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What's going on, everybody? Welcome to episode 88 of Lobbing Scorchers. This is Ari Lillianwall and Noah. We're about to lay down another L-Pod. You were crashing out at the beginning of the post-game live, but... We talked you off the ledge. Now that you've had a day to sleep on it, how are you feeling? You know, Ari, I've achieved nirvana and we'll get into it even more, but things happen. Life happens.
Losses on the road are sure to happen in Major League Soccer, especially against a really good defense. We'll talk about the game a little bit, but I feel like we're going to also try and bring the audience into that nirvana with us. It's another L pod, unfortunately, as the Seattle Sounders returned to MLS action after their CONCACAF Champions Cup exit with a 1-0 defeat at St. Louis City SC. We're going to talk about that in our game review. We're also going to look ahead.
to the Nico Ladero revenge game that's coming up against the Houston Dynamo at Lumen Field. We've got our agenda check, and we've got winners and losers from around MLS. So it's going to be a good L-Pod if there is such a thing. Yeah. But before we get into that...
I do have to let you all know that Lobbing Scorchers is a part of the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network. If you want to get the best independent Seattle soccer coverage, consider supporting us by going to sounderatheart.com. That's sounderatheart.com. Scroll down to subscribe. support to get 30 days completely free. Every sign up through our link helps support and grow this show. We are...
on the road to 100 Sounder at Heart subs. Now more than ever, it is a great time to become a member with the season in full swing. Subscribers also now get access to the audio-only versions of our live shows right to your podcast feed. Noah, how is the road? to 100 going. Are we any closer? Listen, it's measured in inches, not miles, sorry. We have one new sub. We take that. Jake Marcotte. Jake, thank you so much for joining our brigade.
We're fighting our way to 100 subscribers. If you want to join Jake and the 81 others, sounderathart.com. Scroll down to subscribe and support. Get all of your content from Sounder at Heart. There's a bajillion podcasts. There's a bajillion articles. Rain is back. They have full rain coverage as well. And I guess this is a perfect time as ever to promo. Ari, at this point, when this comes out, will have interviewed Lee Nguyen, the assistant.
One of the assistants. Seattle Reign assistant and MLS legend. Some say that he should have been the 2014 MLS MVP. I'm going to ask him about that, I think, tomorrow, among other things. But yeah, we're going to be talking mostly NWSL, how he... how he took that winding path from Major League Soccer to NWSL assistant. I'm looking forward to it. And that'll be on Lobbing Scorchers kickoff at 8 a.m. tomorrow. And we'll also have Under the Lights, 7.30 p.m. on Thursdays.
if you haven't been tuning into the live shows, you should tune in. It's a lot of fun. Get to interact with us in real time, uh, answer questions throughout your agendas. Uh, yeah. Oh, shout out to our sponsors, Hacks and Ferments, Podium Menswear, Full Pull Wines. Order from Hacks and Ferments with our code, which is...
LS and you get a free hot sauce with your order. And it's really good. I've been using it and I love it. Yeah. Ari just literally ran out today and I also ran out a few days ago. I've been using it every day. It's like crack. All right. Is that all the good shilling that we need? Yeah, I think so. Let's get into this L-Pod, Noah. And I guess we can start with our lineup reaction, which I feel like is pretty simple. The lineup isn't a bit of a tough...
Spot right now with Pedro de la Vega, Jordan Morris, both out for the next four to six weeks and Paul Areola out for the season with torn ACL, which has been confirmed. Obviously, that sucks. Best wishes to Paul and his recovery. He posted a really nice message online too. He's a good guy. He was bringing a lot to the team already. I think...
He was an ideal sounder when you consider how hard of a worker he is. Never stops running. He was playing really well, so it's really unfortunate. But Seattle is going to have to make do. over these next month to six weeks here. You know, Ariel is out for the season, and J-Mo and De La Vega are out for probably at least a month. Yeah.
That's the situation right now, and I guess that's sort of where we can start with this game, which is that I don't know about you, but I went into this game with pretty low expectations to begin with because you have the injury situation combined with... the fixture congestion that you've been dealing with.
