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Sound Bites: Catching up on a very busy week
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Jeremiah resumes his captaincy of the SS Sound Bites to catch you up on a busy few days to close out the year. He discusses the 2025 schedule, the league’s publishing of the General Allocation Money totals for each team, updates on various rumors, his take on the new Leagues Cup format and a brief recap of the SuperDraft.
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Transcript
Sponsor Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Fullpool Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Fullpool was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounder supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest.
00:00:25
Speaker
Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounder's legend. now i get to do voice reads for the sounder at heart podcast network
00:00:40
Speaker
about sell <unk> it
00:01:21
Speaker
we all got of sudden go
00:01:30
Speaker
We're seeing some of the hardwood commentary that we didn't take seriously.
Year-End Overview
00:01:41
Speaker
Welcome to a special year end episode of sound bites, a mini podcast on the sounder heart podcast network. Today is Friday, December 20th, and I am Jeremiah Shan on today's show. I'll be talking about the release of the 2025 schedule, the publishing of each team's general allocation money bank, give an update on various rumors surrounding the sounders, share what I know about the new league's cut format and give a brief recap of the 2025 super draft.
00:02:08
Speaker
Thursday, well, Thursday and Friday, frankly, were pretty day pretty busy days for the sounders who, I get the impression, are sort of compressing a lot of stuff into the end of year before they break. ah There are still definitely some loose ends out there, but Thursday at least, and Friday, were jam-packed with actual announcements of various things and and news breaking and whatnot.
Schedule Conflicts
00:02:33
Speaker
ah So let's just start really at the top. The schedule came out, that's a big one.
00:02:38
Speaker
Obviously, we now have a much better idea of what the 2025 season is going to look like. And it is going to be busy. It's going to be challenging. ah it's It's everything. ah But let's start with some of the positives.
00:02:53
Speaker
Backheeled, that's ah you know our partner over at Backheeled.com, ah they did a little study and they analyzed all the start times and whatnot, and they found that there were 50% more games scheduled for Sundays than last year, and the number of Friday games actually tripled. Now, I don't know how many games that actually represents But, you know, it's probably a couple dozen or whatever. So there's more variety and kickoffs. That's kind of what I'm getting at. ah The sounders, you can see that pretty clearly in eight of their 17 home games are not kicking off at 730.
00:03:28
Speaker
And those times range anywhere from noon to six 30, I think of those eight games. Uh, that includes four afternoon games. Uh, annoyingly though, one of those non seven 30 games is a Wednesday game against San Diego that is scheduled to start at five 30. I don't know if that's a mistake or if it's something that's going to be fixed, but the Mariners game kicks or starts at six 40 that day. So I don't really know that.
00:03:56
Speaker
Starting the Sounders game at 5.30 even alleviates the crush of people that are going to be showing up. I guess the Dodgers are also in town, so there's going to be a bigger crowd than normal. If I'm the Sounders, I'm just going ahead and moving that game to 7.30. Yeah, I realize that people are then arriving at the same time that the Mariners game is getting ready to start, but no one wants a 5.30 kickoff.
00:04:17
Speaker
on May 28th. This is a kind of surreal thing, but let's I don't want to focus too much on the kickoff times. I do think it's good in general that there are more kickoff kind times. I think there's three or four Sunday games.
00:04:32
Speaker
So, you know, there's a little bit more variety. I think people, you know, we did a study on sounder heart of our readers and we, and one of the questions we asked them is what they would like to see changed this year. And changing the kickoff times was pretty high up on the list. I'm looking for it right now. And let's see the.
00:04:57
Speaker
more variety of kickoff times, 10% of people, I guess it's maybe not as big of a ah a slice as I thought. The number one thing people want to have happen is sign some exciting players. So that that got 48%. But these are the kind of the, this is 10% of people picked kickoff times as their number one priority. So I guess maybe maybe that is a pretty decent chunk of people.
