker
Yeah, your turn. Oh, yeah. This is from TRSPHD. I'm not going to try to pronounce that. Is there still left back debate on Smith stays the entire year? I mean, clearly there's not. I I think that this is a subject a lot of people are very passionate about. So I'll try to be you know, I'll try to keep that in mind. I think that is there a debate about
01:02:53
Speaker
which player is quote unquote better. I think that there's one to be had. I mean, I think that they do things differently. Well, and and other things not as well. New Who is not the attacker that Brad Smith is. Brad Smith is not the defender New Who is.
01:03:12
Speaker
both, I think, have shown improvement in each of their areas of weakness that maybe they don't get enough credit for. But I think it's pretty clear that Brad Smith plays in a way that jibes with what Brian Schmetzer wants out of that position, out of the left back position. And until
01:03:29
Speaker
I mean, I still think his defenses looked shaky at times this season. He hasn't had to do a ton of things. Right. Right. Yeah. And I mean, I think that's the big thing, right? Like when you're winning games that the way the Sounders are winning games and when Brad Smith is putting in the performances that he's putting in, I mean, you'd be crazy to make any kind of a change.
01:03:49
Speaker
Um, I'm not saying that I expect him to fall apart, you know, when they play LAFC or what have you, but I mean, at this point, no, we are going to learn. No, I think those are the games where we're going to learn a little bit more about the trade off. Right. Absolutely. So, um, I mean, in terms of, you know, who should be playing, who's, who's earned the starts.
01:04:08
Speaker
I definitely don't think there's a debate. I don't think there was ever really a debate coming into the season about who was going to have the starting job. I definitely think it was Smith's to lose. And, you know, I mean, it's hard to argue with the results so far. Yeah. You know, I will say one of the things I found interesting is
01:04:29
Speaker
Last year, when you watch Smith and you watch Nuhu, I think Smith has a more, for lack of a better term, polished look. His crosses look more dangerous, and they seem like they should be leading to something. But what was interesting was that the numbers didn't back that up. He didn't average more key passes per game, which you'd fully expect if he was putting in better crosses. He wasn't even attacking more.
01:04:59
Speaker
he just looked better and you couldn't really explain it. Now this year, he's averaging two key passes a game, which if he were to do that over the course of a whole year, would be probably the best performance from a fullback ever. To put that in perspective, when Jovan Jones had his 11 assists, I don't actually know exactly how many assists he has, but he had 11 primary assists that year.
01:05:20
Speaker
And he was he only had he was averaging like 1.1 key passes per game. So he's basically averaging double the number he's he's leading to double the number of shots that Joe and Jones was leading when he had his crazy breakout season. He's been really good. He's been really, really good. And it'll be interesting to see if he's able to keep this up.
01:05:41
Speaker
It'll be interesting to see what happens when he goes up against an offense that's able to keep him a little bit more honest. But I'll tell you, I love that assist that he had to end the game. And not just because it was a great final ball, but because the defense that he played, the hustle that he showed late in the game, I think it just showed he basically chased down a ball he had no business getting to.
01:06:06
Speaker
deflects a pass and then takes it on the counter and then puts in a perfect ball to Rui Diaz. I just thought it was just perfect encapsulation of kind of the mentality the sounders are playing with right now. And it was a lot of fun. But anyway, I'll let you ask the next question. All right, so this one's from Tyrone Becker. Top of the table is pretty awesome. Having said that, what's the biggest area for improvement?
01:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I got to think that the defense is still that area. And, you know, Brent Spencer at training today, he talked a little bit about this three-back set that they went to at the end of the game against Chicago, and he really likes the flexibility of doing that, and I can understand why.
01:06:51
Speaker
The one problem with this one is that they effectively ended up playing with four center backs because Svensson was also dropping very deep and so suddenly you have a back six and the line of confrontation I think was a little lower than they would want ideally.
01:07:09
Speaker
And so I think closing out games more specifically, defensively, is probably going to be the biggest area for improvement. The one thing that's encouraging is that for as good as they've started games, and it has really become a calling card. They're averaging something like 2.4 goals or 2.3 goals per game in the first half alone, but they're averaging 2.7 in the second half and something like
01:07:39
Speaker
They're averaging even a lot of those goals are coming in the last 20 minutes. So they're closing out games through scoring really effectively since Rudy Diaz has been here. What they haven't necessarily done is close them out on the defensive end as well. And I guess that's probably the biggest area.
01:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, I would tend to agree with that. And I think that the fact that Brian Schmetzer talked so specifically about what went wrong and why it was a problem and how it hurt them is encouraging because I mean, I think he saw what everybody else was seeing and he knows how to rectify it. I don't necessarily have a problem with Torres coming in and going to three at the back.
01:08:17
Speaker
but the fullbacks can't play as deep as they did. The, you know, Svensson can't play as deep as he did because it causes the kind of problems that, you know, that you just talked about. So, you know, it could stand to improve, but I'm just not super worried about it.
01:08:36
Speaker
Yeah. This was from Paul Tasek, 1977. He says, besides Nico, what single player would be the worst to lose over the stretch or run to the shield? I like that he's putting himself already there.
01:08:50
Speaker
And GMS Jomo plays at nine? Games. Oh, games. There you go. I'm like, okay, you got it. So I actually think you could make an argument that losing Raul would be worse than losing Lidero. Even with Jordan Morris as potentially the fill-in, okay.
01:09:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, because I think Victor Rodriguez can can sort of play that same role. He's not he's not the number 10 that that Ledero is. He's not the the two way player that Ledero is. But I don't think the drop off is as steep because I wouldn't expect Morris to play striker. I would expect it to be brewing. Yeah, that's a good point.
01:09:31
Speaker
And so, so I guess to answer the second question, I mean, I think he'll probably play some striker over the course of the season, but I don't think it's going to be many. But yeah, I mean, I think Raoul is the clear answer, even if you think Ledero is more important, because there's just nobody on the team that can create from nothing the way he can.
01:09:52
Speaker
Um, it is not, it's amazing. Yeah. It is funny. Also, like, you know, for a long time, I felt like there, we would talk about this stat of the percentage of goals, a player score that either gave their team that tied the game or put their team ahead.
01:10:08
Speaker
And that was kind of seen as an important stat. And what's funny is that Rudy Diaz doesn't necessarily have a ton of those goals, but what he does have a ton of is goals that give the Sounders a two goal lead. And I feel like in some ways that's even more important. Maybe it's not more important, but it's those are very important goals. The goal that he had against Chicago, huge goal, even though it's in the 88th minute,
01:10:31
Speaker
and they already had the lead it puts the game like that those are important I think being able to put the game away like that is a very very important thing and he seems to specialize in those types of goals yeah I mean I think that part of the reason he gets so few touches is because
01:10:48
Speaker
teams are playing deep and they're concerned about him and the game sort of runs through Ledero. But when the game opens up a little bit more, he's deadly because he's only got one or two players to really be concerned with. And if he gets in a one-on-one situation with a keeper, unless he misses the ball entirely, which he's done once or twice and it happens to the best of us, but he's most likely going to finish. And so, yeah, I just
01:11:16
Speaker
There's just not anybody that can do that on this team consistently, I don't think. And so I think losing them would be very difficult. So the next one is from Jim C. Kim. Remember when we used to do friendlies against Man United, Chelsea, and Barca? If you could have us play any club for a summer friendly, who would you choose? So I guess the spirit of this question is a big club.
01:11:46
Speaker
And if I got to choose the big club designer, I would love to play like Bayern or maybe like even, I don't know, Dortmund counts as a big club like that, but I would love to play a Bayern. That would be a lot of fun, I think. Yeah, I mean, from the standpoint of watching the game, I think playing Liverpool would be kind of fun, but from the standpoint of having to be around Liverpool fans, I don't think that would be that enjoyable, but- Maybe Man City would be fun.
01:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, Man City would be fun. Playing Juventus, but because we're playing Juventus, Bernaldo has to go to jail would be good. Did you just see, they just announced that they're going to not do the US tour this year? Yeah, I saw that. It definitely makes me think that he's not guilty that they're doing that. Definitely. Definitely leads suggest a high degree of innocence by him completely skipping out on a US tour.
01:12:41
Speaker
But I don't know. I guess the centers are probably going to schedule a friendly this summer, and they're going to make us all pay for it. Well, no, because they did the friendly before the season this year, right? Yeah, but we have 19 games a season ticket package. That's right. Well, don't we? Yeah, we do. You're probably right. Yeah, because they want, I mean, they do that because of CCL. I get it.
