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Nos Audietis, Episode 318: Ethical dilemmas and MLS
68 Plays5 years ago
The Seattle Sounders return from an unplanned four-month break tonight. Unfortunately, it's hardly under the best of circumstances. While there was reason to hope that this might feel a bit more celebratory when the plans were first announced, the reality is that the pandemic that caused the break only seems to be getting worse in the United States.
As nice as it would be to focus on the soccer, Jeremiah and Aaron spend the first segment lamenting the lack of leadership that has gotten us to this point and makes it much harder to simply throw on the blinders and enjoy watching the Sounders again.
They do, however, get around to talking soccer too. The second segment turns the focus to the field while also answering listener questions. Hope you enjoy.
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 to 36 Bottles of Wine
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.
No Sadietes Show Introduction
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.
00:01:18
Speaker
The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle And the hills, the greenest green in Seattle
00:01:31
Speaker
like a beautiful child growing up. Welcome to another edition of NOS Adiata, sponsored by Focal Wines. This is episode 318, and we're recording on July 9th, 2020. I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me as usual is my co-host, Aaron Campo, and our engineer, Lickett. By the time you're listening to this, the Sounders will either be a few hours away from their MLS's back tournament opener, or maybe even having already played.
00:01:58
Speaker
If you're like me, you're not quite sure how I feel about that. What with everything going on in Florida and the rest of the world and really the rest of the...
00:02:07
Speaker
it. Yeah, the rest of the world. But we do have
Ethical Implications of MLS Return
00:02:10
Speaker
competitive games for the first time in four months. And that seems worth talking about, Aaron. How are you feeling about this? I know we've talked about this quite a bit over the last few months. It's certainly the last month or two when this tournament started to kind of come together. But like, what is your where's your mind at with this thing? Man, I'll be honest with you. I'm just not
00:02:36
Speaker
I'm not there. I don't blame him at all. I think it would be hard enough even if I felt like the tournament was a good idea, I think just to get back into that mindset. But I think it would be much easier. I think once I started watching the game, it would click for me.
00:02:55
Speaker
I just don't I don't think this is a good idea at all on numerous levels. And so it's really it's really hard to get excited for it. I've actually, you know, like I've come to the conclusion that I that I'm going to watch the games, but I it was a much harder conclusion to come to that I maybe would have expected.
00:03:13
Speaker
Um, the Sounders have been a huge part of my life for over 10 years now. Um, and so the idea of struggling with should I even watch this, you know, is, is a very strange concept for me. Um, cause this is, I mean, this is the longest period. I think any of us have gone without watching the Sounders and over a decade. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it little, well, uh, yeah, I mean, that's probably true. I'm trying to think how long some of those off seasons were in like.
00:03:40
Speaker
2009 to 2010 and like those may have been
00:03:45
Speaker
This may have been slightly longer, but it's comparable. And even then you had like this. What's so different about this is like, at least for me, as someone who's covering the team, like at least during those other off seasons, I was exposed to the team in a very kind of direct way that I haven't obviously been like, I haven't been out to see a sounders training session in four months. I haven't, you know, I haven't interviewed a person in like real life.
00:04:12
Speaker
uh in the same amount of time and and we haven't had scrimmages that we've like the the centers haven't aired any of their scrimmages
Concerns Over MLS Tournament Logistics
00:04:20
Speaker
or anything so it is it's there's a level of of removal from this and the fact that we're basically in the middle of a season is very surreal um those first two games of the season feel like they were a lifetime ago in so many ways and i and i understand where you're coming from i i wrote something on sounder at heart this week basically saying how
00:04:42
Speaker
I don't know how to feel in part because I really do want to be excited about this. I think there's a lot of intriguing things. I did turn on the game yesterday, the Orlando, inner Miami game yesterday. And I thought it was, I was interested in it. I thought that the Black Lives Matter, MLS is black, however you want to term that,
00:05:10
Speaker
point of silence that the display that the black players and MLS put on, I thought was very moving. I thought it was powerful. I thought it was meaningful. And I thought that that in some ways was a really appropriate way for this tournament to get started. And I thought that the game itself was fine. I had it on kind of in the background. I didn't actually listen to it.
00:05:31
Speaker
which I felt like I robbed myself of that experience in some ways because it was a unique, no crowd noise experience. But I thought that the broadcast was okay. I was interested in it, but I just don't think I'm going to be as into this. I just can't imagine that I'm going to be as into this as I normally am, in part because of the emotions that are tied to what's going on in the world.
00:05:59
Speaker
Uh, my trepidation about holding the tournament, which I think I probably share a lot of those feelings with you, but we should probably get into some of that. And, and also just my real life is so much less conducive to being able to immerse myself in sports right now than it has ever been. Frankly, I've got two young kids at home who are.
00:06:19
Speaker
uh needing of attention and my wife is still working and she's actually as as luck would have it she's had having to go into the hospital this week to to work in the hospital so it's like it creates even more of a friction in terms of my ability to to get work done um so it's just it's a real challenge i think there's a lot of challenges a lot of headwinds facing this this tournament but i guess uh
00:06:44
Speaker
For what it's worth, yesterday's game had like 500,000 viewers on ESPN, which apparently is the biggest regular season audience that an ESPN MLS broadcast has had since 2018. That's very funny.
00:06:59
Speaker
But let's talk about, before we get into the sporting aspect of this, and I promise
US COVID Handling and Ethical Concerns
00:07:04
Speaker
we'll talk about some of the sporting aspects of this, but what's your biggest concern about this tournament? Is it safety? Is it an ethical issue? Where do you find yourself struggling the most with this?
