Transcript
Speaker: Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounders legend. Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart podcast network. Here we go.
Speaker: Come on. Hey, O'Shaughness. Let's The Seattle Sounders have done it. MLS Cup winners. The Sounders rule the region.
Speaker: Ooch of a gooch! All creatures, great and small! Rothrock gonna collect it, he does just about, runs into the advertising order. Low to our left, ball goes in! Oh, what a goal! Where's my copy? got bunch of them How many do you cost them? 50 bucks.
Speaker: I'll deadline you.
Speaker: This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounder supporters.
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Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of Nos Adientes on the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network, part of the SoccerWise Media Collective, sponsored by Full Pool Wines, as well as our subscribers.
Speaker: I'm Jeremiah Oshan, and joining me today is one of our favorite guests, Charlie Boehm. You know him from Sounder at Heart.
Speaker: You know him from MLS Soccer. ah He was, of course, one of the main voices covering the World Cup for us, and we're always happy to talk to Charlie. How are you doing, Charlie? I'm doing well. Doing well. Always a pleasure to be back on the Sounder and Heart Airwaves.
Speaker: Yeah. ah The last time we talked, I feel like, at least for the show, was maybe in this studio on the couch. And you were very, very happy with our pillow game, if I remember correctly. Pillow game was tight. The Rainier was fresh and delicious. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker: It feels like so long ago. It does feel like so long ago. So the Sounders fortunes in that time have both taken a dramatic dip and now started to to make a turnaround. Uh, and we wanted to just check in with you and get your, your sense of this from afar.
Speaker: Uh, Are you, I guess, what were you more surprised by? Were you more surprised by the Sounders completely falling apart and losing eight straight and going 13 games without a win or by their resurgence in which they've now won three straight and gone eight unbeaten?
Speaker: Yeah, I guess it's a streaky team, yeah i'd say would Probably pulling out of it. I think, um of of course, like you don't have to be a genius to recognize the the a huge impact of the the injuries and the the the scope of them and the and some of the specific personalities and types of contributors who pick them up.
Speaker: um But that's, ah you know, you see those those things happen in MLS with such a long season and there's so many kind of peaks and valleys you have to navigate. i think for the group to be able to sort of pull itself um out of the tailspin before the season was over and get back into at least we can say, right? I mean, who knows? We still have more than a month left here. But yeah.
Speaker: But from where we're sitting now in early October, they're suddenly starting to look a little more fearsome again. i think there's a general sense of disquiet maybe around the league that that the the Sounders are becoming a a team you may not want to face at the business end of the season. And that that has a little bit more familiarity, right? This that this this team has had these kind of ah ebbs and flows over the the decades, but...
Speaker: um they definitely know what to do. Right. And there's enough know-how back in the group now that I think things are starting to feel a little bit more like the, the, the sounders of old. And that's, that's impressive. it's, of course, a lot of it is just the the mathematics of injuries and people people getting healthy again, especially so certain people like,
Speaker: like the Burl Dons and ah and the the the key figures we all know and love. um But I think you have to give Schmidt some credit, right? Because yeah um that that's the kind of run. you know Coaches been have certainly been fired, even in this league where the leashes tend to be longer for for um crashes like they experienced. But who whatever the recipe was, they've seemed have figured it out.
Speaker: yeah I mean, to that point, ah we have a very recent example. Mark Dos Santos, who obviously had not did not have the track record of Brian Schmetzer, but he also did not the team did not fall apart as as thoroughly as the Sounders seem to have.
Speaker: And ah he he just got fired by LAFC, which I think sort of illustrates... though The Western Conference this year seems as wide open as I can remember it. and i i don't know. I feel like we say this a lot, but ah you know the Whitecaps on paper seem like the clear favorites, but they have not...
Speaker: looked quite like themselves since the, the, the world cup break. Uh, and St. Louis city has probably been the hottest team. And it's strange to say, to think of St. Louis as the team to beat in the, in the West.
