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Nos Audietis, Episode 249: Ties are pretty frustrating
57 Plays8 years ago
We're now five games into the 2017 season and the Seattle Sounders' offense still hasn't hit its stride. Sure, there was a three-goal outburst against the New York Red Bulls, but after a pair of ties in which the Sounders only scored one goal, it's fair to at least ask if there aren't more systematic problems.
With FourFourTwo's Richard Farley joining us, we decided that the struggles aren't anything worth losing sleep over quite yet. After solving all the Sounders' problems, we moved on to some more general soccer talk including the 2026 World Cup bid and various Champions League goings on.
Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you're looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsor Highlight
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Nos Adieres is sponsored by Full Pool Wines. Full Pool Wines are based in Seattle, owned and operated by Sanders fans, and have been sponsoring Nos Adieres since 2011. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest. Their model is simple. One, they email compelling offers.
00:00:23
Speaker
Two, you request bottles that sound appealing. And three, your wine arrives at their soda warehouse and is ready for pickup or shipping. Their soda tasting room is also open to the public. If you're interested in joining their mailing list or learning more about them, visit fullpaulwines.com.
Sounders' Recent Performances
00:00:42
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.
00:01:07
Speaker
the bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle and the hills the greenest green in Seattle like a beautiful
00:01:22
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of NOS Adietes, sponsored by Pull Pull Alliance, Constellation & Company, Queen Anne Acupuncture, Verity Credit Union, Designers Marble, and our broadcast partner, Boostrat Burst Studios. This is episode 249 and we're recording on Wednesday, April 12th, 2017. I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan, and I'm joined by my co-host, Aaron Campo. Also joining us is 442's Richard Farley.
00:01:42
Speaker
So the Sounders are coming off a pair of frustrating results. A pair of ties at one at home against Atlanta and last week's road tie against San Jose where the Sounders still haven't won in the regular season since 2010. The results were frustrating for very different reasons though. The Sounders I thought were by far the better team against Atlanta but simply couldn't find the back of the net.
00:02:01
Speaker
Last week's tie was probably deserved on the whole, but after Nico Lidero scored an absolute go lasso in the 84th minute, it seemed like the Sounders were going to steal a couple points. Of course, a few minutes later, Chris Wanolowski somehow
Scoring Challenges for the Sounders
00:02:12
Speaker
found himself all alone at the back post, and he kneed in a volley, his 11th goal in 18 games against the Sounders. This leaves the Sounders with one win, one loss, and three ties. Three ties, which it took them 21 games to accomplish last year, which is just kind of a random-ass stat.
00:02:31
Speaker
But, Aaron, it's not a great start by any stretch, but only one loss in five games, been, you know, tilted towards a road-heavy start. Is this reason for worry, or is this just kind of working out the kinks early in the season? I think it's most likely just working out the kinks early in the season, but I don't know. I had some serious concerns about
00:02:56
Speaker
how this team was gonna score goals, which sounds crazy with Jordan Morris and Clint Nebse and Niko Ledero, but, you know, they, I don't know, they just, they haven't really looked all that electric so far, aside from the Red Bulls game. And, you know, it's tempting to say that, you know, they're gonna figure it out and the goals will come and the Red Bulls game was just sort of like a, you know,
00:03:23
Speaker
sign the things to come and that they'll get there. But it just, I don't know, it reminds me a lot of the 2013 and 2015 seasons when there was a ton of talent on this team that just for whatever reason could not consistently put it together. So it's far too early to be worried, I think. But
00:03:44
Speaker
The Atlanta game in particular was really frustrating for me because there's no reason they shouldn't have scored a couple goals. And in a small sample size, there's a lot of luck involved and I think everybody understands that. But if you were worried about how the Sounders were going to score goals going into the year, I haven't really seen anything out of this team aside from that one game against New York that has eased those concerns.
Analysis of Sounders' Inconsistency
00:04:09
Speaker
So Richard, one of the reasons we like to bring you on here is you have a little bit more of a detached view of the Sounders. You don't quite have the rooting interest that Aaron and I have. I don't know, Niko Lajero, Clint Dempsey, neither one of them are playing lights out, but I don't... I mean, Niko Lajero, weirdly, I thought had his worst game up until the Golosso against San Jose, but somehow I find some encouragement in that in that, you know, in the years past, Sounders haven't been able to get results when they weren't playing well.
00:04:37
Speaker
I don't know. How do you come at it? Or Clinton Dempsey? Is there something really to be worried about here? I don't think there's anything to be worried about. And I don't think there's anything particularly to be excited about either. When I look at how the Sounders have played, I think they've only had maybe one really bad game and one really good game, too. I would say the bad game would be Houston and the good game would be New York. And everything else has been kind of like this is reasonable play for this point of the season, particularly given how much shuffling has had to happen in the back.
00:05:06
Speaker
I think a lot of people, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, are showing some consternation with Clint Dempsey. The consternation basically being he hasn't really been that good yet. Like Aaron was saying, the attack doesn't look that good. But it seems like every time over the last couple years I come on the show, we end up getting to the point of the conversation where we have to keep reiterating Clint Dempsey is streaky. Clint Dempsey is streaky.
00:05:28
Speaker
you have to take the high points like during those four games right after Nico joined the team last year with the low points, which is now.
Strategies for Improving Sounders' Attack
00:05:35
Speaker
So if maybe he couldn't see wasn't effective with the national team, I would be a little bit worried, but he clearly still has the ability to be effective. I think they're just in early season mode, but to kind of build off what Aaron is saying, you know, if, if you don't take for granted that Jordan Morris is kind of going to be a huge goal scorer, which in reality, we don't have a lot of proof that he is, we have a lot of proof that he can be a
00:05:58
Speaker
you know, a very good low teens goal score in this league, but not an illegal score. If you don't cast him as an elite goal score, then I think you really do have to ask where the goals are going to come from. And at this point with Nico being in, um, I wouldn't say ineffective, but just not an MVP level player at this point. And Clint Dempsey at an, at an Ebb of his kind of up and down cycle. I kind of agree with Aaron that you look at the team and you go, if Clint's not clicking, can, can we outscore teams?
00:06:27
Speaker
yeah and i think that there's probably some some fair i think that's fair uh... i i don't think that this is a team that looks like right now that it's going to go out and outscore people but at the same time you know i look at the way joven jones plays when he's doing well and that looks like someone who is i mean he's absolutely electric for the first three games of the season he hasn't been quite the same the last two uh... and i think we can explain away
00:06:52
Speaker
at least the Atlanta game because he was coming off of playing, he was playing his fourth game in 13 days, I think it was. But, you know, even a guy like Harry Ship, I've been really encouraged by what I've seen from Ship. I mean, I think he's getting himself into all the right spots. He shows some great movement. He's a good linking player in the offense. I don't know that he's going to score 10 goals, but I think it's reasonable to expect five, six goals from someone like him. That said,
00:07:20
Speaker
I guess that's also the one position that the Sounders could maybe look to upgrade is bringing in a left mid. They've been linked to Durlis Gonzalez, who's a young Paraguayan player, 23 years old. I don't know how much we want to dig into him as a player specifically, but I don't know, are you feeling like the Sounders need to add someone sooner than later, or are you once again ready to wait till the summer if that's what it takes, Aaron?
00:07:49
Speaker
I think it's worth waiting to the summer for reasons we've talked about a lot on the show. I mean, to be clear, you know, I have some concerns about the Sounders attack, but they're more of, you know, is the attack going to be good enough to be support or shield contender, right? Not, is the attack going to be good enough to get into the playoffs? And, you know, if they can get a player of that caliber,
00:08:12
Speaker
Think that they definitely should I mean, I think it's definitely gonna help to have another dimension to the attack You know as much as I love Harry ship, I think he's been really good I think he's been a great pickup so far But I mean, there's just so many players on this team that operate in the same space and he's another one He's not a true out and out winger and I think that's that's caused some problems at times this year You know, there's it's a lot like what we saw you know with point Nova at times where it's just
00:08:41
Speaker
Everybody wants the ball in that same little pocket of space. And if Joe and Jones isn't there providing any width, they can get really congested. So if they can get more of a classical winger that can stretch the game, maybe add a little bit more direct play, I think that would be a huge addition. And if it's somebody of the caliber of Carlos Gonzalez, all the better.
00:09:05
Speaker
But I don't think it's something they have to do right away. I mean, I don't think there's any need to hit the panic button if they're gonna do something before This window closes, which is pretty soon as far as I know.