00:07:20
Speaker
It's tough to say which element of it that I'm struggling with is at the forefront because I have pretty significant struggles with like seven or eight different aspects of it.
00:07:33
Speaker
If I could summarize it though, when MLS first announced this tournament or even started talking about the idea of it and sort of putting feelers out there publicly about it, it seemed like we were flattening the curve pretty successfully.
00:07:50
Speaker
It seemed like we had, against all odds, gotten our shit together enough to tackle this. And so I was a little skeptical. I think everybody was a little skeptical. But we saw other leagues restart without too much of an issue. We saw other leagues start to, other leagues in other countries, I should say. And we saw other American sports leagues start to plan similar things.
00:08:17
Speaker
And I think, you know, for me, I kind of came to the conclusion that like, okay, you know, we're doing okay here. It's probably fine to start thinking about how we can get back to some smaller tastes of normal life. And then we just stopped trying sometime in May to do anything.
00:08:35
Speaker
And, you know, we had in Washington, we had a record number of cases. I think two days ago, we're back to getting over five 600 cases every day on a regular basis, which is nothing compared to Florida, which is where the tournaments being held.
00:08:51
Speaker
And so to me, the whole point of these tournaments when they were in their planning phases was, hey, this is a big step along the way to getting back to normal, right? This is a way we can start trying to celebrate the successes we had.
00:09:07
Speaker
in the pandemic, you know, the sacrifices we made allowed us to have this. I don't remember who it was, but I believe it was a Major League Baseball player the other day basically said like, okay, yep, that is exactly right. So, you know, sports are a reward for having to function in society. Well, guess what?
00:09:28
Speaker
We don't. We're totally blowing this as a society. I don't want to get into the politics of it necessarily, but I mean, people can probably guess where I put most of the blame.
00:09:42
Speaker
whoever you want to blame for it, we're not, we're not doing what we need to do. And that's just the reality of it. And I think that going ahead with this tournament, you know, in, in Orange County, is it we're Orange County, Florida that it's in, right? Well, technically, apparently Disney World is in two different counties. And where the, I can't remember if in the hotels and the field are actually in two different counties. Seems even worse.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't know which in any case central Florida near Orlando. It's in it's in like the the one of the hottest spots in the world for if Florida was a country it would be I think number one or number two and in the world right now for new cases and
00:10:29
Speaker
that even if the bubble is totally secure, which I don't think anybody who's being honest can say that it is, you're taking
00:10:41
Speaker
resources away in terms of medical capacity. If a player gets hurt and has to go to the hospital, that's doctors that could be treating COVID patients. They have to do, what is it, 500 tests every day. They're turning those tests around in 24 to 30 hours. Everybody else has to wait a week. Whether or not you think that MLS and their testing requirements are causing that bottleneck,
00:11:06
Speaker
The fact that you're turning tests around in, you know, one fifth the time that it's taking everybody else. So you can have this tournament that is supposed to be a celebration of, you know, of getting back to normal life. It's not good. The optics of it are bad. I think it's an ethical concern. And you pretty much have to have that many tests in that kind of turnaround time to have the tournament in anything approaching safely.
00:11:37
Speaker
And so to me, I think that continuing with the tournament going ahead with the tournament just like going ahead with making plans to open schools, you know, assuming that we're going to be playing college football, although that's starting to look less and less likely.
Criticism of Sports Resumption Amid COVID
00:11:53
Speaker
just continuing to ignore the reality of the fact that even in the states that are still doing a pretty decent job, things are as bad as they were in March, and most of the rest of the country, things are much, much, much worse, that we haven't come anywhere close to doing what we need to do to solve this problem, that it's going to continue to be a problem, and it's probably going to get worse in most of the country. And pretending like that's not all happening, that's dangerous, I think, just for the optics alone.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, and I agree with you. I can't refute anything that you're saying.
00:12:31
Speaker
The optics are very bad. I think it was yesterday that the New York Times said that it's the first time since March that there were zero states that showed a declining rate of COVID cases, which is a chilling thing when you consider that, like I want to say it was about a week ago where I really started to get mad about what's going on.
00:13:01
Speaker
I'm frustrated right like we're all frustrated we don't want to be at home, maybe you do I don't know, but we don't want to be, we don't want to know when is enjoying this, I think, compared like comparatively. And, and I think a lot of us are frustrated and whatnot but it was about a week ago when I just started to get really mad that
00:13:22
Speaker
every, not every other country, but most other countries have figured out how to manage this. Canada, all over Europe, certainly countries that have comparable resources to ours, have figured out a way to manage this. And they've done it through a variety of different ways. You know, in places like Japan, a lot of it is apparently just
00:13:45
Speaker
by virtue of everyone wearing masks. And in other countries, they've gone through very, very hardcore lockdowns and basically kind of trampled out the disease enough that it's not back as much. And we just haven't done anything like that. We've just basically been suffering for four months.
