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Episode 398: Preview of Sounders-Red Bulls
61 Plays2 years ago
Ben Cork of View From 202 (and formerly Once a Metro) joined us to share insight on Saturday's opponent, the New York Red Bulls.
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Transcript
Sponsorship and Host Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime sounder supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:21
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. Here we go. Come on! Hey, Ocean! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS co-pointers! Here comes Ray D'Ace from the middle to crowd it! The vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations.
00:01:04
Speaker
Seattle Sounders, the greatest MLS team in history. This is a tiny f***ing doll.
Game Preview and Past Matches
00:01:34
Speaker
Is that why you young people call twerking?
00:01:38
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of NOS Adietta, sponsored by Fullpool Wines and Watson's Counter, as well as our Substax subscribers. Joining me today to help preview the Sounders Red Bulls game this weekend is Ben Cork of View, the podcast View from 202. You may also remember him from the late, great Wanta Metro. Welcome back to the show, or welcome to the show, Ben.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, no, it is in the back, but we haven't played the Sounders in soon.
Red Bulls' Schedule Challenges
00:02:10
Speaker
I know, but it does seem like the Red Bulls. Yeah. Weirdly, the Red Bulls seem to be one of those teams that has been perpetually skipped in the rotation whenever these, like when, when they keep changing the schedules in terms of like how often you play Eastern Conference teams, but
00:02:25
Speaker
Right. And then COVID knocking an entire season out didn't help either. And I think it's been, I think it was 2019 because I remember that as one of the more inglorious home losses near the end of Chris Armist's era at the club where, yeah, Seattle came in and put the points. But yeah, nothing since then. So this is a debut appearance, I guess.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, it is.
Coaching Changes and Team Dynamics
00:02:55
Speaker
It is. And it's also the first time that the sounders... This is a great transition. This is also the first time that the sounders are going to be playing the Troi Lascens version of the Red Bulls. I don't think we actually ever even played the Gerhard Stuber era.
00:03:10
Speaker
Red Bulls. But yeah, Troy Lascens came in three games ago and fortunes seem to have turned at least a little bit. 2-0-1 during the Lascens era. Is that indicative of real change or is this sort of like a dead cat bounce?
00:03:27
Speaker
Well, it's kind of, uh, I guess you could call it maybe sort of a turbocharged dead cat bounce. Okay. Um, it's, it's, it's an odd kind of continuity in a lot of ways because listen was, uh, one of the Strouber's assistants. He's been on the staff for a couple of years and, uh, you know, has, you know, had his hand in, in everything that's, uh, gone on with the club the last couple of years, good and bad. So it's not necessarily a huge paradigm shift and it's not really.
00:03:57
Speaker
necessarily a tactical shift. It's a team that's still focused on pressing, obviously, and getting the rest of your game to flow out from that. But beyond that, in the more kind of
00:04:15
Speaker
maybe intangible, but maybe a little bit tangible kind of human respects. It's just been a real sort of, you know, I guess you could kind of say emotional reset because obviously, you know, what was going on with the Red Bulls for the first part of this year, they won only one of their first 10 games. There was obviously the ugly incident with Dante Van Zier and just a lot of
00:04:43
Speaker
you know, just had juju that was kind of coming together and congealing. And eventually, you know, whether, whether right or not, whether you have a terrible view of the manager or whether you think he's actively participating in how bad things are getting, it's sort of the situation where a managerial change kind of had to happen. And, you know, like I said, it's resulted in a little bit of a, you know,
00:05:10
Speaker
Bigger dead cat bounce because obviously the team's been undefeated in the league and then they only lost the open cup the other night on penalties. Ever since the same took over and I mean yeah it's, you know, not small sample size still but pretty pretty drastic change.