Sounders’ Defensive Performance
00:09:17
Speaker
Well, it's actually I think it's made something. Okay. Well, they've got they've got time then so I I would be more interested in maybe another attacking option off the bench You know will ruin is has done what you would expect him to do and I think he's a solid addition but
00:09:33
Speaker
I don't feel like there's a really dynamic player that they can bring off the mention. It doesn't have to be somebody that, you know, is a starting caliber player, but just, again, somebody that can provide something a little bit different that can, you know, be a little more direct, that can help to stretch the field. They just, they really don't have the quality there to help do that. COVID getting healthy might help a bit there, but I'd be more concerned, you know, in this window with trying to patch some of the
00:10:03
Speaker
the holes in the back end and trying to make a big splashy signing, you know, unless the salary cap or the sorry, the yeah, I guess the salary cap and the TAM situation isn't a huge concern and they can get the guy that they want right now and they're not worried about it. That's great. You know, they know the books a lot better than I do. But I'm assuming that they would prefer to wait and I think that's fine.
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, May 8th is the transfer window, so they have about three weeks or so to get a signing in. So the offense is what it is. I guess if there is one area for real
00:10:41
Speaker
positivity, it's that this defense, I think, even though they have given up, they only have one shutout in five games, they've given up probably more goals than they would have, they've given up six goals in five games, which isn't a bad total. But they've done this with a total makeshift back line against Atlanta, they were starting Jordy Dellum, which is someone who I would have, if I had to guess one guy on this roster who wasn't gonna see the field this year, I think Jordy Dellum probably would have been very high on my
00:11:12
Speaker
on my list. But Jordy Dellum starts at right back. Gustav Svensson finds out right before the game that he's gonna be starting in place at Chad Marshall. He starts next to Tony Alfaro. And then, of course, Jovan Jones plays at left back. But they've moved, they've used, I think, five different right backs, four different right backs. They've used Jordy Dellum. If you count Christian Roldan, they've used Gustav Svensson there, and they've used O'Neal Fisher. They've used four different center backs.
00:11:39
Speaker
And, you know, they've still been pretty good in the back. And I think a part of that is obviously Osvaldo Alonzo and Christian O'Donnell have both been very good. But, you know, I know you when you look at that defense, Richard, are we being am I being too kind? But to me, it feels like once they can settle in, this defense could be very good.
00:12:00
Speaker
yeah i don't think you're being too kind i think you're being fair there uh... and i think we have somebody that's playing as well as also a lot so it makes it very difficult for teens to kind of dictated as much as a bit of the tempos they want to even with seattle's able to uh... pose a threat going the other way it's really hard for teens to consistently threatened seattle no matter what the back for is like as long as i saw the ones was playing to the level he's out right now you know watching these last couple of eight games i've possible times to think about
00:12:29
Speaker
you know what what our perceptions were of Osvaldo Alonso uh... eighteen months ago twenty four months ago when it looked like you know this guy isn't really worthy of being a designated player maybe they're going to have to trade him maybe all the miles that are on him right now maybe they've taken its toll on Osvaldo Alonso uh... isn't the Osvaldo Alonso that he's going to be but you know i think this year you guys have talked a lot about Jovan Jones and rightfully so but for me Osvaldo Alonso has been really great and
00:12:58
Speaker
Even in a way that he wasn't great at the beginning of last year because at the beginning last year He had a couple of stinker games and he eventually got that out of his system But I can't really remember the last time I thought Osvaldo Alonzo really had a stinker game and Like you're kind of alluding to with all the shake-ups in the back line. It really does kind of paper over a lot of cracks I think to like, you know step and fry had a couple of that has had a couple of bad moments that I I wouldn't bet on being repeated a lot this year too, so even amongst the players that have been there maybe
00:13:26
Speaker
There's still a slight room for improvement Yeah, and I and I think that that's that's part of what I'm I guess that's part of my point is that you know Roman Torres I think has been Objectively bad probably for most of his his time But but gusta sentin has come in and like I don't know He might be the best center back that that Sanders have right now, which is crazy to say
Balancing Sounders' Lineup
00:13:48
Speaker
I don't know Maybe he's not better than Chad Marshall, but he's been you know, I
00:13:52
Speaker
He's been great. I've been blown away at how good Svensson's been so far. Yeah, it's really difficult because Vermont Torres was a huge part of the Sounders success on the stretch last year. And I don't think there's any reason to think that a handful of games early in the season are more indicative than the rest of his career in terms of the quality he brings.
00:14:13
Speaker
It's just hard to take Svensson out of the lineup as far as I'm concerned. I mean, I guess that he has some fault for Wanda Lowski's goal, but who doesn't really, to be fair. I'm inclined. I mean, that's one of those ones where he slips on the play, but I think you could probably put a little bit of blame on Harry Shipp for not closing down the crosser a little bit better.
00:14:34
Speaker
I think you can probably put a little bit on Jordy Dellum for not really being anywhere near the back post. He kind of got pulled away. Svensson though, slips, and maybe Svensson's supposed to be marking WandaLawski a little bit closer, but he slips. If he doesn't slip, he probably is able to clear that cross. But at the same time, I kind of feel like Chris WandaLawski finds himself open at the back post a lot. He had done absolutely nothing in that game.
00:15:03
Speaker
The Sounders had limited him to no shots. I think he only had 20 touches or something like that. None of those touches were dangerous. And he had basically been taken totally out of the game until the 90th minute and then all of a sudden, you know, he hits a ball off his knee.
00:15:21
Speaker
that's the other thing it's like this this cross just comes blazing in he's got no any any he just gets a knee to it and he puts it in like yeah he beats the fry easily uh but i don't know sometimes you just kind of tip your hat 18 goals and 30 games because the senders is kind of hard to believe though
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think too that, I mean, if anything is to blame for that goal, it's just the conservative approach that the Sounders took after they scored. And it will always drive you crazy. Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And it should be said that Schmetzer claimed that that was not the plan at all, that the Sounders basically got sucked into playing the wrong defense. I don't know. Maybe that's just a mental thing.
00:16:09
Speaker
Yeah, it was very frustrating. They were so good in the second half about pushing the tempo, about kind of dictating the pace of the game. I thought that the goal itself came out of... He hits it through three guys who are standing right in front of him, and then there's like five other defenders right behind them. Somehow he...
00:16:33
Speaker
spines the back of the net on an unbelievable hit. But the sounders, the whole play was generated when they had been on a foul that they had just been pressuring San Jose relentlessly for. So I thought that they kind of deserved the goal in the run of play just based on that. And then to just kind of let San Jose essentially keep crossing balls in was crazy.
00:16:59
Speaker
But, so I was, one of the things about the, you're talking about Osvaldo Alonso and Christian Roldan, one of the things that jumped out at me, you look at their defensive chalkboards, and if you could take them both, they had something like 35 defensive actions between
Player Development: Henry Wingo
00:17:17
Speaker
them. They were all over the field. Christian Roldan moves over to right back for a second straight game. I kinda like that.
00:17:24
Speaker
I don't know. I was surprised at how many people were kind of questioning moving. I guess it was Christian Roldan who was nowhere to be seen on the right back at that time goal. But I don't know. I think that's kind of a neat thing to be able to do is to bring on another kind of attacking player and keep Roldan on. Yeah, I'm not opposed to it. I mean, I think there's a downside and I think we maybe kind of saw that a little bit.
00:17:50
Speaker
You know, if you need a goal, I mean, and he's one of your better players and he can go 90 minutes, I think every week. So, you know, it's maybe a little tougher once Evans gets back to make that decision. But, you know, when right back, I think is clearly the weakest spot on the team. I think it makes a lot of sense.
00:18:10
Speaker
depending on how long Torres is out you know you've got a situation where you can start Svensson right back and you know and slide him over to center back and it just gives you a lot of flexibility which is nice and that's I mean there there aren't a ton of inspiring attacking options on the bench but in terms of
00:18:29
Speaker
the kind of flexibility to move pieces around here and there. This team has, you know, with players like Flacco, with players like Smithson, they can play multiple positions pretty well. You know, it really helps a lot. And Rolldown is, you know, he can play on the wing, we know that. And he's done pretty well there. He's obviously a great central midfielder and him, you know, being able to play right back is a pretty nice bonus. I guess now thinking about it, Henry Wingo is probably the guy on the center's bench who is potentially that pace changing
00:18:59
Speaker
option but uh one of the things i think that we saw in the atlanta game and it was driving me absolutely crazy as you could see like tyro mirrors every time henry and wingo got the ball in the wing tyro mirrors was backing off backing off backing off and just basically daring wingo to really make a run at him and every single time wingo would stop short and thrown across and i was just dying to see wingo really just attack that wing in a way that you know the sounders haven't that's one thing that we have not seen the sounders do at all
00:19:28
Speaker
other than when Jones has done it, they just haven't really been capable of really crashing in from the wing, attacking, and forcing the defense to collapse a little bit.
