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Episode 408: Preview of Sounders-Orlando
65 Plays2 years ago
To help us preview this weekend's Sounders-Orlando City match we enlisted the help of Michael Citro, who runs The Mane Land.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
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.
Sounders Celebrations and Highlights
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.
00:01:34
Speaker
Is
Interview with Michael Citro
00:01:36
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of NOS Adiatus, sponsored by Fullpool Wines and Watson's Counter. Joining me today is Michael Citro of the Mainland and the managing manager of the Mainland and the host of the Mainland pod or the, how do you call it? What's a podcast, but a P-A-W-E-D, right? Yeah, we're very big on our lion puns. So we use pod as P-A-W-E-D.
00:01:42
Speaker
that why you young people call twerking?
00:02:03
Speaker
Yes, that's right. I knew there was a pun in there. But anyway, we're going to talk about Orlando City coming to town on Saturday. Welcome to the show, Michael. Hey, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Yeah.
The Mainland's Independence Journey
00:02:15
Speaker
So first off, you guys are one of the SB Nation sites that has gone independent. How is that going so far?
00:02:26
Speaker
It's pretty great. I mean, once we were out from under the SB Nation shadow and had everything sort of running and working and the stress of that died away, it's kind of cool to be your own boss and not have, you know, big brother looking after you. So it's been pretty fun and our community has been very supportive of us and we're very appreciative of that and we are trying to
00:02:49
Speaker
find more and more ways to add value and cover this team is to the best of our ability. It's been a lot of fun, but it's a lot of work.
Orlando City's Recent Performance Issues
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah. And, and so the team you're covering is, has been sort of up and down. I don't know. How would you describe where the team is right now? Would you it's three, one and four, but does it feel like an ascending three, one and four, or is this like, what's the, where are the vibes like in, in Orlando?
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a slight improvement there for a while. It was win one, we'll lose one, win one, lose one. It's been more up than down. The problem for the team in the recent two months has been the home games have been close and they've allowed three tying goals that were from winning positions in the last four home games in the 89th minute, in the 86th minute and Wednesday night in the 90th minute.
00:03:46
Speaker
Wow. Uh, yeah, that, that, that can get a little tiresome, uh, as yeah, that, that just gets, that can get to be a little much. So it's, it sounds like a lot of exciting games though. Uh, one for better or for worse. Yeah. The team is fun to watch for the most part. They do have some of those games where they're just
00:04:05
Speaker
kind of hanging on for dear life but I think every team has those every once in a while but there are star players on this team that the pieces haven't quite gelled completely yet but when they have flashes of coming together the soccer is amazing to watch but those flashes of brilliance need to become a little bit more consistent and I think that's
00:04:30
Speaker
Starting to happen with designated player Martino Jada, he's starting to get more comfortable. He actually had been coming off the bench up until the international break when Orlando had to play a couple of games without Facundo Torres. Torres started the season very slowly like he did last year, but he started to come on right before the international break.
Player Performances and Injuries
00:04:48
Speaker
So it really sucked to lose him for a couple of games.
00:04:50
Speaker
And, um, an air chunk car was doing quite well, but then he's kind of fallen off the last few weeks and Duncan McGuire has, uh, has really come on the rookie that, uh, was drafted in the first round out of Creighton has been amazing. He scored a goal last night, probably should have been credited with the second goal that Ojeda scored because it deflected in off him, but Opta for some reason said they weren't going to change it.
00:05:15
Speaker
And he should have had an assist, but Yvonne Angulo missed a wide open net from eight yards out. And so when I looked this up, it looks like you're going to be pretty much full strength for the game, right? On Saturday, no international absences. Yeah. The two Peruvians Pedro Galle said the starting goalkeeper and wielder Cartagena, who has kind of become the number eight this year, was kind of signed to be a backup
00:05:45
Speaker
Central midfielder, but he's really seized that role this year and Those two are with Peru, but they're flying directly to Seattle. I believe they may have done that yesterday from Japan because the Peru played in Japan and I believe South Korea on this this most recent international trip, but Kuna Torres should have
00:06:06
Speaker
Arrived today and left with the team. So everybody should be there there is a u-22 initiative winger named Gaston Gonzalez who is injured and He just came back in last night's game and looked like he re-aggravated a hamstring so But mostly it's it's a full-strength squad
Orlando City's Road Success
00:06:28
Speaker
And it looks like Orlando's actually been really good on the road this year. I believe they have the second best road record in all of MLS. Has that included many West Coast trips?
00:06:40
Speaker
No, the team hasn't really gone out much. They're about to start those. They're going to Seattle. They'll be going to Rail Salt Lake in a couple of weeks. So mostly it's been within the conference, although one of those was at Minnesota, and that was a nice comeback win for Orlando there. And so what is it? They actually have a better record on the road than at home. What is the key to that? Is that just a fluke of the schedule?
00:07:08
Speaker
it was just a slow start. And some of those home games at the beginning of the year were in that time when Orlando City was still in the midst of trying to get through the Champions League first. They had the toughest draw, they've had to play T grass in the first round. And they were doing a lot of squad rotation. But then they also played some of their teams that
00:07:30
Speaker
have given them trouble. For some reason, whenever Wayne Rooney is involved with DC United, Orlando can't seem to beat DC United. I don't know what it is, but that's an issue. That was one of the losses. Charlotte
00:07:45
Speaker
I think surprised them. They kind of played well enough to beat Charlotte by three goals, but somehow could only score one and lost that game. So again, there's some growing pains with some of the new attacking pieces early. And that's when some of those home losses
Squad Rotation Strategies
00:07:57
Speaker
took place. They've been much better at home lately. Those late goals conceded aside. So like the Sounders, you're coming off a game on Wednesday. Unlike the Sounders, you're having to travel all the way across the country. How how much squad rotation are you expecting?
