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Episode 337: Enjoying every minute
65 Plays4 years ago
No matter what happens from here on out, this has been one of the most enjoyable seasons in Sounders history.
This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)
Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of No Sadietes is sponsored by Full Pool Wines, a Seattle-based wine seller who recently released their first book, 36 Bottles of Wine. The ethos of the book, a highly curated look at wine categories that provide exceptional value right now, should be familiar to full pool readers. But there's loads of fresh content, and since it's not trying to sell any wine through the book, there's a bit more of a sass factor.
00:00:21
Speaker
And there's food. Lots of it. Fulpul's unique writing style is applied to recipes like leftover Thanksgiving turkey, schmaltz-a-ball soup, and pregnancy nachos. This book can be purchased through Sasquatch Books.
Sounders' Recent Performance Overview
00:00:32
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. What? Hey, Ocean! Let's go! Jordan Morris getting in behind Florian Youngford. Jordan Morris! Scores!
00:00:50
Speaker
And how's this for a save from Steph and Fry? Here comes Roy Deers from the middle to crowd it to Seattle. What do the Tigers dream of? They take a little Tigers in. It's the Sounders and an S-Com. I feel a lot better than Bob.
00:01:34
Speaker
I didn't know what it was. Is that what you young people call twerking?
00:01:59
Speaker
Well when last we talked the Sounders were just starting off it would be a stretch of seven games in 23 days. They've now gotten through that plus another one and while it didn't go literally perfect I think we can safely say that they came out on the other side looking very strong. The Sounders ended up going 5-2-0 during that congested run of games and followed it up with another win over the White Caps on Saturday. They're now getting ready for a final push in which they'll play six games over the final
00:02:07
Speaker
I have no idea.
00:02:24
Speaker
over the season's final 23 days. All things considered, I think you have to like where they sit. They're leading the Western Conference by five points, have at least an outside shot at the supporters shield, and became the first Western Conference team to clinch a playoff spot, all while playing some pretty damn entertaining soccer.
Impact of COVID and Team Resilience
00:02:40
Speaker
Aaron, are you hyped?
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I think I think I am hype Jeremiah. It's there's there's a there's a not to get you know too far out of ourselves but there's a question that's kind of on this path for later in the show so I don't want to go into too much detail about my feelings around this but.
00:02:58
Speaker
Like it kind of feels like, and I think part of it is just like things starting to get a little more back to normal after COVID and life returning to normal a little bit. But it's just like, I'm excited about the sounders in a way that I haven't been since 2019 probably. And that's a good feeling to have again. It's a good feeling to enjoy sports without like feeling guilty about it.
00:03:19
Speaker
Um, you know, and, and that's, that's been much more the case these last couple of months. And, um, you know, more than anything, it's just really fun to watch this team play right now. Um, it's a well-trodden path to talk about the sounders, not having Nico Badero for most of the season for, you know, not having Jordan Morris, um, and missing all these guys to injury for long periods of time. And, you know, still playing as well as they have, but it's a well-trodden path because it's a pretty compelling story. And, uh, you know, I don't think we can say enough about.
00:03:51
Speaker
the way the team is bought into, you know, this new system. I mean, if you'll remember, that was a pretty significant topic of discussion in the off season and in the early season was like, how is this going to work? And, you know, I'd say it's worked pretty well. I think that this is definitely a team that is performing at a level higher than is, you know, the sum of its parts, which I think speaks a lot to, you know, what Brian Schmetzer and the rest of the coaching staff have done all
Player Development and Strategy
00:04:18
Speaker
year long.
00:04:19
Speaker
I mean, they really seem to be clicking. They had a kind of run of, I don't want to say bad form, but, you know, a down run of form compared to where they've been at for the rest of the season. But they've kind of picked up right where they left off since then. And, you know, I think they look as good as anyone in the league right now.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I was just thinking about this today, uh, is that, you know, you look at what they did this off season and I think there were some understandable question marks. You know, they, they didn't really go out and spend a bunch of money on anyone. Uh, all the players they brought in were sort of, you know, MLS veteran types.
00:05:01
Speaker
granted with some connection to Seattle, but knowing that I don't think anyone was super enthusiastic about their off-season. And you look back on it now and it's almost like, oh, it was an unfair advantage for the Sanders to sort of get these hometown discounts.
00:05:19
Speaker
Like all these players who, oh, well, what does really, what does, Kellen, Kellen Rowe hasn't been good for a few years. What's he really got left? Or, you know, Spencer Richie hadn't been, I mean, I don't know. He's maybe not the best example, but he's, but he's got two shutouts in his two games. But then like Freddie Monteiro is the big one where it's like, okay, yeah, Sandra's brought Freddie back. I think that's fun. But there were a lot of people, not us. I mean, I think we were reasonably enthusiastic about that, but there was a lot of people who were just like, ah,
00:05:49
Speaker
what's he really got left? And now it's like, oh, it's a little unfair that the sounders were able to sign these guys for so cheap.
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it is. I think that the unfairness of that maybe karmically has been offset by some of the other stuff that Sounders have had to deal with this year. So I'm not going to feel too bad about it. I don't think there's anything to feel bad about it at all. I just think it's funny how they have, you know, and it's like you can kind of go through this whole laundry list of players who were effectively like reclamation projects, who had shown promise at various other places, but
00:06:24
Speaker
certainly weren't at the height of their powers when they came to the Sounders. You know, Nico Benizet is the most recent one, but before him, you know, there, like I said, there was Roe and, and Montero. And then before them, him was Jimmy Madranda and Shane O'Neill. And I think you can even probably throw Will Bruin into that because, you know, it wasn't like the Sounders gave up a ton to get him. Granted, it was a long time ago, but you, you, they bring in these MLS veterans who have a decent,
00:06:51
Speaker
resume but who more recently have struggled and all of a sudden you put them in the right situation, you surround them with expectations of performance, you make them happy, you like just create this whole environment that sort of lifts everyone up and all of a sudden these guys are playing as good or better than they have ever in their careers. I mean Jimmy Madranda at one point was a
00:07:15
Speaker
You could maybe say he was a borderline best 11 type of talent. And so I don't know that he's there yet, but I don't know. He's playing as good as any left back in the league, I think you can say. Shane O'Neill is a very solid center back. Nico Benizei, you know, he looks so good against the Whiteout. I said this half jokingly, but I really thought he might score a hat trick in the first half the way he was playing.
00:07:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that the sounders are just really good at identifying these guys. This has been something I've talked about a lot recently, because I'm kind of flabbergasted by it. But I think it goes back even further than Will. I mean, you could make the argument that Chad Marshall was in that camp. Or Stephen Fry. Or Stephen Fry, for sure.
00:08:02
Speaker
I just think that the sounders are really good at, and I think having as you know as our friend Kim McCauley said to me after when I was talking about this on Saturday night, having the best analytics guy in the league probably helps. Where you know that's the kind of stuff that good analytics helps you do is identify
00:08:20
Speaker
patterns and players of like, okay, these are these are guys who there's no real reason to think that they would have fallen off of cliff, right? Or we can identify certain things about their game that has made them less successful elsewhere that maybe isn't going to be an issue here. I think like with Jimmy Madrada, for example, I think probably a player whose whose minutes need to be managed. And he's in a situation where that can happen. And, and
00:08:45
Speaker
He's back to his best and hasn't really had the health concerns he's had the last few years.