And you have a really long road trip to a St. Louis team that looks like they are going to be one of the best defensive teams in the league this year. To me, looking at them, it seemed pretty clear that they have decided that their identity is going to be sort of they're trying to. of Nashville SC. Remember how Nashville was when their early days in the league? And they did that to great effect in this game. So you throw all those things together and...
I, to me, zero zeroing this or one wanting it would have been perfectly acceptable. In fact. a good result if they had been able to get a point in this game which they almost agreed but that's how were you yeah were you thinking of it any differently going into it no i i was i'm always thinking especially on short rest you just played a really like emotional
game, you're going to be on a rotation. It's a way it's at St. Louis with a club that like their, their only shot is in the league, right? Like that's, that's just how it's going to be. It's always going to be tough to play away. That's a long road trip. So, I was honestly expecting and hoping for a draw. Yeah, so this was a J-Bell game. You did have Reagan and New Who out there. You had the Broldons out there. You had the Obed-Christian double pivot.
I wouldn't have minded the Danny Leyva JP double pivot in this situation just because both of those guys have been, they've been putting it in. They've been playing most of the minutes so far in the league and in CCC. I'm not like super. questioning that, but I wouldn't have minded that. And then you had Rothrock and Georgie out there to go along with Ferreira and Rusnak. And this was our first glimpse. People have been pining for Ferreira at the nine. We're going to talk about that.
but this was his first chance up there this season. So I was interested to watch it from that standpoint, but I can't say that, like, I definitely... did not have the expectation that they would be balling out, banging in goals left and right and dropping five on this St. Louis team on the road, coming out of CCC road trip that long.
I was just hoping for a point. That's really what I was hoping for. And, I mean, we'll talk about it in positives and negatives, but I think some people in the postgame live disagreed. I think they... The performance was sufficient to get the 0-0 or the 1-1. I don't really know why people disagreed with that. They got close to getting the draw. If they had gotten blown out 4-0 in this game, I might feel differently.
They got close to taking what I think would have been an acceptable result in this scenario, but they came up just short. Let's talk about the key moments in this game. There was only one goal. so i think this it's worth kind of breaking down this sequence edward lewin hits the free kick which was a great free kick I don't think Steph Fry could have done anything about that. But really, that play was all about what set up that free kick, which was like sometimes there's.
a yellow card in that situation where you have to take the guy down tactically or, or something like that. And you're making that decision in a split second. This was not really that type of situation. Jackson Reagan, who admittedly has had a handful of mistakes early in this season, which I think kind of.
magnify this, but he loses his footing. It was raining in St. Louis. The field was wet. It was a tornado. Guys were slipping and sliding all over the place. It wasn't just Jackson, but he fell and it looked like the attacker was... about to get the ball off him and jet right through. He was. So Jackson did what I think most people agreed in the moment was the right play, which was he did a fumble recovery handball. He took the yellow.
for that to, to just stop it right there. And that's what set up the free kick. Now, a lot of people were getting on Jackson's case about this because like I said, there's been a couple of other individual mistakes that he's made so far this season. I don't know how you view this. I think it's in general, I have a hard time blaming a guy for slipping on a wet field. You know, that's something.
I think maybe you could say that you just have to be really locked in mentally to be like, okay, I'm going to keep my footing. I'm going to keep my footing. I think when you're in the heat of a game like that, that's pretty difficult. I would be on Jackson's case more in this situation if he gave up that free kick as a result of a bad foul or a bad decision or something like that. He fell. He fell. He wasn't the only guy to fall. I think it's just unfortunate.
Uh, I don't know. Do you see that differently? No, I don't think that he meant to like overcommit or anything. It's just one of those things that happens. He's wearing studs. Like there's, there's not much more you can do in that situation. You've seen it on turf. You've seen it on grass. Players slip and fall. That happens. Like, what are you supposed to? A bunch of guys on both teams did. Yeah. I think it was pretty unlucky that he happened to in that scenario.
I think, yeah, I saw Alex slip at one point. A couple of the St. Louis guys did. It was a wet field. So that's what set up the one goal of the game. And that was just unfortunate because I feel like... The performance defensively other than that was pretty good. St. Louis did have a couple of other looks, but you know, you're playing on the road. They're going to have.