00:05:21
Speaker
ah But anyway, ah most of these kickoff times from what I was told were sort of designed around the idea of trying to avoid so many conflicts with the Mariners. Last year, if you went to games, you were quite aware that there were a lot of games that were kicking off or you were arriving just as Mariners crowd was getting there and it was kind of a mess. And yeah it was almost impossible to do a ah Mariners sounders double header last year. I don't, I didn't look.
00:05:49
Speaker
deep enough to tell you how many games you could actually pull that off in. But i at least they seem to be trying to avoid. direct conflicts with the Mariners quite as often this year. ah But once you get outside of the kickoff times, it gets, you know, this is, it really illustrates how tough a schedule it was. And I don't want to make it sound like the Sounders were somehow picked on or they got a ah bad draw. I would imagine a lot of teams can make similar complaints, but the reality is the Sounders have, this is crazy.
Early Season Challenges
00:06:20
Speaker
There are 52 match days currently on their calendar. Now,
00:06:25
Speaker
Those are a lot of potential match days. So they might not have to play on all those games. But I did a little kind of. the I made a schedule that had all the potential matches in it. And this is not it's not included. That doesn't include open cup. It doesn't assume a club World Cup advancement. And it's before the playoffs. Fifty two match days. That's your own. You're talking about almost two games a week or two potentially two games a week.
00:06:55
Speaker
for the entire season, which is which is just totally wild. ah But the the start of the season is particularly tough. ah They have nine of their first 14 regular season games on the road that doesn't account for the road game that they're already going to be playing at Antigua.
00:07:12
Speaker
And then potentially a another two games that they're going to play on the round of 16. If they play both of those rounds, they're going to end up playing, I think eight matches in the first like five weeks of the season. It's it's going to be it's going to be a ah tough one. ah The good news about that first nine of 14 thing is all you get to the bad part first. It ends that for that 14 game stretch ends with a three road game week that That is going to be tough. It's going to start in Houston. Then they're going to go down to LFC at midweek, and then they're going to close on the road at Portland. ah You know, those are those are three tough games, even if you're not playing them all backto- back to back to back. But the good news, I suppose, is that during they have five home games during that 14 week stretch, and I would say four of them are very winnable, very winnable.
00:08:12
Speaker
The fifth one, I don't know, maybe this is good, maybe this is bad, but the fifth one is at home against LAFC. And that is probably going to be sandwiched between the round of 16 legs, which are most likely going to be crucial. If the sounders are in that, there's a really good chance they are going to rotate the lineup.
00:08:32
Speaker
against LAFC, which even at full strength, LAFC has been a tough ah tough one for the Sounders. They haven't beaten them at home in a long time. I want to say 2020 maybe? 2021 was the last time they they beat them at home. It's it's been it's been tough.
00:08:50
Speaker
ah And then as tough as the beginning of the schedule is, the end of the season may be even tougher.
End of Season Obstacles
00:08:59
Speaker
Uh, so they come out of league's cup and they have six games remaining after league's cup, which we'll talk about later. There was, uh, I was able to break some news about the changing format of league's cup, but we'll, we'll get to that later. So they're going to come out of league's cup and they have six games left. Those six games are.
00:09:20
Speaker
maybe their toughest stretch of the season, it's going to be tough. Uh, so this is how it goes. So they start with a three game week where they're going to be at home against the galaxy. That's the reigning MLS cup champions in case you forgot. Then they go on the road to enter Miami on a Tuesday. Weirdly. Uh, that's the defending orders shield winners probably featuring messy, I would assume. And then they go on the road against Austin, where is a place they've actually played pretty well, but Austin in October, September? I guess it's probably September.
00:09:52
Speaker
going to be hot. So you got to factor that in there. So then that's three of the games. And then the final three games are back to bed. I don't love this. This is maybe my most. These three games might be the most annoying part of the schedule, maybe not the toughest, but the most annoying part of the schedule because they go back to back home Cascadia Cup games against Vancouver and Portland, which I just don't love that the Cascadia, the home Cascadia Cup games are both the only, it is a ah balanced Cascadia Cup schedule.
00:10:23
Speaker
I think that's good. But I don't like that there are only two home games are pushed all the way to the back of a season. So they go at home against Vancouver and then at home against Portland and then there's an international break. So they have a week off and then they close on the road against New York City FC. So.