01:13:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that they've kind of settled into a friend these strategy and it kind of seems like the preseason friendly is against, you know, an interesting opponent, typically South or Central American that, you know, is a big club for.
01:13:22
Speaker
sort of that part of the world, but not like a huge club. And then in the summer, there's one that's usually a little bit more high profile. So who did they play? Was it Frankfurt that they played last summer? And did they play West Ham last summer too, or was that the year before? That was two years ago. Okay. Yeah, you can see how much attention I paid to the friendlies. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm not, I'm kind of resigned to the sounders having to
01:13:51
Speaker
Play another friendly. I don't, I don't, I can't, I don't know that there's like a smaller club. Like who do I think it's going to be or who would I like it to be among the teams? It could be. I don't, I don't have a team. Like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I get why they played the big friendlies against big teams earlier. Um, you know, when the club was, was newer and, and they wanted to get some eyeballs on the product and everything, but they just, I don't feel like they need to do it anymore.
01:14:19
Speaker
They don't need to do it. There was also a cost to that. There was a real monetary cost. You paid more in your season tickets for those games.
Ticket Pricing and Fan Engagement Concerns
01:14:32
Speaker
And I'm okay with saving that money for sure, especially since tickets now are generally more expensive. And you can't sell the friendly tickets anymore. Right.
01:14:44
Speaker
So this one's from Emmet Connell, and he has a very serious question. Are we the new Atlanta? We are absolutely the new galaxy. And I know that makes people really uncomfortable, but we absolutely are the new galaxy. We are kind of, it is kind of, it does have a galaxy to, you know, I wouldn't, we still have a ways to go before we catch up in terms of like all the silverware that they collect. Sure. But it does feel like in some ways we are kind of the galaxy of the new, like,
01:15:09
Speaker
we're the old guard and we're still you know we have this organization that's built really well and I have this working theory and I'm sure this is gonna blow up my face so I probably shouldn't talk about it but I'll give a teaser of it anyway. I don't know that Atlanta is gonna, like I suspect Atlanta will pull out of this tailspin and they'll probably would play off team.
01:15:31
Speaker
But I do think that there's some structural issues that are worth asking about. And I think one of them is, I think it's possible that we underestimated how important Tata Martina was to their early success.
Comparing Teams: Are We the New Atlanta or Galaxy?
01:15:44
Speaker
And for all the plaudits he got, I actually wonder if it wasn't just that he was this great coach, clearly was a good coach, but I think that it was this recruitment factor that helped them bring in these players. And he also,
01:16:02
Speaker
picked a style that was very specific to those types of players. And it all kind of works symbiotically together. And I don't know why that Atlanta decided they, like, presumably they consciously picked a coach who was going to move the team in a different direction.
01:16:18
Speaker
And I think you really, it does open them up to a lot of criticisms of like, well, what is it that they were going for here? And I think part of that is that there was no, like Atlanta United did not have this organization wide ethos that existed outside of Tata Martino.
01:16:35
Speaker
They had hired like his lieutenant or someone like him. Maybe they could have kind of continued that, but they didn't try to do that. They didn't make any sort of like they didn't really try to build that cultural aspect. And I think that the Sounders got really lucky in some ways in picking Shiggy Smid.
01:16:51
Speaker
not just because he was a good coach, but because he also really wanted to build the foundation for something. And he wanted to be here for the long time. Like he had this idea of being Sir Alex Ferguson, being here for 25 or 30 years and sitting on a pile of, I don't know that realistically he could have ever been here that long, but he had this idea of himself being kind of the Sir Alex Ferguson of MLS.
01:17:17
Speaker
And I think that that set the Sounders up really well, though, in that, you know, Brian Spencer became a better coach while he was studying essentially under Sigi. And but more than that, it was just this whole organizational wide kind of ethos. And he, you know, there's a story in the athletic today, I'm getting way off topic here. But there's a story today in the athletic that Matt Pence talked to Frank McDonald, who two people we've had on the show recently. And
01:17:44
Speaker
One of the things he said was that, you know, early in 2009, Siggy came to Frank and said, you know, one of the things I miss about UCLA is that we had all this history. We don't have that history here. And Frank said, well, let me tell you. And and that kind of started this whole thing of the sounders really not just in name, but in very kind of smaller ways, but on in like meaningful ways.