Sounders' Season Wrap-up
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that, you know, Wingo is, he shows a lot of promise and he definitely does help. He does bring a dimension that they don't really have otherwise. But it's always, you know, with players that young, I mean, it just always takes some time to
00:20:00
Speaker
I think really feel good about them and let's say just come out gangbusters. But, you know, I think I mean, it's it's good that he's getting a chance to show what he can do. And that's that's something that hasn't always been the case, I think with with players of of maybe his caliber. And, you know, I think he's responded pretty well. I mean, he hasn't been great by any stretch, but he doesn't look lost. He doesn't look like like he's out of place. And you can definitely tell, you know, that he impacts the game when he comes on. So
00:20:27
Speaker
You know, it's and again, I think having a player like Rolled On that can allow you to bring on another attacker without just totally destroying your defense, neutering your defenses is a really nice thing to have. All right. Well, I think that's probably a good place to call it a segment. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about the recently announced U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid for the 2026 World Cup.
Richard Farley's Surgery and Recovery
00:20:49
Speaker
We're going to talk about some other stuff in MLS and World Soccer. You're listening to Nos Adiades.
00:20:59
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:22:44
Speaker
Welcome back to Nos Adiete. So we're kind of playing around with this new format where we talk about kind of general soccer stuff every other week in this middle segment.
00:22:54
Speaker
and hopefully, I don't know, maybe we'll just keep bringing Richard on every week. I've got nothing else to do. Right, exactly. When we start off this way, Richard, why don't you tell us why you don't have anything else to do right now? Because I'm convalescing after knee surgery. I had knee surgery 10 days ago and I will be out of bed rest for three or four more days.
00:23:17
Speaker
If I sound a little different than I do on most podcasts because I haven't actually been able to set up my mic I'm just sitting here in bed with my laptop on my lap and Talking into my laptop. So yeah, I'm a lady coming by every couple weeks putting two by fours between your feet and no
00:23:38
Speaker
No, I'm here alone. I had a friend come over a couple days after surgery and she brought me a pizza. What we discovered was that it's really hard for me to even sit up and talk to somebody because I tore my patella tendon. It got separated from my kneecap and had to be reattached.
00:23:54
Speaker
Gross. Jesus. So my leg has to be perfectly straight for these two weeks for that kind of bond to set in. So if I'm sitting in a chair, I have to sit at the very end of the chair because the second you start going back in the chair, you have to actually bend your knee because that's just how your thigh works. So if I'm sitting in a chair, if anybody is sitting in a chair at the very end of it, the way you sit, you'll cut off your circulation to your legs in a couple of minutes just because you're sitting right on your pressure point in your back.
00:24:24
Speaker
So we discovered quickly that unless somebody wants to come over like lying next to me in bed and watch movies, I can't even hang out with anybody. So yeah, I've just been here. It's not that bad. I can get up around on crutches and stuff like that. The only thing really is that I need to stay in bed as much as possible for this to heal. Yeah. So that was the real reason we had you on the podcast was basically because we felt sorry for you.
00:24:47
Speaker
I can go into the gory story of how it happened if you want. Yeah, why don't, you know, we got time. Why don't you tell us? I need clearance from Aaron before I go into the story. No, that's fine.
00:24:59
Speaker
So two Sundays ago the Portland Thorns were having their preseason tournament here and I was going down the stairs there's like three sets of stairs in my apartment building and I was at the next to last stair at the bottom but I was wearing these boots because it was raining outside and I guess I just didn't feel my footing correctly and I hit the stair like half on half off
00:25:21
Speaker
And obviously, when you're walking downstairs, you shift your weight from right to left. So my weight was on that foot. And so my toe went down and into the stair in front of me. And then I lost balance at the same time. So all my weight shifted onto my right knee. And my knee pronated out and popped my patella tendon at that point. Yeah, I could physically hear it pop. So were you in a ton of pain, or is it like you almost blackout kind of thing?
00:25:49
Speaker
Well, the pain was terrible instantaneously, but then your body kicks in and it starts rushing all these blood cells to it. I actually got up and was able to walk for a little bit and I actually started going down the stairs outside my building because I thought, okay, well, maybe it's not as bad as I thought, and I slipped again and had to go back up the stairs on my one good leg.
00:26:11
Speaker
But by the time I had called my insurance company and their 24-hour nurse line and they recommended me go to the ER, by the time I got to the stairs again, I couldn't go down the stairs again. I got down one stair and then I couldn't move my right leg anymore. So they actually had to call the paramedics at that point to come and help me down the stairs. You went to the hospital in an ambulance.
00:26:31
Speaker
Yeah, that was the first time in my life I've ever been in an ambulance. So they took me to the hospital ambulance and people have seen this picture on Instagram. By the time I actually got down to the ambulance, my leg was so swollen that they had to cut off my jeans to look at my knee and then they cut off the leg from the other
00:26:50
Speaker
leg so they could compare the two and it really was like This wasn't the size of a grapefruit. This was like the size of a honeydew my knee at that point and then yeah, so I went to the ER spent four or five hours in the ER and the next day I went to the orthopedist and They scheduled me for surgery but four days later Wow
00:27:11
Speaker
Quite the tail there. I've got like a four and a half inch long scar on my knee right now. So if you want to help out Richard, you can send him food, I guess, delivered. Oh man, I had a horror story with the food today. I ordered Postmates. I was really excited. I always over order with Postmates right now so I can have stock up in the fridge and don't have to keep getting deliveries. And the Postcase guy accepted my order, said it was delivered and never came.
00:27:38
Speaker
so for like two hours here i'm waiting for like my lardo sandwiches and eventually like you know go through the whole process of getting accredited and everything like that and then the next time i order the same thing from lardo and then the guy goes and he said you know three of the things they offer on that menu aren't even available anymore so i had a pain
00:27:54
Speaker
I ended up paying $20 after the delivery fee for this one sandwich. But it got me to thinking, why did that first guy accept the order and say it was delivered if like three of the things I ordered wasn't even on the menu? Because it's not like he gets any kind of...
00:28:10
Speaker
money out of it. I mean, I got all my money refunded and Postmates isn't going to give him anything. So, oh well. So basically he just lied about. He also lied and said that it was actually delivered too because for a while I was like, well, maybe he got into a car accident or something. Maybe something happened to him. But no, this guy came in from Postmates or works with Postmates, said my meal was delivered and it clearly wasn't. It's not like I was out of the house at the time he came by. Right.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yeah, because you know you were there because you haven't gone anywhere in weeks. Yeah, exactly. I haven't actually been outside in 11 days at this point. Dude, you must be smelling so good. Well, actually, I do smell pretty good. I am able to bathe myself, but I think the weirdest thing is that I haven't actually
00:28:56
Speaker
wash my hair in three weeks because I can't get in the shower with my bandages on so right now my hair the length of it I think if I pull down my bangs it actually goes to my upper lip but it's all just like if I twist it a couple times I'll have a dreadlock for four weeks.
00:29:10
Speaker
You should do that. That's how you should pass the time. I think that's the way you should roll into the press boxes, dreaded Richard. I miss going to the press box, too. I think I told you, Jeremiah, that the Atlanta game, it would just really kind of kill me, because that would have been a perfect weekend for me, because Atlanta played on Friday, and then Portland played down here on Sunday. So I wouldn't even have the day in between to watch most of the MLS games without being at a venue. And I was recovering from surgery. Well, seven minutes later,
00:29:39
Speaker
Let's talk about the 2026 World Cup bid.
North American 2026 World Cup Bid
00:29:43
Speaker
In case you haven't heard too much about it, the US, Canada, and Mexico are going in on this thing together, but it's all intents and purposes. It's really a US bid. 60 of the 80 games will be in the United States. All the games after I think the run of 16 will be in the United States. So most of the glory parts of the
00:30:04
Speaker
of the World Cup will still be here. 60 games is only a couple, I think 64 is in what is a normal tournament now. So it's not even that different from hosting a 32 team tournament. That said, I thought Richard had a very interesting analogy of this being announced in 2017, nine full years ahead of the actual tournament.
00:30:32
Speaker
Yeah, and it's three years ahead of when they are supposed to, well, they were originally supposed to announce the winner of the bid too. So we're getting all excited when there could be a couple of years of, you know, late bids coming in. But the analogy I said is like, this is somebody walking onto campus for freshman orientation and declaring they want to run for senior class president.
00:30:52
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I guess this is an advantage for you, but it's just kind of annoying and it seems excessive. And I said this before the show, it makes us seem like where the Reese Witherspoon character from Election is like, yeah, maybe we deserve it, but it's not gonna feel really good voting for us if we're just this eager about something. Yeah, and I guess the...