They're going to get theirs at some point. Steph Fry came through with a couple really big saves. Yeah, you had that nice one down low. Knew who cleared one off the line and had a couple of blocks. So I thought the defense was doing their thing out there. They did what they needed to do defensively, which was just give yourselves a chance at the result. I think that's all you can ask in this scenario. They did manage to do that, but they got burned on that one play. Didn't it kind of...
Maybe it just always kind of feels like that in that scenario. But as soon as Jackson did that, I was like, oh, he's going to make it. Yeah. God damn it. He's going to make it. Yeah. I mean, especially because that's like that's the distance that he wants the ball at. You know, that's like that's kind of the. That's their DP, by the way. That's their DP attacker. That is exactly what this St. Louis team is looking for, right? They're a defensive team that wants to take advantage of set pieces.
And like, sure, absolutely. You're going to have people crashing out and saying, well, you should know that, Jackson. Jackson, you're worthless because you slipped and fell and, you know, whatever dumb shit that people want to say.
But at the end of the day, man, other than that mistake, do you think he played poorly? Do you think that that mistake in a vacuum in any other game is going to result in a loss? Jackson's made a couple... of individual heirs this season that if people people were getting on his case about them and i uh i wouldn't really argue with those but this one i think is just uh it's unlucky uh he also like he had a header that
I'm pretty sure was saved. I can't remember. It was saved. Yeah. He had a header that was saved. Do you remember that? Like about the 40th minute off a corner. Yeah. It looked great. Yeah. So, you know, it's like. ball bounces a little bit different. He gets in a different position. He might score that. And then it's like, okay, what are you going to do? That's the life of a defender, right?
You only get noticed when you mess up. Yeah. And it's like, I'm sorry, but I think the mistakes of Jesus Ferreira in this match were way more consequential than Jackson Reagan slipping and making a tactical decision. to fumble recovery the ball um okay well so let's uh let's talk about that actually i had one more key moment that we were going to get to but uh i'll uh or i'll let i'll let you state your issues with uh with
the Jesus Ferreira performance because you had takes during the game on it that people were kind of getting on your case for. So why don't you just explain what your issue was and then I'll tell you what I think of it. Yeah, I mean... For me, this just... I was watching a player who was clearly frustrated for no reason. For no reason. I can understand, like...
getting mad about like not having an opportunity or feeling like you don't really you're not really fitting into the system or you're having trouble because it's your first time out there playing that solo number nine. Totally get it. But when you take that because Georgie Monongu won't pass you the ball or takes a shot instead of passing you the ball and crash out on the referee and crash out and start punching guys on the field.
That's so stupid. That's so dumb. And then to follow that up, like losing your head in a game like this, where it is your opportunity to show... your talent your your your style and your ability in this position is is just it's just bad now if we want to talk about the actual things that he did poorly he doesn't fit into this system of
playing these long balls and springing people forward. There was essentially no nine, in my opinion, in this game until Moose came on. And I thought Moose looked 10 times better than Jesus Ferreira. And you know my Moose takes. I think Moose looked...
better in this formation than he did. I feel like Jesus could have played on the wing and played more effectively and been more of a goal threat out there just by the way that he... drops into the midfield and all of this kind of stuff, which left Rusnak up on this island where he was essentially playing like this false 10 striker and Jesus was playing this false nine thing and they were just getting in each other's way.
Is that the way you kind of saw it? Yeah. So I'll give, I'll give my take on this. His performance on the field as the nine, I think is one thing. I didn't think it looked super. Great. I think there was a couple plays, especially in the first half, where, yeah, it looked like they were trying to spring him with through balls like they would.
with Jordan. Yeah. And that just, uh, that just didn't work. I would say, you know, I think in general, I was encouraged with how fast it looked like he was integrating and the work he was doing as a facilitator. early in the season. But it doesn't really surprise me that he would have a game where he doesn't look fully integrated. The chemistry doesn't seem fully there. I'm willing to give that part of it.
more games to see if he can get in the rhythm get the chemistry going and they can really it seems like they haven't figured out his exact best fit what like what the best way to use him right on this team is so that part of it i can live with Um, but I will, I'll, uh, I'm going to defend your take actually, you know, I'm going to defend your take, which is not, not something that, uh,
Ari hates defending me. Well, but you had a couple people coming at you on Blue Sky. That's true. I was telling him to calm down. You were, you were, uh, uncomely telling him to, uh, to calm down. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, I, I see what you were saying. I do. Uh, I thought that I thought it was weird. I thought it was weird. Like the body language. Yeah. The...