00:14:10
Speaker
real, like we haven't made any progress in that. And it's very frustrating because I know I feel like I've sacrificed. I'm sure most people feel like they've sacrificed. A lot of people have sacrificed their jobs if nothing else. And here we are, basically where we started, we don't seem to have any sort of direction. And
00:14:29
Speaker
Uh, and I guess I can look at the tournament in two ways. And one way it's like, well, at least there's something to distract me, but I think you're right. Like there's a danger in being distracted by this, uh, in that it allows us to take our eye off the ball a little bit. And, and I think that there was something I also wrote about in, in my column. I didn't get too deep into it, but like, there are protests going on that I think, uh, we're all, uh,
00:14:56
Speaker
I would say sympathetic is probably the wrong, is probably too light of a word, but that we agree with the goals of these protests and, you know, sports are a distraction. Like that's kind of what they are. That's their whole point. And maybe it's the wrong time to be distracted. And, and so, yeah, I say, I share your moral dilemmas with this, but I also know that I'm going to watch these games and I'm going to talk about them. And, um,
00:15:26
Speaker
It's like I've talked to a few people inside the bubble. I think my personal concerns about the safety of the bubble are considerably less than than I think a lot of peoples are. Like I I everything I've heard and seen makes me feel like
00:15:45
Speaker
the bubble will probably be reasonably safe from a purely, like, there probably won't be huge outbreaks inside the bubble. I don't think there's gonna be, like, I, that could be wrong. And it's a, and that's the thing is like, is that risk even worth taking even if it's a small risk? I think there's, there's an argument probably to be made that MLS needed to do this in that the league couldn't afford to, like, even if they could monetarily afford to just
00:16:15
Speaker
take a wash on the season. I think that with the real risk wasn't so much the money that they lose this year. It was more about losing their place in the American consciousness of, hey, remember that there's a fifth big league in the United States, especially if baseball, the NFL, NBA, NHL, college football, if all those sports figure out a way to play games and MLS was just to take kind of like the
00:16:45
Speaker
the more progressive for lack of a better term approach and say like we just aren't going to play games because we don't feel like it's safe and everyone else went and played. I think there is a real risk from a just a very practical standpoint that MLS could completely lose any gains that it's made over the last and that's not just a money thing. That's just like a relevancy thing that
00:17:06
Speaker
Is, how big of a deal is that in the grand scheme of things? I don't know, but I think that's what's really driving the desire to play these games. Still, it's tough to justify any league playing games. And I don't think, and I don't necessarily blame MLS for playing these games, but it's the whole kind of like sporting mentality of let's, we got to play these games when we really play these games.
00:17:31
Speaker
We don't have a good, you know, we don't have, we shouldn't be doing it, I guess. Right. I think that the way that the United States has decided to handle this has, I don't want to say forced the hand of the leagues because that's not true. Like any one of them could do the right thing and say, no, we're just canceling the season. This is, this is ridiculous.
00:17:53
Speaker
But it's very difficult to do because of the way we've decided, and we is not inclusive, I guess, but I think people know what I mean. We as a society have decided to handle this pandemic in this way, and I should say not handle it.
00:18:12
Speaker
Um, and, and that's just kind of the way it has to go. I mean, we've decided people have to go back to work. It's not safe, but you know, we can't keep giving them unemployment, right? So people have to go back to work. If people have to go back to work, then why aren't the athletes playing? Um, it's very, very hard to, I think if one of the leagues had done it and maybe it's a lot easier, but I also understand that none of them want to be the one to do it. Um,
00:18:35
Speaker
especially after they made the plans when it seemed like, hey, this is probably going to be okay. I mean, when they started making these plans, Italy was still in much worse shape in the US. That's how long this has been in motion, and that's how hard the fall has been.
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah, and I think what if I were to add on to what you're saying, I think what you're saying is if the federal government had essentially taken a lead on this and said, look, we can't play sports until we have this under control. So once we get this under control, and this is maybe a carrot for you, you know, this is the Sean Doolittle kind of like idea of like, hey, if you want sports, you need to do your part.
00:19:16
Speaker
to get this under control. You as a sports league, you need to be messaging that
US vs. Global COVID Response
00:19:20
Speaker
way. You as individuals need to think about it that way. If you want this prize, you need to go out and show you deserve it. And that was the exact opposite approach that actually was taken, which is no, get the league going as soon as possible. I mean, literally, the president
00:19:37
Speaker
Convened a meeting with all the heads of the leagues and said like how do we get league started as soon as possible? Which is the exact opposite approach and that put immense pressure on all these like so I don't necessarily blame MLS and I don't blame I certainly don't mean players for even wanting to do this I think all of them feel some degree of you know, they have limited they have limited career times they You know if they don't play now
00:20:06
Speaker
you know, you losing a year of your career is a big deal when you only have a limited time to do it. And so I don't blame, I don't blame any of the individual parties. I think this was just kind of a time for national leadership. And who knows maybe if that was the attitude that we came into this of saying, you need to, you need to prove, we need it as a country show that we can handle this, that we deserve to get back to normal. So everyone has to do their part in order to get us there. I think we'd be in a very different place right now.
00:20:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's the place that most of the rest of the world is in. And the UK is a great example because they had the same horrible slow start that we did. And then at a certain point, they realized, man, we cannot continue doing this. And they took the sane fork in the road, and the US took the not sane fork in the road and just decided to ignore it.
00:20:59
Speaker
And I think it is one of those problems where it's just systemic inertia, right? Where it's just like, everybody made a decision in March that this would last a couple of months and then things would go back to normal. And nobody thought to plan for, well, what happens if we don't, like, what happens if leadership fails completely and totally? What happens if there is a complete vacuum of
00:21:22
Speaker
you know, federal oversight. That's something that people should have prepared for. Like you should prepare for that in the best of times. Like you should always have that disaster scenario prepared. This is not the best of times in terms of federal government leadership. And so everybody just made up their minds like, yeah, by the time someone rolls around, things will be getting back to normal and we're just going with that.
00:21:47
Speaker
It is just one of those things where everyone is making reasonably rational decisions, but the aggregate of that is a disaster. We can sit here and say that MLS should do the right thing. It would be great if they would. It would be great if the teams said no. It would be great if the players said no.
