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Episode 401: That was awful … but at least Messi is coming to MLS?
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That was not much fun. While the Sounders managed to stop their losing streak against the Timbers and picked up their ninth shutout of the season, the match itself was a pretty massive letdown. Not only did it end in this rivalries first scorless tie of the MLS era, but there simply wasn’t much action. The Sounders only took five shots and the two teams combined for just .6 expected goals. It was ugly.
As someone who has suggested the Sounders’ performances have mostly been better than the scoreline suggests, I have no such defense in this one.
We discussed all that while making some time to talk about the ramifications for Messi coming to MLS.
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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.
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!
Seattle Sounders' Recent Achievements
00:00:30
Speaker
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 that why you young people call twerking?
00:01:38
Speaker
Welcome to another edition of NOS Adietta, sponsored by Fullpool Wines, Watson's Counter, and our Substax subscribers. This is episode 401, and we're recording on Tuesday, June 6th, 2023. I am your host, Jeremy O'Shan. Joining me as usual is Aaron Campo and our producer, Lickit.
Sounders vs. Timbers: A Scoreless Tie
00:01:54
Speaker
That was not much fun. While the Sounders managed to stop their losing streak against the Timbers and picked up their ninth shutout of the season, the match itself was a pretty massive letdown. Not only did it end in this rivalry's first scoreless tie of the MLS era, but there simply wasn't much action. The Sounders only took five shots and the two teams combined for just 0.6 expected goals. It was ugly. As someone who suggested the Sounders performances have mostly been better than the scoreline suggests, I have no such defense in this one.
00:02:24
Speaker
You got anything to add to that, Aaron? No, it was one of the all-time bad games. Nothing endearing about it. Nothing I won't remember fondly.
00:02:37
Speaker
I don't frankly think I'll remember anything about that game. It was pretty gutless stuff from both teams, pretty uninspired. I felt like the kind of game that people who don't like soccer think all soccer is like. I've heard that line a few times and I agree. Yes. Yeah. It was just unpleasant. It wasn't. And like a lot of these games are like tense. This one didn't even feel tense, really. It just felt
00:03:06
Speaker
bad. And I was very glad when it was over. Next game was even worse, I think, but you know.
00:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, we're talking about this game, I guess, unfortunately. We might as well at least talk about this a little bit. It was part of a double header and maybe we'll come back and get into a little bit more of the double header aspect of this in our second segment.
Critique of Sounders' Strategies and Performance
00:03:30
Speaker
But for the sake of this segment, I will say that as an entire day, everything that went on outside of the field seemed great and everything that went on on the field was horrible.
00:03:44
Speaker
Like it was a good crowd. I thought the energy was good. It seemed like the music was good. There was a lot to like about this event, but it was just horrible, horrible soccer. There wasn't even really that many moments where it felt like a rivalry with one of them being around the 75th minute or whatever, Claudio Bravo, I think it's Claudio Bravo?
00:04:12
Speaker
Uh, fouled Cody Baker in the corner and Cody Baker kind of got up real fast and shoved him. And there was this sort of like mild moment of this is a rivalry. And, and that was, that was about it. Like it just.
00:04:26
Speaker
The Sounders only took five shots in this game. I think if I were to ask you what the most dangerous of their five shots was, according to XG at least, I don't think many people would even remember this shot, but it happened to be like this looping header that Yeymar hit off of a corner that somehow had a decent XG value. And I guess watching it back, it did come re-
00:04:50
Speaker
It required a decent play to be saved, but it just in the moment didn't feel particularly dangerous. And it was that kind of day. Like it just neither team, the way what struck me, at least my read on this was both coaches came in sort of committed to the idea that they weren't going to get counterattacked. And I think that probably makes sense from both coaches perspective in some way where they were, it was sort of this chess match where they were,
00:05:19
Speaker
daring the other, they were sort of banking on the other coach, the other team sort of getting impatient and losing their shape and committing numbers forward. And just no one did it. I mean, there were so, I can't tell you how many times I watched the sounders push the ball into the attack and there just weren't, there were no numbers. There just no, there was no forward thrust from the central midfield at all. You know, and I think on part of that is, you know, it was a really bad game from Nico Ledero.
00:05:48
Speaker
And, and, and Freddie Monteiro, I think had a really hard time supporting the two, you know, he, he was just not capable of helping out in possession at midfield and then getting into the tech. Like he's just not, that's just not his game anymore at this point. And, you know, if you want to let Freddie just hang out up top, he might be able to be reasonably productive, but in a game like this, that's probably not going to work.
00:06:13
Speaker
And afterwards, or today, Brian Schmester, explaining his decision to start Freddie, basically said, well, I was hoping for some of that Cascadia magic. And it's a little depressing to think that that was, if that's really what they were relying on. I would have much rather seen what Abe Eric could have done in that situation.
00:06:38
Speaker
especially in hindsight, but it was like, there's just not a lot to like about that game. And I don't know that there is, I think maybe we can get a little over dramatic in how depressing it was in what it tells us about this team, because we have a lot of evidence that this team still is capable of attacking. I mean, just on Wednesday, they, they generated plenty of chances, but.
00:07:00
Speaker
It was bad. I hate to keep repeating that, but this was not good soccer. And there wasn't a lot that's come out of it that's made me feel better about it.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that's fair. I think that that line from Brian is the reason you bring a guy on in the 85th minute. It's not the reason you start a guy. But it does just kind of feel like this was a team that didn't have any ideas tactically, didn't have any ideas within the game itself. I think you're right that both coaches set up their teams to not get beat.
