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Episode 376: LA Galaxy preview
75 Plays2 years ago
We caught up with Ryan Rosenblatt, our resident LA Galaxy expert and the author of ESPN's MLS Power Rankings, to find out what's going on with the once-proud franchise. We discussed the supporter boycott, Chris Klein's rocky tenure and who the Galaxy expect to have back this week.
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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)
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorships
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Fullpool Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Fullpool was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime sounder supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:21
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to... There's no study at this. Come on! Hey, Ocean! Let's go! I want to say bye-bye!
Seattle Sounders' Victory Celebration
00:00:35
Speaker
The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup winners! And Portland can't say he's cheating! Here comes Rudy Diaz through the middle to crowd it for Seattle! They have climbed the mountain!
00:00:51
Speaker
And now our masters of all that they survey. Michael Adero leaves absolutely no doubt. The Sounders rule the region. Seattle Sounders is confused. Seattle Sounders, the greatest MLS team in history. Is that what you young people call twerking? How does this one feel? This feels fucking awesome. Why do we win? Why do we win? This is Seattle Sounders, bro.
00:01:24
Speaker
the bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle and the hills the greenest green in Seattle like a beautiful child growing up
00:01:42
Speaker
Thanks to Watson's Counter for sponsoring this episode. Located in Ballard, Watson's Counter is your neighborhood specialty coffee shop, brunch spot, and now, coffee roaster. Sourcing exclusively high scoring coffees, Watson's Counter has started their coffee roasting project to showcase amazing coffees grown around the world. Their first featured coffee is the beautifully complex washed Ethiopian Odola.
00:02:04
Speaker
Follow them on Instagram at wantsonscounter to keep up with all the upcoming releases or check out their website at www.watsonscounter.com. Whether you want to stop by for your daily coffee to go or sit down for delicious Korean inspired brunch, Watson's Counter has got you covered.
MLS Rankings with Ryan Rosenblatt
00:02:22
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of Nos Adiates. I'm Jeremiah Shan. Joining me today is one of our resident galaxy experts, but you may know Ryan Rosenblatt as that guy who writes ESPN's MLS power rankings. Welcome to the show, Ryan. Hey, how are you doing?
00:02:40
Speaker
So let's start with the power rankings. How's that treating you? Everyone loves you, I assume. Yeah. Every single week, someone is mad at me. We rotate fan bases this week. It's the revolution. Who knows who it'll be next week. Funnily enough, when I have a team unusually high, none of the fans come and tell me that I'm doing a great job.
00:03:01
Speaker
your team. Stop it. We can't handle it. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't know. You got, I have the sounders. Number one, why, why don't I get anything from sounder fans? What the heck, what the heck dude? You can't be blowing smoke up us like that. Uh, but let's, let's talk a little bit about the galaxy who are in
LA Galaxy's Defensive Strategy
00:03:23
Speaker
I don't know, a growing, I would say an unfamiliar place for them, but it's growing familiar to be in this situation. They're winless through four games, although writing three straight ties and it looks like their defense is sort of settled in. Is that fair or how would you assess that?
00:03:44
Speaker
Yes and no. I mean, I think that there's definitely an element of, um, they, they've gotten better at the back, um, that they make more sense than they have in the past. And I mean, you look at it and like they brought Cassaris in, um, last season and he played the end of the year and like, that's an improvement. Um, he's older, but he knows, you know, how to defend, which is something that you could not say about some other guys who they trotted back there for a while.
00:04:10
Speaker
Jaylen Neal's been getting minutes and you see the talent in him. You also see the guy who's playing his first division minutes. But I think that athleticism he brings and the ability to play the ball in particular is helping a lot. But then on top of that, there is definitely an element of Greg Vanney has his team playing pretty conservatively and that is protecting them in ways that
00:04:36
Speaker
If they were to open up, I think they would not have the same defensive record that you're seeing now. Like this team is very much built to try and protect what they have or don't have at the back. And so one of those people in the back, Jonathan Klinsman, he didn't have to do a whole lot against the Timbers last week. But it looks like he's probably starting again because Bond, I guess, has a shoulder injury.