00:05:26
Speaker
over a short period of time and it's you know the team's been struggling with injuries this year but it's not even like any of those injury absences have really come back into the picture and I think what's really happened I think the main diagnosis that myself and a lot of people who follow the team kind of have had is that
00:05:45
Speaker
the players just feel more freedom. Like I said, they hit that reset button and the players feel a bit looser about how they're played, both because it's a new manager who's equally kind of nervous and trepidatious about what's coming up. But it's also that without getting too deep into the past, Gerhard Strueber was a manager who was
00:06:08
Speaker
known to be, you know, pretty, pretty stringent about what he wanted from his players ran, you know, a pretty, pretty tough training sessions, tough, uh, you know, kind of tactical demands and players were frequently going in and out of the doghouse on and off the bench. And I think you can kind of palpably see that the players are not second guessing themselves as much anymore.
00:06:31
Speaker
They feel a little bit more freedom to take some risks, do some things that they, you know, were maybe not allowed to do under the previous manager. And, you know, like I said, without any new personnel really coming into the mix, the team looks a lot more free and the body language is better. And, you know, in a more tactical sense, you're seeing, you know, certain positions more freed up.
00:06:55
Speaker
um to attack and take some risks and yeah it's all kind of led to a team that had previously struggled to score a goal unless an absolute miracle happened now look like a team that's a little more threatening um you know over the aggregate as opposed to just you know hoping for the perfect moment
Struggles with Expected Goals
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah. So on that same token, I, I was looking through the stats and the one that just jumps out at you is they are something like, uh, eight goals in the negative between what open play XG suggests they should be scoring and what they've actually scored. They've only, uh, they're, they're sixth and open play XG and second to last and open play goals. They only have six goals on 14, like more than 14, uh, expected goals. Is it.
00:07:40
Speaker
like is that uh like how do you how does that show up like is are they missing sitters is this just they're putting lots of shots on frame that are maybe overstating the xg
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's, it's been more of the ladder for sure. It's, it's kind of a situation. I mean, you look, I mean, the open cup game the other night was astounding where it was something like 35 shots against Cincinnati's like, I think five or six, and it ended up being a one, one game. And it's, you know, incredibly high gross numbers as far as you're right. It was 35 to six. Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:18
Speaker
And that's not the only game where there's been that sort of disparity. It's a lot of shots that are getting cranked off, but when you watch the games, it's not like these are, you know, guys being fed in, you know, with an open back post. It's, you know, a lot of, you know, it's been a situation where teams, like I said, you know, Gerhard Strueberg was, you know, very kind of
00:08:40
Speaker
focused on playing his specific tactics and teams kind of figured that out and realized that if you don't really take a ton of risks, if you sort of sit back against the Red Bulls,
00:08:52
Speaker
they're not going to be able to create a whole lot. It's a situation where they're getting the ball. A lot of people have pointed out where it's kind of like they get the ball and the moment they see any resistance, they turn it around and that's terrible for the way that you're going to try and play a vertical pressing originated attack. So what you see is a lot of situations where they face resistance, they sort of
00:09:17
Speaker
you know, turn it around and start circulating it, it eventually ends with kind of a bad shot from the top of the box into traffic against a set defense and just repeat that 20, 30 times a game. Now, ever since Lassane has come in, like I said, there hasn't been a huge
00:09:36
Speaker
structurally necessarily, but you can see a lot more fluidity. Like I said, where players are maybe moving into spaces, making runs that they maybe, you know, were discouraged from under Strouber. You're just seeing, you know, occasionally even just, you know, more general numbers going forward. I mean, the most notable
00:09:54
Speaker
Um, I think tactical tweak since the same has come in as maybe been putting drew year wood, uh, back into the team. Uh, kind of the young, young DP midfielder who hadn't, who had barely played under Strieber this season. Um, he's not only been put back into the team, but played in kind of a free, um, sort of support attacking midfielder role. He's not.
00:10:18
Speaker
and I think the team still lacks that sort of dedicated creative midfielder to create things against a pack defense. But Yearwood, who's pretty technically solid and hard runner, hard shooter, he's been able to make some things happen and create some danger that didn't necessarily exist in the final third before those things took over.