00:31:15
Speaker
I was reading something that this is part of their strategy, that they're trying to basically get this locked up before it gets into the FIFA process, so don't give anyone else a chance to even bid against them, and to have this overwhelmingly great bid that's basically a
00:31:36
Speaker
that's key ready what's the what's the saying when you turn a house turn key ready thank you just turn key yeah turn key ready just turn key turn key thank you there you go it's turn it's a turnkey tournament they can just throw the lights on and host this amazing tournament
00:31:56
Speaker
And I guess that would be great, but one of the downsides of this, and I kind of caught myself, I've been wrapped up and looking at it from a Seattle angle, and we did this whole breakdown of the hype video where they show a clip of Seattle, they show a bunch of clips of British Columbia, kind of implying that these are cities that are going to be parts of the bid. But then you think about it for a second,
00:32:23
Speaker
And nine years from now, the landscape of what all these stadiums around the country are going to look like is going to be totally different. You know, Las Vegas is going to have a brand new NFL stadium. Maybe they all of a sudden become an interesting bit. San Diego might have an NFL stadium.
00:32:38
Speaker
Los Angeles is obviously going to have an NFL stadium by then that isn't there right now. So there's all these stadiums that you think of today as being relatively state of the art. Jerry World in Dallas, even CenturyLink Field, which isn't necessarily state of the art.
00:32:56
Speaker
you know, in nine years, it's actually gonna be a pretty old stadium. I mean, is there any point at all, Aaron, in thinking about this tournament right now, or should we just be like, okay, so we did it, and when you guys actually put something together, then we can talk about it?
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think that that's the way to go. And the US is pretty big. It's a pretty big country. It is. And unlike a lot of countries that are really big geographically, like Russia, for example, there's not... I mean, the populations are heavier on the coast, but it's not like there's just a big swath of nothingness. And then you throw in... Well, it's up for debate.
00:33:38
Speaker
Come on now. That's the worst coastal elite attitude, isn't it? It is. It really is. That's okay. That's okay. Then you throw in Canada and Mexico as well. There's a ton of choice and a lot can happen in nine years, I guess it is.
00:33:59
Speaker
you know, in terms of stadiums being developed, cities not existing anymore, which is a, you know, distinct possibility. Yeah, who knows Miami might not even exist. Yeah, exactly. There might be seven more Flint, Michigan's by that time. Yeah, right. Exactly. You know, so, yeah, I mean, who knows what it's gonna look like. But I mean, the odds are that the infrastructure is going to be there. And it is going to be turnkey, no matter what.
00:34:25
Speaker
I think it's a shame that most of it's going to be in the U.S. or all of it's going to be in the U.S. after the quarterfinals. I think a semifinal or a final at Azteco would be pretty awesome, but I also understand that the U.S. is probably the big draw here. Having it be a three-country thing, sort of a North American World Cup,
00:34:49
Speaker
kind of I think makes it cooler makes it a better bid but I mean really the US is the big draw and I think ever since you know Kotter and Russia were awarded the World Cups the the sort of the assumption has been that in 2026 it was going to be in the US and
00:35:07
Speaker
Um, you know, and at that time, I mean, a lot changed since then too. So, you know, but I think the odds are pretty good that there's going to be a game or two in Seattle, um, or more than that, most likely since they'll probably get, you know, most of, most of a group. Um.
00:35:23
Speaker
There are going to be lots of games in LA, lots of games in New York, lots of games in Chicago. So outside of that, though, who knows? MLS might have two or three, four, 12 more teams, depending on how they go about it. And maybe there's a huge untapped soccer market out there in one of those cities. But it's exciting. I think it's almost certain that that's going to be the winning bid.
00:35:51
Speaker
you know, CONCACAF kind of feels like they're owed a little bit something. And depending on how 2018 and 2022 go, that might be even more apparent. So yeah, but it's just, it's out there now. And I kind of don't really want to put a lot of energy into thinking about it until 2024. That said, Richard, do you have any grand predictions for 2026? Other than the fact that, you know, the US is going to host the World Cup. No, not
00:36:22
Speaker
not really i mean you know realistically i think the most competitive it would be something like a uh... pan-west african bid uh... i think i would be a really cool to have it out like dot and camera and uh... quote of our country for posting that tournament and i think that uh... realistically that would probably
00:36:40
Speaker
know, for me at least be more interesting than a fourth World Cup in North America. You know, I think the Federation even put out some numbers about how every Confederation has had the World Cup at least once since the US hosted it in 94. But that kind of ignores the fact that Mexico had two World Cups before that and Africa's only had one World Cup ever. So
00:37:04
Speaker
I also just think, you know, I think it's not really worth getting networked up about for me because there's like a lot of political and identity issues here that I tend to get very excited about. But ultimately, if the US has the World Cup in 2026, even if Mexico and Canada maybe could have more games, it's still going to be a very good World Cup. I think some of the thought processes that people are going through in assessing this are weird because
00:37:24
Speaker
this whole idea of like a turnkey tournament. I'm not sure that FIFA and the executive committee have cared about that or even the entire council have cared about that since Germany. So the idea that that's like a big plus is like, yeah, kind of like in an objective world, that's a big plus, but really from tournament to tournament,
00:37:41
Speaker
this committee can decide what they want to be its priority. And if they decide suddenly that their priority is continuing to take the tournament to places where it hasn't been before, which is pretty much what has happened in three of the last four tournaments, then a West Africa bid becomes suddenly much more viable than we're thinking. So I just think that we end up being very insular in our thinking about these things. But ultimately, I'm not going to really get too worked up about that this time, because it does look like the US is going to, unless something drastic happens.
00:38:10
Speaker
end up winning this one.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah, and it's a good point about the turnkey nature of this, is that for as much as we may say objective, like you said, objectively, it looks great, the reality is that the Choosing Committee has shown no care at all about countries building white elephants. You know, you've seen it in South Africa, you've seen it in Brazil, you're gonna see it in Russia, you're gonna see it in Qatar. I also think it's just a weird way of saying, like, being rich is good for being rich's sake.
00:38:43
Speaker
Like, okay, we're rich right now, therefore we are inherently superior. One, you're creating your own standard there. And two, just because you're richer than this other region doesn't mean this other region can't have a very good World Cup. Like I don't have a lot of, even with the white elephant things, I don't have a lot of people still complaining to me about how South Africa was such a terrible World Cup. And if you guys remember the press going into that one, it was terrible about, you know, people were talking about South Africa's murder rate and all this other different garbage.
00:39:10
Speaker
Even the Brazil World Cup, people were rightfully focusing on the social unrest, but also the money that was going into the stadiums for the Olympics and the World Cup. And that tournament ended up being fine, too. So we have a really weird way of thinking about these World Cups, and it's a very insular and arrogant way of thinking about things. And already, I feel like I've said things that I'm going to regret here.
00:39:31
Speaker
And I do largely agree with you, but I think that it's also worth pointing out that things like the Olympics and the World Cup can often be like a huge civic boondoggle. And I mean, a lot of those stadiums in South Africa are just sitting there. The same issue for, you know, and so it's, I mean, I think it's fair to question whether or not, you know, being a wealthy region is enough to really, you know, to justify saying like, well, yeah, you're rich, you should get the World Cup.
00:40:00
Speaker
There's part of me that feels like countries that do have the infrastructure, I would rather see them hosting because they're not spending a lot of public money trying to get ready for it. It's a phoning issue, obviously.
00:40:17
Speaker
And I think that's the reason why I am so pro multi-bid, multi-country bids, because if you force one country to put up so much of its money to get to like an eight or 10 stadium requirement, then it only increases the chances that you have all of this waste. But if you do have like,
00:40:33
Speaker
You know, in some of the smaller regions of the world, like West Africa, if you have each country have two stadiums that can host a match, then all of a sudden you're asking for limited investment from each of those countries to get up to standard. I think the other thing too, you're talking about the investment in Brazil. Between the time Brazil was awarded the Rio Olympics and the time it actually came around,
00:40:53
Speaker
We saw a huge change in Seattle and societal attitudes down there towards both the World Cup and the Olympics. So if we're talking that these this tournament is potentially nine years from now in the United States, it's entirely possible that within those nine years, the attitude towards hosting these big events
00:41:11
Speaker
relative to investing or even spending our time and human capital putting on these events could drastically change, particularly given the way that economic disparities are going in this country.
Champions League Highlights
00:41:26
Speaker
No, that's absolutely true. That said, one other topic that I thought we should get into a little bit is Champions League. There's just been a lot of stuff that's been going on. Big news items on the field. I thought I was kind of blown away by this. I had no idea that this was a thing that was coming up. But Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 99th and 100th goal in UEFA competition or club competition history. Ninety seven of those goals, I guess, have come.