00:08:51
Speaker
Nico Benizei is a guy that the rapids, I think, paid a transfer fee for him. They did. They did. They paid a transfer. It was, in hindsight, kind of a crazy deal. My understanding is basically what happened was Toronto FC brought him over on sort of like a loan, and they weren't really interested in picking him up. But the rapids were willing to pick him up and pay the transfer fee that they had to pay. And then they didn't play him.
00:09:18
Speaker
Right. And I mean, he, they brought him over what, like last year, I think. I mean, so this is not like a guy who was a DP that had a good, like a good year or two and then flamed out. Like this is a guy that was worth real money.
00:09:33
Speaker
as recently as a year ago. And that's the kind of player that it's worth taking a flyer on.
Organizational Strength and Long-term Success
00:09:40
Speaker
And there are guys that the Sounders have missed on, but they're hit rate for guys like this who are truly available or at the very least, very cheaply available that go on to become, you know, critical pieces. And I think like with guys like Talon Rowe, sometimes their stature falls a lot more than it should because he was
00:10:00
Speaker
at a certain point I think looked at as like a guy that you could build around and or at least as having that potential and he didn't quite hit that after he signed a big contract and his star kind of faded but it's not like he was going out and stinking it up you know and the sounders were like this is this is clearly a guy that can that can eat some minutes play a lot of positions and so the expectations of what he's doing and what he's getting paid to do um
00:10:25
Speaker
that he's far outpaced that, I think. Freddie Monteiro was, I think, expected to be the star of the show in Vancouver, but the Vancouver Whitecaps are trash, and they have been trash for years, and he's just at this phase in his career, not a player that can run the show. But he can absolutely be a contributor with a good supporting cast, and he has been here.
00:10:50
Speaker
The sounders are just really good at that and I think it's more than anything else that is an explanation for why they're good or at least competitive year after year after year.
00:11:00
Speaker
And I can't escape this idea that so much of what their success is predicated on is sort of this virtuous cycle type of stuff, where the more success they have, the easier it is to maintain that success. And it makes it look easy. It makes it look like, well, of course, successful organizations are gonna get successful players and it just kind of continues and continues. But a lot of organizations don't do that for whatever reason. They get caught up in
00:11:29
Speaker
battles of ego or whatever else, or it's like really built, like what looks sometimes like a successful organizations and sometimes just a success, a really good leader. And once that leader leaves, things start to fall apart. And I don't know, maybe, maybe there is, like, there are definitely common threads that run throughout the organization, but I think what makes, makes them so strong is that there's a bunch of them, you know, it's not just Brian Spencer. It's not just Garth Largo way. It's not just,
00:11:56
Speaker
Adrian Hanauer, you kind of dig down and there's like, they keep threading in these people who understand the culture, who understand the history, who understand what makes a successful organization and you keep tying them together and you can afford to lose a Gonzalo Panetta. You can afford to lose a Jimmy Traore as long as you maintain like the shape of what your organization is and you don't lose sight of what you're trying to be.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah. And I think if you compare that to a team like, uh, rail salt lake, who it wasn't that long ago that they were considered a model franchise, right? Jason Christ was going to be the next coach of the national team. Um, they were gonna just continue being this sort of like mid-market success story where the team was the star and all that shit. And then.
00:12:42
Speaker
But it completely fell apart and they're a mess now. And there are other examples of that. And I think that I don't want to jinx anything, but I think that the sounders are built in a way, they're built organizationally for success, for sustained success. And as long as
00:13:02
Speaker
Something doesn't happen to disrupt that I don't think there's any way any reason to think that inertia can't just kind of keep that going as long as they keep making good hires and putting the right kinds of people and positions of power.
00:13:16
Speaker
they're just built to withstand those kinds of disruptions, as you said. And that's not to say that they're going to be good forever and they're going to be championship caliber team forever. But I do think that this is the kind of club where a down year is something like 2013, where they're kind of mediocre and creep into the playoffs and don't pose a big threat. And, you know, I think that I can live with that like as a sports fan. That seems pretty good.
00:13:42
Speaker
Well, you know, the other thing I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I actually wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, is some of the similarities between this team in 2014. And I don't mean to say that this team is built exactly like that 2014 team, but I do think there are some
00:13:58
Speaker
broad similarities. And one of them is that 2014 team was probably the team that you and I, at the end of the season, spent the most time talking about how that was a fun ride. Like from beginning to end, it was, there weren't these long periods of frustration.
00:14:15
Speaker
like the the frustrating parts of the season were pretty small and there was a lot of high points and there was a lot of fun games to to get excited about and I feel like this year's team is a lot like that and it's the highs are different the lows are different you know they don't have a us open cup but that league's cup run was vaguely similar
00:14:36
Speaker
And it's just been, like, especially against the Rapids and the Whitecaps, they were playing just fun soccer. Like, it was fun to watch them. They were trying backheels. They were trying Robonas. You know, Freddie Montero is out there doing sort of like his Clint Dempsey impersonation. Gio Paolo is making that run, which, by the way, I think might be the most amazing goal I've ever seen the center score. And there's a lot of those this year. Like, yeah.
Recent Exciting Matches and Key Players
00:15:06
Speaker
I was watching a highlight of some of their goals this year. And there's probably like five or six goals that I would say rank, you know, pretty high and all time centers goals, but that gel power goal, I loved it so much just because it's, it's such a, like a great distillation of, of his game where he sees the opening. He actually has a pretty fair amount of speed to take that space. He.
00:15:31
Speaker
does a nutmeg to kind of like get himself really into the attacking part. And then it's just like all will to push it into the goal. Yeah. And I just loved it. I thought that game was so much fun. The Whitecaps game was also a lot of fun. And, you know, this season could go a lot of different ways still. There's who knows, right? But I think at the end of it, no matter what, I'm going to feel like that was a good ride. Yeah, this is definitely a team that
00:15:59
Speaker
believes in themselves, believes that they are going to win every game that they play. Even when they go out and shut the bed, they seem really pissed off about it in a way that not every team is always going to. And that's not to say that if teams aren't reacting that way, that there's a problem necessarily. But when they are reacting that way, when they have an off night or what have you, I think it says good things about their psyche and their expectations. And when they can go out and back those expectations up,
00:16:28
Speaker
then that's what prevents it from becoming a toxic environment, I guess. And I think, you know, on the topic of Joao Paulo, I think that you could argue that he's having the best season of any individual player in sounder's history this year. I mean, I agree. I mean, I just wrote a column about his MVP candidacy, and I feel like I even left stuff. I mean, like, just the fact that he's had to sort of carry this team for portions of the season, I think really speak to just, like, how
00:16:58
Speaker
Like, I don't know, I don't love the whole like, well, is it the most valuable player or the most outstanding player sort of like argument? But I kind of feel like Zhao Paolo is without putting up, you know, huge goal and assist numbers, although he's got pretty decent numbers in that category. I think he is sort of like, I think outstanding player is more than just, or most valuable player, whatever, however you want to look at it. It's like, I don't know how we got tricked into thinking that,
00:17:27
Speaker
Whoever has the most goals and assists is the best is the guy who should win MVP. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's like a problem that persists across sports and I I had this this conversation.