The play where the VAR was looking at a potential red when it looked like he jabbed a guy in the stomach. He definitely retaliated against a guy. There was a couple instances like that where he was getting into it with the same... St. Louis players in a way that was not what I would call productive. He crashed out on the ref at the end of the first half. Fry literally had to physically try and pull him away from the ref and still couldn't do it. You could read his lips, which he was saying...
he got called for a foul and got a yellow card for a shoulder to shoulder basically. But like that was, but you're hot. He was hot. Well, so like, yes, you're going to get a yellow. If you are hot and you have that body language, I'm sorry. What do you think a ref is going to do? And I think so what he was, you could read his lips, what he was telling the ref, which was like, that happened.
twice, two other times. You didn't even call foul. Now I do the exact same thing. I get a yellow. What the fuck? That's what he was saying. But... If you look at the foul where he got the yellow, I don't know. I wasn't that shocked that he got a yellow. It looked like a frustration foul where he came in and checked the guy. So, like, yeah, no, I think the... The demeanor, the body language, the lashing out at other players, the yelling at the ref.
I would be lying to say that I didn't see all that. And I was like, man, I don't think this is conducive to winning right now. Like when you are when you're letting the other team get in your head like that and you are. expending your energy, yelling at the ref and getting into physical altercations with the opposing team, you're focused on the wrong stuff. Like take the, uh, take the conflict.
part of a part out of it and like that's just that's not going to help you win the game which that's your goal in that situation so i uh i agree with you i did think that stuff was weird and i hope we don't keep seeing that you know Everyone gets frustrated from time to time, but you have to keep your head. You got to keep your head. And I'll grant if that if it's a mulligan and he is locked back in going forward, I'll let it slide. But.
It was weird. I do think it was weird. It's weird. And I think too, like this is not a must win game. This is not a game where you're crashing out because the referee isn't giving you a call or this isn't a game you crash out because you're not. doing as well as you think you should have. It is understandable. There is no world in which Brian Schmetzer is sitting there saying, okay, this is your first time in this position. You were not expected to play this position probably.
This kind of came out of nowhere. We just need to plug you in and see what happens, right? This is not a game where you're going to lose your spot because you play poorly. This is a game where you need to settle in, try and play the best you can, get some looks, get some fitness. And that's another thing. Dude can't even play a full 90. I'm sorry. Another 64 minute performance. That's concerning to me, but. Why are you getting so upset about nothing? About nothing.
This is not a must-win game. As much as I understand, every game you want to win and you want to have competitors and all of this and that, but it's like when you have your veterans having to come and pull you away from the referee, this is essentially a midweek game, man. We just played three days ago in a game that actually mattered. And now, like, this is when you're deciding to crash out. And your crash out is inhibiting the performance of the team.
That's that is a problem to me. And I wonder and listen, maybe this is going to sound a little bit crash out Chrissy, but. He was having attitude problems in Dallas. That was an issue. There was a reason that Dallas wanted to get rid of him. And I think that he is a really good player. I think that he is DP quality. I think he's European quality. I think he is above and beyond what this team could utilize him for.
But the reality is he came here to do a job, to not be the main guy. And if you're not the main guy and you're acting like that and not performing, you're not going to play.
You got to keep your composure. That's the bottom line. I think he lost composure a little bit. Like I said, I'm not going to... peg him as a malcontent yet because this is like he's been he's been playing all season and we haven't he's been fun to watch he's had that fun bite and that fun attitude it's just like this game i think we can both agree it was concerning but it's not
It's not the end all be all. I just want to see him settle. Keep your head next time. Keep your head next time. Shit happens. We're here. We're rooting for you. Seattle actually still almost took. a result in this game. It was a borderline play at the end here where it looked like they were going to get a penalty kick with a look to tie. It gets overturned on VAR. What happened was Obed Vargas Got the ball in the box, had a...
Turn on the guy. He had a classic Nico fall in the box. He did. Dude, this was like Nico Ladero. The ref points at the spot. Give Seattle the penalty. It looks like they are going to have a look from the spot to get out of there with a 1-1. Which, if they had done that, honestly.