00:41:56
Speaker
in the Champions League proper. It's an amazing figure and it's even more amazing when you consider that his last 50 goals have come in the last 47 games. He is on an absolute tear. He's scoring at a rate that is, frankly, it's unbelievable. I actually compared what Lionel Messi was doing at the same time and
00:42:20
Speaker
And he's also on this unbelievable tear. He has something like 97 goals in 118 matches. But he's got 45 goals in his last 47. I mean, both of these guys are aging really well. And they're scoring at just unbelievable clips. And it's like you're just patting their stats against minnows. They're scoring against big clubs like Bayern Munich and Inter Milan.
00:42:50
Speaker
or whoever else. Inter Milan is not a very big team right now, I guess, but against the Juventus, for instance. I don't know, I thought there was an observation that you made, Richard, that when we kind of really started doing this in earnest about eight years ago, these kind of numbers were just not even something you would think about. Yeah, absolutely. When we first started writing about soccer, the idea of people consistently scoring a goal a game was something from like Alfredo de Stefano's era. I mean, it was just
00:43:19
Speaker
and equated stuff, it would be like looking back at the, you know, well, this, the hit numbers from the golden age of baseball where people were getting regularly getting 260, 270, not regularly, but putting up 260, 270 points a year. It's just like, okay, that's crazy stuff. Um, but now, um,
00:43:39
Speaker
Now we just expect that not only of these two players but it's the standard we measure like Robert Lewandowski and Pierre-Emerick Aubomignon and Antoine Griezmann by. I think the other thing that's really changed, you know, we used to look at these guys as being like taking advantage of a Spanish league in a way that, you know, those two teams had so much
00:43:59
Speaker
talent, and not only that, they were building their whole systems around these two players. So they're not only excellent players, but they have the best players in the world helping them put up these numbers in a league that was really top-heavy in the top two. And I just, I don't think that's the case anymore. You cited the numbers that they have in Champions League, and those are very comparable to their league numbers, but Spain has never been as weak as people have thought, and it's even stronger than it was four or
Dortmund Bus Incident Analysis
00:44:24
Speaker
five years ago. So the fact that they are continuing this level of excellence is just
00:44:29
Speaker
It was literally unfathomable when the three of us started producing soccer content. And then on the other side of Champions League is something that was more off the field than on the field, but was this bus bombing of Dortmund's team bus before Tuesday's game. And what I thought was kind of crazy, and I guess it seemed normal in real time,
00:44:53
Speaker
someone who was removed from it in the comfort of his own home but when you heard everyone talking about it today that the fact that they only delayed the match 20 hours that they I don't know exactly what the thinking was but apparently there was no real conference with Dortmund the the officials in Switzerland basically decided that they would go on the next day and
00:45:15
Speaker
And when you hear, you know, there was a really great interview with a guy named Nuri Saheen who is a Turkish-born German player that is on
00:45:27
Speaker
Or he's German born, but he plays for the Turkish national team. Anyway, he gave this interview in English and he talked really eloquently, I thought, about how he recognized that they come from privilege, that they get paid a lot of money to play soccer, and that they live really great lives. But at the end of the day, their bus got bombed. He saw a teammate be seriously hurt. I guess there was nails in headrests.
00:45:55
Speaker
On their bus. I mean it was really lucky that no one died or at least got very seriously hurt and I yeah, of course that they lost three to two is Pretty predictable and I don't it just seems kind of crazy that they would be asked to play the next day I mean, I just can't really think of what a comparable thing in the United States would have been Yeah, I don't know maybe
00:46:19
Speaker
I mean, I can't think of a comparable thing either. I guess, in my mind, I'm trying to think of double's advocate, why they have them do this. Schedules are very tight this time of year between European competition, but at the same time, I mean,
00:46:35
Speaker
I don't know. Sometimes too, people use sporting events as a way to rally and to distract themselves from tragedy. But it's so rare when the tragedy is done to the team itself.
00:46:51
Speaker
I don't know. It's almost too cool to seem pretty animate that they never wanted to do this. So maybe it's the type of thing that they were like, okay, well, maybe we should just do whatever we can to get life back to normal. But then once the kickoff is there, they're like, no, this was a bad idea. We should not be here right now. So that's the best devil's advocate case. I can come up with it. The realistic scenario is that they could have found some way
00:47:11
Speaker
between working with UEFA and the French league and the German league to reschedule this game somehow, even if they had to move it to a weekend and reschedule a league game for a Friday or Monday down the road. You would think that, given the circumstances, that if Dortmund really didn't want to play this game, that they would have come up with something. Because like you said, this wasn't just a violent event. This was a targeted violent event where the Dortmund team was meant to be the amplifying component of it.
00:47:39
Speaker
That's what really makes this unique. I don't know, Aaron. Or is this overreaction? Is this I have a feeling I know where you're going to fall in this, but I don't want to put any words in your mouth.
00:47:50
Speaker
No, I think it's incredibly shitty to make them go out and play, you know, a day after that happened and to just sort of unilaterally make the decision of, you know, according to Thomas Suchila, it was just a text message, right? Like, well, you're playing tomorrow. I think it's awful. I mean, I think that we've, you know, we've seen games get canceled and postponed for things that are, I think, a lot less likely to have. Weather. Yeah, weather. I mean, and, you know, it's not ideal.
00:48:20
Speaker
But it kind of seems like UEFA is just like, yeah, whatever team, you know, team buses get attacked sometimes, which, you know, that actually is true. But I feel like this was a little different than, you know, somebody throwing a cherry bomb at and opposing teams or rocking the bus or throwing rocks at it or whatever else.
00:48:40
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, there was the thing at Afcon, I think it was in 2011 when the Togo team was attacked. And I'm pretty sure they postponed the games for, you know, all the games for quite a while after that.
00:48:57
Speaker
If I remember correctly, the difference obviously is that a lot of people died, which fortunately didn't happen in this case, but I don't know. I just think it's so unfeeling and lacking in empathy to just be like, well, that sucks, so how does this affect the schedule and just not find some way to...
00:49:19
Speaker
to work through it. And I'm sure they were like, well, you know, one player was hurt, but everybody else was OK. There's no reason they can't play. And that just kind of speaks to a lack of being able to put yourself into their shoes and think about what their mental state must be like. So I don't know. But you wait for the shitty news at 11. Right. It's not exactly shocking.
00:49:39
Speaker
yeah no i i guess that's that's probably a good way of putting it um so uh yeah i guess that that's that's kind of our our uh grab bag segment here uh we're gonna come back we're gonna take a bunch of your questions you're listening to noose
00:50:00
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:50:49
Speaker
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00:51:24
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adietes. So we got some questions. I'll just go ahead and jump right into those. This one's from drone637. If we can get Freddy back next year, do we try? And I guess this is apropos because we're getting ready to play Freddy Montero's Vancouver Whitecaps on Friday. You know, it's...
00:51:47
Speaker
Can't be an unbiased party here. I mean for any Montero is my favorite player ever of all time But I just man his new hairdo is on point. It's good. Yeah, it's so good. It's yeah, it's good I mean, I think that the odds are Dempsey is gonna be back and I think it's just really really difficult to
00:52:09
Speaker
have Clint Dempsey and Freddie Monteiro on the same team taking up DB spots. I just think it's really, it's not great roster construction. I think they could probably find a way to make it work, but it seems unlikely.
00:52:21
Speaker
I wish that weren't the case, and if they did it, I would probably be excited, but I just don't think it's going to happen. I think that this was the chance for him to come back before he is sort of in the Mara Rosales kind of rule.
00:52:42
Speaker
And I'll still be happy when he comes back at that point, and I think that he will, but I think if we were gonna get him in his prime, it was gonna have to be this year.
00:52:53
Speaker
Yeah, I just think with Seattle, we've already identified one of the places where they can improve and that's getting a little bit more production out of the left wing position. I know that everybody is very happy with Harry's ship right now, but I'm going to say that this is still following the same pattern as his last two stops where he got off to a good start and then he just plays decently until the point you realize he's only decent and he's actually a place where you can improve.
00:53:19
Speaker
So the obvious place to spend some of those resources would be on a left wing and then when you start examining some of the other places on the roster where you could potentially need to have to upgrade and as soon as next year, central defense, maybe being one of those places if Roman continues to be injury prone or Chad Marshall shows his age or Antonio Faro doesn't step up, then you're going to want that flexibility elsewhere so I think you probably have to wait until Freddie Monteiro is no longer a designated player, designated
00:53:48
Speaker
player level player. Yeah, I guess I'm gonna echo both of these sentiments is that as currently constructed, it just doesn't make any sense to bring in a 41 Tarot as much as I would like that to not be the case, just because I like watching him play and I'll admit that I've enjoyed watching him play for Vancouver, but hopefully I won't enjoy watching him so much this week.