00:22:05
Speaker
But like you said, I mean, if you're, you know, the fifth sub on, I don't know, like, uh, Orlando City and you're, you're a fringe MLS player, are you really going to be the one to say, no, I'm not, I'm not going to, I'm not going to go, you know, there's just no way, there's no way somebody is going to make that decision. So, um, so yeah, I guess we got to suck it up. Yeah.
Moral Conflict of Enjoying Sports During COVID
00:22:28
Speaker
Um, I, I wished I was more positive about this and I wish I was more.
00:22:34
Speaker
I wish I could be more enthusiastic about it and I feel bad on some level talking this way about it. But I will say this is that if we want to be able to enjoy this, we have to do our part. I feel like I'm probably talking to the choir here.
00:22:58
Speaker
But well, maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not. You're right. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm not talking to the choir. I think everyone. I mean, we have to do the basics. We got to be wearing masks when we're out. We got to be avoiding large indoor crowds. Like to me, it's like just those two things by themselves. If we could just stop doing.
00:23:17
Speaker
dumb things. A personal anecdote for me, my family had planned on doing a big 16 person family reunion in Lake Tahoe. And there was going to be people from five or six different households showing up. And it felt like, well, sure, we'll get tested beforehand and whatever. It'll be fine.
00:23:41
Speaker
And I think ultimately, and we just ultimately decided like a week ago, this is a dumb idea. Yeah. Like it, like we can't, we can't justify doing this because we can't be safe enough to, to like, like what a disaster it would be to have this and someone gets sick and
00:24:01
Speaker
Um, we just can't, we can't take that risk. And I think that we all have to probably make these little decisions, but there does have to be some, I also think that you can get trapped into believing that the individual decisions are going to get us out of this. There has to be leadership at some point at a higher level. It has to be things like guaranteed unemployment and.
00:24:24
Speaker
making sure that people can actually pay their rent or at least won't be evicted. And it starts with all these high, high, high level decisions that are like, that's the only way we're going to get out of this other than just kind of wishing it would all go away. And that's not working at all either.
00:24:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's the kind of thing where the solutions are so obvious and they're the solutions that have largely worked everywhere else. And we're just not doing it because our priorities as a society and the political will that we have in this country in power, there's just no appetite for doing what needs to be done. The concern was making sure that the economy, and I use the word economy in the very narrow sense of
00:25:10
Speaker
people's stock portfolios that are in the nine figures, as long as that doesn't fall apart, then it's whatever. And that's the decision that was made.
00:25:23
Speaker
You know, the people that are most likely to get this and die are people that the people in power don't care about anyway. For the most part, I mean, obviously, it's like some wealthy people, I'm sure will get it too. But for the most part, it's going to be people that work essential jobs, health care workers, stuff like that, just people that have been deemed surplus and unemployment or surplus and, you know, expendable.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's a huge bummer and I would like for soccer to be able to be a
00:25:57
Speaker
you know, something that can distract me from that reality. Um, the way like the premier league has been, for example, because I don't have a moral conflict about like that. Like they did the right things that they needed to do eventually and got it to a point where they can have the league without, without it being a nightmare. Um, but I just, I know that what I'm watching the games, like that's what's going to be on the forefront of my mind is, is how they really shouldn't be playing them. And that's, that's a huge bummer, but
00:26:25
Speaker
Also watch them, everybody else will too, because that's just, it's kind of the way it goes. You know, I guess this is one thing I wish, I hope, and I guess we're very early in the tournament, so maybe this can still happen. But one of the things I would like, like,
00:26:40
Speaker
Oh, I'll hope I'll, I'll end this segment on a hopeful note that if MLS is able to do this safely in a way, they're actually illustrating how you can get back to normal. And that is having regular testing, isolating when you're like not being outdoor more than you need to, or not being outside of your, your home more than you need to be.
00:27:07
Speaker
the only time you're in groups is gonna be outside and not, and so it's like, these are all steps. Like if they can actually stay safe doing this in a way, they're kind of showing the federal government, this is how you make society safe again, is you take all these steps. And if you take all these steps, you can have things like sports events and you can actually have some fun and you can create, but it can't just be, everyone go out and do your thing.
00:27:36
Speaker
Like the players in, by all accounts, the players in Orlando are effectively going from their room to training to eating into their room. And that's what they do. Like they aren't, they aren't out partying. They aren't like, they understand that there's like, if they've gone through in the ethos that they've gone into this with is, look, we've made all these sacrifices up until now to get here.
00:28:04
Speaker
We know that being here is not the safest thing that we could be doing.
00:28:11
Speaker
But if we're going to be here, we have to do everything we can to make it safe. And the way we make it safe is being smart. And hopefully that's the message that comes out of this. I don't have a lot of confidence that that's what it will be. If I were to have a hopeful, a sense of hope about this tournament, that would be that, that there would be this message that sent like, Hey, actually we can get through this, but we have to dramatically ramp up testing and we have to take personal responsibility for our behaviors.
00:28:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's that is a hopeful note. You're right. All right. Well, let's go. Let's let's let's break this up rather than try to talk about the actual games in
Sounders' Strategy and Player Lineup
00:28:51
Speaker
this segment. Why don't we take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk. We'll answer some questions and and we'll talk about actual soccer. You're listening to no idea this.
00:29:05
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:29:47
Speaker
Welcome back to Nos Adietes. Thanks for bearing with us for that first segment. Hopefully you found it interesting, but we are gonna talk soccer in this segment, I promise. So let's start there, Aaron. We haven't seen this team play at all. We haven't seen clips of them play for four months. I don't know what to expect, but what's your sense of what to expect from this tournament, from a soccer team team?