00:07:32
Speaker
And soccer is a sport where you can kind of do that. Like it's not like football or something where that's that's a recipe for losing. But you get games like this when both coaches do that. And I think that the Sounders are not going to break their way out of this by playing conservatively. No, they have to. No, they have to try to get at other teams
00:07:58
Speaker
It's been I think the most consistent criticism during this bad run has been they look like they don't have any energy until there's an impetus to try to get back into a game or a team has a player sent off and they really feel like they have to win the game in that situation or whatever it is.
00:08:17
Speaker
They just come out flat and every game in this game, they never got out of second gear and against your biggest rivals at home when you really, really need a win, not just because you haven't beaten them in forever, but because you haven't been winning, you just
00:08:32
Speaker
you can't do
Coach Schmetzer's Reflections on the Season
00:08:33
Speaker
that. You have to come out with some urgency. This timbers team, yes, they beat the Sounders pretty handily earlier this year, and they did it by taking advantage of some over-aggressiveness from the Sounders and being successful on the counter-attack. But if you
00:08:51
Speaker
in a way that makes it clear that you are scared of that, you're lost. Like sometimes bad teams in MLS, sometimes a team that's worse than you is going to beat you. And with all of the emotional weird stuff in this rivalry, it's probably more likely to happen in a game against Portland, but you can't base your entire strategy around avoiding that. Like you have to attempt to score goals at home. If you want to do that when you go down to Portland, totally understandable, but you're not in Portland, you're at home.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah, I would have been fine with this approach. I think in Portland, even as well as they came into that game playing, it would have been a totally different thing. I think if they went down there and just said, look, especially given the context of like, not to like, re litigate this, but especially given the context of that game where they were missing new who they were missing. Christian ruled on. Uh, and they were in a great position overall, and they didn't need to win that game. They could, they could easily go in there and tie it. And it would have been a totally sufficient result if they had played this game in Portland.
00:09:52
Speaker
I can't help but feel like we would be in a different place as far as the season goes. Although this was one of the things that I think frustrated a lot of people. It frustrated me, frankly. And I was surprised that in the immediate post game, Brian Schmetzer opened up talking about how
00:10:14
Speaker
He didn't even want to talk about the game. He wanted to put it into the context of a half season and essentially saying, look, we are eight, six, and three. We're on 27 points. We're pacing to be third in the West. This is not a bad half if you look at it as a 17 game package. And he's right, broadly speaking. But I also can't help but feel like, A, you just
00:10:42
Speaker
tied your biggest rival at home by playing really drab soccer and by the way you haven't won it i mean you haven't looked good for 10 games now uh like can we get a little bit more like sense of urgency here and it was
00:11:00
Speaker
And I don't know what to make of it. I still don't quite know what to make of it. He at least today said something along the lines of like, it was a glass half empty performance, which I think at least lets us understand that he does realize it was a disappointing, not just result, but performance. Uh, but yeah, I was, I was perplexed. I, I, I, it was an, it was an interesting way to approach that post game.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I can understand not wanting to talk about that game. But it is, and I think...
00:11:31
Speaker
That's something that I don't like hearing, and I think a lot of people probably like hearing it even less than I do, because you're right. Yeah, if you average things out over the course of the whole 17 games, it's not really that bad. But if you average the number of beers I had this week, it's not that many a day. The problem was I only had all of them in one day. So that maybe suggests something different, right? Great analogy. Yeah, thank you.
00:11:59
Speaker
I did actually have a lot of beers on Saturday, but we don't need to talk with that. Anyway, who wouldn't after this game? But yeah, it's just I think that if you play a game like that against your rivals at home on what is supposed to be like a big day for soccer in the city. Yeah. I'm not so sure about taking that approach in the press conference. And I think that was it to me, too. Right. It was this was supposed to be sort of a showcase event and it was
00:12:26
Speaker
It was, it was garbage. Yeah, it was, it was, it was big time garbage. And, uh, you know, I still have a lot of faith that the seam will get things turned around. I think that they definitely fell off towards the end of the game, but when Christian came on, they looked very good for about 10 minutes.
00:12:43
Speaker
They looked cohesive, they looked like they had ideas again. I think that they just didn't have the legs to see it through. But I was really encouraged by that. Jordan Morris is not going to be out as long as we maybe thought he would be out. I would assume Raul will remember that he's not hurt anymore at some point and start playing like we know he can play. So I think there are reasons to be optimistic that the second half of the season is going to be a little bit better than the last couple of months have been.
Player Performance and Tactical Concerns
00:13:11
Speaker
I would like maybe just to see some evidence that the team recognizes that they have to do better.
00:13:24
Speaker
I don't, they don't feel as frustrated as maybe the fan bases. And I think that that's reasonable to some degree, but they just didn't look like they, I don't want to say they didn't look like they cared. Cause that's not what I mean, but there just hasn't been a spark or any urgency for so long. And I really felt like this game on that day would be the thing that would bring it out of them. And it didn't. And that's, that's definitely concerning to me.
00:13:51
Speaker
You know, it struck me as a, you know, especially in the post game, even Stephen Fry, who I think is usually pretty good about calling it like he sees it, he seemed tired. And I feel like this is on some level, it's a little bit of a lame excuse to talk about being tired in May or June.
00:14:13
Speaker
But it is the third it was the second three game week that they've had into in the last three weeks so they played seven games in the last. Three weeks which is just a lot you know it's it's they've been going almost. Saturday wednesday saturday.