Speaker: Uh, and yet they are easily the, maybe the hottest team in the entire, entire league. Uh, and then after that, again it does it does get kind of wonky. You've got FC Dallas, Houston, Dynamos sounds like earthquakes, LAFC, and then, and then the Sounders, uh,
Speaker: I don't know how I would think that if the Sounders can get out of that plan game, which they are right now outside of, I got to think that they would fancy their chances against just about any of those, those teams ahead of them in the standings.
Speaker: Yeah, you know the the the I suppose you could say it's been a streaky season, right? Because St. Louis was really poor, had an extensive, I'm pretty sure it was like maybe one of their first 10 or something like that.
Speaker: So they were they've had a weird streakiness to them as well. The Whitecaps are, on their day, they're still pretty fearsome, but they are just not as dominant as they were last season. um there's just, I mean, they really haven't fully replaced Sebastian Berhalter, I think is the short answer. And that's very understandable, right? When you look at what he's doing in the English championship right off the bat, and then what what he's bringing to the national team, you can, you can understand, right? There's,
Speaker: There's the midfielder, then there's the force of personality that's that's involved with that. and um And then LAFC is very much sort of, I guess they're sort of the Miami of the West. And since you have a big money project that revolves around Sun mainly, but so sort of Sun and Buonga a little bit as opposed to Messi and friends.
Speaker: And they i don't think anybody wants to play them in a knockout scenario either. But ah it goes to show that there's, there's I would say, I'll just say issues of some some sort within the organization because they've um they're not quite sure what's going I think, where they're headed in the long term when you look at the culture they built,
Speaker: John Thorrington, as some would say, that the best CSO, or certainly one of the top CSOs in the league, being as influential as anyone in terms of like that European model of a of a head coach who's clearly you know subservient to the wider system that the CSO has built.
Speaker: And Mark DeSantos was in as a culture hire, right? ah a promotion from within. and The idea was that this guy even though he wasn't particularly good as as the head coach in his time at Vancouver, was the logical and you know successor to the the the culture.
Speaker: And When he was dismissed, they they went in a completely different direction and promoted as an interim, this guy, Xavi Navarrete, is that it? I don't have the name in front of me. It's Tameret.
Speaker: Tameret, excuse me, which tells you, I know i sound ignorant here, but like nobody around the league level really was paying a lot of attention to this Spanish guy who'd come in at the start of the season and sounded like it almost sort of like, he has um the almost like a...
Speaker: consultant vibe to him. Right. And so they, they've decided that that's, that's the the best that they have for interim, a guy who hasn't been there that long. And I think he's, his, his CV is strong and certainly he's, I'm very intrigued to see what he does, but it's sort of like, maybe they're reassessing whether they're the internal culture that they have crafted. So painstakingly is, is, is doing the job. Right. And there's a cloud clock, excuse me, ticking loudly over everyone's shoulders with these aging superstars with Sun and Buonga. So, so, you know, they're, they're finding themselves a bit as well. So yeah, and and not, I think it is open.
Speaker: And I think you can say that um once you get, it's very um old school MLS, maybe, maybe a little one or 2.0 MLS in the sense that everybody's thinking if we can, if we can just get into the dance, right. We've got a shot.
Speaker: Yeah. ah Were you at all surprised that Andy Rose didn't get tapped there? Yeah, he's certainly, and i'm I'm not the first to say this, right but lots of pundits have pointed out he he's maybe the most or one of the most widely respected assistants in the league. He certainly has made a positive impression on most people or all the people he's worked with across a couple of different clubs. I think he's a future head coach. Yeah.
Speaker: Yes, but you know maybe that's maybe again in the LAFC dynamics, he's still on the newer side, i guess. Yeah, i mean you would be yeah i think you I mean, he wouldn't be the youngest. i don't think he'd be the youngest coach in the league ah right now just because there are a few interim coaches that are, or there's a few coaches around the league that are quite young, but he would be young.
Speaker: and But also, like it seems like age matters less than ever this league because you've got these relative children, if you're talking about mid mid to early 30s, being really who's perceived young for for a coach.
Speaker: But, you know, Johan Demay of St. Louis has got my vote for coach of the year right now. This is a first-year coach, and he knows the league well. He, like like Andy Rose, has worked his way up almost every row on the ladder to get where he is now.