00:05:03
Speaker
That's the indications we're getting. I mean, we haven't gotten, I don't think, at least I haven't seen the official injury report, but all the, all the talk about, you know, how they've been going in training. I, I'm getting the indication it's Glensman. Okay.
00:05:17
Speaker
And then they also get Kelvin Leardham back from international duty. He had been with CERNOM last week. Is he like, I saw he had a goal. He did. He was very excited. Yeah. Like, I mean, it's been a few years now since he was with the Sounders, a couple of years. Is he an ageless wonder or is this a situation where he's maybe a little long in the tooth?
00:05:46
Speaker
Uh, yes. I mean, you, you, you, you can see age has caught up to him to some degree. Also though, um, they've liked the rest of the defense. They've kind of rained him in and been like, Hey, well you just deal with this area that is pretty deep. Um, and, and then only come forward when we kind of
00:06:04
Speaker
hit this ball out to a winger, which is what we all we want to do and then play it back to you and then you can go. So it's a pretty tight system where it's he only goes forward when the chances are wide open, otherwise defends pretty solidly. There's not a lot of risk out there. So what he kind of lacks in athleticism is he's gotten older. He's kind of making up for in a controlled system where he's only got to make three or four different decisions and he's played plenty that he can, you know, make those reads and make those right calls.
Player Updates: Klinsman and Jovalich
00:06:35
Speaker
And it looks like Jovalich is also going to be back from Serbia. This is a player who I don't like playing against him very much. Like this is like Jovalich definitely is one of those players who you can't help but be. He's a fun player to watch as a neutral.
00:06:53
Speaker
I mean, he's very, very good. And not only is he very good, he plays in a way that's really easy to root for. And for reasons I still can't explain, it requires Chicharito being out for him to play regularly. It is one of many things where you kind of look at this roster and are like, huh.
00:07:16
Speaker
You're in a bill, your desire to play a certain way really doesn't not maximize the talent on the roster. A thing that I can't really blame on the technical director anymore, seeing as you are in charge of the roster. But I mean, while Chicharito is out and at least while he's not playing Serbia, like last week, Joe Lynch is going to be out there and he's probably going to be very good because he's very good pretty much anytime they actually let him play. And, but it does look like Chicharito is still going to be out, right?
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think that he's probably, it's not even just a question of this week. I think we're probably another couple of weeks away from him being back. So it should be the Jovalich show, um, at least for a little bit longer.
00:07:57
Speaker
okay well uh that's that's you know like i said he's a fun player to watch i don't always love playing against him but definitely a fun player to watch you know it's funny at the beginning of the season i saw the galaxy midfield mentioned among the best midfields in the league i don't know if i bought it then i don't know if i buy it now but it's a pretty decent midfield yeah i mean i think that
00:08:22
Speaker
It's not really a complete midfield in the sense that like you look at all those guys and they're going to strike fear into you and their ability to do everything. But Broogeman is just a really good defensive midfielder. And I mean, as we know, if you got a guy who can play that position in MLS, you've already, you're like halfway to a good midfield regardless what you got around him.
00:08:42
Speaker
I mean, that's also, I think where a lot of the defensive solidarity comes from too, is he just cuts out a lot of those chances that before they become chances. Um, and then Ricky poo obviously is very, very good with the ball at his feet. So you have a guy who can pass and move the ball forward. And then you've got a guy behind him who takes away pretty much everything you try and do in transition. And that is,
00:09:05
Speaker
alone, a plus midfield. Now, whether they're playing Delgado next to him, next to the two of them or whatever else they do, that's, you know, there, there's something to be desired there. Um, who they're playing it out to, especially on the wings can maybe leave something to be desired, but you got a guy who takes away transition and a guy who can pass and then get into the final for third, the way that push does you, you got something.
00:09:29
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. No, that's undeniable there.