00:08:15
Speaker
Probably not a great deal. Although they'll they'll try to limit minutes and maybe play guys for halves and instead of Instead of going 60 to 90. I think ficuno Torres Will be back in the starting lineup. Oh, Haida will probably go to the bench Because he went pretty deep on Wednesday night
00:08:36
Speaker
I think Mauricio Pereira is just automatically in the lineup. Whenever he plays the captain, Angulo will play. I believe Duncan McGuire will probably get to start cause he's been, he's been the man the last couple of games scored goals in the last two games, although Caro got more rest. So maybe Caro gets to start there. It's it's.
00:08:57
Speaker
The back line almost never seems to rotate a whole lot. So I think we'll be we'll be seeing the same starting two center backs Robin Jansen and Antonio Carlos will probably see Maybe a halftime change. Maybe Rodrigo Schlegel will come in at halftime for one of those two guys and then Luca Patraso could start at left back in place of Rafael Santos and Mikey Halladay could start in place of Kyle Smith, but the fullback situation this year in Orlando has been kind of
00:09:28
Speaker
Trial and error. Nobody's really claimed those two spots yet. So you mentioned Halliday. He like Obed Vargas is coming off the U20 World
Spotlight on Mikey Halliday
00:09:38
Speaker
Cup. What can you tell us about his game? Mike, he's a good quick player, likes to get forward, is pretty active in the attack. He probably could use a little bit more seizing, a little bit more experience defending 1v1 at this level.
00:09:55
Speaker
Um, he does sometimes get, uh, muscled off the ball by, you know, larger, uh, you know, attackers, but, um, he's a guy that's got a lot of prog, a lot of promise. And I think that he's one of the home grounds that Orlando city is highest on. I think he's got a really high ceiling. His crosses have been a little inconsistent, but every now and then he, he puts one in that you just think if he could just get those dialed in a little bit more consistently, he could be a real weapon on the right.
00:10:25
Speaker
Looking through the stats on Orlando, something that jumps out here is two of the top goal contributors, Duncan McGuire, Martin Ojeda, are both used off the bench almost as much as they start.
Ojeda and McGuire's Impact
00:10:44
Speaker
Is this a team? Is that an accurate description of what they're doing or have they both grown into bigger roles as they have started producing more goals?
00:10:55
Speaker
Duncan had to start early in the season when Cara was injured so Cara missed some time and Duncan got off to a good start and then he kind of tailed off a bit and Cara got hot when he came back and then Cara kind of tailed off a bit and then Duncan was putting in some goals off the bench. Ojeda, he wasn't even going to have any kind of adjustment period
00:11:20
Speaker
but then he started to struggle and be inconsistent give the ball away and started sitting and and watching games and then coming in in the second half and he seemed more comfortable doing that for uh for the last several weeks and so um he's been able to kind of
00:11:36
Speaker
Ojeda's got some pretty good speed and he's a pretty good presser and he's a little bit, uh, sneaky. He can sneak up behind players a little bit and take the ball off him. So he's able to come in against those tired legs and make some things happen. So I think it's, it's, it's probably a mixed, a mix of the two where Duncan can score either off the bench or coming in and starting. Whereas Ojeda has gotten more of his goals off the bench, although he did start Wednesday night when he scored.
00:12:04
Speaker
And so is this a team that, uh, that tends to sort of, I mean, I mean, based on that, it suggests that this is a team that's capable of, of scoring some late goals. Is that sort of been a hallmark?
Orlando City's Dramatic Late Games
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah. We call them the cardiac cat, cardiac cats for a reason. And that's for both good and bad reasons. They can score in the 94th minute. They can give up a goal in the 94th minute. And so, uh, what's your expectation level coming into this game?
00:12:35
Speaker
This will be the third game in eight days, second of the two on the road, both of those games on turf. I'm thinking that Orlando fans would probably be happy coming home with a draw. But this team has been very surprising on the road and has won games that we didn't think they would win on the road before. So you never know. Although they haven't won at Seattle in their history yet. In fact, I think last year was the first time they ever beat the Sounders since joining MLS.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think we would all be happy if they just came home with at least a point. Anything beyond that would probably just be gravy considering all the travel and two road games and three games in eight days. I think that would probably be, like I said, icing on the cake if they came home with three, one would be good. And then those of us that have been watching this team since they were pretty bad are just sitting here saying, Seattle, not in the face, okay? Not in the face.
00:13:35
Speaker
Well, I don't know. The centers have been hitting too many people in the face lately. So we have an ongoing joke on the show where the lower the expectations of the guest, the higher result tends to be, which is sort of the sounders have this weird way of kick-starting other teams seasons, despite what the numbers sometimes suggest.
How to Follow The Mainland
00:14:01
Speaker
Michael, thank you so much for joining us today. Where can people read you? How can people follow you? Is there anything else they should know about the editorial project that is the mainland?
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, you can read our site. We are themainland.com. Main is M-A-N-E, like a lion's mane, because again, lion puns instead of M-A-I-N. So themainland.com, that's where you can find all of our stories or you can follow us on Twitter at The Mainland and you can listen to our podcast. The Mainland podcast is, again, M-A-N-E and it's available on all the different platforms. You can find us there and
00:14:43
Speaker
And yeah, if you want to find out more about our team, that's what we do. That's what we write about. So feel free to check us out. Well, Michael, thank you so much for doing this. I am Jeremiah Shan, signing off for Noza Adiettis. We will catch you next time.
00:15:34
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!