Speaker: um But he's he's a kid by coaching standards. ah But the ah the handiwork is pretty evident to me. you know the The scale of the turnaround he's done with sort certainly they've spent some money. The the biggest flash Hoffman of coming over from Colorado.
Speaker: But the system, right? there's the is it's our latest Wilford Nancy kind of coaching prodigy. So I think, and then Matt Wells is another very young who run in the Rapids, who was perceived as a real coup for that organization to, for him to cross the Atlantic, rising young, you know, respected English manager in the sort the premier league world.
Speaker: So, you know it's kind of fun things happening in in the, in the sense of like the coaching dynamics here in MLS. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. i How do you, I mean, i don't know. ah The Sounders, i would say, have proven that they are a playoff team or that they should be.
Speaker: They seem solidly back in the playoff picture, I guess is my point. But this upcoming two-game trip where they go to New England and then Dallas in quick succession, to me is really going to go a long way in determining how seriously we should take them as a contender, uh,
Speaker: whether that means as an MLS could become 10 tender. I'm not, I don't know if that's that, but just to be someone that can, a team that can make some real noise in the playoffs to see how much of this, uh, recent balance is just them beating some teams that they should have beaten. You know, they, they won three home games, all of them against teams who were either below them in the standings or in even worse form than they were.
Speaker: ah but look, three wins are three wins. Uh, Do you feel like this is a, am I, am I reading too much into the, into this, but this, the importance of this road trip?
Speaker: I don't think so because these cross-country trips and big multi-time zone trips are are still a litmus test for most MLS teams, right? You have to be on a plane for a long time and then hop off and and come to grips with your surroundings and then get a result.
Speaker: These are both clearly playoff teams. you the The Revs have been, again, it's it's it's historic type of runs for by other clubs that have us talking about, not talking about the Rebs, right? They've been one of the league's best since the world cup break. Also they had their own little youth movement going on. i'm sure we'll talk more about the, about various youth movements club and country, but the Rebs have, have new life under Marco Mitrovich and they still have that kind of heliocentric approach of a, an elite team.
Speaker: designated player and Carlos Hill who is still does amazing things and is his own tactical conundrum that you have to solve. And they've got a lot more quality around him. Some of it, you know, us youth national team or, or rising USM in tears like Brooklyn rains, Peyton Miller. So it's a, they're, they're not an easy out whatsoever, especially on the turf at Gillette.
Speaker: And then in quick succession, have to go down to to Dallas where it could i'm I'm getting ready to go visit family in Texas this coming weekend with my kid. And you know, it's, It could it' could could easily hit 90 in Texas at time of year, right? so you don't know what the the the yeah the surroundings are going to present you with. And then Dallas has been a really, really tough out. I'm i'm pretty impressed. And again, I think that's another team that's flying under the radar. Yeah.
Speaker: maybe unfairly to them just because of of all these other GC storylines for NMLS, but Airquil has made that team really tough to beat. I think they have a really clear identity. They got that dog mentality that makes them a difficult team to break down. And then if we assume that Petr Musa is back safe and sound and firing again after Croatian national team duty. You have a ah star that you have to contend with. and Although some would say even there's really two, i mean, the two really top strikers there with him and Logan Farrington ah to to work out. so So I actually like Dallas. I think Dallas is is still underrated.
Speaker: um But these are these are two huge, I think, data points for the Sounders renaissance. Yeah, and just as a quick glance, it looks like Dallas, outside of St. Louis, is the second-best team in the West since the the World Cup break. 6-2-3.
Speaker: six two and four sorry. ah And just playing very well. I think, like you said, under the radar. I mean, somehow St. Louis feels like they maybe are under the radar, too, and they haven't lost in months. I think they're on an 18-game game.
Speaker: unbeaten streak right now. And this is a team that traded away Edward Leuven during the the international break and that they, they have seemingly gotten stronger.
