Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!

00:00:00

00:00:01

Play next

Sounders FC - St Louis City preview

S2024 · Nos Audietis

101 Plays1 year ago

Matt Baker of Flyover Footy joins us to preview Saturday's match against St Louis City.

Introduction and Sponsorship Highlights

00:00:00

Speaker

Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. 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 Sounders supporters.

Celebrating Sounders' Victory

00:00:20

Speaker

They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.

00:00:28

Speaker

A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!

Episode Introduction and Guest

00:01:12

Speaker

Is that what you young people call twerking?

00:01:28

Speaker

Welcome to another episode of NOS Adiatus. I am Jeremiah O'Shan. Joining me today to help preview the St. Louis City match on Saturday is Matt Baker of Flyover Footy. How's it going,

St. Louis City Players' Health Update

00:01:40

Speaker

Matt? Great. Happy to be with you, Jeremiah. Excited to talk about St. Louis Seattle. Yeah, so let's just open with any sort of

00:01:49

Speaker

availability report. Do you, it sounds like you guys might be as healthy as you've been all year. Is that right? Far healthier than we've been all year. Yeah. It's trending very positively for St. Louis. We have Eddie Louvin, obviously designated player, midfielder who has returned. He came back against the FC Cincinnati match this past week. He played about 10 or 15 minutes and

00:02:13

Speaker

We're hoping to see a progression from him. He hasn't been ruled out of being able to start. He was our big guy that we've been looking to get back. Everybody else is rounding into more able to go 90. Joachim Nilsson, center back. He should be as good to go as he's been. Josh Yarrow, one of our backup center backs was kind of the last one to recover from hamstring injury that at one point earlier this season took down three or four of our players at once.

00:02:37

Speaker

Yarrow is back. He's not going. He's not expected to start, but he was kind of that last piece. And so now we may be looking at nobody on this player availability report, which is exciting. Yeah. Uh, sounders aren't quite there yet.

Sam Adeniran's Roster Movements

00:02:50

Speaker

Uh, it looks like they will have.

00:02:53

Speaker

maybe their fifth or sixth string center back on the roster, not starting, but it's been pretty up and down. And it sounds like there's gonna be at least one call up from the defiance for this game. So, you know, we'll be interesting. It's been an interesting road for the Sounders in terms of health, but we don't quite have the injury report yet, but fingers crossed, we'll see.

00:03:21

Speaker

one of those players though who wasn't injured but who does seem to be back is Sam and Denerin of course near and dear to Sounders fans hearts what's going on with Sam he was sort of like

00:03:34

Speaker

out of the team, but he's back in, right? Yeah. This was probably the most contentious, interesting thing that's happened to St. Louis in our short existence. At one point earlier this season, Sam just wasn't on the game day roster. I think it was the Austin FC game where he just wasn't there. And when asked, it wasn't an injury concern. He just wasn't on the game day roster. And this was shocking, not just because of the form

00:03:57

Speaker

that sam has shown he's capable of but he's essentially one of two strikers that we have on our roster at this point so without sam and no injury concerns what's going on and it was this kind of slow burn over a few days and then it just escalated quickly when bradley carnell came out and he didn't directly address it but he just said

00:04:15

Speaker

That they're looking for these kinds of players who bring a certain level of intensity, a certain demeanor to training and to, uh, to the, to the field. And until further notice, Sam is training on his own. And it was just this. Yeah. Mind boggling moment where something happened in training that blew up, whether it's between Bradley Cornell and Sam or between Sam and other players.

00:04:37

Speaker

Nothing more was really known other than, you know, you could kind of read between the lines that it was perceived. He wasn't giving it his all in a certain way, whether it's, and you could start to make conjecture, like Bradley Carnell values, two-way players. He's throughout Klaus's slumping. He's always referred to Klaus's defensive work, his two-way plays hustle.

00:04:57

Speaker

And so there's a lot of reading between the lines that went on and Sam was out for a couple of games. And then one day he was just back at training and we showed up and we saw that he was just on the field. And very quickly after that, the team, the St. Louis city PR department to their credit made Sam available to talk to us and we actually got to hear from him. So they were very, as open as possible about it, though, neither party, Carnell or Sam really addressed what happened. They just addressed that.