00:10:45
Speaker
This is only the second or third time ever that they've closed on the road. They also I guess they closed at St. Louis a couple years ago. So it's closing on the road is whatever playing inter-conference. That's tough. They are the only this is the only a conference or inter-conference game that's being played on decision day because but there has to be one one game that's inter-confidence because there's now 30 teams 15 in each conferences so that that just creates a scenario where there's always every week there's going to be a cross conference game and the centers drew the short straw but what's really tough is that this is the longest
00:11:22
Speaker
league road trip that they're going to take all year. I was a little surprised to learn that because I assumed Atlanta was farther away. They also have to go to Atlanta. But yeah, I looked it up and New York City is technically is like 300 miles farther by plane. I I guess Atlanta is farther west than I realized. The this country that we have is strange. People were telling me it's the curvature of the earth.
00:11:51
Speaker
I don't know. I'm not a cartographer. I don't know if that's why. I was just surprised. I felt like Atlanta would probably be farther away, but it's not. New York City is the farthest road trip that the center is going to take. For those interested, the other eastern kind they have three Eastern Conference road trips.
00:12:08
Speaker
The third one is against Nashville, which might be kind of a fun road trip. Oh, in fact, all three of these road trips in a vacuum kind of neat going to New York City, going to Miami, going to Nashville. You know, you can definitely do worse than that in terms of away games. So anyway, that's that's a tough decision day. I would really hope the Sounders have the.
00:12:32
Speaker
playoff positioning or whatever that they need before they go into that game. But the schedule makers didn't do a lot of didn't do a lot of favors for the Sounders this time.
GAM Transparency Announcement
00:12:41
Speaker
All right, well, ah the other big piece of news that came out on Thursday was MLS, and I don't know, it's kind of weird that MLS decided to release these two things, the schedule, and they published how much GAM each team has. That's general allocation money. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm going to assume that you have some basic understanding of GAM, but I will go ahead and give you the 20,000 foot explanation of GAM. GAM is ah essentially
00:13:09
Speaker
a a way to expand the salary cap, but unlike just adding money on the salary cap, it is tradable. You can acquire more of it. You can, you get awarded it for various reasons. If you transfer a player out of the league and you make money on it, you can convert that into GAM. So anyway, it's salary cap space, essentially that is tradable. That is a asset essentially. So anyway, for the first time ever,
00:13:34
Speaker
For a long time, we've had no idea how much GAM any team had, let alone how much GAM was swimming around in the whole system. And MLS, essentially in an attempt to continue to get more transparent in the way that they operate, which I think is a absolutely crucial element to making and MLS more popular, is they're making it easier for people like me, superfans, whatever, journalists, everyone to just have an idea of what we're talking about when they say they're trading allocation money. They used to be, they didn't even tell you it wasn't that long ago. They wouldn't even disclose how much allocation money was changing hands.
00:14:13
Speaker
We had no idea how much what any what allocation money was even worth. you know So we've made some progress over the years. But anyway, they released this list. And then ah almost immediately, it was it was out of it was it was ah it was old news because they it was already out of date. So the this was as of December 10th. They didn't release it until December 19th. So it was already nine days old by the time they released it. So there had been plenty of time for people to make moves or a bunch of moves made in there.
00:14:42
Speaker
But best like can know the sounders actually were even out of date by the time this came out. We found out today why that was. They had traded to are two international roster spots to the New York Red Bulls for $350 in general general allocation money, $300 of it in this year, $50,000 next year. Anyway, that brings the sounders total amount of allocation money that they have available to spend to $4.5 million, give or take.
00:15:12
Speaker
a few bucks here and there. That's I think the sixth most. They were ninth most as of yesterday. I don't think any of the teams that were above them made any other acquisitions. So I'm pretty sure they moved all the way up to six. So that's kind of notable that the Sounders have that much general allocation money and it kind of speaks to the way that they're building their roster right now. Again, we'll we'll get to this a bit later. But So this is not a perfect thing. It would be really great if there was like an online real time calculator that showed you exactly how much each team had and you could kind of work out trades on your own and do all kinds of fun stuff like that.