00:14:30
Speaker
for a while here. And it did seem like it sort of took a toll on them. I think there was some emotional weight of just facing Portland, especially in the way that they've been handling Portland lately. And I think it's a real bummer that
00:14:48
Speaker
The last two Cascadia Cup games have both come at the end of a three game week, which doesn't really feel like if we're going to put so much emphasis on rivalries in this league, it feels like maybe we should do a better job of scheduling them so that the teams come in on some kind of like regular cadence of rest. And sort of along those lines, you know, I thought the poster child for the tired looking sounders was Nico Ledero, who
00:15:15
Speaker
I think is still capable of being a game changer in this league. And early on in the season, I was saying that he was playing at an MVP caliber level. And I think that was true, but that's, that's, you know, we're now talking eight games ago or so, since he last looked anything like that, but he's looked really bad when he, he started both of these three games weeks, he started all three games and he looked okay in the first two, maybe not great, but
00:15:43
Speaker
The last one is where he really fell off both times. Combined in those two games, he's combined for 0.3 XG plus XA, which basically means he is not generating any chances either through shooting or passing or anything else. And whatever you think of XG, just trust me, that's bad to... That's really bad. That's a really bad total for your, for, especially for the guy who's supposed to be
00:16:12
Speaker
your top chance creator. And it's at the point now where I just don't think, there's too many options on this roster to justify starting Niko three times in a week. I hope we don't see that again. Yeah. And again, and I know that some of this has been thrust upon
00:16:35
Speaker
upon the team because of injuries and whatnot. But it is sort of a throwback to last season where guys that were not getting it done were just getting, you know, getting starts consistently getting starts when it was clear that.
00:16:49
Speaker
They needed a break or they just weren't producing or whatever it was. And that was something that Brian talked a lot about in the off season, about wanting to make sure that didn't happen again. And again, some of it, he doesn't really have a choice, but I feel like Nico is one of the guys that you do have other options. You can try different things. You can try different approaches. He doesn't have to play three games in a week. It's not like you only have one midfielder on this team. And I just, I don't know what they're trying, what it's.
00:17:18
Speaker
what the goal is there. I mean, I think part of the thing is Nico is sort of, you know, he's the captain and he's basically, I don't know if he's demanding, but he's like raising his hand and saying, I want to play. And I think this is where Brian needs to be the coach and just say, we appreciate your desires, but
00:17:41
Speaker
we need to do it, especially the team. And we can't start you three times a week, Nico. We appreciate that you want to, but like Albert, I would say is more fit or at least more capable of doing this. And look, we're going to play him at the 10, one of these games, and we're going to ask you to come off the bench maybe, or maybe we'll give you the whole day off. But like,
00:18:05
Speaker
I've, I've been a proponent. I mean, I've been sort of reluctant to say Albert should move up to the 10 just because I think for the most, for the most of the season, Nico is actually still giving you the best option there, especially when you factor in the work he does on the press. But like we're seeing it all diminish and it diminishes at its, at its peak diminishment. That's a term it's a Valley diminishment. I don't know what the weight, right. What's that is, but
00:18:33
Speaker
Again, in these three games, we just can't do this. We can't keep doing that. If he's going to be restarting 10, I can accept that. If he's going to start against Charlotte on Saturday, I don't really have a problem with that. But let's stop pretending.
00:18:47
Speaker
be this iron man and because he's 34 years old. He's 34 years old. He has a pretty eye popping injury history the last few years. He's had issues with recurring injuries where they really had to manage his minutes in the past. I just, I don't understand
00:19:07
Speaker
I think he probably did insist on playing against Portland, but sit in midweek in that case. I mean, if that's a problem.
00:19:20
Speaker
You know, that's why you get paid the big bucks is to deal with those problems. And I just like, I don't know Nico personally, I've never met him, I've never talked to him. But he just to me does not strike me as the kind of guy that's going to, he's probably not going to be happy if he's not giving a start when he's ostensibly healthy. But I just, he's not going to see, yeah, he's not a
00:19:44
Speaker
He's not a diva, I don't think. That's fair to say. And even if he is, when he plays the way he did against Portland, he's actively harming the team. Right. And also, by the way, he's in the last year of his contract. So if you've never had a reason to worry, OK, maybe he's mad and he throws a big fit, OK, well,
00:20:10
Speaker
That there's our answer, you know, that sucks. But like Nico has brought a lot to this team. I hope that he, you know, he has spoken about wanting to stay here and wanting to have be involved in the club. And these are all reasons I think that he's not going to burn these bridges and that he can handle, uh,
00:20:26
Speaker
hearing some hard truths. And I hope that we start to do that. And so yeah, I guess that's what I'll leave it at that. But on the other side, there were a few positives and I don't want to spin this as if this was a good performance, but there were some encouraging aspects of this game. The
00:20:47
Speaker
The biggest, I thought, was the play of Cody Baker, who we saw play as a right back for the first time, or start as a right back for the first time. And he was one of the few bright spots, I thought. He was good. He made one defensive play. And I think it was in the 14th minute where he came from the weak side and broke up the one decent counter-attacking opportunity that the Timbers had. But he just was up for this game. Here's a 19-year-old kid who hasn't really played on the right side at the MLS level.