00:54:13
Speaker
when Karl Robinson elects to play him. Right, yeah, that's been interesting. He seems to really be stuck on playing, on Eric Hurtado playing, and I don't understand that at all. Yeah, if there's one thing that we should know at this point is that Eric Hurtado and goals have never gone together. No. So hoping Eric Hurtado starts on Friday. Bill Jones is wondering, since every other international team has their wallet open, what's our bid for Alexis Sanchez going to be?
00:54:42
Speaker
There's no way that he would come down once, right? No, there's not. Yeah. All right. So this is a little bit more serious question from Bill. While I'm loving our starting attacking lineup, I wonder, do we need more width from Ship and Lidero at times? Yes. I think we do. And it's tricky because Lidero is playing on the right, and he's good on the right. But he's the one that I think it makes sense for him to drift into the middle.
00:55:12
Speaker
And, you know, you've got your nominally more defensive right back on that side because you want Jovan Jones to push up a lot. So it's, it's tricky, but I mean, and I think Harry ship is better when he, when he cuts inside and plays as more of a box to box wide player, but we just, it's, we really, really need some more width. But at the same time, you don't want to put Ladero and Jones on the same side because that's either going to expose you really badly or it's going to prevent Jovan Jones from getting forward as much.
00:55:43
Speaker
I think it's hard to answer this question until you get some consistency as to who's starting it right back. As you alluded, they've started three different players, and they've played four different players at right back. But the theory is the way the team's supposed to set up is that Ledero is supposed to be cutting in underneath Dempsey and Morris, who will stay high in two forwards in the attacking phase. And while Ship does the same on the left side, you have Jovan Jones there, and so that's not a worry at all. Ideally, you would have that balance on the right side by a similar player, but that isn't happening.
00:56:10
Speaker
It's almost as if you have to wait until Brad Evans gets healthy and can be tried there before you really know what you have there. But until that happens, I mean, I'm not sure you want to be telling Nico to stay wide because this whole offense is predicated on Nico getting inside and not having Dempsey have to be so far away from goal that he's not effective. So it's just kind of like a, it's kind of a conundrum right now.
00:56:37
Speaker
So this one is from MJ Smooth. We haven't really had a chance to talk about this, but he's asking about the new CCL qualifying process. And he notes that the Shield winner doesn't get a berth this season or next. And does that make the Open Cup more important? It would if CCL wasn't a piece of shit tournament now that nobody should care about.
00:57:03
Speaker
but they changed it so much that it just, I don't give a shit about it anymore. So, I'm still gonna win the shield. And in case you don't know, what they did is they got rid of the group stage and essentially started with a round of 16. Well, for teams that we would be sending, they would be starting in the round of 16. What do you think of those broader changes, Richard?
00:57:29
Speaker
I mean, I don't like them, but at the same time, I think the number one priority for this tournament is to make it relevant, not just have a good format. I think the format that they had before where they were actually playing four teams in groups rather than three, like they've had the last couple of years, I think probably the three of us would prefer that to what they've had.
00:57:46
Speaker
And now they're just going to this format that just seems to be this kind of like weird compromise, uh, compromise of a bunch of different complaints. But I think the way to make this tournament relevant is honestly to kind of pave the path to MLS winning it, because once MLS wins it, you'll have a whole new market interested in this tournament. And as crappy as it is to say that once that happens, the tournament will be relevant enough to where it can change the format again to something that's decent. So I guess means to an ends.
00:58:14
Speaker
So I have my daughter with me right now, so you'll have to excuse if we get some of that noise. But this is- I know you need to find out that's what that is. Right. Not ghosts. So this is not necessarily really a question. It's more of a comment in the form of a rhetorical question. But it's from Jim Kim, and he says, Freddie Monteiro reminds me of the early Sounders years. How do we win three straight US Open Cups? And how is that not totally crazy?
00:58:44
Speaker
I mean, I don't want to discount it because I think it was a really impressive accomplishment, but we played a ton of games at Starfire. And I think that that made it a little bit easier. But I also think that once you win three straight open cups, you know, go to another final, win another one.
00:59:03
Speaker
Maybe the incentive to play stronger teams isn't there quite as much. And it's also, it's a knockout tournament. You know, you could put your first team out there and lose. So I don't know. I mean, it's an oppressive accomplishment, but there are some mitigating factors there that I think played into it. And I think Starfire is a big one.
00:59:24
Speaker
And, you know, it sucks, but half the teams in MLS didn't care about MLS Cup until the last three or four, I mean, US Open Cup until the last three or four years. So it was a different tournament. The fact that I don't want to say like nobody cared about it in Seattle just walked it. But I mean, it was pretty clear in like the early rounds that, you know, a lot of times teams wouldn't even send their first teams across the country if they got a bad draw. So the tournament has changed.
00:59:48
Speaker
I think it would be really, really hard for people to duplicate what Seattle did with those cups. And, you know, definitely not to take anything away from them, but kind of, you listen to teams talk about it and tying a Champions League berth to this tournament has given a number of teams the incentive, particularly in Kansas City, they really want it to use that route to get into the next competition. And that's a lot different than it was when Seattle started their run of these cups.
01:00:16
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely, you know, you look at the number of, I think there's only three times in the tournament's history that there's been a three-peat in the course of over a hundred years and I think the context of that makes more sense. Is Mommy calling you? I mean, go to Mommy. I'm okay. Okay.
01:00:47
Speaker
This is what people love about Nos Arietes. So this is from Tropic Sounder. Do you think Chad Marshall can carry around Christian Roldan in a baby Bjorn? I think he could, but I'm really not. It would be kind of awkward. Well, potential back problems and also just really creepy. Yeah, it would be. A little bit a masculinity for Christian too.
01:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's not we don't need to do that. There's no reason there's no need for that. Yeah This is from Kurt Olson and he says who has more to prove in Vancouver Dempsey Ladero or Morris Probably probably Morris because he was pretty abject in the last game And I think Ladero and Dempsey are a little more proven just in general
01:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I should try to get at what the point of the question, the point is like, who needs a good game most, right? Because really, I don't think any of these guys have anything to prove right now. But yeah, I guess it's just so early in the season that it's hard to think about it like that. I guess it would be most encouraging for all of these teams involved if Debcy had a good game, because that's the person that
01:02:02
Speaker
You know, like we talked about earlier in the show, so much of Seattle going from a decent attack to one of the lead's best attacks and going from a title contender to a title favorite is predicated on Clint Dempsey being somebody who can score 10 to 14 goals. And he hasn't showed that yet. So Tim Duggan, who goes by Ex Slacker, he wants to know if this episode will seal the the dare list deal or bring a new shiny rumor out of the shadows.
01:02:29
Speaker
I'm going with new shiny rumor just because it feels like the time that rumors start to happen a lot.
01:02:37
Speaker
So how many, you guys have probably been through this a lot going all the way back to, oh wait, who was that guy that was playing for Espanol that got linked to you guys like four or five years ago in the pre-Tiffert signing? I can't remember. Just wanted to figure due, was that him? That sounds right. You guys have been through this enough that you might be able to answer this. How many times is the first rumor actually right with this stuff?
01:03:05
Speaker
I feel like Ledero, well, no, because I guess Blanco predated Ledero. Dempsey was- No, I think Ledero was the first real rumor we had last time. That might be true. Dempsey, I think, was a, I mean, that kind of came out of nowhere, but that's, I mean, I feel like that's kind of the thing is that a lot of the signings just come out of nowhere and people get so hung up on the protracted sagas like we had with Oba.
01:03:34
Speaker
um that you know it's just like that that's the expectation of what it's going to be like but like nelson val does and even shifts came completely out of nowhere um ladera was protracted but it was an advanced enough state that it was kind of just playing out the string i think and that
01:03:54
Speaker
You know Dempsey was was pretty sudden The fact that it's I'm still amazed that they almost pulled off the halftime or the pregame signing announcement of Dempsey They came so It would have been incredible But she's kind of like that is a funny little thing in history that how close they came to To making that actually happen
01:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think also that Clint Dempsey might have changed the way that a lot of people report about rumors around MLS. And, you know, there's kind of like, there's like this cadre of people who are half in the know or in the know for some legitimate people. But, you know, the Clint Dempsey thing was being circulated around in Kansas City at All Star Game. And so people knew it.