00:05:26

Speaker

they're back on the field and moving forward. What happened is behind them. Sam feels that he's always giving it his all. He's never needed to change how he's been operating. And then he starts to get more sub appearances. So at this point, I guess it's, uh,

00:05:42

Speaker

just bearing the hatchet, so to speak. I don't know that there's really a big happy family mentality right now because Sam hasn't seen many starts since then. He hasn't had much of an opportunity since then, but obviously in the Seattle game, it would be kind of appropriate for him to see some significant time. And then in the back of everybody's mind, it's just

00:06:02

Speaker

Before this happened, Sam had been one of the few players who had rumors and discussions of interest abroad or interest outside of St. Louis city. So his contract's expiring at the end of this year too. There's a lot of things circling in the air about Sam and Denerin that just leads St. Louis fans to believe that he's not long for

Player Performance and Team Strategies

00:06:20

Speaker

this club. And we're waiting to see more from him on the field after all of this kerfuffle with Bradley Carnell.

00:06:27

Speaker

Right. He started the season gangbusters, I mean, picking up right where he left off goals in his first two games. And he just has one assist in the, I don't know, eight, nine games since then, but he did start, I guess he started against St. Louis. How did he look against St. Louis?

00:06:44

Speaker

Well, he, I mean, he started against Cincinnati. Yeah. Yeah. He started, he started strong this year. I was waiting for that little, like, you know, but he started strong this year and then it just seemed like that moment happened. And I would say he started against Cincinnati mainly because it was a rotated lineup.

00:07:03

Speaker

It wasn't necessarily he earned the start over Klaus at this point. It was from a, from my perspective, we had seven different starters than our usual starting 11 Bradley. Carnell referenced. We, he only thought we had two or three who were just net new to the team, though players like Sam had been subs before that. And then he rotated as a starter role.

00:07:22

Speaker

Honestly, not super impressive. He had one moment early on in the game, which was a quintessential salmon dinner and moment where you allow him to play one V one into space and take it into the attacking third because he's so absolutely dangerous when he has the ball at his feet.

00:07:37

Speaker

one v one from just about any angle he can make any goal happen at any point in time he's that dangerous st louis gave him the opportunity early but never really went back to the well and i think it was i think it was partly because the the back three or back five of fc since night he really never gave him that opportunity they were marking him well they were covering the spaces always providing

00:07:56

Speaker

a secondary cover to Sam, not letting him get those runs in behind. And that's where Sam and Edwin's really dangerous. When he gets those runs in behind the line, you can find him long and he's able to create those 1v1 moments. If and when he plays, that's a style that St. Louis has to go to the well continuously at because Sam has shown, especially early in the season, that if given those opportunities more than a few times, he's going to make teams pay.

00:08:20

Speaker

So the other player who has Seattle ties is Azeal Jackson. He looks like he's been in and out of the lineup. What's his status right now?

00:08:29

Speaker

fully healthy. Uh, he's, he's mostly, I think been in and out of the lineup because of his production and not unlike Sam. Uh, we just haven't seen a whole lot from AZ this year, whereas we hoped we would see more of a leap from 2023 because last year AZ took the number 10 role underneath our strikers and he ran with it. It's not a traditional playmaking number 10 role. It's more, uh, you know, pressing playing off a second striker ish role in, in the center, but you know, AZ Jackson just

00:08:55

Speaker

hasn't seemed to take that next step up in his career and his advancement from last year. And I think we're all looking for him to do that because whenever he steps on the field, you can see the hype. You can see the defensive work is in that. And that's why he keeps seeing minutes regardless of his goal scoring or his assist that he's able to put on the board.

00:09:14

Speaker

Everything he's doing outside of those and in between the numbers is very impressive. He's getting chances himself. He's being put in position with the ball in the attacking third to make things happen. What I've seen from AZ is just a little bit lack of a vision at times. He makes some errant passes. He's not making the smart choice in who to deliver the ball to. And it seems at times he's trying to force things too quickly.

00:09:36

Speaker

And this is a St. Louis style. They want to get the ball into the attacking third and they want to make one or two passes at the most before they get a shot. They're not looking to possess the ball in any semblance in the attacking third. And AZ seems to epitomize the issues that St. Louis has had where he's provided opportunity, maybe in space at first, and whether it's dribbling into a couple defenders and losing the ball, trying to draw a foul maybe, or trying to make a pass and it's just intercepted, things just haven't been working out.