Speaker: ah They obviously made a couple big moves, but it's, it's just very funny to look at the Western conference and to think that the Sounders basically sat out for three months and And like they could, they could potentially put it back together and, and me, me, like, I don't want to say they are a contender right now because they, they need to still prove a lot, but that it doesn't seem that crazy that they could be.
Speaker: it's It's a very, you still have that parody driven sort of mushy middle of teams in and around the playoff line. And then there's been this sort of, I think generally people like me who have to think about and vote in power rankings on a week-to-week basis have seen there's a clear upper crust to the league of teams that that are pulling in points reliably. But I think there's...
Speaker: There's still only maybe one, maybe two. Nashville have been you know far and away the dominant team in the league. they're They're marching towards the supporter shield. They still haven't lost a match at in at home in league play, but I think they may be the only team that's been reliably above two points per game, ah you know averaging on a...
Speaker: on a week-to-week basis. And so, yeah, there's there's that's that very MLS-y sense of potential. And when we all know even a three-game series can throw up all kinds of all kinds of surprises, much less the one-game playoff round. So I do think just the know-how...
Speaker: that's sort of woven into the, the, the core 11 or the, maybe let's say the 14 that you have with, with the Sounders is, is there and watching. And then, you know, I was watching that sporting Casey game the other night.
Speaker: And when you see Christian Roldan doing Christian Roldan things like he did that, you know, and and making a lung bursting 100 meter run to score the game winner in the minute, it's like, okay, so the ceiling on this team is is is gone going upward again.
Speaker: Yeah, and one of the things I wrote is, you know, you you you talk a lot about how if you can just catch a couple breaks when you're in this bad run of form, how maybe you so you can get your season to turn around. and it But it like it just doesn't happen on its own.
Speaker: And ah he put in, you know, it it was a little bit of a lucky break. He deflects a pass into the into the net. you know, but he had to make that run to get there. Morris had to make a a dangerous pass to set it to force to force a you know, i a mistake by the defense.
Speaker: And, ah and so it's it's just good to see the Sounders getting rewarded for, for like the work that they've been putting in. And they, they it it hasn't fallen apart the way that I think a lot of teams would have fallen apart.
Speaker: where they went through a stretch like they did. And, you know, yeah um there's plenty of teams that, you know, there's a reason that most teams that lose eight in a row are some of the worst teams in league history.
Speaker: And, ah and it's because they're usually really bad teams. And somehow the Sounders avoided becoming one of those really bad teams, I guess. Yeah. Well, there's a soccer truth in that you want to have two options at every position, right? And then, of course, the MLS context puts that to the test with um various roster rules and regulations and a really long, draining season that that makes that almost like really difficult for any team to to be able to say say that at any given moment.
Speaker: For a while there in that eight game streak, it was sort of like what 11 healthy bodies is going to be able put out in a coherent lineup. ah And the results reflected that. Now you're getting back towards some semblance of that. Right. And, you know, who's going be the starting striker?
Speaker: Do you, you know, the fun questions that you wouldn't have even been able to contemplate just a few weeks ago, like, right can Jordan Morris and Dejan Jovlic be in the same 11? What does that look like?
Speaker: Which of the kids is going to be the starter they're in their best role versus which is going to be the game changer? Is Gomez your first one off the bench? Is that your your substitute solution or can he carry the load? is Does he need to be out there?
Speaker: yeah you know racking up more touches. um you know is Is there someone who can spell Bruce Nack? Is there somebody who can push him? What does the back four look like? like this is you know ah Not that long ago, it was just sort of like, you know who who's available today, right? So so that that's key. And you have to give some credit to the the accrued interests that that Brian Schmetzer and his staff have built over the last decade to to be able to to find some good answers to these questions.
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Speaker: We're also looking for sponsors. Send an email to partners at pnwsoccermedia.com and we'll get you all set up. Thanks for listening. Yeah, well, you know the right now it looks like, from what I can tell, because Matt Doyle just put out his ballot, ah but I understand that the 2,222 ballots are out and ah and and players like people like yourself are voting in this.
Speaker: ah you know You mentioned Sebastian Gomez as being a player who emerged for the Sounders during this ah during this run of success that they've recently had.