00:15:49
Speaker
maybe even have a salary cap that is accessible. We still don't know exactly how everyone hits a salary cap. that That is one of the frustrations. That would be another fun way to let us armchair, general manage all these teams is if there was an online calculator that showed you how much salary cap space each team has. and the reason The main thing we don't know in that case is but we don't know how much each player hits the cap because even though the players union publishes ah salaries for every player and they're guaranteed compensation apparently the league
00:16:21
Speaker
and the players union disagree on the best way to calculate that and so they aren't publishing that, then there's also these various taxes that get added in. There's other acquisition costs that get added into a ah player's salary cap. it so it's not an exact We can't get into the exact science. We don't know exactly how much salary cap space they have. I did go ahead and make some best guesses. and Weirdly enough, I think the Saunders have almost exactly the amount of salary cap space as they have general allocation money.
00:16:54
Speaker
My back of the, you know, back in the envelope calculation is that the centers have about $4.5 million of cap space remaining. Now, there are a lot of un undetermined pieces that still have to go in. You know, Albert Rusnak is still unsigned. Joe Paulo is unsigned. There's still all these rumors about Jesus Ferretta and Paul Areola coming in. None of that is factored into this 4.5 million, but it should be enough to add those players and potentially do some more. So that's all really good news. ah And but we also were the other thing that was nice about this whole list is that it really illustrates how much discrepancy there is within the league. So the team with the most general allocation money is Atlanta United. They had something like
00:17:44
Speaker
Uh, 6 million in, in Gamm and the team with the lease is the Houston dynamo who only have 2 million. That's $4 million dollars of cap spent on cap spending that Atlantic can can spend more. I mean, that's a, that's a pretty big difference. And we've always known that teams can outspend each other, but really that was focused on specific areas of the roster. yeah The thing about general occasion money is that can be spent on virtually any part of the roster at all.
00:18:13
Speaker
So you know having a $4 million dollar advantage, especially when you're talking about... ah so So the difference in their salary cap essentially is Atlanta United has about $16 million dollars to spend on the salary cap and Houston Dynamo only have about $12 million. you know You're talking now, you're talking about a 33% difference in terms of how much more Atlanta can spend, that's a huge advantage. i and then And then there's other ways of, we'll also add that there's this is not added, this is not factoring in whether a team has declared that they're gonna be a ah two DP and four U22 team, in which case they will get $2 million of extra, or they don't get it. They can buy $2 million dollars of extra Gamm, or be a three and three team, which is the three DPs and three U22s.
00:19:02
Speaker
ah I'm pretty sure all indications in the sounder so that they are probably going to be a three DP three U 22 team. So, you know, what I'm sort of imagining is going to happen is Jordan Morris will probably be a DP at the start of the year and they'll use him sort of as an accounting mechanism that allows them to save a bunch of Gamm, potentially spend it elsewhere.
00:19:26
Speaker
And then maybe you they'll make a bigger move in the summer. My hope is that they're going to at least sign another tan player and on top of, you know, what I'm all good. I guess we may as well transition into this now. ah We've talked about this on the, on no Saudi at this, but the sounders are been rumored to be.
Transfer Rumors: Jesus Ferreira
00:19:43
Speaker
trying to make out make a trade, a couple of different trades for Jesus Ferreira and Paul Areola from FC Dallas. I have been asking about this almost daily to to my my my sources. and The latest that I've heard, and this is a little counter to what I've seen in the national media, but from what I understand is the Ferreira deal is really close to happening and it it could get announced at any moment.
00:20:10
Speaker
And they are the the expectation is they're going to bring him. They're they're they're going to get him signed to an extension. That's been the main thing that they've been struggling with. is coming to personal terms, I guess the the trade terms were agreed to a while ago. So that has not been, that's not been the issue. It's been whether or not Verreira is willing to not be a DP anymore. And so the sounders would want to sign him to an extension. And I guess it sounds like that's going to happen, you know, nothing official, but it it looks like that's going to happen. Thank you for listening to the SoundRithart podcast network, which now includes no sunny at this lobbing scorchers and the cooler guild.