01:18:07
Speaker
reaching back to their history and linking the sounders of the MLS to the sounders of usl and sounders of nsl and creating kind of this, I don't want to say a myth of history, but it, because I think that it's real, but also, like it's not
01:18:25
Speaker
exactly the same organization, but he made it feel like it was all this part of package and was part of building this culture and was part of, you know, bringing these people back. And anyway, I do think that it'll be interesting to see how this goes for Atlanta. But I think there's reasons to think that it might not all work out quite as well as as it ultimately has worked out in Seattle. Yeah. And I would say, too, just really quickly that that I think that the the debore thing is a good example of
01:18:53
Speaker
A club, this is my theory at least, right? Like you said, it could, they could turn out great. And this is just a slump and they'll be fine. But it seemed very much like a, we're an ambitious club and we make ambitious hires sort of thing. And.
01:19:09
Speaker
And that, you know, it's, there wasn't really a holistic approach to it or any thought really put into it in that way. Ezekiel Barso, I think is another Barco, sorry, is another example of that where I think he's going to turn out fine. I think Atlanta will end up making a, you know, a tidy profit off of selling him. I don't think it was a bad signing in that sense, but he hasn't produced the way that a player that costs that and makes that
01:19:37
Speaker
you would expect to in MLS, but it was a big deal signing because they spent so much money and it showed ambition. And whether or not that's the right thing for MLS teams to do, I think the jury is still kind of out.
Sounders' Team Building and Organizational Strategies
01:19:49
Speaker
So when I think PD Martinez is kind of in that same vein, like here was on paper, a really amazing signing. He was the South American player of the year. He just led River Plate to the, to the championship. Lots of reasons to be excited about PD Martinez.
01:20:05
Speaker
But was he the player, the best player? Like, you talk about how much money they spent. Is he the best player that they could get to build a team around a fence, essentially? Was Frank de Boer the coach who you wanted to coach him if that was going to be how you're going to build your team? Right now, it doesn't look like that was the case.
01:20:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it'll turn out to be a fine signing, but I think it's a good question to ask of, hey, was this, like you said, the best player we could have gotten for the resources we expended? And I think it comes back to that lack of sort of a holistic view of things. So the next one is from Rick Sportsfeed. 10-0-0 is a perhaps tongue-in-cheek goal for Schmetz. Considering it would require a two-game sweep of LAFC, what odds would you place on actually achieving that milestone?
01:20:56
Speaker
I don't put real high odds on it. That away game at LAFC feels pretty intimidating. I don't think it's impossible at all though. I mean, I think that the sounders probably go into that game. If not, like they're not gonna be favorites I don't think going into that game, but I don't think they're gonna be huge. Like if they go into that game healthy and ready to go, I think they could win that game. But it's a tough game on the schedule, there's no doubt.
01:21:25
Speaker
So it's, I don't know. And even them playing up here is tough too, I mean. Right, exactly. And then I think, is that the last game in that? I believe so. Yeah, the game here is the last game of that 10. And the next game, game 11, for what it's worth, is the game at Minnesota United. And I'd say that's probably a good, like, that's hard to imagine that's a game that we're going to win. Yeah. But who knows?
01:21:54
Speaker
Like I think, I don't think they're going to be huge underdogs in any game they play where they're fully fit. Like, right. Um, I think, yeah, I think they're capable of beating any team anywhere.
01:22:06
Speaker
but I don't think they're going to beat every team everywhere, even if you don't stretch. 10 and 0 is a, like, they're gonna, I just, I feel like they're gonna drop points somewhere before then. And it just seems silly to even talk about it. I mean, I will say this about getting to 10 and 0, that would put them at a technically a 15 game win streak, which would tie even the asterisk record that LA has for the longest win streak in MLS history, which would be pretty cool.
01:22:33
Speaker
although very minor point, admittedly. Who cares how the longest winspeak? Talk about things that aren't important. But no, I don't give us a great chance of getting there, but it's gonna be fun to chase it. Hopefully the next game in Vancouver is a win. I think you can really get ahead of yourself.
01:22:53
Speaker
Right. You can do just like the Russell Wilson one and O thing, you know, just like, right. Like they can drop like if they, if they tied Vancouver one, one, I don't think that would be a huge shock. And that's, and that's not a terror. I mean, it's just not a terrible result. No, totally Vancouver does suck a lot though.