00:10:04

Speaker

Now, in the last game against FC Cincinnati, he had a couple of shot opportunities himself, where they were probably the best shot chances that St. Louis had created. They didn't have enough bite on them. You know, one time he threw his body near goal, trying to get a header diving like a missile. So the effort is there. We're just not seeing the results yet for AZ this year. And so looking, I know

00:10:27

Speaker

that St. Louis has changed formation. They don't have a base formation that they are just systematically devoted to, but it does look like they've sort of maybe started to use a 4-2-3-1 a bit more this year than they did last year. Is that an accurate depiction? I assume they're still pressing as hard. I mean, I know their defensive numbers are just as high as they were last year.

00:10:53

Speaker

Yeah, they've been a little more, I would say mindful of their pressing this year. It's not, I wouldn't classify it as all out pressing in the opponent's defensive third. I would classify it as a little more intelligent pressing where they are mindful of their push points. Sometimes they're waiting until the middle third of the field to engage.

00:11:10

Speaker

But they still have that swarming mentality. So when one player presses, the others move in unison. So that first initial person, whether it's Klaus or Sam or AZ or on the wings with Celio Pompeo and Rasmus Alm, whoever presses first, the others get in line covering the players underneath. And so they try and swarm and take off and cut away those lines.

00:11:31

Speaker

As far as formation goes and how they look when they do this, they have really settled into a 4, 2, 3, 1 so far this year. There are few times that they've run out

Challenges and Tactical Evolution

00:11:40

Speaker

two striker formations with Sam and Klaus. It, first of all, hasn't worked out very well in creating opportunities, but also it hasn't really presented itself as a 4, 4, 2 like they did last year when Nico Giocchini was on the team.

00:11:53

Speaker

When Nico and Klaus played together, it was a true second striker situation with Nico and they were almost a parallel high up on the field salmon or Nico and Klaus. But this year when Klaus is on the field with Sam, it is still a four, two, three, one looking formation. Klaus has been dropping underneath playing the 10 role, which is

00:12:12

Speaker

It's definitely changed his style and expectations for what he's doing. And that's been kind of a point of frustration for St. Louis fans, because it feels like Klaus has been less of that target striker up front, the holding line, and more of he'll get the ball sent at times from Roman Berke or from some of the wingers. They'll play a ball long, which St. Louis loves to do. Klaus will get it, and then he'll be the playmaker that tries to deliver service to players off of him.

00:12:41

Speaker

And sometimes he's making it back and being a destination after that. But like I said earlier, St. Louis doesn't look to possess. They don't look to pass and create space in the final third with three, four, five touches. So with Klaus as being the one who's holding the ball in the final third, when he plays once off, that's usually where the shot comes from. And so.

00:13:00

Speaker

You know this difference in how Klaus has been playing with Sam on the field next to him has been fascinating to watch. And then at times when we have this press and you have a player like Indiana Vasilev, who's been playing the number 10 a lot lately underneath Klaus, he can push as high as Klaus on the press.

00:13:16

Speaker

So when we're in our defensive shape and we drop back into the 4, 2, 3, 1, our number 10 often presses near equal to our striker. You'll have a lot of that space opening up in the midfield that you can work around with an opponent's number six and allowing some space in the midfield that you have to cover with those two pivots by St. Louis. So

00:13:45

Speaker

It's been a interesting season for St. Louis. They have been getting a lot of results, but not a lot of wins necessarily. Like they haven't been, although I guess they're in a little bit of a slump right now, two straight goal losses by multiple goals. But how would you describe the season and does it feel like a

00:14:07

Speaker

I don't know. I know there was a lot of people that predicted there was going to be sort of a crashing to earth because of like the XG numbers last year. Oh, yeah. St. Louis sort of exceed like outperforming their XG last year. And so it sort of pretended some some potential fall this year. And as we come into this game, the Sounders for all their struggles or if, you know, if the Sounders win this game, they jump into the final playoff spot over St. Louis, which just sort of illustrates the

00:14:34

Speaker

I think the struggles maybe of Saint Louis a little bit. From your perspective, how has it been and what has been the main area of struggle?

00:14:44

Speaker

I think the main area of struggle is just finishing the St. Louis is significantly behind the pace as they were last year in goals scored. They're, they're not doing bad on their goals allowed. And that's, I think the thing that St. Louis has to hang their hat on. Roman Berkey has a handful of clean sheets. He's been standing on his head and a lot of these in these game States, but the most frustrating thing is their inability to put some of these games away.