00:20:51
Speaker
We've been independent since August of 2023, but need your support to make sure it continues. Although this podcast is free, it's only made possible by your continued support. Memberships start as low as $25 a year, which not only helps make podcasts like this one happen, but also gets you access to everything we produce. If you're able to support us at higher levels, starting at $75 a year, you gain access to a host of other perks Most notably, entry into our members-only Discord where the smartest, funniest, and most engaged commenters share their thoughts and ideas. To find out more, just visit centeratheart.com and click the subscribe button in the top right corner. Thanks for listening!
00:21:33
Speaker
And so the DPs at the start of the year will probably be Pedro de la Vega, Jordan Morris, and Albert Rusnak, who it does sound like is going to resign and he's probably going to resign as a DP. I think the founders were hoping to maybe get him in as a TAM player and have a little bit more flexibility, but it doesn't sound like that's probably going to happen. They still like him though, so they they want to bring it back. Anyway, I don't want to get too bogged down in that.
00:21:59
Speaker
ah and so
00:22:04
Speaker
I don't know that the areola trade is going to happen. I think the hang up there is Dallas just doesn't really want to eat as much of his salary as the Sounders needed them to. Basically the Sounders were going to ask them to pick up basically a million dollars of his salary. I think they probably would have been willing to use a buyout.
00:22:24
Speaker
and just take that off their books. But maybe they're not willing to do that after all. And the sounders really apparently are not that interested in bringing Ariola in at anything more than about five or 600,000. They didn't want him to be a tan player, essentially.
00:22:40
Speaker
And that would basically cause to get him below TAM would cost at least a million dollars for Dallas. Dallas would have to keep at least a million dollars in order to keep him from being a TAM player. So I don't know if that's going to happen. ah My understanding was the Sounders were probably just going to give Dallas a first-round draft pick. That was going to be a pretty easy deal from that perspective. but You know, it would be a nice pickup if they can do it. ah The Ferretta one, I'm i'm pretty bullish on him. I know that a lot of fans are sort of down on this trade. They don't get it. Well, I think they get it, but they don't they're not excited by the prospect of bringing in a player who is perceived to sort of be ah damaged goods right now. You know, he is...
00:23:26
Speaker
coming off a year that he wasn't very good. He was hurt a lot of the year. He only scored four, five goals last year. And he, and mainly he just was injured for a lot of the season. And what I say, you know, I look at this as a player who has 53 goals. He's not yet 24 years old. This is an unprecedented number of goals for anyone in MLS history. I I've, I've used this stat before, but he is, you know, Chris Wandaloski had something like seven goal or I think he had seven goals going into his age 27 season. That's his first really big year. And Ferreira is on 53 goals before he turns 24. I mean, this is a guy, if he spends his whole career in MLS, he might score 200 goals.
00:24:10
Speaker
i and I would think the sounders by biing picking him up don't really think that he's gonna spend his career in MLS. I mean, he's got cell potential still. This is a player who it was only last was last January, there was a deal to send him to Spartak, Moscow for like $13 million. dollars ah He started a ah a World Cup game for the for the United States at 22 years old. He had an 18-goal season. Again, I realize at 22, so it was a couple years ago, but he was,
00:24:42
Speaker
and out dan I mean, he's one of the top prospects to ever come out of MLS at one point. He's still only 24 years old. i I really like him. Now, I think the trick is how do you fit him along with Jordan Morris, who they both want to be nines. I mean, this is There is some flexibility in the way that Ferreira plays. He could kind of be a more of the drawn forward. He can maybe be a 10 and a pinch. I suppose you can play him on the wing, but that's not his bread and butter. ah He's really a number nine, sort of in the same way that Jordan is really at least ah Jordan is probably more flexible, frankly. like It would be easier to put Jordan out wide than it would be to put Ferreira out wide.