Formation Changes and Confusion
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah, I guess on that same token, who are the players that are creating danger? What is the sort of offensive, and we know that this is a team that likes to press, that they like to create high leverage chances from the press, but when that's not happening, what's the idea here?
00:11:04
Speaker
well when when that's not I mean for the most part for the last couple years when the run of play attack is not happening which is most of the time it's been a lot of set peace goals and that's an interesting part of the same taking over because his
00:11:19
Speaker
you know kind of designated role when he was his assistant was running set pieces and you could always see him on the touch line kind of running out to do kind of a squat and watch during set pieces and the set piece work was generally pretty good the last couple years including some
00:11:37
Speaker
some interesting creative stuff. Most of the goals on the end of it were scored by Aaron Long, who's obviously not with the team anymore, but they've still found a way to get some of the taller guys in dangerous positions. Andres Reyes has, you know, gotten a couple of goals already. And yeah, just that's, you know, it's not the prettiest alternative, but that's had to be the alternative the last couple of years. But like I said, recently in the last few weeks since the same took over,
00:12:06
Speaker
Um, there's been a little bit more fluidity from the run of play and, um, just, you know, some, some more ideas you're seeing different kinds of strike partnerships tried out or even, you know, guys like, uh, Tom Barlow being tried in what seemed like a straight up wing position.
00:12:22
Speaker
uh, the other night in the open cup game and just trying to, to make something happen in the attack, which, you know, under Stuber, the attack seemed to be sort of beside the point because the premise seemed to be that if you just press hard enough and you create enough
00:12:39
Speaker
pressing mistakes that the attack will create itself and that just wasn't happening. So now that you're starting to see some new ideas kind of dried out, there's getting to be a little bit more danger and unpredictability in the attack.
00:12:55
Speaker
So I don't know how accurate this is, but if you go to fbref.com and you look at the formation, it changes almost every week. We've seen a 4-4-2, a 4-2-3-1, a 3-4-3, a 3-4-1-2. What are you expecting formation wise and how accurate is that? Are they really changing formations this often?
00:13:18
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think under Struber, that also became one of the sort of chronic issues was that week to week, half to half players, I don't think we're very clear on where they were going to be and what they're going to be expected to do. And didn't didn't really know where their teammates were going to be. And you could really just, again, just
00:13:41
Speaker
As far as the body language and everything, before the same took over, you could see players, you could see kind of the gears turning in their heads every time they got the ball. It was just a very labored and sort of strained process to move the ball around with this team. And ever since the same has taken over, he's done some some formational shifting here and there. But I think it's more of a situation where I keep using the term fluidity and it's it's kind of a
00:14:10
Speaker
sort of a contingency plan, I guess, given how many injuries the team has had. But you're seeing a lot of players, you know, getting moved into different positions through different parts of the game. But it's in situations where it kind of fits. There's been some kind of comments about how some guys like Omer Fernandez and Cameron Harper over the course of the game are kind of switching between winger and sort of a wide, full-back role and then
00:14:36
Speaker
um some similar stuff where the the back line is shifting between you know four four men across the back line in some parts of the game and then three men in the back line in other parts of the game and it's keeping players kind of doing the same tasks but in a different structure and that's that's different from what was going on with stroover where it was more you know just guys getting subbed off
00:14:59
Speaker
if it seemed like they weren't doing well enough and then being played, you know, in the opposite side of the fullback roles the next week. You know, it was sort of reactive in those situations. And ever since the Sains come on, there seems to be a little bit more of a, you know, reasoning behind keeping guys in certain parts of the field and just, you know, changing more on the fly as opposed to, you know, completely rewriting the game plan at halftime.
Controversy and Player Suspension
00:15:30
Speaker
One of the flashpoints of this season was the whole, the whole situation surrounding Dante Vanzier. He ended up, in case you hadn't heard, he ended up, the listeners, he ended up getting a six game ban for using racist language. I guess what's been your, he's now back into the team. He actually scored a goal in the open cup game on Wednesday.