01:23:11
Speaker
They kind of do suck. The Korean guy, whose name I won't try to say, is fun to watch. They got some fun players on there. They suck in a way that's pretty enjoyable. I will give them that. It's like the antithesis to how the sounders sucked at the beginning of last year. Yes. Yeah.
01:23:27
Speaker
but they do kind of suck. The change Ninja wants to know, do you think the issues in defense are systematic personnel problem? Or do you think it's an implementation practice issue that will be fixed with time? What do we think about the three center back formation? We talked about this a little bit, but you can go on them.
01:23:43
Speaker
We did, yeah. And I mean, for me, I think that it's a combination of all of the above. But I think that it's more on the side of implementation practice slash systemic. I don't think it's a personnel issue at all. I mean, I think Kim Ki-hee and Chad Marshall are both very good. Chad Marshall is probably not going to be as good as he was last year.
01:24:07
Speaker
I mean, you know, father time's undefeated. But I mean, even if he's a tick below where he was last year, he's still one of the best center backs in the league. So I'm not, I think the personnel is fine. The full backs were a concern defensively, I think coming in, but Kelvin weird them, I think that
01:24:25
Speaker
It's pretty clear that that injury was what was causing his problems down the stretch last season. He looks back to his old self. Brad Smith has not been a disaster by any stretch defensively. He hasn't had that much to do, like you said, because he's gotten forward so much and teams just haven't attacked that much.
01:24:47
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be fine. But I don't think the defense, like I said earlier, is going to be as dominant as it was last year because part of the Sounders game plan was based on the defense being that dominant. And in terms of the three center back formation, I'm fine with them continuing to experiment with it when they have comfortable leads. But I'd like to see it implemented differently, for sure.
01:25:14
Speaker
I think this is yours. It is. So Freeman Mester, will the Sanders find a way to pick up another three points this weekend despite no match? It would be a pretty impressive feat, no doubt about it. Obviously the thing to watch, I'll be very curious this week to watch is how
01:25:33
Speaker
how much and where Jordan Morris plays with the national team. And I guess Christian rolled on too. It would be pretty fun to see all three of him rolled on Morris and Yedlin all starting one of those games. I kind of get the sense that Morris is gonna kind of him and Yedlin are effectively compete. Like probably we'll see each one of them start one game on the right wing. And then rolled on, I'm guessing is not gonna get into the starting lineup.
01:26:03
Speaker
because that's where apparently Pulisic and Mckenny are probably starting. And I'm guessing that Berhalter is gonna wanna see two games of them as starters.
Player Performance and Roster Speculations
01:26:14
Speaker
But it'd be fun if he got, like it's heart. What I'm curious about is how close to an actual A-team this group is and how much of it is Berhalter's desire to,
01:26:28
Speaker
bring in enough guys from the January camp to allow himself to implement the systems he was implementing in January. Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting question. I hadn't really thought about that, but it's a good point. Morris, I think I'm more interested in because I think that for now, Christian's role with the national team is pretty settled. He's probably not a guy that's going to get called up for every
01:26:57
Speaker
camp. I don't think he's a core player on the team right now, but he's going to get called up and he's going to get minutes. I think that he's pretty comfortably set as a regular national team player for the time being. Morris is interesting because
01:27:14
Speaker
Berhalter seems to believe in him. I mean, the fact that he's getting a call up in this camp, I think speaks to that. But it's been a while since he got a national team call up. It's been a while since he played well consistently. Personally, I think that if he's the player we've seen so far this year, he's got a very good case for being written into the national team lineup in Penn. But
01:27:39
Speaker
whether he can play this well consistently is is yet to be seen and and whether he can translate that to the national team with a different set of personnel in a different system is also yet to be seen. So the the other thing that's kind of interesting is if he ends up getting moved to kind of a nine at the national team level because there aren't really a lot of nines that are just like, Altidore is is probably still in the picture
01:28:03
Speaker
But Jossi Zardes seems to be the de facto starter right now. It's hard to imagine Zardes goes into qualifiers as the number nine. Yeah. And I think, I mean, Josh Sargent is probably going to be in that mix very soon. I don't know if he got a call up yet in this camp.