I would have been thrilled. Like if they get that penalty and they make it, I would have been, I would be sitting here right now talking about how good a result that was and how overall the performance was actually pretty good because I actually thought, the last 10 to 15 minutes, they looked great. Yeah. It looks like, uh, I know people, no one's going to like acknowledge this cause they got shut out, but the last 10 to 15 minutes, they looked, uh,
Like you're supposed to look in the last stretch of a game where you're trailing by a goal, which is pinning the other team in their own end, making sure all the possession is in the final third. The whole second half St. Louis was having trouble.
Yeah, but particularly I think the last 10 to 15 minutes. I thought that they were going to get the equalizer from the run of play. So I think the penalty shout would have been like deserved, honestly, based on how the game state was going. It wouldn't have been against the run of play at all. But unfortunately, when Obed was trying to maintain control of the ball and keep it in front of him, it took a skip up and his arm was hanging down and the ball comes up, hits his hand.
And the ref didn't see it in real time, but on VAR, they saw that it was a handball and they waved it off. There was a lot of footballing, and I mean American footballing in this game, Ari.
Oh, yeah. Well, but there was a lot of... debate about this call when i first saw the replay i was like oh that's coming off for sure uh but then ross smith right is that who was yeah ross smith on the broadcast he was making the point like well what's he actually supposed to do there like his art like the arm
was not in an unnatural position and it skipped up without like his intent so like he was saying that he was making the case that honestly it could have stood and obviously i'm biased so i'm sitting there like yeah ross exactly that it should stand based on that and then it turns out to get waved off and a lot of a lot of Sounders fans were unhappy felt like it should have stood after after calming down and processing it I think that is the right call. He gains an unfair advantage.
by keeping the ball in his path with that. Your intent doesn't really matter at that point, right? Like there was a defender right behind him who would have collected that. So it is, it's super unlucky. It's super unlucky. Uh, and it's tilting. I get it. I'm not aggrieved at the call at all. I'm really not. Honestly, I'm more aggrieved at the ref. I felt like this ref took the letting them play style of reffing a little too far. There was plays, especially in the first half.
where Georgie got like blatantly fouled a couple of times in this game. And well, like refs condescendingly giving the guys the get up and keep going. Right. motion after they clearly got fouled always kind of annoys me. Uh, so that I, if there's a complaint about the ref, I think it would be that the handball call it sucks and it's unlucky, but.
It's definitely not like a ridiculous, terrible call. Yeah. It's, you know, I, what are you supposed to do, man? Like, I don't know. Like it's, if that happened to my team, I would be so upset. If like a player gets what is essentially like kind of a soft penalty. Do you know what I'm saying? I'm not saying it's not a penalty. I'm just saying the reality is it was a little soft. The foul itself? Yeah.
I thought that was, uh, well, it's a, it's a, it's a by the book penalty, but I'm not saying it's the dude was not chopping down Obed like he was a tree. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't like a nasty tackle in the box or something. That's like, you're going to off. You know what I mean? It was a penalty, but it was like, all right. It wasn't like dogs or anything. But yeah, dude, if that happened to my team, I'd be so mad. Obed dribbled the ball.
Obed dribbled the ball, he Michael Jordaned the ball, and I'm sorry. I think the rule of thumb that you should always try and do is reverse the roles. How would you feel? If the roles were reversed and that was another team, I would be like, that is a handball. That is a handball. That should not be a penalty. That's a handball. I wouldn't be arguing that. I can admit that. It sucks, though, because I honestly... People aren't going to agree. I thought the performance was...
worthy of a point. I did. I did not think that this was a game where they got run on by St. Louis. at all anything like that or like they were under pressure the whole time had no had none of the attacking play like they out possessed st louis 65 to 35. they played that's like
That's crazy. Here's my blazing hot analysis of this. Yeah. They played okay. Yeah. They played okay. For that lineup? For that lineup, under those circumstances, with that travel, with the injuries that they just sustained. They played okay. They played well enough where a point in that game would have been fair. They just didn't get it. If they got whammed on 4-0...
maybe I would be crashing out more, but that's not what happened. And so I guess that's a good... They didn't fall apart. Yeah. Which that would be the concerning thing. There was never a moment where I was like... this team has given up or this team is falling apart or this team looks unserviceable. It was always, this is a road game. This is a shitty conditions game. This is a, you just played midweek game.