00:17:38
Speaker
on Twitter several times over the past few weeks. Like I think Carlos Hill is the obvious guy that's going to win MVP. And I think based on the criteria that like, I think the way that I put it the other day was like, of all the people that have an actual chance to get people to vote for them to be the MVP, like he's the obvious candidate. And, but I, but I definitely, I mean, it's like,
00:18:02
Speaker
The, it's the same thing in college football where everybody's like, well, yeah, it's going to like, you know, the quarterback of whatever sec team won 14 games that year. But like everybody kind of knows that it's this left tackle or whatever, you know, it's actually be Tony Manderich.
00:18:18
Speaker
Right. It's and it's it's the same kind of vibe, you know, and and it's I don't I just you can't convince me that there's another player in MLS. I mean, New England has won a ton of games without Carlos Hill this year for one and one in the six games he missed. I think that's selling. Yeah. And and I don't think that that's
00:18:38
Speaker
to say that Carlos Hill hasn't been a major contributor, I just think to say that if you take JP away from the Sounders for that long of a stretch, they're not going to, even if they get results, they're not going to look that comfortable. Well, I think it also is somewhat telling to me that he hasn't missed a bunch of games. I want to say out of the Zenders have played 31 games. He's played in 30 of them. I think he's started like 28.
00:19:07
Speaker
27 something like that. He's been there. He's been healthy. He's been contributing. He had, and I think like there's something to be said for the longevity aspect of it. And then once you start like looking at his numbers outside of goals and assists, it really to me becomes really apparent, like how valuable he's been, how important he's been, whatever you want to say it. Like he's, I think you can probably break the game into three real phases, right? Defense,
00:19:33
Speaker
like defensive contributions, the ability to help in possession, and then the offensive part of it, right? And he's a huge part of all three of those phases. You know, he's been their best playmaker, he's been their most important midfield passer, and he's been
00:19:53
Speaker
probably their best defensive player and it's it's crazy. I mean he's he's you know you look at where he ranks and all these different stats all over the board and it's like top 10 everywhere you go and he's maybe not the best guy at anything when it comes to you know looking like he's not a better playmaker than Carlos heel no question about it. The revolution play
00:20:16
Speaker
even better when he's on the field. I'm not going to like try to make this an argument between the two of them. I just think that Jal Paulo absolutely belongs in that conversation. And like you said, I think you're probably right. He's probably had the best season of any Sounders player ever.
00:20:31
Speaker
I think that he's giving you a contribution similar defensively to what Ozzy Alonzo did in his best years as a box-to-box player as much as Gustav Svensson did during his best years and as a creator as much as Nico Odera did during his best years. I mean, he is the quintessential
00:20:51
Speaker
do it all midfielder of the kind that all of the best teams in the world have that's kind of lacking at this tier. And yeah, he's players like him. Aren't super. I mean, that's the thing you kind of players like him aren't usually an MLS, right? Because players like him for one reason or another don't like if they're playing and
00:21:13
Speaker
I mean, it does make me actually wonder, like, how is this guy available? Like, why was he playing it like a mid tier team in Brazil? Because he was good. It wasn't like he was a bad player in Brazil. I don't know. Why was he available to the sounders? I mean, I think the 28 year old or whatever. I think a lot of it is just that the things he does are so undervalued in MLS and teams have limited resources. And I think that that's like this phase that MLS is moving into roster wise.
00:21:37
Speaker
we're going to start seeing players with skill sets similar to Joao Paulo. Hopefully, they won't be as good as he is. But I think in the past, MLS teams have focused their resources on attacking players or on central defenders and just said, well, we can pair like a good six with a good eight and be OK in the midfield.
00:21:57
Speaker
Which is pretty dumb, frankly. And the Sounders kind of got away from that with Nico, because Nico is nominally a 10, but I mean, he really played as an 8 for most of his best seasons, I think. And other teams kind of went that way as well, but there were still more attacking players than draw polo is, and I think
00:22:20
Speaker
You know, that's just MLS kind of getting to that level where they can afford to go after players like this. I think you could probably argue that some of them should have done it earlier. Like a player of Joao Paulo's caliber was probably, you know, better than a lot of the flash in the pan attacking DPs that a lot of teams signed over the years, but they wanted the guys that would score goals.
00:22:41
Speaker
Um, and I think what, you know, sure. Paulo has shown you is that if you have a player that can create chances the way he can and allow you to put other more attack minded players around him, because he can do so many different things and you don't have to have specialists in those midfield positions that that opens up a lot of opportunities for other people. So, you know, one of the things that I've been trying to like.
00:23:05
Speaker
figure out is the role that the move to a three-back formation has had in Jau Paulo's success specifically. And, you know, we asked Brian about this and he sort of like didn't really, he didn't necessarily seem to think that it was a huge part of it.
00:23:24
Speaker
You look at the numbers, and I was really expecting to see Ciao Paolo's touches coming higher up the pitch because, essentially, he has a little bit less defensive responsibilities because that third center back, theoretically, is replacing some of what a defensive midfielder is going to, a number six is going to do. But his touches really aren't that much farther forward. They're not noticeably farther forward than they were before.
00:23:50
Speaker
But somehow it does seem like he has a level of freedom that he didn't have before. And maybe that's as much about having a willing runner like a Josh Atencio around him who's able to kind of cover a lot of the ground that he doesn't necessarily need to cover. But I don't know. Do you have any theories as to how this three-back formation has sort of allowed so many of the Sounders players to kind of be at their best?
Tactical Flexibility and Formation
00:24:17
Speaker
I mean, I think that
00:24:20
Speaker
it does allow you to specialize certain spots a little bit more and like it gives you more freedom in the midfield when you know you have three center backs. It gives you the ability to get forward a little bit more, to focus a little bit more on the attack. You don't necessarily have to have like a true stay at home six, the way that you do when you're playing with two central defenders. But I think a lot of it is just that they kind of
00:24:46
Speaker
lucked into having like a roster full of players that were well suited for it at a time when that kind of came into vogue like tactically and you know I mean I think that
00:24:59
Speaker
how Jordan Morris changes that is going to be an interesting question going into next thoughts. Yes, it will. Assuming that he's, I hate to say it, but assuming that he's the player that he was before and that he's forcing that question, I don't see any reason to believe that he won't be, but you never know. I mean, you never know, right? Until he does it, you just can't, you can't know until he does it.
00:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, and, you know, beyond that, I mean, he's a good he's a pretty good player. I think that he could probably find a spot in this in the system. But I I just think that.