01:28:20
Speaker
No, Sergeant got hit. He's at the U23 camp. Right, right. So, but I mean, I think that that's kind of the person people are assuming will be the starter. Right. For this, for, you know, the big games in the cycle. But this is a great opportunity for Morris to sort of stake that claim. And I think
01:28:38
Speaker
The way that I would expect a national team to play, I think he's probably a much better fit as a, as a striker than as a winger. Um, I mean, being able to play both certainly helps him quite a bit, but, um, yeah, I think he's got a pretty good chance. So I might actually watch the national team, uh, which I haven't done in quite a while. So, yeah. Uh, so this was from Monvers. This is what's the past two.
01:29:03
Speaker
Were the past two or three seasons worth the way the roster looks now? Three slow starts. I did not mind 2016 so much seeing as it came after an MLS Cup. Came with an MLS Cup.
01:29:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think it absolutely was. I know opinions differ on this, but I think that waiting for the players at the centers ended up signing was absolutely the right call. I think that the slow starts were unpleasant, but for most teams to rebuild a roster to this caliber, it takes two or three seasons of being actively garbage.
01:29:37
Speaker
And the fact that, you know, yeah, they had to go on some historic runs to make the playoffs, but those were pretty fun. And they won the last cup, you know, they went to two finals, like, it's tough to it's tough to if those are the down years, it's tough to feel bad about that. Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, you got a transformative player in Ledero.
01:29:59
Speaker
I don't know that there was an amount of money they could have paid to get them earlier in the year, but presumably they could not have brought in someone of that caliber. It's hard to imagine they bringing in a different player now. Same thing with Blue Ideas. Could they have brought in a slightly less good player in an earlier window and saved us some heartache?
01:30:23
Speaker
early in the season, probably, but it's hard to argue that ultimately waiting on new ideas wasn't the right choice. Those strategies look really smart right now. And I would have a hard time saying like, we don't know how this is going to go, but where we sit right now, it looks like they were great gambles.
01:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I mean, I think what people were really worried about and really frustrated with was that every season was going to go that way. But I think that we see now that it's pretty apparent that, no, this was an actual rebuilding strategy. They have a completely different core to the team. They're pretty well set up at some critical positions for, you know, at least another
01:31:05
Speaker
three or four year championship window. Yeah, I think it was absolutely worth it. If we had been in the basement for three years in a row for the whole year, if we had had one playoff appearance in that time and got knocked out in the knockout round, I think the discussion is a little bit different. But the fact that they were actively going and improving in that secondary window and giving themselves a chance to make the playoffs
01:31:27
Speaker
And that ended up bringing an MLS Cup final appearance, conference final appearance over those three years. It's hard to not think that the strategy has paid off for sure, especially now that this team looks set up to make a big time supporter shield run.
01:31:45
Speaker
Uh, so the last question and it's, oh, do you have something else to add? Oh, I was going to add real quick. The funny thing to think about is if Jordan Morris doesn't get hurt last year, how different does this all look? Because like they had tried to sign a Clint Dempsey kind of player, like a, like a number 10 type attacker type, uh, that off season.
01:32:08
Speaker
And if they had made that signing and they hadn't, instead of essentially instead of Ruby Diaz and Morrison stayed healthy, kind of interesting to think about where they'd be right now. Cause Lidero seems so much better as a, like being allowed to patrol the middle of the field. Like he does. And I mean, I'll, I'll definitely eat crow on that because I, I was definitely wrong. Although I, I, you could probably make an argument that maybe with the personnel they had at the time, it made sense, but definitely attend. Yeah. Yeah.
01:32:36
Speaker
Go ahead. So the last one is from Paul Barr or P Barr. I think his name is actually Paul, but it's P Barr 96. Kind of a fun question, I think, which is why I put it last. Imagine you were a sounder's director of operations.
Increasing Home Game Attendance
01:32:52
Speaker
You will get paid a bonus of $1 million if you can increase average sounder's home game attendance to $50k plus.
01:32:59
Speaker
I mean, I guess the easy answer to this is you give away a bunch of seats because that would be the easiest way to get to 50,000. Assuming that's not a viable long-term growth strategy and maybe hurts you long-term even. I think you probably do a lot of the same things the sounders are starting to do right now. The thing I like best and I think has the most potential to have some
01:33:27
Speaker
to bear some real fruit is this plan where they are essentially selling standing room only tickets to college students.