Galaxy Fans Protest
00:09:33
Speaker
So kind of pulling out a little bit, there's only been one home game after the season opener got canceled due to insane storms in Southern California, like very out of character storms in Southern California.
00:09:52
Speaker
But during that one game, we've heard a lot this off season about this boycott that the supporters were planning to stage against the galaxy, basically saying they're not going to go to games until Chris Klein is out as president. Chris Klein remains president. They did, it looked like, actually follow through on that boycott in the first home game. What was the atmosphere like there?
00:10:17
Speaker
It was definitely strange because I think they were at like 22,000 people showed up. So it was a decent crowd, but also definitely not a sellout, which you'd usually expect from the home opener. And there was activity, but it was just quiet and kind of dull, which is not a thing that you would expect at least for the home opener.
00:10:40
Speaker
you could kind of feel the awkwardness in the stadium and just kind of that lack of excitement and that lack of buzz. So they definitely went through with it and a lot of them actually showed up to the game but then just protested outside the stadium. So there was more singing and chanting outside the stadium than inside the stadium because, you know, and I can say like the all the various supporters groups of the galaxy
00:11:08
Speaker
are not always on the best of terms, as most supporters groups usually aren't. There's some kind of infighting. The fact that they all came together and all unanimously agreed after the season ticket renewal deadline. So they had already paid for their season tickets. They're on the hook for them. And the fact that they were willing to boycott it, I think, says a lot. You get any sense of having an impact? Has that affected the way that the Galaxy are doing business?
00:11:35
Speaker
Um, no, yes and no. Like no, in the sense they're still kind of doing everything that they would otherwise be doing, but they're definitely sensitive to it to a degree in that they're trying to set up meetings and they're trying to at least pay some lip service to listen to the fans and caring about it and responding in ways that they didn't before. Is that manifesting in a really material way? No, but I mean, they're, they're not completely ignoring it. They're kind of just like, what if we're also nice to you while doing what we weren't going to do anyway?
00:12:05
Speaker
Right. And so what are they asking for? I mean, is it as simple as like, you need to fire Chris Klein and nothing else will satisfy us? Or is there like a list of demands? It's truly just Chris Klein must be fired. And I mean, there was an article a few weeks ago, talking about it. And they talked a couple of leaders and they were like,
00:12:24
Speaker
the front office has tried to meet with us and tried to talk about different things. And like, like, it's pretty simple, like this, this is what it is. And they've made his face and his name the center of it, like there's no, we need to get the galaxy back to glory campaign, it is the Chris Klein out campaign, they are very explicit about their demands. So I saw a comment from Alexi Lawless, who, you know,
00:12:51
Speaker
don't need to get into the to that all but he sort of suggested that this is really about winning and losing and part of me said like well yeah duh that's the whole problem is like the galaxy haven't been winning like they that's that's that is of course a big part of the frustration but there is a little bit more to it about Chris Klein right
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. If the galaxy were winning a lot, the fans would get over the other stuff. Right. But you don't get to like for it. And to be fair, it does go beyond Chris Klein. And I think this is kind of at least personally, the way that I've looked at Chris Klein in the club as a whole is
00:13:35
Speaker
We've known Chris Klein is bad at running the soccer team for a lot of years now. That's not a surprise as evidenced by the fact that he took over and he had Bruce Arena for a couple of years. And ever since then, they've been bad. They just keep losing. They go through a lot of different people and they just keep losing. There's one constant. It's Chris Klein. He's bad at running a soccer team.
00:13:57
Speaker
The issue at this point isn't just that Chris Klein is running the team and he's bad at running a team. It is why he's the guy who is running a team still allowed to run the team. And that's where you start looking at AEG's ownership and the people making those decisions. And you're like, hey, this isn't just Chris Klein problem anymore, because it's not like he just showed up. You let him keep doing this. And so I think when you look at, for example, they extended Chris Klein's contract this offseason.