00:30:16
Speaker
I mean, I feel bad because we said we were going to talk about soccer, and I think people probably were hoping that would be less of a downer. But the reality is that they haven't really played soccer in four months, and that's probably going to be really, really bad for the first game or two. I know.
00:30:32
Speaker
Like watching other leagues, that's kind of been the way it's gone, is that the first game or two are real sloppy. Everybody's real rusty. They had shorter layoffs for the most part, too. So it's probably going to be even worse. But the good news is, you know, for the most part, it's kind of gotten a little closer to normal as games have gone along. So I would imagine that after the group stages, it might be close to the level we're expecting. But realistically, I mean,
00:31:02
Speaker
Even the team that we saw four months ago playing Columbus, that was the last game, right, Columbus? Yes. I mean, that team wasn't really the team that we're going to see tomorrow. We have reason to anticipate that everybody, aside from Will Bruin, who I guess suffered a setback, is going to be good to go and ready to go.
00:31:25
Speaker
That's the impression I am under. Who knows what that looks like? You've got new players coming in that haven't really had the time to gel. Joao Paulo was a great example of that.
00:31:44
Speaker
Um, they were just kind of starting to get into a groove and then, you know, four months off. So, um, it'll be interesting to see, it'll be interesting to see, but you know, Brian Schmetzler said four months to think about soccer, um, and think about how he wants the team to look.
00:32:00
Speaker
which he doesn't normally have the luxury of that kind of time. I mean, the Sounders have historically had pretty short off seasons under him. He's known what his team was going to look like for four months now. So that's that'll be kind of interesting to see what his ideas are there. So I'm not expecting, you know, the cleanest games for the first couple games, especially tomorrow. But sometimes, you know, really sloppy games can can be pretty fun, too. So we'll see.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think the most interesting thing is going to be how I think our expectation is that they're going to deploy Sao Paulo alongside Gustav Svensson in the kind of defensive midfield.
00:32:42
Speaker
Sondra has never really had a player like Jiao Paolo playing in that. I guess you could argue that Christian Roldan in some ways played it in a broadly similar way. But Jiao Paolo is a different level of class, I think. He brings a different kind of tempo. So much of last year, they talked about having a tempo setting player.
00:33:05
Speaker
in that defensive midfield and Zhao Paolo seems like that type of player to me. He was deployed mostly as a number 10.
00:33:14
Speaker
Um, in the, in the first two games, first four games, I guess, really, uh, I guess rolled on, played some 10 too, but that's, you know, seeing him, we haven't seen him on the field with a Ledero at all. Like, again, not even in training clips. We haven't seen that. And so I'm excited about that, especially. Um, I'm also intrigued by what. Jaymar Gomez Andrade can bring as a, as a center back, like he, we saw him play two games.
00:33:44
Speaker
in early in the season, one in Champions League, one in the regular season. You know, I think he showed promise. There was some rustiness, I think mostly from a communication standpoint with Javier Arriaga, but
00:34:00
Speaker
It was, it was definitely, there was some rust there, but I'm intrigued to see how he looks when he's more fully integrated. And on the whole, this might actually be an even better team than they had last year, which obviously won a lost cup. But, you know, I remember, I don't remember the stat off the top of my head. I think the Sounders went something like 19, one, and three when Lidero Morris and Rui Diaz all started together.
00:34:26
Speaker
and you add Jelpalo to that. Maybe not tomorrow, we won't see it, but I think ultimately that's gonna be a really good group if they can actually play some games together.
Tournament Challenges for Sounders
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I feel like we were talking going into the season about how this this team had the potential to be a supporter shield contender. And I think, you know, obviously, that's that's probably not going to happen, because who even knows if the supporter shield is the thing that will be awarded. But I think that they are definitely in the conversation on papers being one of the best teams in the league. They're right up there, you know, with LFC. And so, you know, it's
00:35:09
Speaker
It's going to be exciting to see them all healthy, rested, because that's another thing. I mean, the players haven't had very long off seasons, you know, it's just been kind of a grind for the last three or four years. So, you know, they've had a break to get healthy. This probably is going to be the healthiest Nico Ledero's ever been in a Sounders uniform. I mean, it is funny that is the one
00:35:34
Speaker
silver lining of this is that, you know, he had a, they, they, I guess they called it knee tendonitis, if I remember correctly. And like the only way you get better from that is to just rest it and got to do that.
00:35:49
Speaker
Can start a rumor that Adrian Hanauer created COVID in a lab to give Niko time to heal his knee. There you go. Why not? It's no crazier than some other COVID conspiracy theories, I don't think, but. No, no, it's probably less crazy than long. And then the other big question I think a lot of people are going to have is at left back, it looks like NuWho is going to be the starter.
00:36:16
Speaker
But Jobin Jones is also going to probably get, I mean, I don't know what starter means in this, in this cup. Cause I would imagine there's going to be at least two different, like I would imagine both Jones and new who will start matches. But, um, I think it's a, you know, I, I, again, that's I'm, I'm intrigued by, by what.
00:36:36
Speaker
If New Who has been able to kind of clean up some of the holes in his game, I know that there's some doubts that Jovan Jones is going to hit the ground running because he's not apparently the best about off-season fitness. But yeah, I mean, I think it's an intriguing team, I think. And I'm intrigued to see them. I really am. I just wish it was under better circumstances. Yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think I think that's that's also it's one of the very, very, very, very low on the list reasons that I'm not super excited about this tournament is that is that I'm so excited about this team and the potential and the talent and this tournament just feels. Even even at the best of like even in the best of times, when it seemed like it might not be a bad idea to have the tournament, it felt so competitively like nothing that
00:37:33
Speaker
From a competitive standpoint, there are some questions. And the fact that the league was apparently ready to allow the Sounders to be in a two-team or a three-team group, which would have created all sorts of competitive disadvantages, essentially it would like... The best I can tell, if Nashville hadn't been forced to drop out, the Sounders would have been in a three-team group. They weren't going to change the rules so that like all three teams automatically advanced.