00:15:07

Speaker

and it feels like they've turned losses into draws but they've also turned wins into draws and that's been the frustrating thing they're not they they've played up to the level of their competition at times but they haven't really cracked that top echelon of the west so they're still struggling against these teams that are consistently

00:15:24

Speaker

performing well in the West and they have high level talent, RSL, LAFC, across the conference with FC Cincinnati. These players who have individual guys who can really take over games, St. Louis has struggled against. Lucho Costa, Daddy Boonga most recently, Chitra Arango, coached us with, I think, three goals when we played him last. So, St. Louis has struggled against that high individual talent. That's one thing that they have to work on.

00:15:49

Speaker

Coming into this year, St. Louis was labeled as a one trick pony in their pressing. They're trying to turn over the ball high and they're quick pace and they're not able, they're not able to set up anything. And if teams drop back into a low block, they have St. Louis figured out. There's been.

00:16:04

Speaker

a clear idea towards fixing that and trying to find a different dimension for St. Louis in 2024. And so they have been a little bit more mindful in their progressions. They've utilized some of their central midfielders in how they move the ball up the field much more than they did last year, where last year was a lot of wing play and just sending the ball along and really leaving these big gaps in the middle of the field and how they progress. We've seen a lot of combination play between our wingers, our midfielders, and our fullbacks.

00:16:33

Speaker

So bringing on this year, Thomas Totlin in our right back role has been a game changer for St. Louis in his ability to not just progress the ball and play off of others, but he's dangerous in his own right if he presses high enough up the field and finding an open opportunity to shoot. So these different dimensions that St. Louis has been working on, I think

00:16:52

Speaker

There have been growing pains to that. And that's what we're seeing a reason why they can't put these teams away. Or at this point in time, the conversation on our end isn't so much they're having an inability in creating chances. It's the quality of the chances that they're creating. And when they get the ball into the final third, you try to look at some of the underlying numbers like the XG, the reason it's not that high is they're taking a lot of low percentage chances.

00:17:14

Speaker

and last year yeah some of those were falling but that's where the regression is it's it's truly dropping back to earth in the fact that the chances that they get in the final third are not high percentage they're not in the box centrally you know good chances that you would say they should be finished more often than not it's chances from in and around the box it's taking speculative shots and and hoping to i guess change the way that the defense plays them

00:17:38

Speaker

but they're never able to take advantage of if they create space in the box, getting guys behind the line and then working some of these short passes and creating goals. That's been the most frustrating thing is high quality chances for St. Louis. And that's, it's been a, it's been a rinse and repeat story the past few games, looking for that to change, creating better quality shot opportunities, as opposed to just the volume of shots that St. Louis has.

00:18:02

Speaker

So the Sounders went 2-0 against St. Louis last year. I'm guessing, I assume, and it would, I think a fair assumption that the big rival for you guys is Sporting Kansas City. But where do the Sounders, I mean, are the Sounders registering as a, as sort of a team to,

Community Expectations and Fan Engagement

00:18:20

Speaker

you know, the Sounders aren't exactly what they were in their heyday right now, but how does this, how do fans look at this game?

00:18:26

Speaker

Well, I think if fans in St. Louis still think of the Sounders as the Sounders of their heyday, they think of this Seattle team that's a powerhouse in the West and almost current state doesn't really matter. So seeing them at or around 9th, 10th place, it's the allure of the Seattle Sounders and in the similar vein of the Portland Timbers, right?

00:18:43

Speaker

And I know that's you don't want to be compared necessarily to Portland, but in the minds of us, it's you guys not just have one of the best rivalries in MLS, but you are two of the top teams and have consistently been two of the top teams. And so whenever we play either of you, that's the kind of result we want to get. It's like that measuring stick kind of a thing.

00:19:02

Speaker

And for, you know, we've gotten results against Portland, but we haven't had anything against Seattle and almost, it's almost been a reality check. Both times we've played you because early in the season in 2023, you were one of the couple of teams that really knocked us down to earth after our five and Oh, start. And that was a gut check of how teams can defend this high press, this transition offense that St. Louis has. And then at the end of the season, it was.