00:15:56
Speaker
What's been your view of how that's been received both like within the team and sort of the larger fan base where I know there was, you know, there was some walkouts from the supporters, like how has that impacted things and how does it look going forward?
00:16:11
Speaker
Well, it's certainly been, I mean, it's not like the season was going well otherwise, but that really kind of plunged things into rock bottom territory in April without rehashing the entire incident. It became kind of a thing where it
00:16:29
Speaker
You know, expose a lot of, you know, sort of issues with the way the club was set up and sort of, you know, Kate to say it, how, how there are Struber was, you know, kind of using his, his leadership role and it eventually be kind of a crisis of confidence, both with.
00:16:49
Speaker
what was going to happen with Van Zier, whether he would get a longer suspension, whether he'll be sold, all that kind of stuff, but also whether Strueber himself was fit to lead after making a mess of that situation in the face of everything that night.
00:17:08
Speaker
That's just another thing we're just sort of hitting the reset button and moving on from it was more than likely the healthiest thing to do. And the results have shown that, you know, it's at least in the short term was probably the right thing to do. But as far as Van Zier coming back, it's been a little bit more kind of confusing and unease, really. There's sort of a
00:17:34
Speaker
I think it was actually Strubber's last midweek press conference before, before his last game, before he was relieved, where he just kind of offhand mentioned that Benzier was back training with the team, uh, before there was kind of any club announcement or, um, any real sort of base touch on what was going on there. And, you know, like you said, there's been some walkouts. Uh, the club has done a good job of.
00:18:01
Speaker
of bringing some of the supporters group leaders into the fold. And it's actually been kind of some of the supporter group statements that have given us the most sort of detailed information about how the club is handling the situation, but still just strained that yeah, it was kind of unceremoniously announced that he was back training with the team. The club put out a statement, you know, before he was officially, you know,
00:18:28
Speaker
registered again and put on the bench for a game where they laid out you know that the players or the squad had voted to allow it back in and detailed a lot of the you know sort of educational process he had gone under and just generally you know
00:18:46
Speaker
You could hear, like I said, through the supporter groups, through their meetings with Van Zier and Strueber that were going on during the heat of the crisis, that Van Zier sounded a little more repentant and remorseful about what had happened, and that, you know, it sounds like whatever discussions have happened in the locker room have been enough to satisfy the rest of the squad, which some players were pretty vocal the night of the incident that
00:19:15
Speaker
You know made made some social media posts and things like that that they were you know, pretty uncomfortable about everything that had happened and Barely, you know, that's that's been you know, sort of evened out a little bit but It was still a little bit of a strange atmosphere when he scored the other night to be sure I know I'm not really sure what the
00:19:40
Speaker
rest of the process is going to look like whether he'll ever become, you know, sort of a a respected, beloved part of the team. I think that's an incredibly high uphill battle, but we'll we'll we'll see where that journey goes starting, you know, this couple of weeks here. And so is the sense that he's going to that he's sort of just back in the team and and he is maybe not back to normal, but is or they like he clearly hasn't been
00:20:09
Speaker
banish from the team. But do you get the sense that we're trying to move him or is it sort of like he's said he's done his he's you know he did the crime he paid the paid the price and he's showing some remorse and and so there everyone's just sort of trying to move on.