00:25:32
Speaker
Having a lot of professionals that are flexible that can do a lot of different things successfully, having guys like Kellen Rowe who can play pretty much anywhere on the pitch, having Christian O'Donne, having attacking players like Freddie Monteiro that can play several different positions, just having that sort of
00:25:52
Speaker
plug and play ability with so many different guys and a 3D5.2 is a pretty flexible formation tactically and it allows you to do a lot of different kinds of things and adapt to the game state a little more quickly without changing your whole system. So I think just the flexibility of a lot of the guys on the roster has been a huge part of it as well.
00:26:12
Speaker
I will say that one of the things I've really enjoyed this year is for a long time, and you can go all the way back to, I think it was like 2010 or 2011, and Graham Macquarie wrote a story for Sounder Heart that was basically making the case that Montero wasn't really a forward, he was a trachartista, right? And that term at the time was sort of coming into vogue
00:26:38
Speaker
And you saw more and more teams using it, but then it never, it seemed to be like discarded pretty quickly. We don't see that player very much anymore.
00:26:49
Speaker
But it always struck me as like in some ways he's sort of perfectly suited for this. Like he's a really good passing forward. And this formation has allowed him to really blossom in that way where he doesn't have to be anything like, like he doesn't have to be a number nine at all. He doesn't have to be a number 10. He doesn't, it's like he can kind of float between those two spaces
00:27:15
Speaker
And in part because of the way the centers have been using what they call this house formation, which is essentially a box and one on top of a three call to three, five, two, three, four, two, one, whatever you want to say. But it just he's he always has this other partner that's able to kind of share his defensive responsibilities and he's able to kind of float high when he needs to and drop deep when he when he wants to. And it's just been, you know, it's been really neat to watch how
00:27:45
Speaker
this formation, how this formation has set up certain players or has it set up certain players really well, but it's also so adaptable that, you know, like a killing row can move almost anywhere in it because it doesn't require any, you know, anything spectacular from him at any one spot. And man, I got to say one of the keys of this formation also seems to be that the wing backs have just been really, really good.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and I think that
00:28:17
Speaker
having the ability to rotate has been helpful because that is a really demanding position. And so, you know, having the ability to have like Jimmy Madranda eating a lot of minutes and then, but he's got Brad Smith and like Brad Smith, I'd say, thanks for her sake, controversial figure in the sound understand base, but he's still, I think better than like most of the left backs in MLS or like he's better. He's a better than average MLS left back. And I think that a lot of his weaknesses are, are, uh,
00:28:45
Speaker
minimized playing in the system and his strengths are probably magnified a little bit. I think another thing, and this kind of plays into Freddie as well, like Routsmith is good, staying wide. Jimmy Regina is good, like playing wider. And I think that having that much space in the midfield
00:29:05
Speaker
with the attacking players that the Sounders have, like that allows Freddie to drop deep without things getting clogged up. I mean, that was like one of the things about the 2014 team, as good as they were, that could be a little frustrating at times is that Dempsey dropped deep, Oba dropped deep. They were playing with, you know, three central midfielders some of the time and things just got really messed up. But when you've got, you know, wingbacks that are staying wide pretty much all the time,
00:29:29
Speaker
And when you take a six and you turn them into a center back and move them back, there's just a lot more space for those creative players to operate and float out wide. If the wing backs are staying deep or float into the center of the pitch, if the wing backs are high, it just gives you all these different opportunities and different looks. And the sounders have a lot of very intelligent players that know what to do with that space and know how to make the best of the system.
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. Yep. That's been, it's been really fun to watch and I'm, I'm genuinely excited to see, see how this goes. You know, I think I'm always someone who is waiting for the other shoe to drop somewhat, but I don't know. This team gives me a lot of confidence that they're going to figure it out that they, you know, they've gone through rough patches and the fact that they seem to be getting healthy at the right time, you know, even the fact that they're,
00:30:27
Speaker
They're missing, they missed Raul Rui Diaz the last two games. They are probably going to miss him for at least two more games. And that's not like, I'm not freaking out about it. I think it's a great sign that Nicolas Lidero has effectively missed the most of the season. And it's hard to imagine how like he would make them better right now. Like I think a fully fit Nico Lidero is always a good thing to have, but like,
00:30:54
Speaker
I don't know that they need him to come back and be anything like a focal point.
00:31:00
Speaker
And that's a good place to be, I think. I'm excited to see how Jordan Morris can maybe just fit in. And, you know, I assume he'll play one of those forward spots, but who knows? Like, I wouldn't be shocked to see if he uses it a couple different things. That Leo Chiu is like pure gravy right now. Like whatever he provides is just like, awesome, great.
00:31:24
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want to take anything away from what the revolution have done this year. They're probably going to set a new record for points. They're a really fantastic team. They will deserve the shield if they end up winning it. And I think it's pretty safe to assume that they will. But I think the Sounders are a better team.
Debate on Sounders' Golden Age
00:31:42
Speaker
I think that this is the best Sounders team that there's been. I think they're better than the 2014 team, better than the 2019 team.
00:31:49
Speaker
I think this is just a really, really special team. And so I'm very hopeful that they can, you know, make it this the season to remember and not a, not a what could have been kind of year, but even if they don't, you know, it's been a good ride. It's been a very fun season. Yeah. All right. Well, I think we're going to take a break. We're going to come back, answer a bunch of your questions. You're listening to NOS Adiatus.
00:32:19
Speaker
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00:32:38
Speaker
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00:32:59
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Audiata. So we don't have a ton of questions, but we do have some good ones. And Aaron, I'm just going to go ahead and start with one from our good friend, Nick Payton. Are we living the golden era of Sounders FC soccer history? When is this deep breath before the plunge? Yeah, so this is the question that I made reference to earlier. And I saw this before we recorded, obviously. And I was excited to answer it because I was thinking about this the other day.
00:33:29
Speaker
Maybe this is a me thing, I don't know, but I feel like there's, there's a lot of nostalgia for the good old days of the Sounders, you know, like the, the early, the earlier teams, the 2011 through 2015 teams, I think, especially with Dempsey and Oba and Ozzy in his prime and Brad Evans in his prime and all that. And those teams were great, but these teams were better. These teams were better.
00:33:51
Speaker
In terms of, you know, their true talent level these teams are better in terms of their talent level relative to the most of the rest of them unless they're I think they're better coached I think that they're more fun to watch the 2014 team was was pretty fun to watch but, you know, aside from that, you know, I'd much rather watch this team in the 2015 team or the 2012 team or what have you.
00:34:14
Speaker
You know, they won an MLS Cup two years ago, they went to an MLS Cup last year, they went to an MLS Cup in 2017, they won it in 2016. I mean, the last five, six years of the Sounders, it doesn't get a whole lot better than that. And yeah, so yeah, I mean, I think as we discussed, I think JP is arguably the best player we've ever had.