Speaker: Do you where does he, does he make your 22 list? Should we expect to see him in very many 22 lists? Yeah, and ill I'll share with listeners is Jeremiah and I were talking about this before we started recording.
Speaker: had the ballots went out Monday. They're due by Friday for twenty two hundred twenty two. There's three sounders on there. Snyder Brunel, Sebastian Gomez and Stuart Hawkins. Those are the three age eliible eligible ah first teamers for the vote. I. um I say this knowing that there's a, I think a lot of people would contend that, that Snyder Brunel may be the, have the highest upside long-term of that group. And he's shown some very really promising glimpses.
Speaker: I have to say, and I posted about this on a blue sky back. And i can't remember which game that was during, it was during one of the Sounders games that Gomez has my full attention at the moment. And I'd have to say, he's probably the most likely of that trio to get onto my list.
Speaker: because he is he's bringing something different that I think the Sounders need and that they don't have enough of on this current roster, which is there's just that little bit of spark of creativity, of impetuousness. um He's just got a way. clearly is comfortable running it.
Speaker: defenders. He wants to try and beat people one V one. It's, it's a different, it's a different flavor to what, um, what some of the other wingers and attacking players are doing. And I want to see more of it because, and and you mentioned Matt Doyle, he's,
Speaker: written and spoken about this a lot over the course of the season. Sounders just don't have that many one V one type players that want to chop somebody up. They want to get to the end line and cut back. And when you look at how you ovlich scores, I thought so many of his goals, when you look at what, what Jordan can do,
Speaker: when he's healthy and informed, you need, you need that to, you need a player who can get those main city zones or that can, that can unbalance the defense in a different sort of way.
Speaker: And so I think that's, that's why he's so important. He's important in the group and, and as it on an individual level, it's the that type of skillset that can ah be a difference maker in MLS and that can draw attention beyond the league and eventually draw big transfer fees because that's kind of one of those quick silver elements of the the modern game.
Speaker: Yeah. You know, I was recently comparing the numbers that Sebastian Gomez has been putting up this year to like Georgie Manungu, who is the center sort of breakout player last year. And Paul Rothrock, who was the breakout player two years ago. And on a per 90 basis,
Speaker: he compares very favorably to both players. Now he doesn't have the, the one great skill that Georgie had, which was beating players off the dribble. He is, but he is right now the sounder is best dribbler on a, on a, on a per 90 basis.
Speaker: And he, and I don't know that he has quite the the same sort of like grit that Paul Rothrock has, but he does have something that, uh, we don't see, from the Sounders that often, which is a he has a creativity that is, ah beyond his age right now.
Speaker: And I, I'm with you. I, he might have the, I think the general consensus is that both Snyder Brunel and, and Stu Hawkins are closer to like national team quality,
Speaker: ah players but I wouldn't be surprised if Seba Gomez ends up being the the best of the three. I've just been very, very impressed. And and that's even saying like, I I've been really happy with what I've seen from Stu Hawkins over the last few weeks as well.
Speaker: Snyder Brunel maybe has, has a little bit more of a dip in his game, but I think this is a, this has been a good experience for all of them. And it it, it actually does give me a lot of hope for,
Speaker: ah for the Sounders developmental pipeline. ah The player who i suspect is at the top of everyone's U22 list is Kevin Sullivan. And, you know, you've, I assume you, you have, you have written about him quite a bit. He obviously just had his, had a nice run with the U S national team, which I guess is not technically over yet. They still have another. Yeah. They're playing Canada in just a few hours here as we yeah report on Tuesday.
Speaker: Right, exactly. ah what are what i don't know. what i have I don't think I've been this impressed with a young American ever.
Speaker: I think I was late to the Kevin Sullivan hype train. i was I was pretty skeptical that he was all he was cracked up to be. And somehow, i i mean mean, maybe that's why, but I have just been...
Speaker: blown away at what I've seen from him. like, I realized the, the goal that he scored against Mexico wasn't necessarily the the best example of the Kevin Sullivan experience, but it does seem to get, you know, it it was an appropriate cap to what had been ah an impressive, a trio of games him.