00:14:24
Speaker
despite the fact that he is currently suspended by MLS for breaching transfer rules. Which is one of the worst surreal things. Just to get the timeline straight, the extension came after the suspension, right?
Controversial Management Decisions
00:14:40
Speaker
Correct. The suspension happened, then they extended his contract. First of all, the funny part about it is he broke rules and cheated so that way the galaxy could still suck.
00:14:52
Speaker
So even though he was breaking rules, he couldn't even break rules to succeed. Then he gets caught breaking rules. Emla suspends him. And during his suspension is when there was a report in the LA Times that he got a new contract, a thing that had never been made public by the Galaxy. And the Galaxy tried to be like, hey, that's just because we don't talk about employee terms of contract.
00:15:16
Speaker
Except we could point to the last time Chris Klein got a contract extension they put out a press release saying that he got a contract extension So I think that in addition to the fact that he runs a bad team It's stuff like that where you look at the wide organization and you're like you keep lying to us a lot There is a complete lack of transparency here. You do all these little things over and over and over again
00:15:40
Speaker
It's not just the losing. You run a bad club in every way. You don't just lose games. Losing game is a big part of it. That is probably the most important part of running a bad club, but you run a bad club and the fans are sitting here saying, what is going on here? We're proud of this club. We were proud of this history. You guys can only point to your history because you haven't done anything to fix it. And frankly, you guys got a 15
00:16:06
Speaker
or 20 year head start on LAFC and seeded the city in a year.
00:16:13
Speaker
in a year. And meanwhile, you guys were arrogant enough through that entire first couple of years to like try and pretend X and they said it out loud that that wasn't a big game that LAFC was beneath them. They weren't going to treat it like a big game. Well, one, no. And two, you guys were winning like in credit. You want to, you were winning those incredible games. A lot of time makes the debut and, and they try to pretend like it was just another game. I'm like it at every single step. They just don't have
00:16:44
Speaker
idea what the fans are like what the fans are thinking and they have no connection whatsoever to how they operate so it's kind of one of those things where would fixing would winning fix these things sure if you want a lot but it's not just the winning and Also, what reason do we have to think that you're gonna start winning right? I think and that's that's the word that disconnect comes from me is that it's like sure I guess you can argue that it's about more than winning but like you got to address the
00:17:06
Speaker
They lose and they have no
00:17:12
Speaker
The reason people are upset with Chris Klein is because he keeps putting out bad teams. And to separate those things seems like you're just looking for reasons to blame, to disperse blame when it seemed pretty fair to keep drawing the same conclusion about where the rot is kind of being centered.
00:17:33
Speaker
Right. And I mean, here's the, here would be the question I don't ask. Okay. How many years do you have to lose before we don't believe you can win anymore? If it is just about winning and losing, how many losing seasons do you get? Because, I mean, if you look at it right now, they've had one season in which they were, I guess. Okay. Since 2015, like 2015 required a historically great season from a historically great player.
00:17:59
Speaker
Like, I mean, I, they haven't finished in the top five in the league since 2014. They haven't finished in the top two. I don't think of the Western conference. If I remember correctly in that standpoint, they finished dead last more than they have fit, been pretty good.
00:18:16
Speaker
Like and they spent a lot of money to do it like that's the other thing. It's not like you're a rapids It's not like you're trying to bootstrap your way through this They hand you the money you just suck at what you do Repeatedly so like what here is supposed to make me think oh no, you know what now I've seen enough now now. He's gonna figure it out It wasn't it's just completely devoid of reality
00:18:40
Speaker
Yeah, so one thing that they have done, and I don't even know if they made an official announcement about this, but I guess they hired Will Kuntz who came to them from LAFC, which I have to imagine is a little bit like the Sounders hiring Neb Grabavoy from the Timbers to turn around, you know, their season or something.
Galaxy's Management Changes and Challenges
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit interesting because
00:19:04
Speaker
Coons wasn't the head guy in LAFC. So, and before that, he was at MLS for a long time. And it's, it's also just kind of a weird thing too, where the galaxy have pretty much turned over everything to Greg Vanny. Now they had.