00:34:36
Speaker
You know, we've got some young, exciting kids coming up through the Academy. Atencio has just been so good this year, so exciting to watch. There's other kids in the pipeline that we've had other young players playing well. They're already selling some of our prospects to Manchester United, you know, in two or three years in the media. So, yeah, this is, I mean, this is as good as maybe it's ever been. And I think for,
00:35:03
Speaker
you know old dudes like us um there's probably always going to be nostalgia for when we could still drink 12 beers in the stands and and on a Wednesday night and all that kind of shit you know and so maybe that was more fun but in terms of of how good the team is uh and how good the soccer is and what people are going to be talking about 20 years from now i it's it's hard to get better than us yeah i've had this conversation actually a few times with various people about how
00:35:33
Speaker
this, I do think in a lot of ways that this will be the good old days. And I think that there is, it's possible that the overall talent level can essentially be on a consistent upward trajectory. And so I don't think it's impossible to imagine that there will be Sounders teams that have better players and are more talented and are playing in a league that is even more like an even better league. And so in that way, I don't,
00:36:03
Speaker
want to say that this is the best team, but I think when you look at it's also hard for me to imagine that the Sounders will ever be this good relative to the league for as long as of a period as they've been this good where they're contending for MLS Cup literally every year and
00:36:25
Speaker
And on top of that, they're still really accessible. And I think that's one of the things that I hope fans appreciate. And I think probably listeners of this show appreciate because Yacht-Con is this kind of like seminal moment or seminal thing that really showcases how accessible the team is.
00:36:47
Speaker
But it's not hard for me to imagine that someday those types of events are going to be impossible, that people like us are not going to have the same level of access, that as a result, fans aren't going to have the same level of access, that players can still talk to us with their guards down, relatively speaking. I don't think a player like Nico Benizei
00:37:12
Speaker
is like showcasing himself in the same way in almost any other league in the world because he's not gonna necessarily feel comfortable doing that, I don't think. Yeah, I think I pretty much agree with you that this is probably the golden era and I look at it a little bit differently and
00:37:39
Speaker
I think when you take the whole thing, you look at the talent, you look at the achievements, and I think that there is a reason to believe that there is going to be a somewhat upward trajectory of the league, of the Sounders. It's entirely possible that they'll be even more successful relative to the league, that they'll even have better players. But I think what's probably going to change, and I think what
00:38:03
Speaker
will be the part that I miss is just the accessibility of the team. I think the ability for fans to get to know players, for players to not be inaccessible. And I don't mean that in an availability way. I just mean that they come off genuine real people. They are able to show their personalities in ways that I don't think
00:38:33
Speaker
players around the world oftentimes are able to do. And I suspect that the bigger MLS gets, the more like other big soccer leagues and other big American leagues, it'll be, and that'll be kind of a bummer. But so in that way, I really do genuinely think that in a lot of ways, we're sort of living the good old days right now.
00:38:57
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think that's all. That's all very much very much part of it. So the next one is from muffin top model. And this is this is a good one. I'm glad we did this order because I wouldn't have been able to answer this. What are the yellow card accumulation rules? Can you ever appeal them? Do you get any back for good behavior or extra credit? Can a player server suspension while on national team duty? Same accumulation question for playoffs.
00:39:20
Speaker
Well, I don't have the rules all right in front of me, but I can tell you that you get your first suspension after five yellow cards. And then I think it's every two after that. And I and it may just go on like that for as long as you keep getting yellow cards. But yeah, you can have your accumulation. You can get like good behavior credit. I think it's if you go five games without a yellow card, you get one removed and
00:39:50
Speaker
I guess there is some appeals process for yellow cards. I'm not entirely clear how it works, but for instance, I am assuming the reason it came up this week is because Jaymar got a yellow card on a play that the Whitecaps player ended up getting fined for simulation for. And I guess the sounders had some room to appeal that, but essentially what was decided was
00:40:19
Speaker
It was reasonably considered a foul. It could be reasonably considered a yellow card because his hand caught Dahome like high up in his, you know, on his chin or neck. And so you're just kind of looking at a judgment call at that point. And so that's why it wasn't overturned. I guess it could theoretically could have been, but it wasn't.
00:40:45
Speaker
Um, and you can't serve, you have to be available in order to serve your suspension. So if you're on national team duty, that doesn't count. I don't know what would happen if you were injured, but for sure, if you're on national team duty, it doesn't count towards your suspension. Yeah. I think with playoffs, it's like two yellows also, but go ahead.
00:41:12
Speaker
I was going to say, I remember having the national team conversation and when Dempsey was serving his suspension, but yeah, the injury question is a good one. I would imagine that teams just are like, Oh no, he's, he's, he's fine. He could play. I mean, there's no, and like, is, is the league going to like, you know, come through with like their own doctor or something to check everybody that's on suspension. That seems unlikely. Right. Right.
00:41:40
Speaker
All right. So this one's from one Willis twin. How much of our terrific road form would you attribute to the charter flights? How have road teams in general fared this season versus other seasons where teams had to fly commercial?
00:41:56
Speaker
I'm really skeptical that it is a major factor. I would imagine that it does help and I would imagine that the sounders probably benefit more than your average and less team. I should have run the actual numbers on this instead of just going through and eyeballing it, which is what I did do. And I would say that there have been more outstanding
00:42:22
Speaker
road teams this year than average just just by eyeballing things but not it's so much that it's notable um and a lot of other and there have been like a lot of very bad road teams this year and a lot of goodies from conference teams have have been bad on the road um that the revs have been really good on the road they're nine three and three it's hundreds of nine two and two so they've been um you know about the same level uh and aside from that everybody else is just putrid on the road so um
00:42:52
Speaker
You know, like I said, I think that it probably doesn't hurt anything, but I...
00:43:00
Speaker
I don't think it's been a major factor because I think you would expect to see that kind of across the league where teams have worse road records and better home records. I think really what we're seeing more teams like the Sounders and New England being so good on the road and kind of what we've seen the last few years where the outstanding teams have been much better than average on the road. It's just that the talent gap is growing and it's harder for that home field advantage to make up the distance between the two teams.
00:43:30
Speaker
I'm inclined to actually think that in some cases, I mean, I think you're right. If it was as simple as charter flights are improving road form, that you would see some sort of like large scale shift of how valuable
Travel and Performance
00:43:49
Speaker
home field advantage is. And I don't know that we're seeing that.
00:43:53
Speaker
But I think for a team like the Sounders who I think had, who put a particularly high number of travel miles together, I could see how maybe it benefits them more than a lot of teams and that they've had a bunch of these chunks of their schedule that have been so congested. And so maybe it allows them to compete on, you know, it allows them to be a little bit fresher for some of these short rest games.
00:44:22
Speaker
So, like, I don't. I mean again you would, you would, I think, to see to say it's like the charter flights, you would, you would like you'd have to see it more foreign wide, but I think for the sounders like I could see how the charters might be helping.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's totally fair. I mean, I think that if there's a team that benefits from it more than others, it's the Sounders. I think that it would make sense that it would benefit Western Conference teams in general a lot more than it benefits Eastern Conference teams. And I also, I think maybe more importantly, I think this is a belt that's kind of unhard to ring. This is hard to unring. Yeah, right.
00:45:03
Speaker
It's kind of like remote work where it's just like people aren't gone. The players aren't going to go back. I mean, like, I don't think the owners are really going to be inclined to force them to go back. Like, that's not going to make anybody happy. And I'm sure that the owners that are want their investments, their multi-million dollar investments to stay healthy and play as much as possible are probably happy that they are less fatigued and more comfortable. So
00:45:31
Speaker
I would hope that that's one of the positive externalities of COVID. There have not been many of them, and this is all things considered a fairly minor one, but hopefully that ends up being the case where that's not something we have to worry about anymore.