00:20:24
Speaker
Well, there's a little bit of the latter. I mean, obviously he is back in the team and they have stated that the players, the rest of the team have proved that, but, you know, it's another just sort of kind of tough situation they found themselves in because, I mean, the other thing about Van Zier is that he had just arrived. He was the big,
00:20:46
Speaker
Off-season transfer and kind of the player who people have been pinning their hopes and dreams on as far as turning the team's fortunes around And then for this to happen in what was I think his fifth or sixth game Um, he had it was actually his first ever start because he had just been given sub minutes previously
00:21:05
Speaker
which that's a whole other ball of wax, but sort of a situation where we didn't even really know who he was before this ugly incident took place. So there's not really like a, it's not that there's a sentimental reason to keep him around, but it is just sort of the thing where
00:21:27
Speaker
would be the club going to the drawing board again on a striker for the second time in six months or actually the third time in two years if you count what they ended up you know kind of deciding to cut bait on the Patrick Lamala project. So it was sort of a situation you know again there's so many tangents I could go on off on
00:21:49
Speaker
with how this club set up. But it's kind of a thing where Red Bull corporate ownership probably isn't ready to move a lot of the things that would have to move to get a guy, Van Zier, off the books and replaced for the second time in six months. So it's a pretty ugly side of the business when it involves an incident like this. But that seems to be what the calculation has been.
00:22:19
Speaker
So moving things into a little bit more immediate situation here, obviously we've talked about this a little bit. The Red Bulls played an open cup game at midweek. It went to overtime and in fact went to penalties. First off, how many starters really got significant minutes in that and how big of an impact is that going to play on who's available for Saturday?
00:22:44
Speaker
Well, whether, I guess this is maybe fortunate for Red Bulls, unfortunate for Seattle that there was a lot of rotation in the last couple of games ahead of this Open Cup game. And some of it was forced because the Red Bulls ended up with a ton of players, Sean Neillis, Andres Reyes, there's Christian Casares. And I think there might be even somebody I'm leaving out who all ended up
00:23:11
Speaker
with yellow card accumulation suspensions on the same week. Yeah, so that was sort of force load management on the same part that has freshened up the team. And it's all the better that they were able to get some points in the midst of all that.
00:23:28
Speaker
But, um, it was still a pretty, there was a lot of the main starters, uh, in, in this open cup game. And in fact, they had to call in some, some reserves on short-term contracts because there's so few bodies to work with right now with all the injuries. But, um, uh,
00:23:47
Speaker
There could be some new personnel, though, coming into the mix and sort of fortifying things. LeSain actually said in his press conference today that Lewis Morgan might be able to make his first appearance in a couple months against Seattle on Saturday. Lucanias, who's been out for a while, made his kind of substitute return in the open cup game the other night. And, you know, it looks like the team is slowly
00:24:14
Speaker
emerging from, you know, that kind of walking wounded situation where it was just kind of trying to find whoever was available as opposed to fitting players in, you know, the right spot. So, perhaps a little bit and then, you know, like you said, as far as, you know, changing the formation constantly, that also makes it a little difficult to predict what the lineup will be in Seattle the other, or, you know, in a couple nights. So,
00:24:41
Speaker
It'll be interesting to see. I mean, that's just sort of a microcosm of the whole club for the rest of this year.
Unusual Tactical Decisions
00:24:47
Speaker
I mean, Lissane is not an intern. He's been supposedly given the permanent job and will get the rest of this year to prove himself. And it's kind of a big blank slate that's hard to predict, but will hopefully be interesting to watch for the rest of this year.
00:25:03
Speaker
So one of the things that happened in that Open Cup game, I think I heard this was the first time in Open Cup history that doesn't seem quite right, but
00:25:13
Speaker
A very rare thing. Either way, a goalkeeper subbed into the game as an outfield player. Can you sort of walk us through that whole situation and and what happened there? Well, it was a situation where Ryan Mera had gotten the yellow card. Ryan Mera, the goalkeeper, the starting goalkeeper in the open cup game, who is normally the backup keeper. You know, if you've been following MLS for awhile, you know the mayor has been the Red Bull backup goalkeeper for a decade now.