Speaker: Yeah, and i'm um I think I'm drinking the Kool-Aid at this point. And you know maybe some of that is that I've kept an eye on him for some years now. that the The tales have sort of been rumbling out of South-Distrian Pennsylvania, going back to when he was like 12 or so. But the leak site actually sent me up to Philly, which is yeah it's about two, two and a half hours from where I live here in D.C. But I drove up. It was like a was towards the end of the maybe August. I'd was August or September of 2024 when he had signed his homegrown deal and was officially kind of um given his first team debut. And it was all calculated. Jim her Curtin was still the coach of the union.
Speaker: They were trying to make a ah ah late run into the playoffs that year. um but The club and elevated him and gave him his MLS debut off the bench on ah a weeknight game that I went up to cover. And they did it all very sort of methodically because they felt like this was a statement, right? They were going to break Freddie Adu's record for, you know, not just youngest debutante MLS, but,
Speaker: I forget the exact wording, but basically youngest professional sports um participant in ah in ah in a North American pro league. And I think it applied to most of the your major European soccer leagues as well in the modern era.
Speaker: And that was all calculated and they felt like this was something he had earned. And this is this was a reflection of of his enormous talent. So when you're talking about a 14 year old, right, that's...
Speaker: That always gets your attention and inevitably, for better and for worse, it it um strikes up the Freddie Adu comparisons, which I think we as American soccer people, and that you know Freddie, we're going back 20 years or so now.
Speaker: I just, through dumb luck, was had started this job, started in this field as a side hustle covering DC United, which was his team. around the time he came, he came up.
Speaker: So I had a little bit of a furrow seat on that. And so I, I, I tried to to bring ah a healthy amount of skepticism to it all. Back then when he came off the bench, it was like, it was, it was wild too, to go to, to Subaru park, Philly stadium and see like, okay, this kid's already a little bit of a local phenomenon. And it was like kids, like the stadium had all these kids and they were like, they were there for cabin.
Speaker: And I've seen this with my own daughter, like, my My daughter's 12. She's in seventh grade. And her mantra for several years has been like, and part of that is maybe just we we have an underachieving MLS team here in DC and we have a very much overachieving NWSL team. But her party line is like, well, soccer's men's soccer is boring, you know, but women's soccer is fun. And so she like, she bigs up the spirit to her friends and that's the game she wants to go to. She has a Trinity Rockman jersey, but have wants nothing to do with DC United.
Speaker: Well, like what Kevin is doing has my daughter wanting to go to Philadelphia union game and get on 95 and drive up the road. Yeah, we could, we could watch, we could go see, see his team. and i was like, oh damn. Okay. Well, so like he, Kevin has already built, you know kind of cultivated this on a smaller level. And now it's just going bigger.
Speaker: And it's, this year has really been, I think everything just coming together for him because when he first came in, you can tell he's a talented kid. But and not unlike Freddie, he was like one of the smallest guys on the pitch.
Speaker: You're wondering, like, has grown into his body? is this man? This feels like a boy among men. Right. And even then when you watch him last year, Kevin was still more seemed to be more comfortable. He was more productive in MLSX pro last year. And he wasn't really impacting the game consistently at an MLS level. And,
Speaker: Philly were winning the supporter shield under Bradley Carnell. So it wasn't like they were particularly incentivized to like throw him further into the deep end. Everything has just come together for him. And you can see he's still not, i don't think he's done growing physically. He's, he just turned 17 last week.
Speaker: He's, but, but what I, having interviewed his coach, talk to people in and around the Philly system, and like, and, and interviewing some of his teammates and stuff. He's always been a freak athlete in the sense of, um,
Speaker: his quickness, his lateral movement, ah the sort of soccer athleticism that has enabled him to compete. And he's been competing like one or more age groups up since he joined the Philly Academy, basically at age eight or 10 or whatever.
Speaker: And, but so people have noticed like he's, he's always been athletic enough to keep up, but then he has this really tigerish mentality. He's a super dog competitor. He loves it. He's got that Philly DNA.