00:21:15
Speaker
And he was everything you could have asked for, I think. Yeah, I thought he was great. I thought that he had the right level of intensity all game long. I think he's been just such a pleasant surprise this year. I don't want to say he came out of nowhere because that's not really fair, but I don't think anybody really expected him to take the step forward he did and to be contributing to the first team at the level he has. And, you know, if it sucks when players get opportunities because other people are hurt,
00:21:45
Speaker
Obviously you'd rather not have to force, you know, Defiance players into this position, but hey, if they're going to take advantage of it to the degree that he has.
00:21:56
Speaker
shoot, that could be worse, right? I mean, it's, he's been, he's been, I think really a big, big time, pleasant surprise. I think that he definitely looks like a player that's going to have a pretty decent career in MLS. And, uh, and that's, you know, that's, that's a nice thing to find out because if, if it wasn't for the injuries, I don't know that he would have gotten this chance. No, I think there was a, there's definitely a timeline where he, he's, uh, maybe not even signed to a first team contract.
00:22:22
Speaker
this year and who knows what ends up happening in the offseason but the other player who i think is worth discussing and not because he was so great but i thought there were some things i found encouraging about reed baker whiting's performance
00:22:38
Speaker
He didn't have that final ball. I thought he didn't quite show the physicality that he needed to at times. There was a play early on where he was trying to sort of post up in the penalty area and he got run into in the back. And I think there's a world where that gets called a penalty. It wasn't called a penalty, but it was sort of like a sign that like, hey, kid, you got a
00:23:00
Speaker
stand your ground. You can't like look for fouls in this thing. And so maybe that was a shortcoming. But the thing I liked about him was that he just sees and understands space really well. Like he moved into a lot of dangerous areas and he saw the right pass most of the time, even if he wasn't able to complete it. And I found his thought
00:23:24
Speaker
and his movements just very encouraging. And for the one of the maybe, I wouldn't say the first time where I thought like, okay, I can see why scouts are really excited about this guy. But I do think that is sort of why scouts are projecting a lot of, you know, potential into him when the numbers aren't necessarily there.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the hard stuff to teach. You can get acclimated to a quicker pace of play.
Sounders' Roster and Injury Updates
00:23:53
Speaker
You can develop a better touch or whatever it is. But that kind of vision, that sort of anticipation, that sort of tactical understanding in a player that young is very special. And I think I made a similar observation during the game where
00:24:09
Speaker
I didn't see any any situations in that game where I didn't think he made a good decision. Mm hmm. It was just I think it is getting used to the to the speed of the game at the MLS level and not having as much familiarity with some of his teammates, that sort of thing. But that that'll all come. And and it is pretty clear that he has a really good soccer IQ that he has
00:24:35
Speaker
He has really good vision. He, he, the way he sees the game and approaches the game kind of reminds me of Harry ship a little bit. And he's another player who, who got a lot of these same plaudits, but I think that the athletic ability that, that is physical tools are going to separate from Harry ship. Definitely. And I think, I mean, Harry ship, that was one of the things people would say about him all the time. I think we said this, if he had.
00:25:01
Speaker
better physical gifts, he would be an MLS all-star or he'd be playing in Europe or what have you. And I can definitely see that kind of career for Reed Baker Whiting. I think he's really going to develop into a good player because the stuff that he already is doing is the stuff that a lot of players with good physical gifts never develop and kind of flame out. I agreed with you wholeheartedly on that one.
00:25:28
Speaker
Yeah. And I guess the other thing that I will say was encouraging, it was just the progress that the sounders seem to be making in terms of getting everyone back. And this isn't necessarily that was encouraging from that game. It's more of a, you know, like today I was out of training there.
00:25:45
Speaker
If Morris more, it looks like there's a chance that Morris will actually be cleared to play. I doubt he won't start. I don't think like he wasn't fully trained today. So I would doubt he would, he would be back to start. But if he play, if he's able to play, if he's able to get on the field against Charlotte, uh, assuming, and this is a big assumption that there's no more injuries, I think there's only, I think soda Kita Hara is the only player on the roster who would be unavailable due to injury or unavailable.
00:26:12
Speaker
for real reasons. And just on Wednesday, less than a week ago from today, they had seven guys that were missing for a variety of reasons, whether suspension or international duty or injury. So we are getting close to potentially seeing this team at full strength. Of course, as soon as that happens, the rug will invariably be pulled out from us.
00:26:38
Speaker
because Gold Cup is going to start on June 16th and right now Christian Roldan, Alex Roldan, and Jordan Morris are all listed on provisional rosters. They aren't all guaranteed to get called in, but I would be shocked if at least one of them and, you know,
00:26:57
Speaker
more likely two of them get called in for this thing and they could be gone for six weeks or six games. They can miss six games, not six weeks, but they could miss six games, which is just wonderful. And then as soon as the goal comes over, the league breaks for leagues cup. And, uh, and so it could be theoretically, not until August that we see the sounders, uh, all healthy and fit playing together, uh, in a regular season
Impact of Tournaments on MLS and Sounders
00:27:23
Speaker
game. So that's, that's super annoying.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, I know we've been bitching about this as long as we've been doing the podcast, but it just, it is so frustrating how, how much of the season teams are expected to go without some of their key players. It's just very stupid. It's very stupid. It, it makes a regular season. That's already sort of ordering on irrelevant, especially with the changes to the playoff seating and all of that stuff.
00:27:50
Speaker
I mean, at this point, like, especially like with the founders, I think officially out of the supporters shield race at this point in time.
00:27:57
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, F season is on a literal record breaking pace. So yeah, it's just, it's so hard. Like it's so hard to get invested in Wednesday night against F seed Alice or whoever, you know, um, and, and then, you know, when you're missing key players, that makes it even harder. And then you get to keep players back, but you don't have an MLS season to pay attention to for a month. Right.