00:25:42
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's gotta be one of the I kind of double take when I saw that he was the backup keeper and I was like, wait a minute. This is the same Ryan Mira who's been around forever. I'm happy to just get paid to train with his hometown club. It's a pretty good gig. Um, but, uh, but yeah, he was the starting keeper and had his traditional open cup starting keeper and had picked up a yellow and, um,
00:26:07
Speaker
In extra time, they actually subbed out, I believe it was Ovante Mullings who had come into the game in regulation time as a late sub. During extra time, they subbed him out to put in the normal starting goalkeeper, Carlos Coronel, who was wearing a red outfield player jersey with his name and number on it that the club equipment manager, Sean Ruiz, had apparently ran to the stadium gift shop to make.
00:26:37
Speaker
during the second half. Um, he was, he was given a, he was given a command and he carried it out. And, uh, um, now that the club is even auctioning off, uh, red Cornell jerseys now as kind of a collector's item because, um, yeah, just one of those, uh, it harkens back to the, to the great cheat and Bob moment where Gavin was
00:27:02
Speaker
subbed on to switch jerseys with Tim Howard for a few moments. Not quite the same mechanism, but it fits thematically. And yeah, it sounds like the rationale, the main rationale, as Lassane explained it, was again, Mera being on a yellow card,
00:27:24
Speaker
there is a worry that, you know, you never know what could happen in extra time, but also we've seen goalkeepers yellow-carded for jumping off their line on penalties lately. And the risk of Mera getting a second yellow and having to put a field player in net for this elimination penalty shootout was something that Lasse and didn't want to bear. So, yeah, pretty inventive thinking to get around that. And apparently, Cornell's a
00:27:54
Speaker
a pretty good penalty taker too so they were willing to kind of roll the dice on that as well. It was strange too that they ended up you know even though they were both on the field they ended up leaving Mera in to defend the penalties considering Cornell was considered a little you know more athletic of a guy but it didn't
00:28:15
Speaker
didn't end up, you know, sparking the team to a victory, but certainly a good memory to go in with, like I said, the Eddie Gavin playing goalkeeper for three minutes moment. Yes. And yeah, just never, never a dull moment, even during bad seasons with this club.
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah. So, uh, yeah, I guess that, that sort of wraps up the main things I wanted to touch base with you. We, we get to see red, but like I said, we, we see red bulls. So, uh, infrequently around here that I, you know, almost had to do a crash course and everything that, that is red bulls, but, uh, it really was kind of a different year of not only the club, but just all of MLS the last time these two teams played. Yeah.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, I know I'm kind of curious from a like a quiz perspective if this is the longest time the sounders have ever gone between playing an MLS opponent because this is it I mean it's been I think four years since they played but
Media Coverage and Future Plans
00:29:16
Speaker
In any case, I appreciate you coming on, educating us about the Red Bulls. Where can people find you and what's going on with the Red Bull media scene?
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah, well you can find me I host the even though Thank you for the the praise for for the late great ones in Metro currently I'm still hosting the view from 202 podcast was just a weekly podcast about the Red Bulls and Occasionally, I'm still doing some you know, kind of freelance writing here and there but then
00:29:55
Speaker
As far as the media scene at Red Bull, there's a lot of the same people who I worked with with OAM are still kind of out and about. Eric Friedlander, Michael Batista are kind of pointing out.
00:30:10
Speaker
um semi-regular uh coverage um as opposed to you know kind of the daily beat we tried to run at um war to metro um but uh yeah it was just kind of a situation where you know a lot of uh you know just sort of uh rough momentum at the early part of this year probably dampered a lot of uh you know interest there might have been in doing some more coverage but uh maybe
00:30:35
Speaker
Now that the arrow seems to be pointing up at the club a little bit, both in the table and a little bit vibes wise, maybe you can see a little bit more of a groundswell to add a little bit more media around the team coming up soon. Well, Ben, thank you so much for joining us. You can also
00:30:57
Speaker
read Ben's stuff on Twitter at Korkinio, right? C-O-R-K-I-N-H-O is his Twitter handle. Thank you so much for joining us. I am Jeremiah O'Shan, signing off behalf of our sponsors, Focal Wines, Watson's Counter. This is No Study Yet This. Remember, y'all alone.
00:31:51
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!