Speaker: Part of what was fascinating about the U S Mexico game was, I would say almost the goal is if you could say it's freakish, right? He he picks off a goalkeepers fast and they chips them immediately from 35 times out.
Speaker: but he but But I would say there's something – it says something about him that the way he did it because yeah he can dribble five guys. He can make the highlight reel kind of stuff ah with the dribbles and whatnot.
Speaker: But he's also – he's a worker. He's a dog. Like he's come up in the Philadelphia system and at all levels, pressing is like central to what they do. They want to reflect the whole blue-collar Philly ethos in how they play.
Speaker: And he has really soaked that in. So like this kid – And Pochettino has marveled at it. he He loves to press. He presses intelligently. He's not just a head cutoff kind of, you know, he's he's picking the right angles. He's setting up players.
Speaker: i mean, if you watch the little body movements he did to kind of trick, and this is Talarangel, who's who' the Mexico's starting goalkeeper of the World Cup. He kind of tricks him into that, playing that dumb pass. And obviously it's a howler by the goalkeeper.
Speaker: This is a veteran goalkeeper. getting worked by 17 year old who's, who has putting thought into everything he's doing and executing at a really high level. So he picks off the pass and then there's no hesitation, right?
Speaker: He immediately knows he's going to, he's going to play that chip and he does it textbook. So I think that's what's special about him. So many of these kind of, uh, wonderkin types, You go, oh, you know, this kid's a really good dribbler. This kid's really creative with Freddie, with Gio Reyna. It was like, all right, well, they, you know, they've got this incredible attacking skill set and then we'll we'll teach them to press or we'll we'll cultivate the defensive instincts. They'll grow into a complete player.
Speaker: I think, I think Kevin's pretty, he's remarkably complete and well-rounded for his age. And that's a credit to the club. Yeah, I mean, the thing, i like like you said, the thing I think I've been most impressed by is just his attitude.
Speaker: There was a moment, or there was an exchange that he had with Stu Hawkins when they played earlier this year in Philadelphia, and it and my first read on it was like, man, this kid is is a little a little much, but...
Speaker: but You see it played out over time. And this is just the hyper competitiveness that he plays with. And, you know, I loved, i love it. I think that he is the first American soccer player who, I mean, he has that Clint Dempsey. There's a Clint Dempsey-ness to him, but he's doing it at such a ah younger age.
Speaker: And i don't know, i'm i'm i've I've become a believer. i And I'm a little surprised to be saying that I'm excited about this U.S. national team, like this next era of the U.S. national team. And I think maybe I was...
Speaker: I for sure was a little jaded in the run up to the world cup. I think the team won me over during the world cup, but then when they, the way they went out and everything else, I think I was, I was ready to just sort of like tune in two or three years later and just see where, see where things are.
Speaker: Not that I can totally do that in this profession, but I was not planning on giving it a lot of my attention, but through Sullivan, through a bunch of these other young guys, I find myself pretty, pretty excited about this crop of players.
Speaker: Yeah. you don't You don't have to do as much projection. you don't have to sort of try and know fit it into a future model the way that they so often do with young players. They're doing the business right now.
Speaker: And that starts with, they they got there by doing the business for their MLS teams. Most of them, there's a couple of, you know, coaching is is abroad. Mati Albaros is in Dorbin right now. But like,
Speaker: It's such a win for MLS in terms of the developmental structures that hundreds of millions of dollars has have been spent right across the league to build this pipeline to try and be more in you know more methodical about how we identify and sculpt prospects.
Speaker: And it's paying fruit. And like, yes I think it's paying fruit, bearing fruit, paying off. yeah There's the, in particular, I think it's, it's, I think it's vividly appropriate that the union have three players and are sort of like the flagship now for this whole youth movement, because, and I've i've written about this. I wrote a a longer piece for the league site that that ran last week about this, trying to contextualize like,
Speaker: you know I drove up to to Chester, and actually they were in King of Prussia at the time. like The YSC Academy is the sort of the academy, with literally a school, and it's they've since moved everything into one site in in Chester. like All the Philly kids from you know age 10 up or whatever are in the shadow of the first team stadium. They've got an old power plant on the river that they've converted into this really modern cutting-edge school.