00:19:20
Speaker
different people in charge. And it's kind of still Chris Klein with Yovan Kirovsky, who has been there throughout all this too. And yeah, and then they've gone through various technical directors, directors of football, general managers, call them whatever the hell you want. Other people who mostly run the club and they lose. And then they decided this time, Greg Vanney would run the thing, except it's kind of hard to run the team, run the front office, do the academy, everything else at the same time.
00:19:49
Speaker
So now Wilkunz will come in and his thing has always been he manages the cap. He manages all, you know, the actual like day-to-day bureaucratic things that go in with running a soccer team. And that seems like a wise thing to do if you are going to have Greg Vanny run the actual soccer team. Whether Greg Vanny should run the soccer team then becomes a separate question. But if you're going to do this, then having a guy who understands the ins and the outs in the bureaucratic mess of the league, that makes sense.
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I would imagine that doesn't make sense. So from where you sit though, the galaxy are in a situation that is in some ways
00:20:28
Speaker
complete opposite from a club like the Rapids or even the Revolution. Best I can tell, they're still a relevant team in their market. They still have a lot of the fundamentals to be... There's no reason they can't go toe to toe with LAFC. The fundamentals haven't changed that much, have they? Or is it getting to a situation where
00:20:51
Speaker
they have just seeded so much ground that they almost have to start over and they're in like the same situation that a lot of the MLS originals are in.
00:20:59
Speaker
Um, I mean, I think it's a little bit of both. Um, they did lose some market to LAFC. Um, I think that they're, and we've seen in the last couple of years, there's a lot of, for example, uh, excitement around the last couple of years. They had the black and green kit and now they have the green kit. And I think a lot of the fans are like, Hey, so we rebranded this team for Beckham and you know, maybe we don't have to do that. Um, so I mean, I said this for a while. I think that this team should have.
00:21:29
Speaker
have the name but you know change the crest a while ago change the colors ground themselves into something a little bit that actually connects with the city more so like there are aspects of that the stadium could use i mean it's a 20 year old stadium it can use some love but i mean i think that there are bigger things to do than you know just win some more soccer games
00:21:50
Speaker
But also they spend plenty of money AG for my many complaints about the way they run the soccer team and their lack of care for the soccer team. They do not shortcut them on budget. So there is definitely enough there that there's no reason they can't win games. There's no reason they can't put 25,000 people, 27,000 people a game in that stadium. Would that completely maximize the club?
00:22:15
Speaker
make them the dominant team in the city? I don't know. I think there's more to be done, but there's no reason they cannot be winning MLS Cup. Like straight up, like there's no institutional harm or there's no institutional hurdle to them being the best team in MLS again, other than the fact that their ownership doesn't seem to care. And that is the biggest issue. Yeah, they just got the owner who's the trophy is named after.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he kept the team, he kept the league alive to keep collecting checks. So what else matters? And now because he did that, uh, they're going to be able to put an Olympics and have a bunch of things played there, which straight up. I have no reason to believe that AG does not care more about the fact that they're, you know, the whole grounds there is going to host Olympic events for 17 days. They care more about that in 2028 than they do about the LA galaxy.
00:23:06
Speaker
Well, that's probably a good place to end this segment or end this episode. But Ryan, thank you so much for doing this. Any more people can find you other than on the power rankings, ESPN's, FC's power rankings? Yeah, I mean, I pop up in various places, but you probably don't want to follow anyway, so that's fine. Or at least follow you on Twitter, right? Ryan Rosenblatt. I don't recommend that either.
00:23:35
Speaker
Well, fair enough, Ryan. It was always good to catch up with you. And yeah, this is No Study at This. I'm Jeremiah O'Shan, and we'll catch you next time.
00:24:04
Speaker
Roll on, Columbia, roll on Roll on, Columbia, roll on Your power is turning our darkness to dawn Roll on, Columbia, roll on We love you. Let's win another one!