00:45:49
Speaker
The next one is from Bill Jones, CRPT. Assume Lidero and Morris were fit in in the starting 11. Choose your second best 11, omitting players from your ideal of our best 11. What would our second best 11 look like? Man, this is definitely one that we should have done some research on. Well, I will say this. I don't know that there is a, like to be,
00:46:17
Speaker
Totally honest. I'm not sure that there's a best 11 right now. Assuming the Sounders aren't going to suddenly change formations at this point in the season, I actually don't know that there is a best 11 that includes both Lajero and Morris. I feel like in order for this formation to work, you sort of have to pick one of them.
00:46:43
Speaker
Because, and like, so like, I'll give you an example. I think you got to have really ideas on the field right in your best 11. You got to have rolled on Christian rolled on, you got to have Alex rolled on you got to have, you have three center backs let's say it's a GMR, new who and Ariaga. It's fries obviously your, your goalkeeper, and then you have.
00:47:10
Speaker
I think it's a Medranda, but whatever, it's a left back, right? And then you got to figure out how to fit Jal Paulo, Lidero, and Morris on the field. I don't know that you can really, dude, like you're not gonna play a, I don't think you can, right?
00:47:37
Speaker
I, yeah, I mean, I guess you play Ledero is an eight and maybe you play rolled on or maybe you play Christian as a wingback where Alex usually plays. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I guess, I mean, I guess that would be one way you could. Right.
00:47:55
Speaker
I mean, I personally like the, one of the hardest things I'm having trouble with is figuring out who your second best three center backs are. And I guess you could cheat and say, well, the first 11 is a three, five, two. The second 11 is a four, you know, four, four, two or whatever. And in that case, I guess you could do O'Neill and Sisoko. But I mean, I don't know, maybe you could play,
00:48:22
Speaker
Brad Smith is a left center back and get scored on a lot. I mean, you know, it's possible, I suppose. If Jordy Delem is healthy in this, I mean, if Lidero and Morris are healthy in this alternate reality, I guess Delem is as well. He can play center back. I suppose my suspicion is maybe this was an effort to tease out how good
00:48:50
Speaker
like what the second team looks like if you had to field one. And maybe that, and I will say that, like, you're right. I think that you have a hard time fielding the three center backs, but outside of that, you know, you have Will Bruin up top, Nico Benizay,
00:49:13
Speaker
And maybe Kellen, well, no, guess Kellen Row ends up being your right wing back. So who would play next to Benizei in your second? Maybe Leo Chu? Yeah, could be. And then who's your defensive midfield? Atencio and Leyva, probably. Yeah. And then Smith or Madranda?
00:49:32
Speaker
Yeah, I guess this, I think. Right, depending on, right. And then, yeah, I guess, and then so I guess you're really your only big question is your third center back at that point. Yeah. I think, you know, it's, it's, it's the limb for its
00:49:50
Speaker
Or do you do play Smith in your first best 11 and you play Jimmy as a, as a center back and your, and your second best 11. Yeah, I suppose, or you could put, maybe you put row in your defensive midfield, you put double layer as your right wing back and you can move a 10 CO to center back.
00:50:09
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, without exhaustively going through the list and naming all the players, I think that's a bad MLS team, but it's an MLS team. I don't think it's a USL. I mean, it's a team that basically got the result in Austin, right? Yeah. I don't think they're Cincinnati bad, but they're
00:50:33
Speaker
Probably like Houston Dynamo, maybe. Houston Dynamo bad, Dallas bad. Dallas actually, that's like a Dallas team with those players as like their best 11 makes sense to me. Like that seems like an FC Dallas team. A lot of kids, some MLS veterans, certainly like a respectable team, but just kind of like a, you know,
00:51:01
Speaker
I mean, I'll say this, I would trust them to get a result if they needed, although it's also, it's, it's, it's pretty similar to the lineup that they put out against RSL actually. Uh, now that I think about it, though, getting me lost to RSL recently. But they should have gotten results in that game. I mean, I think, I think you're right. I think you're right. I don't, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's definitely better than any other MLS team's second best 11.
00:51:27
Speaker
Yeah. Well, this, this is the one that I'm, I'm really curious about because I was actually just wondering along these lines to I'm really 23 wants to know how does Morris integrate into the team? Do we play more of a true two forward set? Yeah. I mean, I think that Morris looked so good as a winger. And so it's, it's hard to think of him moving back.
00:51:54
Speaker
to the center in some ways. But I think a lot of that is that he got forced out wide at the same time as he was really developing into a pro. This is my theory. I don't necessarily have proof of this. It might be possible that he's just that much better as a wide player. But I really think that he just got a lot better at the same time that he moved out wide. And that playing out wide helped him add some things to his game that he maybe wouldn't have developed playing centrally.
00:52:24
Speaker
But early in his career, you know, before he became a winger, before he was converted, I think he always looked best kind of playing as like that second striker, as like the guy that plays off the higher striker and gets him behind defenses and things like that. So he's not playing as a target man, but he's frequently going to be like the farthest man ahead, like on counter-attacks and that kind of thing.
00:52:46
Speaker
And I don't see any reason why he couldn't play that role. Raul is certainly not slow, but I don't think that his strength is getting behind defenses in the way it is for Jordan. I think that Jordan is wasted as more of a target man in a lot of ways, where Raul is actually pretty good at that stuff. And so I could see him fitting in there.
00:53:14
Speaker
I guess he could play as a wingback, but that seems like kind of a waste. Well, that was, that was actually one of the things I was wondering. I mean, cause he, he has some of the physical attributes I think that you need in a wingback, but you're right. You waste his best attributes, which is an ability to get in behind.
00:53:31
Speaker
I also wonder if they could just kind of shift into more of a three, four, three, where he's, instead of the, those two other forwards that they use now that are, you know, arguably tens or would depend on how you want the nomenclature of them. But I think if you push those two players out wide, so maybe you have Christian rolled on and Jordan Morris playing as sort of the wide,
00:53:54
Speaker
attacking players in a 3-4-3 with Giao Paolo and, you know, let's say Josh Tencio kind of in that two-man midfield, I think that could potentially work too, especially since both those, you know, both Roldan and Morris can essentially drop into the midfield and help if they need to.
00:54:15
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that if you're playing Medrana and you're playing Alex Roldan, that they can play a sort of like that hybrid wingback that's almost more like the outside midfielders in a diamond midfield, just play a little deeper.
00:54:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think that could work as well. And I think too, like if you are chasing a result and you don't really want to change your formation too drastically, you can throw Jordan out there nominally as a wingback, but just play that super unbalanced formation that they had so much success with in 2019 as well. He's really playing as a winger.