00:19:26

Speaker

just taking the wins out of our sales heading into the playoffs. And that was part of this absolutely dreadful run that St. Louis had to end the season last year. And it really was, um, another type of a gut check of losing momentum going into the playoffs. And that probably played into a lot of people's minds of just the absolute wheels coming off of the bus at the end of the season. That that's a, it's a mindset that a lot of St. Louis fans have is that obviously the beginning of the season was better than the end when teams started to figure us out.

00:19:54

Speaker

And that seems to be something that Seattle has over st. Louis, regardless of your current form or not. And so it's combination of, we want to get the win against the team in general, that we weren't able to get any points from last year, but also just the allure of Seattle's always a pinnacle team in MLS. You're always hanging around there regardless of your start this year. I think it's almost assumed that the sounders are going to make the playoffs, at least in my neck of the woods. And so that's a team that's an opportunity for another measuring stick.

00:20:23

Speaker

Yeah, no, it's an interesting game for sure. And from that perspective, and generally speaking, what's been the sophomore reaction to the St. Louis community to the city? Is the hype still building? Is it settling in? How would you describe it?

00:20:42

Speaker

I would say people still have high expectations for St. Louis and coupling that in the larger landscape of our sports scene where the Cardinals are abysmal right now. The Blues were really bad. You've got the St. Louis battle Hawks in the UFL who are doing well, but it's you know.

00:20:58

Speaker

minor league football. And so you're having St. Louis as this is the opportunity people are still trusting in what they saw last year. And I think a lot of fans in St. Louis are smart enough to see between the scoreline and their understanding that the look and feel of St. Louis this year is more mature, more evolved than it was last year. And so

00:21:17

Speaker

Last year, you could say you took teams by surprise. This year, all of these draws that we've been getting, I think there's an aura of positivity around them because you're grinding these out. You're not finishing like we want to, and that's where the frustration has come. It's our goal scorers. It's looking at the summer transfer window for a guy like Cedric Toykert.

00:21:34

Speaker

coming in from Germany saying this might be the solution because we still haven't replaced Nico Giocchini who left for Como in the offseason and that's been a massive hole and I think that might be buying St. Louis fans a little bit of grace in the lack of results that we've been getting knowing that there is a

00:21:52

Speaker

an easy to see missing piece here in the St. Louis offense that we had last year. So there's a lot of discussion right now about Toykart and bringing him in. And that's been the focus of the transfer upcoming transfer window. But in the interim, I think it's knowing what the players that we saw last year, most of them are still on the roster. We know what they're capable of. So we just want to see him turn it around. And that's just adding to all of the newness factor is still there. We're still in a playoff spot. So it's not like the wheels have completely come off and we're

00:22:21

Speaker

You know, bottom feeders in the West, we're competitive in all these matches. And it's just these individual couple of moments you can point to where even if we're not creating and finishing as many of the opportunities as we want to quality wise, we also still have Roman Berkey and net and Tim Parker in the back line. Yokee Nielsen. These guys are massively high quality that St. Louis understands. And so there's.

00:22:43

Speaker

There might be a little bit of, okay, guys, we need to start turning it around now from the offensive standpoint, but there's still a lot of trust and enjoyment that our defense is keeping us in as many games as they are.

00:22:54

Speaker

Well, it's been, it's, it's always fun to see how these things evolve. St. Louis seems like it is a market that has lasting power and it's great to see, uh, soccer is taking or not soccer, but MLS is taking root in, in say

Conclusion and Guest Promotion

00:23:10

Speaker

the roots of soccer have been there for a long time, obviously. But, uh, Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. Uh, anything else? Where can people follow you? Where can people, uh, hear from you?

00:23:22

Speaker

Uh, I'm at Matt Baker STL on all the socials. I'm active on X Instagram, uh, threads here and there, I suppose, but my podcast fly over footy also at flyver footy, a great source for, for soccer knowledge in St. Louis, we cover city and just about any other news soccer related in St. Louis that comes up. We do podcasts three times a week, uh, doing recaps, previews, news, and then, uh, check-ins from press conferences, things like that. So if you're looking for your source for soccer in St. Louis, I'd like to say flyver footies near the top, if not the top. And, uh, I take a great

00:23:52

Speaker

pride in that. Great. That works perfectly. Matt, thank you for joining us. I am Jeremiah O'Shan. This is No Sadiettis, and we'll catch you next time.

00:24:59

Speaker

We love you. Let's win another one!