00:25:19
Speaker
but I think what we're going to see is them doing a variety of things. I think we'll see them start start up top together. The centers will probably run them 3-5-2. It gives them a lot more flexibility. and i you know I really like them. Again, I've said this a few times, but you if you told me that this was a Colombian international, 24 years old, coming off already 53 goals in ah in a top flight league,
00:25:51
Speaker
he would go for $8 million. dollars I don't have any question about that. If the Sounders paid $8 million for Jesus Ferreira, the guy who's coming from Colombia, I don't think I think that's ah people are super excited about it. I think that they would be into this big time. So I do think it's a little bit of of anti and-MLS self-loathing, so to speak, ah to be as down on this player as so many fans are, I understand that it's not the most ambitious move. This is essentially a free move from a
00:26:28
Speaker
i money out of their pocket perspective. It's maybe not the most ambitious move. I understand that frustration. I want the Sounders to go big too. And I and I realized that this is not the move that's going to get the fan base on its own excited. I do think that if Ferretta plays well, that people will get excited and and maybe that will be the effect. But I i understand the criticism of this being sort of like a cheap move.
00:26:51
Speaker
But that doesn't make it a bad move. And I think it's important to differentiate those two things. ah He is someone who has some real upside. I think you would he I'm I'm I am like the more I think about it, the more I excited him. The thing that worries me at this point is that if the deal falls through.
00:27:09
Speaker
I don't know how much flexibility the the centers have. It will be interesting to see. I suppose they can still go out and make a big signing if they want. ah I hope they haven't gone too far down the road of of not doing that. So you know we'll see. We will see.
00:27:22
Speaker
um But ah yeah, my understanding is that the Sounders aren't going to be, I know there's some reports out there about how they're going to have to give up like $2 million, $3 million dollars in game. I do not think that's accurate at all. i What I've heard is that they are going to give up sort of assorted assets. And today the Sounders made a trade that sent yeah I talked about this earlier in the show. They sent the Red Bulls to international roster spots. I sort of assumed those two international roster spots would have been included in a trade for Ferretta. My assumption is that maybe Dallas is like, we don't want the international spots, but we we do want the money those are worth. We just don't want to deal with having to find a partner for these international roster spots. And and would they think it will look better on paper probably. And they're right. They're right. No question.
00:28:06
Speaker
it looks better on paper for them to get $350,000 in allocation money than it looks to get two international roster spots. So maybe that's what's going on there. and I think the centers are probably going to give up a player. I don't want to speculate too much on which player that is, but I don't think it is a Josh attention, read Baker Whiting, certainly like Obed Vargas. None of these guys, guys who are really core parts of their build are not going to be included in this trade. At least that's my, my understanding. So I think this is a relatively by low type of situation. Uh,
00:28:42
Speaker
Anyway, finally, or not finally, I've got two more bits. This is going a little longer than I had anticipated, but ah the Sounders are going to be probably participating. We actually don't know this for sure. It has not been announced who is participating, but my understanding is there' there's going to be a new league.
Leagues Cup Format Change
00:28:58
Speaker
The league announced that there is going to be a new league's cup format. That was another thing that they just announced this week. That was on Wednesday.
00:29:03
Speaker
ah And then I did a little bit more reporting and I was able to find out the framework of the of the format. So we know that the tournament is going to be held from July to August and it's going to be played concurrently with the season, which I don't know makes it better. ah They're going to have to play like the the term is still going to have a ton of games and it's just going to make for a really busy schedule. But it's kind of pitched as being better. I don't I don't know if that's true.
00:29:34
Speaker
ah they They made it sound like this is what everyone wants, is us to play during the season. I i don't remember i don't know about that, but ah this is kind of interesting. so I assumed when I heard that they were doing this in season tournament, that it was going to be single elimination and be pretty straightforward. you You'd have 18 teams. ah You'd figure out a way to format 18 teams in ah in a single elimination. We did this thing on Senator Hart where we figured, oh, maybe there's going to be four playing games and whatever. They'll figure it out. No, turns out that's not what they're going to be doing.
00:30:12
Speaker
What I've been told is that they're going to use what's called the Swiss method. And this is basically most recognized as the format that they're using in the European club, comp the Europa League, CONCACAF, or not CONCACAF.