01:33:35
Speaker
I guess you get access to the third deck and there's like a low area that you can go to. But I like the idea of reaching out to younger people with cheaper tickets, people who might be more likely to spend money in the stadium. I think lowering concession prices in general would do a lot to increase
01:34:00
Speaker
attendance, really, like, I think you would like if you can make it like, I don't think you got to sell tickets for cheap necessarily. But if you can make going to the game and overall, better value by offering things like in Atlanta, like, I think that's a big part of how why they're seeing this growth. And, and I don't think that the sound like I think the centers are starting to do that by offering like these value, these value options that they're offering, but
01:34:26
Speaker
that's still pretty limited and I'm not hearing a lot of great feedback in terms and they're they're also I mean to be fair they're limited in how much of that they can do because they don't they are stadium right so right um but I think the the other big thing that I I think they could do better on and I would like to see them do better on is is reaching out to communities of of color in general and and not just like
01:34:50
Speaker
not just on a very surface level. I mean, like really embedding themselves in some of the Latino communities, for instance, or in and around Seattle. And not just Latino communities, but just the immigrant communities of various kinds of making themselves kind of a team of the people, for lack of a better term, and just kind of getting out and maybe not being quite so much of a white collar team, which I think that
01:35:17
Speaker
They kind of are. I mean, that's kind of the nature of professional sports these days. But I think they can do a better job of being kind of like all of Seattle's team and really enmeshing themselves in some of these communities. And I think that's going to take a lot of work. And I think that they're probably trying to. I think one of the things that I like that they're doing is like the Ray of Green Foundation, where they're trying to build some of these soccer pitches in some of the more different communities.
01:35:46
Speaker
I think those are all steps in the right direction. I think it can kind of be oversold, how much they're doing wrong. But yeah, I mean, I guess those are some of my ideas. Yeah, I think those are all I mean, I think those are all great ideas. And I think that I think that making it a reasonable value proposition for families is a huge one. I mean, one of the reasons that the Mariners continue
01:36:09
Speaker
to draw anyone at all is because a day out at the ballpark is not that expensive. You can get seats pretty cheap. A lot of the food's pretty cheap and pretty good. There's no reason anybody should be going to watch The Mariners from a rational perspective. I went to 20 games in 2008, so I'm not talking shit. But they're terrible, and they've been terrible for a long time.
01:36:36
Speaker
Um, and they were going to be an impossibly long time. It's, it boggles the mind as a, as someone that is not from here, how long they've been bad. Oh, it's, I mean, it's, it's crazy. I thought that Adam Carolla was funny the last time they were good. Like that's how long it's been. And so, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, it really is on several levels, frankly. Um, like,
01:37:00
Speaker
He was still doing Dr. Drew, there was still Love Connection. I listened to Love Line a lot, so that was why. When he started doing the man show and stuff, I was like, this guy's kind of a douche. Anyway. We haven't had a lot of Adam Carolla talk on this show, admittedly. Yeah. Well, he's a brother in podcasting, right? Yeah, absolutely. Maybe we'll shout us out. Yeah, I'm sure he will.
01:37:25
Speaker
I think that making it a good value proposition for families is a big part of it. I think that's going to help. I don't know if it's cynical, but just the more sort of nuts and bolts answer is that attendance tends to be a lagging indicator. And last season was the lowest average attendance since 2010, I think, despite the fact that they won an MLS Cup in 2016 and they went to an MLS Cup final in 2017.
01:37:54
Speaker
Um, but the slow starts kind of caught up to him. I think the attendance hasn't been, I mean, it's been, it's been great by MLS standards or really by any team standards. I mean, you know, 40,000 people a game is good.
01:38:08
Speaker
is very good, but it hasn't been great by historical Seattle standards. And they've been playing lights out. So it's going to take some time for people to come back. It's going to take some time for the buzz to build a little bit more. If this continues, how attendance looks in the summer?
01:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I mean, and I think it's going to look great, you know, where they have like two home games. Yeah, right. I mean, it would be, I think it would help if there, you know, wasn't another smoke season this year. Like there were definitely times last year where I was like, I'm not going outside for two hours.