Speaker: and And the school, and education and soccer are all like sort of super carefully woven together. And it's Richie Graham. He's a a minority owner of the club. He's you know been an investor in the union, I think, since they launched 2010 or thereabouts.
Speaker: nonetheless but his brainchild was, um he had gone to the um this boarding school in Vermont, I believe it is, and I'm blanking on the the name of it, but this is this like,
Speaker: one of these sort of blue zones, if you will, of of high performance, right? this This school in Vermont that's churned out an inordinate number of Olympic athletes in the winter sports over the decades. And he thought that that something like that could be replicated for soccer.
Speaker: And his whole thing was, yeah, we're going to grow players for Philadelphia Union, but we we're also going to grow players for the U.S. men's national team so they can eventually compete to win a World Cup. And that sounds when you say that in 2013, and that's just the kind of information i was getting, right?
Speaker: 2013, it's like, it sounds a little bit like, you know, pie in the sky, but he called the shot. Here we are 13 years later. Right. Like they're a leading supplier of talent to the national team. They've made dozens of millions of dollars in transfer fees off their their players who are scattered across Europe.
Speaker: And it seems like it's just churning onward. And Kevin is like, he's the golden boy ah of that process, but it is a process. This is not some one-off thing. that's that's That's inspiring. I think you you have to... you have to Feel good about it. and And again, it's just like it's credit to Pochettino too, because um I was leery of his rehiring.
Speaker: We've seen over and over again that yeah national team coaches in general and specifically in the United States men's context, second cycle almost inevitably sets in when you you bring a coach back for another World Cup run.
Speaker: And the the ideas get stale, things get tired, right? Like, like this, this kind of stagnation sets in and Pachi is doing everything that you could ask him to do to to, fend that off, right? He's, he's challenging the veterans. He's bringing up these kids and they are justifying it. So it's a, it's really, really, really a fascinating time for the USMNT.
Speaker: I totally agree. I totally agree. Well, that's probably a good note to to end on, Charlie. It's been wonderful having you back on. We'll have to do this again soon sometime. ah Where can people read you? and You got anything you working on anything big?
Speaker: Yeah, thank you. so I'm mostly on Blue Sky in terms of social media these days. i do Instagram stuff as well. you can find me there. um Trying to to, every once in a while, I come up with ideas and throw them at Jeremiah. And he, he too to his credit, says says yes more often than not. So i' I'm trying to trying to get a few things over the line to to submit to Jeremiah's inbox. And then mlssoccer.com is where most of my work goes.
Speaker: I spoke, I had to do just like my most stressful thing that I do is like I've i've gotten just just passable enough in Spanish that I can hold a conversation.
Speaker: and and i can I've done a few player interviews and I had another one today with Jafa Navarro of St. Louis. Wow. Who's Brazilian, but speak he's comfortable in Portuguese or um Spanish for interviews, but not so much English.
Speaker: So it's like... It's like the hardest interviews for me. It's way more stressful, way more prep. But have ah we had a good conversation trying to tell his story a little bit. The $12 million dollars man who set the new record for MLS cash for and who who knows, maybe maybe that will be ah an obstacle in Seattle's path in the coming months here. I don't i don't know how that West is going to go, but that'll be one of several tasty postseason matchups I can think of. So that'll run later this week.
Speaker: ah Yeah. And then we'll see then, then, you know, when the playoffs are roll around in November, this time, this time around, I think yeah decision day, I believe is the first weekend of November. Don't quote me, but I think so. i think that's And, and then it's, it'll, it'll be fun, right? As, as, as weird and wonky as the playoffs are, and as, as much as we argue about it, once it actually gets going, right, it's a really fun time of year and and there'll be, there'll be so much to write and talk and, and watch.
Speaker: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, ah Charlie, it's been great. And yeah, we'll get out of here. I'm Jeremiah Oshan. This is No Sarietes, part of the Sounder Heart Podcast Network.
Speaker: And we'll catch you next time.
Speaker: Let's go at Sounders.