00:30:29
Speaker
ah conference league, I think it's called, and most notably, ah UEFA Champions League. And so the way it works is that the instead of groups, they have what they call leagues. And in this case, for the I'm not going to get into how it works in in Europe, but the way it's going to work here is that you're going to have two 18 team leagues, the league, and you'll have MLS 18 teams in each and each team will be drawn against either to three or four teams from the other league. And they'll play each one of those teams again, like once. And so you'll either play three or four games in the league stage and
00:31:09
Speaker
Then they'll have standings at the end of the league stage and the teams with the foremost points will advance to the quarterfinals Presumably the first round of the quarterfinals will feature, you know, the first place and MLS team against the fourth place, the Gammacki's team, and sort of, they'll go on through that. And then, I don't know, I would imagine after in the, in the semi-finals and in the finals, it would just be whoever's advancing and it's not ah so hung up on league versus league.
00:31:40
Speaker
but it definitely is a different style. We haven't seen, I don't think we've seen this in the United States at all. I, I, I certainly, when I first heard of the champions league doing it, I was really confused, but it's, it's not super confusing and it'll be interesting. I don't know. Uh, it is definitely more began Mac keys versus MLS games. There's no question about that. That is the, I do think that's true. That's the whole point of this thing. So we should be enhancing the number of times the leagues face off against one another.
00:32:10
Speaker
i Again, I think that fixture congestion is a real issue here, especially if they're going to try to play four league stage games. You would end up playing 80 matches in this tournament. You would have teams playing up to seven matches, which I guess is the same as it used to be. But every team would play at least one more game in this format than they played in the old format. ah Again, the guarantee, I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but It is definitely going to be a strain on rosters. I think we can say that ah pretty clearly. And i don't I don't know how much more appealing this is to fans. It it does seem like after you know League's Cup has now gone through four formats, I believe, maybe in five formats.
00:32:57
Speaker
ah The one that the Sounders went to the final of, it was a pretty simple eight team draw. I think it was eight teams and maybe it was 16 teams and they just played a single elimination. The Sounders played, yeah, it must've been eight because the Sounders played three games in that tournament, all against league and Becky's teams. And that was kind of fun. It was simple, but it wasn't, I don't know. It wasn't grabbing anyone's attention, but those games were pretty poorly attended. Then they, in 2023, they switched up to this group stage where there was three team groups.
00:33:28
Speaker
I didn't really love that i don't know but ah the tournament itself was pretty popular was when messy made his ml debut and it seemed like that was going pretty well and then last year it kind of bombed because just was people weren't that excited about it and i know i went to the I didn't go to all the the games. I went to the first one, and then I went to the Galaxy game and the Puma's game. The Puma's game was, I would say the Puma's game was pretty fun. I guess it went to LAFC too. The Puma's game was was fun, but the were the crowds were pretty thin in that game, in those games. And I don't know that this is gonna get people any more excited. It's not, and notably it's not included in the season ticket package. Any of the games won't be included in the season ticket packages here. The 18th game for the center season ticket package is gonna be Champions League.
00:34:15
Speaker
So I don't know. Uh, I don't think Lee, I don't think, uh, Lee's cup is long for this world, but MLS seems committed to it. So we'll see. Uh, and then finally the the last piece of news this week is the super draft was held on Friday.
Super Draft Selections
00:34:32
Speaker
The Sounders picked three players, not that you would have known if you weren't online, because the only place that you could see this was a ticker. They weren't even streaming it this year. It was just a ticker that was on the league website. ah But the Sounders took three players. They took midfielder Ryan Baer with the 28th pick. They took defender Damian Alvarez with the 58th pick and then forward Trace Terry with the 76th pick.
00:34:57
Speaker
ah I don't know a lot. I would be lying if I said I knew anything ah aside from what I've been able to quickly pick up from ah the internet and as well as what a couple other folks told me. ah Bear apparently is a number six who played at West Virginia. The Sounders were pretty fond of his ability to cover ground, a tenacious player.