00:54:56
Speaker
I am curious to see if they, if we get to see any Leo Chu and Jordan Morris on the field together. Cause that would be, that'd be pretty fun. Yeah. I can, I mean, I think that that is like an 85th minute substitution is pretty cruel to do to, to another team, especially if it's been like a ruling game or something, you know,
00:55:14
Speaker
Um, can I just, I would just realize we've totally left Freddie out of our best 11 versus second 11, uh, discussion and all of a sudden I think you probably can. It's a little easier to fit, figure out how Josh attention, uh, slide. I mean, I guess he just plays over a layout too, but, uh, in any case it was, I just thought I'd note that we forgot that. Yeah. And with Freddie and Bruin is the straight partnership. That's, I think that might actually be a borderline playoff team.
00:55:43
Speaker
Right. Like they're probably not going to make the playoffs, but they're they're going to be close. They're going to be in the mix. All right. Next one is from interpersonal with the crafts installing permanent grass at Gillette Stadium for the World Cup. What would it take for the Sounders to do the same if their lease at Lumen runs through 2032 with the Hawks or the Sounders are one of the last remaining teams without crafts?
00:56:10
Speaker
Um, well, they're definitely one of the last remaining teams without grass. I think the other teams without grass right now are the timbers and a white cap. So all the Pacific Northwest teams. And I, I, and I guess the, I guess the Rebs might be the only other or Atlanta doesn't have grass either. I don't know that any of those stadiums are.
00:56:34
Speaker
about to go to grass either. But that's, I think not the crux of your point. The crux of your point is what's it gonna take for the sounders to get grass in the stadium? I mean, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see what kind of ask FIFA is able to, like if FIFA says we're only coming to Seattle if you guys have a permanent grass field,
00:57:01
Speaker
Which I don't think is going to happen because there's a lot of stadiums in the running that don't have grass fields, but I suppose it's possible that, you know, like that the Seahawks could be convinced of. I mean, I do think we're sometimes underplaying, I think we're underestimating how big of a deal.
00:57:22
Speaker
how much of a potential game changer it would be for the World Cup to come to Seattle. Like I think we sometimes get stuck in our little in our like soccer brains where we're like, yeah, it would be great to have the World Cup here, but it's still just soccer, right? Like we kind of like put those same sort of expectation limitations on it. Whereas I think the Sounders organization
00:57:46
Speaker
First in goal more broadly and the city of Seattle even more broadly, see it as a pretty massive opportunity to bring the World Cup to the World Cup here and I have a suspicion that there are going to be some accommodations that they're willing to make.
00:58:05
Speaker
that we aren't necessarily considering as realistic or possible right now. And I don't know that a permanent grass field is one of those, but I don't know. I wouldn't totally rule it out. I would have for sure thought that the crafts weren't going to put grass in a Gillette and that they're talking about doing that is kind of eye-opening to me.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think that if the crafts are doing it, that it's got to be on the table in Seattle. I mean, I do think that the Seahawks ownership situation is just kind of weird to me. Like, it's kind of opaque. I don't really feel like I have a great understanding of it. I think that if Paul Allen were still around that maybe it's a little easier to think, to know kind of how likely that would be. And I could definitely see Paul Allen, you know,
00:58:52
Speaker
reading the writing on the wall in that way, but I just don't really know anything about, you know, things there now. So I don't know. I mean, I think that my opinions on turf are pretty well established and that I just don't care at all. As long as the turf is decent turf, it doesn't bother me.
00:59:12
Speaker
if it's the difference between me going to the World Cup for a week or not like I probably care a little bit more you know well you know what I will say is it's interesting I feel like we've heard less complaints about the turf
00:59:28
Speaker
in the last year. And maybe that's a product of COVID. But I just feel like it's become less of an issue. And I certainly don't hear players complaining about it as much as I feel like I used to. But I don't know. It'll be interesting. And I'm not even saying that I want them to put in grass, although I think it would be nice. But I'm still pretty unconvinced that there's a way to have the Seahawks playing on grass and the Sounders playing on
00:59:58
Speaker
a field that's better than what they have now, but who knows? Maybe there's some technological fixes that I'm not yet considering.
01:00:09
Speaker
I think that this is exactly the kind of situation where. Technological fixes that you weren't really aware of before come to the forefront. So, you know, hopefully, hopefully that's the case. Um, so the next one I'm going to ask because, uh, I don't know any of the answers to these, even though it's technically my turn. Um, so it's from El Guapo 206. Many teams are opening brand new stadiums and facilities, but it's been radio silence on the sounders training facilities. Any updates?
01:00:36
Speaker
Yeah, so I think I wrote a story today about the FIFA bid committee coming here. And one of the things I learned is that the sounders are planning on showing the bid committee
01:00:51
Speaker
The I think they're probably going to show them plans, but I think they're going to do a site visit at to wherever this new training facilities going to be and I suppose it's possible that that new training facility is at Starfire and they sort of just like kind of display the vision, but
01:01:11
Speaker
The Sounders are very much talking about like behind the scenes, there's a lot more movement of like, OK, we've got a training facility coming online and I think they do really want it to be. I mean, it's still a long way off, but the expectation is for sure that it would be ready well ahead of the 2026 World Cup and then it would be available for use for for that. So I think in the next
01:01:39
Speaker
Two to three months. We're going to get some real movement there. I don't think that we're the public are going to be privy necessarily to those plans. When FIFA comes here at the end of the month, but I think maybe
01:01:57
Speaker
in the next month or two, we might start to see some of that stuff. So I would say keep your ears open. I don't think there's going to be a new soccer stadium though. I think the Sounders are going to be at Loom & Field for like the foreseeable future. And I think that, you know, probably beyond 2032, which is when their lease runs out.
01:02:20
Speaker
All right, so you're gonna be able to take us off here, Aaron. EBFG in PDX says, why is the U.S. national team Twitter such a uniquely terrible place?
USMNT Twitter and World Cup Hopes
01:02:31
Speaker
People are willing to let some players grow into their roles since we're fueling the youngest team ever, but our boy Roll Dawn gets very little patience or support after providing, proving his place on the team as an impact sub.
01:02:43
Speaker
So I've been thinking about this a lot in the last few days for, I think, obvious reasons. For a long time, I just disengaged completely from the national team because a lot of reasons that I won't get into. And then whatever that tournament that they won...
01:02:59
Speaker
that I've already forgotten. Nations League or Gold Cup? Nations League run kind of sucked me back in. That was a lot of fun. And I'm still, you know, sort of like hesitantly re-engaged, but I will not allow myself to like be anywhere near Twitter during the games because it's horrible. Yeah. And I think that the conclusion that I've come to is that the way that a certain segment of the U.S. men's national team fan base talks about
01:03:26
Speaker
the team and talks about the various like actors I suppose you would say is very similar to the way people who have been completely like brain poisoned about politics talk about politics so like
01:03:46
Speaker
Um, you know, like there's a lot of crazy college football fans, but I can't imagine somebody like tweeting, you are a cartel bootlicker who's, you know, who's taking bribes. And, and that's why the, you know, when a world cop at Paul Feimann, you know, like it just goes. And I think, I think that like in the same way that.