00:28:22
Speaker
And depending on your level of interest in the League's Cup, maybe you just don't even really pay attention to the Sounders for a month, right? Like, yeah, I mean, like, I don't know. I'm willing to give League's Cup a chance, but also I'm planning on traveling during League's Cup. I'm not, I'm not necessarily planning on covering League's Cup like I would.
00:28:37
Speaker
the regular season. And I think a lot of people probably are making plans sort of like that. And I think invariably the league's cup will not get the attention that they're hoping that it gets. I hope it does reasonably well, but it just seems like a really long time to break from league play.
00:28:57
Speaker
I would have been much happier, frankly, if they ran it concurrently with the Gold Cup and they take the hit of saying like, yeah, we're going to be missing. I mean, essentially they had a choice to make. You can either break during the Gold Cup and and lose players for League Cup to the Gold Cup, or you can not break for the Gold Cup and lose players during your regular season. And they chose to lose players during their regular season, which is just really, really
00:29:27
Speaker
really, really, really, really, really, really frustrating. And frankly, he's pretty stupid. And I would hope that that's like, if you tell me like, okay, we wanted it to, we wanted a year one of this new league's cup to have the best chance possible to succeed. I don't like it, but I am willing to accept that. I really hope that when this comes back invariably, when it does that they consider
00:29:53
Speaker
in years where there's a gold cup that they run it concurrently with the gold cup and they take the hit during gold cup because it's just, it's asinine that you are asking your teams to just take it on the chin during the entire gold cup. I just don't, I don't understand it.
00:30:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's super frustrating. It does at times feel like there's like an active hostility on the part of MLS owners towards MLS as a product. It's, it's, it's just, it's very strange. And, uh, I, I understand why the owners care about the league's cup. Right. They have not convinced me why I should care about the league's cup. Right. Or why it's worth undermining your own product to do it.
00:30:35
Speaker
Right. Right. And, and that's, I mean, that's kind of what I'm waiting on. Right. It's just like, and well, because it's your team is not compelling to me. I mean, my team plays in preseason tournaments too. I don't care about those. So, uh, I just, and
00:30:52
Speaker
I'm sure that, like you said to them, they're thinking, well, it's going to have a much better chance of succeeding if we have all the players for it. But it's also going to make people like me who are already really skeptical of it actively hostile towards it because our teams are being made weaker.
00:31:11
Speaker
for the sake of the League's Cup. We'll see. Yeah. We'll have plenty of time to rant about the League's Cup, and maybe we'll have a different or worse, frankly, tune to sing once we actually see it in action.
Concacaf Champions League Rebranding
00:31:28
Speaker
But that's probably a good place to take a break. We're going to come back and talk about some of the other stuff that's in the news surrounding the Sounders. You're listening to Nos Arietes.
00:31:41
Speaker
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00:32:12
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adiatus. So we've got a few more topics I wanted to discuss before we get out of here for the week and then come back later in the week with answering your questions. But the first thing that came up was today the powers that be at CONCACAF announced that they are going to be rebranding
00:32:34
Speaker
the CONCACAF Champions League as the CONCACAF Champions Cup, which in fairness is what it was known for the bulk of its existence from I think it was 1962 to 2008. It went by the CONCACAF Champions Cup. It had a lot of different formats during that time. And in fact, two MLS teams won it during the CONCACAF Champions Cup era. Now, I will point out that the reason we never really
00:33:00
Speaker
Considered those as the same thing as Champions League wasn't necessarily just because it had a different name But because at least in the years that MLS won it those tournaments were played entirely in the United States The DC one was played I think over the span of like a week at RFK Stadium and then the one that LA won
00:33:21
Speaker
was played, I think, also within the span of a week, mostly at at the Rose Bowl, I think, but also at CSU Fullerton, which I think gives you the sense of like, what what is the quality? What were we doing here? And yeah, it was basically a preseason tournament for for most of the the.
00:33:43
Speaker
the Central American teams and Mexican teams and stuff. It just was not a very serious tournament in the way that Champions League eventually became. But then, of course, they got rid of the group stage in 2018 and they didn't rebrand it at that time. They still called it Champions League. And this new format is sort of a hybrid between the old Champions Cup and
00:34:06
Speaker
I guess the current champions league, uh, it's going to, this was already announced, but just so you know, it's going to feature 27 teams, uh, 22 of them play in the round 32. Those, uh, 11 winners then join five teams. They go directly into the round of 16 and then they go, uh, you know, they play.
00:34:27
Speaker
home the whole thing up until the final is best of two or not best of two home and home just like it is now and then there's a one game final which i don't know if they've announced how the uh where how they'll determine where that's played like if they're gonna do
00:34:42
Speaker
a neutral venue or they're gonna have the higher seed or whatever. I don't know if that's totally clear, but the long and short of it is that the Sounders are gonna go down in history as the only MLS team to ever win CONCACAF Champions League, so congratulations. Not only were you the first, but you're the only one.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's that takes some of this thing out of how much worse the tournament is now. For me, at least I I don't I don't know if I really I don't know if I I don't I'm not bothered by the expansion of the tournament so much. It's kind of the expansion. Yeah, the expansion doesn't bother me. It's the I hate the single leg final. I know.
00:35:23
Speaker
I know that that's like I understand why they're doing it, but I think home and home is a much better system for a final. But would you go to let's say they have the champion, the final in Vegas. Would you go to Vegas for a Sounders? Leon champions? Yeah, would you? Probably not. But I mean, I think you would go to that.