00:35:17
Speaker
ah and you know the The Defiance needed probably someone with a little bit more grit and potentially he's a kind of player who could pair with a Snyder Brunel and be a little bit more of a, of a steel edged player, as they say. ah Alvarez is someone who might be, you might be familiar with, if you're a big fan of the local soccer scene, he was the wack defender of the year and his senior year at Seattle U last year. He also played for at least two, if not three seasons at Ballard FC. And in fact, he started.
00:35:47
Speaker
He was ah he was the center back partner for ah Leo Bernie, who is just got signed to a center's homegoing contract, so they should know each other pretty well. Again, probably going to be playing at Defiance, although maybe that's where Leo Bernie is going to be playing, too.
00:36:02
Speaker
Uh, you know, you have potentially a nice little, it'll be interesting to see how much Stuart Hawkins ends up there too, but we don't need to we'll get into the whole defiance thing right now. Uh, and then the other one was this Tracy, he was a junior at Bowling Green. He's a big bodied player, good in the air. He had 12 goals. Uh, the sounders seem to like his physicality, especially, but most likely he's going to return for his senior year, uh, which is similar to the guy they, the other, the guy they, the forward they drafted out of University of Portland last year. Bubba for fun, I think is his name. ah Anyway, he hurt he broke his leg last year during a senior season, but I'm told he's gonna show up with the defiance in preseason. So we'll see how that works out. But basically, Tracy is a draft and follow kind of thing. If you're a hockey fan, that's ah that's a term you should know.
00:36:52
Speaker
Uh, but all three of these guys, I would assume are going to be primarily focused on getting in with defiance. The centers have not signed a draft pick to their first team since Alex rolled on in 2018. Uh, Kalani Kosa Rienzi came pretty close to breaking into the first team last year and who knows he might make it this year. So that would sort of break the super draft curse, but the centers do not sign players out of the draft to their first team almost at all anymore. Uh, but.
00:37:22
Speaker
That doesn't mean that they can't do it in the future. They will probably be offered, I would imagine, defiance contracts and they do well. Who knows? All right. Well, ah that's that. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's been listening. I haven't done a lot of these sound bites episodes during the second half of the season. Part of that was because once Lobbying Scorchers joined the network, I just didn't feel compelled to add a lot more content and I got a lot more a lot busier writing, but I'm going to try to bring this back at least for parts of the preseason and offseason. I'll probably do it a little bit more earlier in the year as well. And I just want to say thank you to everyone who's been a subscriber this year. You know, we are closing the books on 2024 and Sandra Hart's in a great place right now, but frankly. You know, we have about 2,600 paid subscribers. ah We have grown pretty rapidly.
00:38:17
Speaker
Even you know from last year, I almost think we've picked up about 1000 subscribers over the course of this year. Been blowing me away, frankly. It's been really, really satisfying. But at the same time,
00:38:28
Speaker
You know, the only way that we're able to keep doing this is if we keep people renew, if we get new subscribers. And if you're listening to this, it probably means that you are already a paid subscriber. So I want to say thank you to making this possible. I want to encourage you to renew whenever that might be. And if you want to, you know, we are still five days away from Christmas. And if you want to give ah the gift of a cylinder heart,
00:38:53
Speaker
membership to the person that you love in your life i just go to the the merch table that is on sounder heart just go there's a top nav bar one of them says shop i believe and you click on that and there's a link to buying a a gift membership for someone if that's something you're inclined to do. If you want to increase your membership, I believe that's something that we can figure out how to help you with. So anyway, I just want to say thank you to everyone. I want to say thank you to our sponsor, Full Pull Wines. And if you know anyone that wants to sponsor sound or art content, you know, have them get in touch with me.
00:39:28
Speaker
I would love to hear from him. But anyway, ah thank you so much. This will probably be the last sound bite that we do of the year. i I don't know what would compel me to come back. That wouldn't also justify us doing a full nosada yet this episode. So anyway, thank you for listening. I am Jeremiah Shan, signing off for the Sounder at Heart podcast network. And ah thanks to Likit for producing this. We'll catch you next time.
00:40:34
Speaker
one