01:38:41
Speaker
Um, so, but I think winning consistently playing exciting soccer, people will come. Um, I think that a lot of, of what we've seen in terms of attendance declining has been some of the novelty wearing off. Um, and I think if you can get people re-engaged and realizing, Hey, like I had fun back in 2011, 2012, when the soccer was a lot worse.
01:39:06
Speaker
Uh, and the soccer is a lot better than it was the last time I checked. I should, you know, I should start going back to those games. That's going to help a lot. Um, so if you could get your boss to put off the bonus for a year and just hope that they keep playing like this, I think that's gonna, you know, that would be a great way to try to win that bet. But, um, there's lots of things they can do and it does seem like they're doing them for sure.
01:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I think they are going in, I think they're getting creative and maybe these last in some ways I think were good because I think there was maybe the sense of starting to take the fan base for granted in a
01:39:43
Speaker
in a sense of like, well, we don't need to wow them with a, like one of the things this year, the season ticket package, like the physical package you receive was way, way better than anything that we've gotten since I've been a season ticket holder. So three or four years.
01:40:00
Speaker
And I think that's just kind of like a little thing, but it's kind of a big deal because I think just increasing the value, like doing a better job of retaining season ticket holders, I think is probably a big thing. And I suspect their retention rate was down considerably this last year, not because they were bad, but just because I think there was this sense that, you know, like the price increases kind of caught up to people and
01:40:25
Speaker
Anyway, I don't, I don't think it's all about price, but I do think that there are little ways that they could probably do, you know, like, like I said, the season ticket picket package was a good start. Um, I, I do kind of have a theory that they did a great job attracting fans from the get go. And I don't know how good of a job they've done of attracting new fans. And I think there's just sort of a natural ebb and flow to it where.
01:40:51
Speaker
people are just gonna decide even though they still love the team it's like yeah i've got kids now i can't make it to every game or you know that's probably part of it yeah so the i think what you're saying is kind of like the 25 year old who bought season tickets in 2009 right is 35 and maybe has a couple kids
01:41:10
Speaker
Or has just gotten like way fatter and lazier and works more. Right. Right. Exactly. Maybe he's got a job that won't let him, that it makes the week drag a little more. Right. He doesn't have as much energy. Right. And I just, if you're not replacing those season ticket holders, your numbers are going to go down. So, but I think they're doing a good job, you know, with the steps you outlined and that we kind of talked about of, of trying to bring in some new folks.
01:41:34
Speaker
Yeah. If, you know, Taylor Graham wants to give us a call, we can, we can chat about this. Absolutely. We can do some consulting for him for sure. Right. Exactly. Uh, so anyway, that's the, that's the show. Thanks to, uh, Lamar Nagel for coming
Personal Updates and Fundraising Success
01:41:47
Speaker
on. I did want to give a shout out to Will Bruin who had his, uh, who's now a father. His wife gave Caitlin gave birth to a 9.77. I think that means nine and three quarter pound or nine.
01:42:00
Speaker
Yeah, nine and three quarter pound, which is a big baby. That's a very big baby. So I hope she's doing well. I chatted with Will and he has not been sleeping because they've been in the hospital for the last couple of days, which you would expect with a baby that big, right?
01:42:18
Speaker
So hopefully we will get able to get out to training, one of these days, and so anyway big congrats to him also wanted to say when we close the books on yacht con, we hit our $6,000 goal. That is such an awesome thing.
01:42:34
Speaker
Someone whose name is totally escaping me basically came through at the last minute and like rounded us up to 6,000 with like a $357 donation. I'm going to look it up right now because we heard it. I think it's like Curtis.
01:42:50
Speaker
Yes. So shout out to Cutrice, I think. Cutrice. Cutrice. That's not his name, I think. You're right. I think that's his username, at Cutrice. So big shout out to him. I was very excited to hit that 6,000. We never really formally made that a goal, but that kind of internally became a goal. I suppose one thing we could do next year is actually set a fundraising goal. Because I found out with this that setting that goal has a way of motivating people to actually donate money.
01:43:20
Speaker
But anyway, that's a long, long sign off. I am Jeremiah O'Shan, signing off on behalf of Aaron Campo and Lickett. This is no study at this. Remember, oh, I should also thank our sponsor, Football Wines, because they're great. Anyway, you'll love you.
01:43:38
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
01:44:15
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!