00:35:48
Speaker
No, I, it's a miracle. I went to Seattle for, I don't, I don't go anywhere unless I'm traveling generally, but no, I mean, I might, I might do that, but I, I just think in like from a sporting sense that hominoma is much better. And I think it's cool that each team gets to host the final. Uh, I liked that.
00:36:10
Speaker
That's another thing that maybe the Sounders will end up going down in history is the only MLS team to get to lift the Champions League trophy at home, which was legitimately like a highlight of my
00:36:23
Speaker
entire time covering the Sounders. I mean, that was, that was one of, one of, if not the best sports memories I've ever had was seeing that. Um, I think even beyond the single life final though, I, I really wish that it was still an actual league with, with a group stage. I liked that so much. I understand why they did away with it.
00:36:45
Speaker
to some degree, but it's kind of like, there are a lot of things where I get from like a business of sports perspective, why they do it. Right. But I just, I just don't care about that stuff. You know, it's, it's, it's not my problem, uh, how much money they're making off of it. So I think it was much better when I had a group stage, but
00:37:03
Speaker
You know, it's still, I mean, it's the continental, it's the preeminent continental tournament. You have to care about it. You have to be invested in it. I think it's still, it's a tournament that I think everybody is still going to take very seriously. And that's the, that's the important thing. I think that as long as the Mexican teams are invested in it, it's a tournament you have to care about. And, uh, and I don't see any reason to believe that the Mexican teams are not going to stay invested in it.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, I don't either. It'll be interesting to see how this evolves. It's funny to think back to those actual champions, those early Champions League, when they had the group stage, it's almost hard to imagine how they fit all those games into a schedule. You would have to play six group stage games.
00:37:50
Speaker
That's a lot of traveling to South America or to Central America and all over the place that they had to do. And then they went to, but then they went to the three team group and the three team group did not feel, did not have the same. The same juice. Definitely not. Definitely not. I mean, it sucks because I feel like the tournament was at its best at a time when MLS teams weren't really getting super close. I mean, RSL got pretty close, I guess they did get to the final. They were. Yeah.
00:38:20
Speaker
Um, but yeah, but I mean, it wasn't the Mexican teams were still very much treating it as a, not an exhibition, but not a lot more, much more seriously than an exhibition. I mean, they definitely, they, they weren't playing their starters in every game and, and all of that. Whereas now I feel like it's, they treat it as seriously as any lead game, if not, if not more so.
LAFC's Concacaf Champions League Performance
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah. And they, and they did have to, you know, it certainly MLS teams were not going toe to toe with the Gamaquis teams, the way that they are doing now where they're at least, you know, pushing them and, uh, you know, like at least like to, they they've talked themselves into sometimes being favorites, uh, which is maybe a good transition into, uh, the last champions league final that, uh, we'll ever potentially have. And that was LAFC.
00:39:14
Speaker
Womp Womp, falling flat on their face against Club Leone, who Sounders fans should know quite well, having played them in both a League's Cup final and a, and in the Champions League, like last, they were one of the teams that Sounders beat last year on their way to the final. And- A fact that appears to be lost on a lot of LAFC fans for some reason. Or a lot of people in general for some reason that are acting like the Sounders had this cake walk
00:39:41
Speaker
And it's completely insane. Yeah. And by the way, the Sounders had to play the reigning MLS Cup champions. They had to play two league and Becky's teams. And then they had to play a pretty decent team from Honduras. And meanwhile, OSC didn't have to play. They played two MLS opponents, neither of which they were the MLS Cup champions. But
00:40:00
Speaker
Whatever. They didn't have to play any league champions during their entire tournament. Leon is a fine team. I think we have talked ourselves into believing that Leon was this superpower, but they were like a mid-taste, you know, they, they finished sixth in, uh, League of Mechis. They lost in their first round. And the other thing I think is so weird is people are spinning it. Like, well.
00:40:22
Speaker
Steve Trenderlo in particular, talked about the schedule, not lining up well for MLS. And what are you talking about? It's mid-season, you're in mid-season form. You are playing on a totally normal cadence and the Liga Amecu's team took a month off. They had a month off.
00:40:39
Speaker
off. If an MLS team had taken, been forced to take a month off before playing in the champions league funnel, I guarantee you, guarantee you the narrative would have been, Oh, they got stale and they're out of rhythm. And, uh, and no way this schedule is definitely is absolutely the least of the, of LAFC's problems. And he has five games in hand.
00:41:03
Speaker
Yeah, give me a break. It's absolutely absurd to talk about any challenges in the schedule that LAFC had. And then the other thing I thought that was so funny was that, you know, he was talking about how like League of Mechis has all these advantages in terms of roster building. And sure, like broadly speaking, he's not wrong. Like I would say as a League, League of Mechis has much more flexibility than MLS. There's no question about it. But you didn't play a League of Mechis All-Star team. You played Leone, who
00:41:32
Speaker
Yes, they have some good players. But if you go spot by spot on their roster, I think you can make a pretty valid argument that LAFC is better, certainly at the high end of the roster. And you only have to worry about going 15 deep. You can't play more than 15 players. So it's like going below that is sort of pointless in terms of examining the roster depth.
00:41:55
Speaker
And I don't know, I think that that just rang so hollow and so, like, weak. It just was very disappointing to hear these complaints as if it was impossible for an MLS team to beat a League of Meki team when it happened last year, by the way. I don't know, it was very weird to see the sort of the reaction to that.