00:38:01
Speaker
Which would have effectively eliminated the third place team automatically, but then even the top two teams would have had fewer point fewer games to collect points in and improve their seating for the knockout stage. Also, and and that doesn't even get into like the potential regular season ramifications, but it's a.
00:38:22
Speaker
And what happens if another team has to drop out of this tournament? And there's all sorts of competitive things to be worried about. But look, we have a few questions that are mostly about this tournament. So why don't we just get into those now? Sure. Good friend of the show, Nate Bowling is back. He asks, since two teams are now out of the tournament, what happens to the points from group stage matches we'll count towards the regular season?
00:38:50
Speaker
I mean, best I can tell, it's gonna be the same. Even though it makes for an awkward situation, like I don't know, maybe they'll throw Chicago into the Western Conference. But I think it's just kind of be one of those weird things where the Sounders will have played two matches against the Eastern Conference when theoretically they're trying to keep all their matches in conference. Like the Sounders have actually not played a Western Conference.
00:39:17
Speaker
The first Western Conference game they'll play is against the San Jose Earthquakes when they start their
00:39:25
Speaker
their campaign and they'll have only played two of five games at the end of the group stage like this year against Western Conference teams. So I think they just kind of make it up in the standings and like points are going to count just like points are going to count and it's going to be sloppy and it will hurt the competitive. Like it's it's not like I don't think I think if you ever were a doubter of the supporters shield
00:39:50
Speaker
I actually would argue that maybe the supporter shield shouldn't even be handed out this year, like the actual supporter shield. Yeah, agree 100% agree. Moving on, Bill Jones, STRPT asks, the Sounders choose to withdraw from the tournament. Would they face a penalty other than three regular season losses?
Safety Protocols and Ethical Responsibility
00:40:13
Speaker
And then to follow it up, does the team make their own provisions for player safety above the MOS bubble protocols?
00:40:21
Speaker
So I have no idea what the punishment would be if the Sounders unilaterally decided that they were dropping out of the tournament. As far as I know, there's no punishment per se for Nashville and Dallas. I think they haven't announced this, but my assumption is just going to be that they're going to have to try to make up the games during the regular season.
00:40:44
Speaker
the challenges of that aside, like that's, I don't assume that they're just going to play three or have three less games. Maybe they do. I don't know. But my assumption is that they're going to try to make up those games in the regular season. I have no idea.
00:41:01
Speaker
what would happen if the Sounders just dropped out. But more realistically, I don't think that's going to happen. There's no indications at all that the Sounders have even considered it remotely to just drop out of the tournament. I've talked to people both in the Sounders and outside the organization, and I think most people feel reasonably safe. I don't think they think that they are
00:41:26
Speaker
endangering themselves. I'm sure a lot of people share concerns like ours which are more ethical reasons of saying like how can we justify doing 12-hour turnarounds on tests when people down the street in Orlando can't get a test result for a week? Like that's like those are
00:41:46
Speaker
separate issues, I think. But I don't think anyone is going to drop out of this tournament for ethical reasons. And I don't think they're going to drop out. And I don't think they feel unsafe. I don't doubt that if they did feel unsafe, that they would drop out. But I think they wouldn't be the only team that would do it in that case. What was the other part of the question? Does the team make their own provisions for player safety above the MLS ones?
00:42:13
Speaker
So from the sound of it, there are some teams that have not been quite as
00:42:23
Speaker
strict about the way that they see Dallas yeah, I mean I don't like I know there's like there's players from Dallas and there's players from Nashville that have pushed back pretty hard against this idea that there was like a going away party or something like that and or that players were going out to the club or Whatever and they were just being sloppy. I think more realistically
00:42:47
Speaker
it's indicative of them living in states where there was just less restrictions. And so they were going about what they felt was safe, but in reality was exposing them in ways that maybe in Seattle, they weren't being exposed because I think the players here have been pretty
00:43:06
Speaker
hammered down on saying like if you go out you wear your mask and you only go out to get groceries or you go out to the park and work out or whatever like I think that's really the big difference and it sounds like the Sounders are also being a little bit more strict about what they're encouraging players to do in Orlando in terms of like engaging with other teams and things like that.
00:43:32
Speaker
I would imagine that it's impossible not to be affected by just sort of the culture and I guess the local guidance of the city you're in. So in Seattle, we've been, I think, very strict about it compared to a lot of other places. Texas may be less strict. So yeah, I mean, I think that if you've had it drilled in your head for three months that these are just things that you just can't do, you're probably more likely to take that seriously, I would think.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's, I think, yeah, exactly. I think that's what it's more about. And maybe there is a silver lining in a way of these two teams getting kicked out, which is happening at the beginning of the tournament, because I think it does send a message to the players that are there that this is a real
00:44:22
Speaker
If you are sloppy, this is what could happen. And I don't know what Dallas and Nashville did if it was sloppy. They promised that they're adhering to protocol, but maybe that's also a sign that protocol isn't enough. They need to go beyond what the normal protocol is.
LAFC Performance Without Key Players
00:44:44
Speaker
We have a question from the viewing audience.