01:04:39
Speaker
And so when it really started to happen, you didn't really have that many people debunking the idea that you should be tracking these airplanes. It's like, wow, this is really happening. But nobody really legitimately did the reporting on it until it got to that stage. I think there are a couple of people that tweeted out there, Keith Costigan is still mad at me because I discredited one of his tweets because it was just everything that we all already knew. He was just the person that happened to not have an editor to check him on it.
01:05:08
Speaker
But I think more people now are going that route to when they hear something, they just put it out there and not do the checks on it, which in fairness is probably how they do it everywhere else in the world. Everywhere else in the world, you probably get a byline in the next day's broad sheet. It's probably even worse. But I think so many people whispering about Dempsey in Kansas City that year and then not getting it probably led people to be
01:05:32
Speaker
to report Javi Hernandez to New York Red Bulls when it never happened. I definitely think that the way we think about rumors has changed as well because
01:05:44
Speaker
You look at the Clint Dempsey one, and it did seem so far-fetched. Andy Edwards is the one that probably ends up wearing this the worst, but he wrote this thing. I think Jason Davis may have written something like this, too, where that was basically saying what a ridiculous thing it was that they'd be. I do have my pajamas on. Same here, Evy. Okay. I've got my pajamas on, too. The only thing that'll go over the knee brace.
01:06:17
Speaker
What I was gonna say is that it's like it's harder to just discount rumors now that everything seemed possible especially like guys that you would never think of coming to MLS only coming to MLS but
01:06:28
Speaker
I mean, I think it's a good thing for like listeners out there too. Like if you hear a wild rumor, you might want to, and you have a good relationship with a rioter out there, you might want to send them a DM and ask them if it's true because sometimes the wild rumors are out there. I mean, another good example just happened a few months ago. Like the Landon Donovan thing before, we all saw Lake before it became public. We heard those whispers for two or three weeks before. We just couldn't put our name on it because there wasn't enough actual meat on the bone there to go from just whisper to
01:06:56
Speaker
rumor that we have verified with a legitimate source close enough to the conversation. So if you hear some wild rumor, it might be worth just hitting up your writer of choice and maybe via DM and just like, hey, is there anything to this? And if somebody sent me a DM like that, I would say people are talking about this. It's just I don't know for sure if it's a real thing.
01:07:16
Speaker
All right, so this one is from Jeff Williams. Again, this is kind of more of a rhetorical question, but he says, next time we play San Jose, can someone please tell Wonolowski it's a World Cup game, so he won't score. Hi, Hacks. All right, Tyler Chocks Fired. Do you want to make any guesses at who we think
01:07:38
Speaker
I mean, I don't know, this is maybe getting into the who's gonna host the World Cup thing, but who are your favorites for MLS expansion right now? I feel like we talked about this recently. Uh, well, Phoenix got Dragba, so...
01:07:51
Speaker
That's the most, how ridiculous, like how many, is this gonna be like one of those things where like kind of where the Sounders women had Alex Morgan, Hope Solo, Sidney LaRue. I think he has an ownership. Yeah, he does. It does, but I would just wonder if, cause you know, the way that they had all those players and they were on the roster, but they only played like five games together and they were all home games. Like is Didier Jaba really gonna travel to Starfire?
01:08:19
Speaker
It seems unlikely. I'm also like, is Didier Drogba really going to live in Arizona? I guess that's part of the appeal, though, supposedly, right? I guess. I mean, I don't want to be too judgy about it. I mean, like a lot of people like Phoenix. I don't know. I don't know why I'm being so dismissive of it. It's just because Phoenix is a shithole. But yeah, it's vehemently not for me. Right. Yeah. I mean, I guess golfers and baseball players love spending time in in Phoenix. I don't know why Didier Drogba wants to be there, but
01:08:50
Speaker
I mean, I guess it's from living for 15 years in San Diego, which is kind of like on the same, uh, longitude as Phoenix. It's like, why don't you just move a few hours to the west and be in a place that's like kind of universally considered a paradise.
01:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, I don't, I don't get, I'm definitely Phoenix is one of the markets that I don't see as being a favorite, which is another reason that the Didier Dragwa thing seems so weird. Like they see, like, you know, there's 12 cities out there right now. I feel like they're maybe 10th or 11th, at least on my personal list. And so it's hard for me to see them getting a team, but yeah, I don't see, I don't see it happening for Miami either. Like.
01:09:33
Speaker
Miami is starting to look pretty bad. It's dumb. I would love it if there could be another team in the South, but I just, I don't know where that team is. I hope St. Louis never gets a team ever. So yeah, I don't know. It's kind of wide open, I think. I would say my picks would be San Antonio, San Diego, Carolina, and Miami. Carolina would be really cool.
01:09:59
Speaker
yet i think they're i think the owner of uh... uh... of the right to see who just bought the their women's champions and with the governor he sees pretty committed seems to have the resources and he also seems to have been pretty popular in the community to i mean the reason he ended up buying the and a cell team is just because he was at a dinner one night in the movers and shakers of the town and let him know that there was a team of illa he bought it he's really tried to make it to cover a city institution so
01:10:26
Speaker
I think I would like that. Geographically, it just works out, too. And I think Miami, Jeremiah and I talked about it on a show. The minute David Beckham decides to settle for something that isn't the 100% ideal situation there, they're going to get a team. But the problem is, since he already has that option there, he has no incentive to settle for anything but perfect. So it might end up being a situation just like with the Vergaras and Chivas USA that he might end up holding out to get bought out of this option.
01:10:55
Speaker
Which seems so disheartening. It would also be dumb considering how much MLS franchises are worth. Yeah. So we had a couple questions about Brad Evans coming back. I'll just say that it looks like he was training this week. And so there's a decent chance that he might be on the roster for the Vancouver game. But he still looks like he's a few weeks away from potentially starting.
01:11:23
Speaker
Is it still the calf problem, or is there something else? No, it's the calf. And it's still just kind of, he's on his way back from that, essentially. So this one's from Carl Selvig. He says, the Golosso aside, should we be nervous about Niko's start, or is it just meh? It's April, and MLS, who cares?
01:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I'm more on that that wavelength I mean he He was pretty bad against San Jose, but ever said I it's hard for me to judge any game against San Jose too much because they just They never play well Yeah, well and they hacked the shit out of everybody I mean it just makes it so difficult to have an attractive game that flows well and
01:12:10
Speaker
You know, any game where you're out fouled by like
01:12:14
Speaker
three times as much. And it's happened two weeks in a row for the Sounders, which is kind of frustrating. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know, I think you'll be fine. And I think that part of the issue is that he was so good last year that that kind of set the expectation. And I don't think it's a realistic one. I don't think he's going to be able to play that well over, you know, his entire career as a sounder. So I'm not too worried about it.
01:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think the only reason to maybe be worried is just the World Cup qualification traveling. But that wasn't, that's not really that much different than the traveling he was doing last year. But I think, you know, these Dempsey and Ledero questions are kind of the difference between if Seattle ends up finishing third or fourth in the Western Conference, because I kind of think it's hard to imagine them dipping much lower than that. And if these guys, if these guys click whether they're title favorites, I think no matter what Seattle is going to be a competitive team, it's just a matter of whether they are a dominant team.
01:13:11
Speaker
And I'll add about Dempsey is that the one thing I am encouraged by in terms of his play is that I think we're seeing a level of engagement in his play that we didn't always see last year. And I think that was sometimes what was so frustrating about him last year was that there was just times where it seemed like he checked out.
01:13:29
Speaker
And for whatever you think of his play-by-play performance, you can see that he's animated, that he's doing the things that you would want a player like that to do. And that's good to see. So we'll ask this question, then we'll get to a broader one that we'll finish on. But Tim Hamilton's wondering about her starting lineup predictions.
01:13:55
Speaker
Is there any reason that we think that this is going to like, I guess the big question is that right back, right? Who do we think is going to start? Do you think Fisher gets another game or is it going to be, I guess Jordy Dellum is probably the other option there? I personally don't know. I think it might even be predicated upon whether Tor is going to go, what's his status?
01:14:19
Speaker
Torres is out. Well, he's officially listed as day to day, but there was a Panamanian reporter who said that he looked like he was going to be out for a couple of weeks. So that pretty much eliminates, I mean, I guess it's still possible that Spenson moves out to write back in Alfaro. He could do that. Yeah, but I guess they certainly could. I guess it's best to assume Spenson starts in the middle and then one of those other two options. To me, it kind of doesn't matter. They're both, I mean, I would probably start Fisher, but I can see arguments both ways.