01:04:09
Speaker
Facebook and COVID and QAnon has broken like an entire generation of suburban white people's brains. Not making the World Cup did the same thing to a lot of U.S. national team, men's national team fans. Like they just, it's always been like a shaky relationship with reality and being tethered to the earth for a lot of these people. But like, man, just like that
01:04:34
Speaker
Trinidad just like severed that connection completely. And it's just, they don't live on the same planet, man. And like, you can think whatever you want about MLS. I certainly like think that there are plenty of completely valid criticisms of MLS, of Greg Berhalter, of
01:04:52
Speaker
Christian Roldan. I think that Sounders, I love Christian Roldan. I think he's a fantastic player. I think that Sounders fans probably think he's a little better than he is, especially for the national team. I think that his role is pretty fair, but I think that the U.S. men's national team fans that hate him, I hate him to a degree that's completely like...
01:05:11
Speaker
on the other side of reality. Sounders fans maybe big up him a little bit too much. These people think he's the worst player in the history of soccer. They think Greg Berhalter bribed his way into a coaching job. He was in no way qualified for. They think that a guy who's the sixth best right back at Barcelona should be
01:05:35
Speaker
You know the first name on the team sheet and the fact that he's not turning into, you know, the best right back in the world is because he has to play with these MLS guys like it's just their brains don't work right man it's just.
01:05:48
Speaker
It's not, it's, it sucks. It's unpleasant. Like it makes it hard to enjoy a team. That's like really exciting. There's a lot of stuff to be excited about with the future of the U S national team men's national team. And these people make it so hard. So I just can't, I can't be on there. I've had to mute the hashtags anytime like a U S men's national team, weirdo shows up in my sounders, tweet that column. I just mute them because I don't, I can't see, I can't look at it. It's bad. It's gonna, it's gonna turn me into like a Don Garber fan boy or something.
01:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, I will say that I've definitely stopped being on Twitter during national team games. I've honestly stopped being on Twitter a lot during Sounders games.
01:06:29
Speaker
not entirely, but certainly when I'm watching on TV, I oftentimes turn it off in part because the nature of like, I'm watching everything on streams now. And so I feel like if I'm on Twitter, that there's always a chance of like, there's nothing worse than like a 30 second spoiler. Yeah. And it's like, I realized as someone who tweets from games that sometimes I'm guilty of providing that, but
01:06:58
Speaker
Uh, for me, I just don't want to, like, I don't, I don't want that part of it. And anyway, uh, I think you're right. I think Kuvo sort of broke a lot of people's brains. I think that there's also the other things that are going on is that, you know, high level inner, uh,
01:07:14
Speaker
European soccer club soccer is more accessible now than it's ever been. And so I think people start to convince themselves that that's what this like the standard of international football is the standard of like the Premier League, when in fact, you know, I doubt most of these people are watching European World Cup qualifiers, but they are watching the English Premier League and they are watching La Liga or whatever. And so I think they start to misunderstand what
01:07:42
Speaker
like the level that they're watching is. And so they're holding the team to a standard that just is unrealistic. And then on top of that, I think that FIFA has sort of also made people think about players different ways. And so like a player's attributes, like in their mind, a real, like Christian Roldan's attributes are really only as good as what FIFA says they are. And so like, why is this player who's rated 70
01:08:09
Speaker
on this team when we have, you know, 30 guys that are rated 75 or better. I don't know that that's true, but I have a feeling that that plays a part of it as well. And you combine all these things and it is pretty toxic and it's pretty gross. And I don't like.
01:08:26
Speaker
I think that it's still a vocal minority of people, but that vocal minority does make it tough. I was actually having this conversation with someone in the press box the other day about how on some level, I don't blame people for not wanting the best American players to be in MLS. I understand how you shouldn't want Ricardo Pepe to spend his whole career in MLS because
01:08:55
Speaker
There's a chance that he could be like, if he can go to Wolfsburg and be a top level striker in the Bundesliga, that's probably a good thing. Right. And so I, and I don't, I don't think either one of us denied that, but I also think, and I've said this many times that people get in their head that like.
01:09:13
Speaker
the players got to do what's best for them too. Like they can't just do what's best for the program. They got to do what's best for them. And that's why I was so supportive of Jordan Morris staying in MLS because I think it's probably been the best thing for him. And conversely, maybe it would have been better for Josh Sargent to start off in MLS, but it was clearly the best thing for Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna to go to Europe right away. So I don't know. I just think that there needs to be more kind of critical thinking
01:09:42
Speaker
Right. And I think to like the the MLS players that are making the roster, if MLS didn't exist tomorrow, and those and those guys also didn't exist, and they were just replaced by exact replicas playing in the championship or playing in the two Bundesliga or, you know, Denmark or wherever.
01:10:02
Speaker
like they're not going to be any better but it's just like because that's just the level that they're at like if you're a very good american mls player you're probably like a rotational us men's national team player and that's that's okay like not every american like we're not spain we're not germany like we can't have our entire team
01:10:24
Speaker
playing at Champions League clubs. And I think that you're right, that it is so much of it is like the only exposure a lot of these people have to soccer is they watch Real Madrid, they watch the Champions League knockout stages, and they watch the US men's national team. And
01:10:40
Speaker
And they have no respect for any other CONCACAF teams. I think the FIFA thing is a huge part of it because they're like, well, these guys, like none of the club teams these guys play for or even in FIFA, like how good can they be? You know, and it's like, well, they're pretty good. They're professional soccer players. Like, what do you want? You know, like, yeah. And so, yeah, it's just that complete disconnect from like the reality of like.
01:11:03
Speaker
what it is that's happening. But this qualifying cycle has probably been the best one that I can remember since 2014 maybe. And I don't know, man, it's weird. People should be having so much more fun watching these kids come into their own. Yeah. And I think that the other thing that's been tough is the highs have been
01:11:27
Speaker
So high and the lows. I don't know that the lows have been so low, but the lows seem to get so much more amplified. Yeah, like I just think back some of the results that they had during the.
01:11:40
Speaker
even during the 2014 qualifying, and I think people really forget how much of a struggle that was, and I understand that part of it is people don't, they wanna move beyond those struggles, and that's part of their point, but I think it's asking maybe a little too much of a bunch of kids that have, for the most part, two or three years of professional experience to be breezing through qualifying.
01:12:09
Speaker
Yep, 100%. But anyway, I was a little bit of a rant on the US national team, but it's, you know, whatever. I'm hopeful that we'll qualify and and we'll all just, we can all have some event to be excited about.
01:12:29
Speaker
But all right, well, that's the show. Thanks to our sponsor, Full Pool Wines. Of course, thanks to Likit for continuing to produce this thing. I am- He's gonna have fun with this one. Yeah, this is gonna have, we're gonna be putting him to work this one. But signing off on behalf of Aaron Campo, I am Jeremiah Shan. This is No Saadietes. And remember, you'll never get alone.
01:12:57
Speaker
Green Douglas, where were the waters cut through? Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew Canadian Northwest to the ocean so blue It's Roll On, Columbia Roll On Roll On, Columbia Roll On Roll On, Columbia Roll On Your power is turning our darkness to dawn Roll On, Columbia Roll On
01:13:34
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!