00:44:50
Speaker
Ruben Bullies asks, how will L.A.F.C. be without Vella and Zimmerman in the tournament? Is Zimmerman out of the tournament too? I didn't actually realize that. Well, they're not going to be. I think I'm amazed at how many pundits seem to think that L.A.F.C. is going to just not miss a beat with Carlos Vella out. It's a big player to be missing, and I don't know how many games they even had to play last year without him.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yeah, they kind of run things through him. I have noticed when analyzing their games that he seems to be an important player to what they do, so. Came out of nowhere. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, they're still a very talented team. I think that the loss is probably more than like the equivalent talent of Carlos Vela, just because he is so central to everything they do. But they're still very good. Bob Bradley is a very good coach.
00:45:45
Speaker
I can't imagine that this is a huge surprise to them, to the coaching staff that Carlos Vela isn't going to be around. So yeah, so I think they'll still be good, but they're certainly, I mean, he's the best player in the league, right? Like, I don't think they're going to miss a beat or, you know, not miss a beat.
00:46:05
Speaker
So this guy points out, one of the commenters, Ribbon Bullies points out, Ryan Zimmerman has not been on LAFC. Walker. Walker Zimmerman has not been on, Ryan Zimmerman is a baseball player. Walker Zimmerman has not been on LAFC all year because he got traded to Nashville. And I guess as a result, he won't be in the tournament either.
00:46:27
Speaker
I don't I don't who's the other who who ended up replacing him on the as their center back I don't know it was somebody kind of funny like it was somebody that everybody was like well all right the Canadian guy
00:46:43
Speaker
Um, well, I have one center back. It's why they're, it's why they're national team is so bad. Right. Exactly. Uh, yeah, I, I don't know. I don't think LAFC, like, who knows maybe they'll, like I heard, like I was listening to some podcasts yesterday and they suggested, well, now that they don't have Carlos Villa, they'll just be as good as everyone else in the league because they're so much better. They didn't win at most cup today. No, they didn't. Um,
00:47:14
Speaker
Uh, let's see. Can I picture has a question. Can I hate that the COVID cup is happening because it's putting sounders players and staff at risk? Well, at the same time watching every single game, asking for a friend. I sure hope so.
00:47:30
Speaker
I mean, I think that's the easier, frankly, I think that's the easier one to get over from a... The players have some control over how safe they are, right? And the team collectively seems to have decided that they are gonna do everything they can to keep themselves safe. And so I think you can talk yourself into rooting for them and wanting to watch them play.
00:48:00
Speaker
and being concerned about their safety. I think that's an easy ethical dilemma. I think the harder one is what we were talking about before, which is, as a society, is this something that's good for us? Right. But I'll watch, I guess. I don't know. I guess on some level, I can compartmentalize it. I've found myself been able to write some straight stories about this whole thing.
00:48:29
Speaker
I don't know, I guess don't beat yourself up for watching it. I'll say that. Like, be true to yourself, right? Like, if you wanna watch it and enjoy it, you should watch it, enjoy it. And I don't think you should feel bad about watching it and enjoying it. We all have our needs and wants, right?
00:48:47
Speaker
Of all the things that are problematic faves, I feel like watching this tournament has got to be pretty low on the list. I feel much worse about ordering shit from Amazon than I do watching this tournament. That's actually a great analogy. If you can get yourself to order stuff on Amazon, I think you can probably get yourself to enjoy this tournament for a few hours a week.
00:49:11
Speaker
Or at least watch. Don't have to enjoy it. At least watch. You should feel bad the whole time you're watching. BT Webber has two questions.
Sounders' Sponsorship and Player Excitement
00:49:25
Speaker
First one, any news about how much the sounders got for the wash and a fed logo on the sleeve?
00:49:31
Speaker
So I did try to get some information about that. I can tell you that it is less than they got from the federal government and the PPP loan, which was $2.8 million. What I was told, and I promise you I am not withholding information. If I knew the number, I'd tell you.
00:49:54
Speaker
But what I was told is that it's not anywhere close to what they got for Zulily, but it's not an insignificant amount of money. So I don't know. Maybe it's somewhere in the five hundred. It's probably in the six, like mid six figures a year would be my guess. Like I'm just pulling that out of my my butt.
00:50:15
Speaker
But yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's something I guess they, they're gonna, it's going to be there for a couple years. I don't know that much about Washington Federal. But I guess it's a legitimate local company, which is, which is good. I don't know.
00:50:30
Speaker
how you feel about having a banking sponsor, but I'm guessing there's worse banks to be sponsored by. It's not Wells Fargo, right? Oh, that's right. Give me in trouble or something, isn't it? Is the 2.8 million that the Sounders got in PPP loans, is that the largest transfer fee they've ever received?
00:50:53
Speaker
Uh, I think they got more than that. It was like four, it was like 4 million. I guess. That's a good, that's good. And the second question is putting the COVID risk aside, is there anything I should be more excited than seeing Nico Raul JP and Jorsen Morden together in the attacking third?
00:51:17
Speaker
I don't think so. It seems like a pretty good thing to be excited to see. That's definitely the thing that is most, yeah, I think that's the thing on, certainly on this, like I am all, I don't know, I wouldn't say I'm more excited about it, but I am.
00:51:33
Speaker
It'll be interesting to see how much time the youngsters get in this tournament. They just signed Shandon Hopio right before they left. They signed Josh Atencio and they signed Ethan Dobleri all relatively recently. These are all young.