00:42:18
Speaker
If the Sounders had lost to Pumas last year, never would have heard the end of it. Never would have heard the end of it. And and you know what? It would have been justified. It would have been right to do it. Yeah. The Sounders should have beat Pumas. They had a better team. Yes. Better players.
00:42:36
Speaker
I'm not sure what transfer market says about the relative roster value or whatever, but I feel very confident that that sounder's roster top to bottom. Yes, it was every bit as good as it was better. It was better. It was better and good. Good. Like that's why MLS has been spending all this money. That's why they have, you know, created all these new mechanisms. That's why the payrolls are what, like six times as much as they were in 2013 or whatever it was like.
00:43:07
Speaker
And to hear LAFC, LAFC of all teams. Right. The team that has Giorgio Cellini just like sitting on your, like coming out of the word work to be like, yeah, I'll play for you for almost, you know, like for not a real salary. Sure. Just completely, completely absurd. Carlos Vela is on, is on your team. Yeah. I don't want to, I don't want to hear about how much harder it is.
00:43:30
Speaker
And he was garbage and he was dog shit. Right. That's why you lost because he's good players played like crap. Let's talk about that. Like when Carlos Villa completely invisible in this series, like you have you have a virtual all star team of a roster and.
00:43:50
Speaker
And it's just, I don't know, it was very frustrating to, or maybe amusing, it was sort of amusing. I will also say that I don't think I've seen Sounders Twitter more excited about something since the Sounders actually won Champions League, as they seem to be celebrating, and Lickit was really in the middle of it, just sending out one wonderful gift after another. But yeah, it was, I think Sounders fans were really excited
00:44:20
Speaker
On the show, we talked about how Christian and Jordan admitted they were rooting for Leon. But Brian insisted that he was actually rooting for LAFC, which I don't know, I suppose that sort of makes sense. It wouldn't shock me. I'm assuming he has a good relationship with Bontay Razov. Yeah, he has a good relationship with Razov, and I guess he has a good relationship with Trondellotu. Sure.
00:44:47
Speaker
I'm not going to, I'm not, I enjoyed this. I enjoyed LAFC. Like I didn't know, actually at the start of the series, I wasn't sure if I wanted LAFC to win or lay on, but I have to see, as soon as I saw them playing, I was like, no, I want lay on to win. I, there's never any question in my mind. There are other MLS teams that I root for and the CCL final LAFC is not one of them. I don't, I never want anything good for them. Who would you root for?
00:45:15
Speaker
I think a fair number of Eastern Conference teams, I don't really have a problem with. If somehow the Whitecaps ever got to a CCL final, I would root for them. Yeah, I would too, actually. Which honestly would probably piss Whitecaps fans off, so it makes it even better. But yeah, I rooted for Montreal when they got to the final that year. Yeah, so did I. I rooted for RSL.
00:45:40
Speaker
I did not root for RSL, but yeah, just any teams that the Sounders have a rivalry with outside of, I guess, Vancouver, who I have very strange feelings about for a rival, I might root for them. Especially now that the Sounders have won it, and there's no being the first anymore. You don't get to have that feather in your cap. Yeah, but LAFC, no way. Absolutely not.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you there.
Lionel Messi's Potential Move to MLS
00:46:10
Speaker
Uh, so one other, uh, big sort of news item, uh, still not confirmed, but a lot of signs, a lot of smoke is pointing to Lionel Messi joining inner Miami, uh, potentially as soon as this summer and making his debut, uh, in league's cup to bring it all back around, uh,
00:46:33
Speaker
against Cruz Azul, which I don't know. I I don't know. I don't know what my feelings are on this. I guess I. I'm I'm enjoying I guess it's sort of like watching a it's not a car crash is just another term for it, but it's. It's just fascinating to see play out like I don't feel like I have a lot of motion invested in whether or not this happens. Yeah, I. Our friend Ken Macaulay.
00:47:04
Speaker
as her attitude is generally, you have to do this from messy. And I think she's right. I think that.
00:47:13
Speaker
there are very few players in the world where if you have a chance to sign them, you have to do it. But for me, this is another one of those things where I get from a business standpoint why you have to do it. I don't care. I hated Zlatan being in the league because all of the coverage of the league became about Zlatan.
00:47:36
Speaker
that galaxy team was crap that he that he was on but that's all anybody could talk about was latin and it and i hated it it sucked because i'm i'm i care about this league all the time and i'm deeply invested in it and when i'm i'm not like an anti-bandwagon person more the merrier right but like
00:47:59
Speaker
people that I do not like and find super annoying are going to be paying attention to MLS if Messi is playing. And it's not going to be positive attention, right? Like Leo Messi is going to make MLS defenders look exactly the same way he's been making defenders in the Liga and Ligon. He's going to make people look ridiculous because it's what he does. He's Leo Messi. And everybody's going to talk about, look at how bad MLS is. Look at how this is ridiculous.
00:48:26
Speaker
Why would you and I just I don't I don't or maybe new who just shuts him down. I mean, that's possible. I suppose I I guess my my perspective on it is is a little different. I I I like you Understand the business metrics behind this and I'm actually not really bothered by the idea like if MLS wants to give him a percentage of
00:48:50
Speaker
of season pass sales that gets old after he joins the league that's doesn't know skin off my back if they want to like create mechanisms to sort of entice him to be here and Miami is going to be paying a salary or whatever
00:49:06
Speaker
I don't, I don't honestly like come from a competitive standpoint. It doesn't really bother me that much. He's, he's one guy, you know, maybe, maybe he does turn Miami into a, into a, a championship team, but I, I think the thing that I'm more like concerned about, I guess is the right term is.