01:14:45
Speaker
whoever starts, I'm gonna trust that Schmetzer has seen far more in practice that is convincing than the limited amount I've seen these guys play with Seattle's best 11. Yeah, and I think Fisher has the most upside of any of the options. He's still young enough that maybe he just needs an extended look. I guess you could make an argument that there's upside in starting off Arrow as well, and that maybe that's a,
01:15:13
Speaker
a bigger place to see what you've got in Alfaro because he's younger and has less experience at the MLS level. But I think Fisher is the right call. I mean, I think as bad as I think he was against San Jose, I don't think that that's his level. And we've seen him play pretty well in the past. Yeah. I don't think giving up on players, especially when they're new to starting 11 so early,
01:15:40
Speaker
is a great idea. I mean we saw it with Jovan Jones last year, it would have sucked if like he just got benched for more than the game that he got benched last year. I also think that if Christian Roldan really is such a great option at right back you might want to just consider starting him and moving ship into the middle and maybe starting Flaco up top because the reason that I'm kind of against the Roldan shift that we've seen twice is that to me if he's not good enough to be your starting right back then it seems like you're
01:16:06
Speaker
weakened three positions with that move. You're weakening right back by moving Christian over there just to keep his kind of presence on the field. You're weakening central midfield by putting ship there instead of roll down, and you're weakening left wing by putting ship's replacement in there. So I think that if that equation I just outlined is not the case, if Christian rolled down really is like your best right back option, then just go ahead and start him there until you have a healthy right back because you have somebody else that you are clearly comfortable playing in the middle.
01:16:36
Speaker
That's an interesting way of putting out it. I think there's always this inclination for people to want as many attacking bodies out there and ignoring what position you're asking them to play. So yeah, what you say makes a lot of sense. But we're going to close on this question. This is from James Willard, who if you don't know who that is, he's BritVoxUS on Twitter, but he's also the guy who
01:17:06
Speaker
does the voices for our sponsorship costs. And he's also the voice of the in-stadium voice of the sounders. But anyway, he asked us a question. We feel like we should try to answer. He says, I've mentioned this before, but we'd be very interested in your personal stories of how you got into soccer. I think that would be a cool segment. And since we kind of touched on this earlier, I thought this week actually makes a lot of sense to talk about this.
01:17:35
Speaker
But I'll start. But my interest in soccer, I guess, probably started in the 98 World Cup. It was a way for my then girlfriend and future wife to kind of bond. That was the one sport that she was really into. So I kind of started following soccer then. I watched a lot of the 2002 World Cup because I was
01:17:57
Speaker
having a lot of insomnia that summer and there was a lot of games on for Insomniacs. But I didn't really start writing about soccer until the first time I really covered soccer
01:18:10
Speaker
at this level was I did some kind of letters from Europe during the 2006 World Cup and one of my first posts from Europe was done after a very very long night of drinking after the US lost to
01:18:28
Speaker
Or no, no, that was I think the game after they they tied Italy and I did a ton of drinking and I was not gonna submit my story because I was so drunk but my Travelmates insisted that I pull myself up off the floor and write and so at like four in the morning. I actually submitted a story to my editor and
01:18:52
Speaker
that I should probably go back and
Journey into Soccer Writing
01:18:54
Speaker
read at some point. But then when I really first started really, really writing, though, was in 2010 when I got hooked up with Dave Clark over at Sounder at Heart was really when I first started seriously covering soccer. And then Richard Farley gave me my first big break covering more than just the sounders. You were easy to identify as the person that should be the MLS person for the .com. That was an easy choice. Oh, very nice of you to say.
01:19:22
Speaker
Um, do you want to go next year and you want me to go? Um, I think I, well, no, you go ahead. Um, so yeah, I definitely played soccer, um, from as early as I can remember, but I'm definitely like the American precautionary tale as to how soccer players don't develop. I was.
01:19:41
Speaker
always by far the fastest kid in my class. And so I was always a striker, but because I was fast, nobody ever told me that it would be nice if you learned how to trap a ball. So as I went through high school, I slowly went from being a striker to eventually being a right back. And then come junior year of high school, when my grades were so bad that it didn't look like I was going to go to college, it was pretty easy to ditch playing soccer entirely.
01:20:05
Speaker
But at the same time, my aunt was working for upper deck trading cards. And that was at the time when the World Cup was going to be here. So I got free tickets to all the World Cup games in Southern California and would drive there from Bakersfield. It was great. Georgi Haji's great game at the Rose Bowl for Romania. I got to see that live. As far as writing is concerned, in my late 20s, I went through a career change where I was a website application developer. And then I got tired of that.
01:20:33
Speaker
And I was really getting into writing at the time. I went back to school, was working basically off of my writing, and then I discovered Jonathan Wilson's work, and it basically showed me that you don't have to write like an idiot to write about soccer. So after that, I started my own blog. A couple months later, I got my first paying gig. A couple months later, I got hooked up with SV Nation after the
01:20:56
Speaker
South Africa World Cup, moved to Fox, and I've been kind of puddle hopping in the soccer world ever since. Yeah, in my case, I mean, I think the 94 World Cup, which
01:21:12
Speaker
is really like my earliest memory of soccer just being accessible at all. I mean, there was like stuff like soccer made in Germany on TV when I was a little kid, but you know, it wasn't like a thing that you could really follow, I think, as a kid. So the night for World Cup was really my first exposure to it.
01:21:30
Speaker
And then it was sort of adornment, like watch the World Cup every four years kind of thing from there. I got kind of into MLS like in the very early years, but that didn't last for too awfully long, especially with no local team. But then, you know, as the European leagues became more accessible along with the internet, I got really into those. I got super into Essamilla for reasons that I still don't fully understand.
01:21:57
Speaker
And that was a way I think that I was able to fully engage with it. And then the sounders came along and that was a way to really fully immerse myself into it. And then started writing about Villa, I don't know, like 2009, I guess it would have been 2009 or 2010. And then started doing this podcast in 2011.
01:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, this podcast is 2011. That was a long time ago. It's funny to think how much I felt engaged with the sounders in 2011 and to look back on that now because it seems funny now that I've only really been passionately following them for a year and a half or two years or whatever.
Influences on Soccer Writing Perspective
01:22:47
Speaker
It's crazy. You guys have been doing this podcast longer than I've ever held any job.
01:22:52
Speaker
I think that we've been doing this podcast longer than I've ever held any jobs. I think I've been doing this longer than I've been. I mean, like if you don't count my early days as SB Nation, like where I was effectively a volunteer as a job, I mean, this is definitely the longest that I've worked for.
01:23:13
Speaker
that I've been doing one thing, certainly writing for Sound at Heart. I've never written for any publication longer than I have for Sound at Heart, which is kind of crazy to think about. But it's been a fun ride and I'm still enjoying it and I'm still having a lot of fun with it. So thanks for asking, James. I'm glad we got to share with you some of our past. I feel like we should have made that a lot more romantic for James to say because
01:23:40
Speaker
I mean, none of our stories suck, but we just all told them so very kind of matter of factly that it was just kind of like, we yada yada the whole thing. I mean, mine's kind of funny because Aston Villa was really my entry point and that's funny in its own right, but only in retrospect, I guess. I'm trying to think of what my entry point was because I pretty clearly don't have a favorite team.
01:24:03
Speaker
You know what, I would say my entry point into writing was probably really getting into seeing how Shavi Hernandez played. And that's like where I kind of learned that one, soccer wasn't the game I grew up with. There was so much more to it.
01:24:19
Speaker
And then secondly, there was far more to the game than just goals and results and everything like that between Xavi Hernandez and how Barcelona was playing. I'm not a huge Barcelona fan, but it did at least open me up to the idea that there was a much greater game out there in the world than I had been exposed to just from playing AYSO in high school soccer and then
01:24:43
Speaker
watching English soccer. That was my, I never did watch soccer made in Germany, but they did have like late night, tape delayed football league matches on regional cable where I grew up. And I would watch like Manchester United, Nottingham Forest and crap like that. So Ryan Giggs was my favorite player. He's actually my entry way into this. I just don't want to mention his name because he's a complete scumbag.
Conclusion and Acknowledgments
01:25:08
Speaker
All right, well, that was better. That was a better attempt, Richard, I gotta tell you. That's the show I think we rambled on long enough at this point. Thanks to Richard for joining us. Thanks to all our sponsors, Verity Credit Union, Constellation & Company, Designer's Marble, Full Pool Wines, and Queen Anne Acupuncture, as well as
01:25:34
Speaker
Bootstrapper Studios, who has been so helpful in keeping us going and allowing us to keep doing this for as long as we've been doing it. But I am Jeremiah O'Shan, signing off for Aaron Campo. This is No Study at This. Remember, you'll never get along. 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.
01:26:05
Speaker
Roll on, Columbia Roll on Roll on, Columbia Roll on Your power is turning our darkness to dawn Roll on, Columbia Roll on We love you! Let's win another one!