00:51:52
Speaker
homegrown players who have varying degrees of ability to immediately impact the roster. And I'm interested to see like, I mean, I think the thing I'm most I would not say this is something to be excited about, like, you definitely identified the thing to be most excited about. But the thing that is maybe most interesting is how much trust
00:52:21
Speaker
Brian puts in Danny Leyva, Alfonso Ocampo Chavez, Shannon Hopio. And I guess it is interesting. They have six homegrown players on the roster. I think that's the most I've ever had as an aside. This is the time to do it. I mean,
00:52:44
Speaker
There's a better than, I would say, outside chance that this is the only season that we have. Yeah. And it's not that important in and of itself. I think they're already qualified for the next CCL, right? They are not. Oh, well, whatever. They already played that. Oh, that's right. I completely forgot. I totally forgot that, too.
00:53:11
Speaker
I know. I'm amazed how many people seem to think they've already qualified for the next. They've already been eliminated from that. I totally forget. That's that's great, though, because they lost to a team they shouldn't have lost to. So now we just get to forget that happened. Exactly. I agree. It's a very it's I go back and forth between being annoyed again that they lost to Olympia at home when they led late. Like that is like a horror. Like I don't want to relive that at all. But
00:53:40
Speaker
And part of me is kind of relieved that they still weren't alive because they would have had this very achievable path to the final. And that's never going to get played. Like Champions League, if Champions League comes back next year, I'll be surprised. There's no way they're going to play the rest of this season out. There's no way. Yeah. They were just actually saving themselves from wear and tear. So they're smart. Yeah.
00:54:07
Speaker
That's actually, you know what, that's another reason to believe my conspiracy theory. Exactly.
NWSL vs. MLS Pandemic Management
00:54:14
Speaker
Let's end it on this ribbon bullies in the in the chat says asks, did we ever find out how new who hurt his wrist? Was it a tick tock dance? No, we didn't.
00:54:26
Speaker
We didn't. All right. Tick tock, Danson. I think actually what I take it back. I think what I heard was that he got, he just had like a injury that required some minor surgery and they just decided to do it. But I don't hold me to that.
00:54:44
Speaker
because it was kind of speculated, like, how did he break his... I did ask about that. I was like, did he break his wrist? Did he manage to break his wrist while he was on lockdown? And the sound was like, no, no, no, that's not what happened. Aaron... I feel like he had the wrist, like he was wearing a cast way before lockdown. I feel like somebody noticed it in the off-season. Oh, that could be. Have either of you watched the Challenge Cup at all?
00:55:11
Speaker
I haven't been able to watch the rain. I watched some of the first game, but the rain games have just all been at really awful times. So I haven't been able to watch any of them. I've watched a few of the games. They've been just absolutely bonkers. Yeah, there have been some very entertaining games. The rain have not been involved in many of those entertaining games. I will say the last 15 minutes of the last rain game was they looked superb. Yeah.
00:55:40
Speaker
I really do wonder, A, how I'd be feeling about this tournament if it was being held in Utah and not Florida, and B, what kind of thought process went into that decision making on the part of NWSL's
00:55:58
Speaker
leadership, whether how much of it was pure dumb luck and how much of it was them going, well, Utah seems to be doing a slightly better job with this than Florida does. I think it was mainly Del Loy Hanson offering up his... That seems... That's also a pretty major factor, I guess. I think that was really a major factor.
00:56:20
Speaker
And obviously NWSL has 40% of the teams that MLS does, so there's just more. It's a much more manageable group for sure. I mean, that's one of the things that definitely helps. I mean, they only have eight teams. Yeah, it's almost like a quarter of the... Yeah.
00:56:43
Speaker
So it's a much more manageable group. I think it's a maybe even, you know, one of the things that someone, a mutual friend of ours mentioned to me is that it's like the amount of like, what's the term?
00:57:01
Speaker
Like the players there know they are kind of bought, like they need to be at their best because they just, they're not entitled. Like they have at least level of entitlement of all the professionals in the NWSL. And so it's a little easier to get them to all get on the same page as well. So take that for what it's worth.
Conclusion and Hope for Better Sports Environment
00:57:25
Speaker
But,
00:57:27
Speaker
Yeah, I have not been able to watch as much in WSL Challenge Cup as I would have liked to, but people seem to be enjoying it well.
00:57:36
Speaker
I'm very glad that it seems like, I think there are a lot of people that will just watch sports if it's on TV. And half the time I forget to watch sports that I want to watch. But I'm glad that it seems to have captured that audience and that people are enjoying the tournament.
00:57:57
Speaker
The one game that I did watch like a part of, I mean, it seems like NWSL the different quality was lower than the other leagues have suffered, which is a little weird because they'd been off for even longer, but.
00:58:12
Speaker
You know, I guess they're... I also think one of the things that maybe works in their favor is they know for sure. I'm pretty sure they've actually announced that this is all they're doing. Like they're not even going to try to come back. Yeah. So they get to go all out in a way that, yeah, that makes sense. But, all right. Well, I think that's it, right? Look it. That's it.
00:58:35
Speaker
Well, hopefully you found this to be useful for you. Thanks for sticking with us all this time. One of these days, we'll get back to being able to just enjoying soccer. I don't know when that will be, but we hope, right? We hope. We hope. Anyway, thanks to our sponsor, Fullpool Wines, who I will once again say,
00:59:03
Speaker
This is the perfect time to be doing the full pool wines thing, I would think. Man, they are geared for this environment, I think. Anyway, so go subscribe to them and tell them we sent you, please. Please do. Yeah, but yeah, signing off for Likit and Aaron, I'm Jeremiah Shan. This is No Saadietes. And remember, you will never yacht alone.
00:59:34
Speaker
Green Douglas fir where 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.
01:00:12
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!