00:49:29
Speaker
it's gonna bring a lot of eyeballs to MLS and it's, I think a type of fandom more than the toxic, like I know you're talking about the toxicity of people clowning on MLS, but I'm actually more worried about the people that are just gonna be watching the league and just sort of have a very European idea of what they want it to be where it's, and I see this sort of developing around the sounder sometimes,
00:49:56
Speaker
And I don't think it's that bad. People have a right to demand success from their teams, especially a team like the Sounders who hold themselves to a high standard. But I just think there's a difference between
00:50:08
Speaker
holding your team to a high standard and just demanding that every three months you blow up your roster and like sign the most. And it's sort of like this European mentality, like Manchester United mentality or whatever of saying like you can always just blow up your roster and start again and it's just, it's someone else's money. And I just find that so uninteresting to like have
00:50:35
Speaker
And I just hope that's not, and I don't like, it's not fun discourse. It's not fun. Uh, it doesn't create a good environment for a community. And I'm, that is the stuff I'm a little bit more worried about, about like sort of making the tent too big, too fast. And it, and it becoming like all these other sports that are also in the United States, uh, that it's just, it's just stops being fun sometimes.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah. And I think, I mean, messy fan boys are not as toxic as Ronaldo fan boys, but it is a lot of the same kind of stuff where it's just like, you're a fan of messy. Yeah. I just wonder, it's like, yeah, you're going to get a lot of eyeballs on the league for as long as he's playing here. How many of those people do you really think are going to convert into long-term fans? I mean, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a fair question.
00:51:25
Speaker
And maybe it is enough of them that it makes sense, I don't know. But I just, I think.
00:51:32
Speaker
From a bottom line business perspective, I get why they have to feel like they have to do this. And I'm like you, and I think as a Sounders fan that benefited from the league bending or inventing new rules to get Clint Dempsey here, it would be hypocritical of me to say, and I defended it at the time, and I think it would be hypocritical of me to say, well, it's not okay now because
00:51:56
Speaker
I don't, you know, I don't, I don't reap the benefits of it. Um, so yeah, I mean, I, I get why they're doing it and why it makes sense for them to do whatever they have to do to get them into the league. I just think it's going to make the fan experience worse. I'm glad he will be in the Eastern conference. I'll say that much. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I do think even now he's still good enough that he single-handedly turns him into an MLS cup.
00:52:20
Speaker
Contender just just by himself. I think he's just he's just that good. But yeah, we'll see how it goes. We will. I still think he ends up a Barcelona. I'm I'm I still think that's probably what's going to happen because I think it is what he wants. And I think Barcelona also wants it. Yeah. But we'll see.
00:52:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it does sound like it's between them and Miami and that the Saudi Arabian deal has sort of fallen through.
Saudi Arabia's Soccer Ambitions and Global Impact
00:52:46
Speaker
There was also this report. I don't even know if it's a report at this point. I think it might just be true that Saudi Arabia is like doing a live golf type of deal with soccer and they they're going to create like four super teams and they're going to recruit all the best European players and
00:53:04
Speaker
And supposedly this is a problem for MLS and I don't think it is at all, like at all. It's not at all. It's a good thing for MLS. I think as you said, it protects them, you know, it saves them from themselves. And I think, I mean, the Chinese Premier League
00:53:22
Speaker
or the super league or whatever, tried to do a very similar thing and it did not work. I think that there are for sure some players who will go where the money is. I think the idea that they're going to be able to just become the place that all the best players in the world end up, which is really how this would have to work for it to be successful in the way that they want it to be.
00:53:45
Speaker
I'm extremely skeptical of that. But I do think if they can sign 31-year-olds with bad injury histories that would otherwise go to New York Red Bulls or whatever, that's great. I think it's good because I hate those guys being in the league. I don't want them in the league.
00:54:01
Speaker
Um, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll see how that goes. But I, I just, I'm very skeptical that it's going to be anything like a long-term success, like they want it to be. I think that they almost certainly turn those Saudi teams into the best teams in the region. Uh, I think that's pretty inevitable, but I just, the scale of the kind of signings they'd have to make for this to work the way I think they want it to is going to be. I just don't, I mean, I, I don't.
00:54:26
Speaker
I'm not saying that there's no audience that's interested in this, but I am very skeptical that like specifically European and American audiences are that hungry just to watch talent and not like, there's just so much about why people are attracted to European soccer. That is not as simple as where the most talented players play. There's this whole, there's a whole, I don't need to talk, I don't need to explain it to you, but
00:54:54
Speaker
I think we both understand there's a whole narrative around European soccer that is almost secondary. That makes the talent almost secondary, and I think that's what people get attracted to a lot of times. But anyway, I didn't mean to get into all that.
Conclusion and Acknowledgments
00:55:11
Speaker
I think this is probably a good place to call it.
00:55:14
Speaker
We're going to come back later in the week. We'll take your questions. But thank you again to our Substack subscribers. If you want to get questions answered on this show, I would highly recommend just popping into the latest post on our Substack and leaving it there. And we will we will find it, I promise. But also thank you to our sponsors, Fullpool Wines and Watson's Counter.
00:55:41
Speaker
I am Jeremiah Shan, signing off for Aaron Campo and Lickett. This is No Study Yet This. Remember, you'll never get alone.
00:56:22
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!