And this is a this I even texted you. I said they are very clearly playing for a tie. And like, I think I don't think that you're ever playing for a tie. But I think that there's a thing in your head where you're like... You can't go into a game like that and try and be 2019 LAFC. It's not going to work. You're going to overexert yourself and gas yourself by the freaking...
28th minute considering how many games you've been playing so yeah i don't know if it was playing for a tie but it was like they were not like throwing caution to the wind and going completely balls to the wall but they should not be doing that that's bad strategy in a road game so i thought the game plan
was sound uh the strategy was sound the performance like i said was okay but they didn't end up getting the point uh i think that's a good segue to our positives and negatives i can't believe you don't want to bring this moment up ari i have to say you missed it and i was waiting to say it but oh okay Christian Roldan getting suplexed again by another Missouri team?
Yeah. Dude, what is up with Kansas and Missouri, which is basically the same state, folks? It's always Christian, too. Dude, it's always Christian. What is going on? He must really get under people's... I mean, I know he gets under people's skin when he plays. I thought it was interesting how much the broadcast was hyping up Henry Kessler. Henry Kessler is pretty good. He's not like the Sergio Ramos of MLS. I don't know.
I think he had a pretty damn good statistic game. No, he did. I'm definitely not trying to throw shade at Henry Kessler. I just thought the... The suplex. But they talked about him. I think there was like some thing that they were like, you got to spotlight Henry Kessler. Because every five minutes they would be like, Henry Kessler, not only is he the greatest...
MLS defender of all time. He might be the best soccer player ever. I've never seen a guy this good. He's handsome. He just signed seven. He is so good. He's a pillar of St. Louis City SC. Now that they have Henry Kessler. They're winning the Shield. They're winning MLS Cup. If they were in CONCACAF Champions Cup, Henry Kessler would be like, I don't know. And then he suplexes Christian, which was pretty funny because...
Uh, it was another Midwest team that did it and it was Christian again. Well, it's like funny. It's because like, I know St. Louis city is the little brother of sporting Kansas city. And it's like, you couldn't even do it well. You know what I'm saying? Like for all of the hate on Tim Amelia, the way he did it was like kind of iconic, you know, like that made like headlines.
He couldn't even get a headline. He couldn't even get a spot in lobbing scores. You forgot about it. The Rock wouldn't tweet about that one. Yeah, exactly. It's like, you're just kind of a little bitch, Kessler. Like, I'm sorry. You're kind of a little bitch. Positives and negatives. I wrote down some for both. Positives. This game is over. This game is over. We don't have to talk about it ever again after this pod. All right. I wrote down.
competed decently well, given the circumstances, gave themselves a chance. The one thing that I wanted them to do where I would have been disappointed if they didn't is if they got totally blown up and didn't give themselves a chance. They gave themselves a chance, which...
Given the circumstances, that's all I wanted. Give yourself a chance to take the point. People aren't going to like this one. I thought the offense looked... good at times actually like the last 15 the last 15 minutes of the game If they are able to put stretches of play like that on the road together consistently, I think they're going to get their share of road results this year. This team is historically, especially in the Schmetzer era, very, very, very good.
road team they won eight games on the road last year and i i was uh i i know it doesn't mean it's not worth all that much in a game where they got shut out but i i was watching the last portion of that game. And I was like, this is I think this is as good a ball as you could be hoping to play in on a tough road trip.
Like this. And if they do that with no head coach. Yeah, we didn't even talk about that. But Schmetz was sick for this game. So he didn't make the trip. Get well Schmetz. But yeah, I thought the I was encouraged by. how much of the game that they controlled like at the end of the second half there uh despite the injuries and fatigue uh and then my last positive what another uh
Whenever Seattle takes an L, one of the things I'm thinking about is, all right, is the team that they lost to, are they like a threat? Like, are they way better than Seattle? Is this a team where if Seattle plays them, say, in the playoffs later on?
going to be like oh like this is scary i don't think st louis looked like that good at all i thought they uh they they were playing at home like you should play on the road if they were the road team that would have been a phenomenal performance but like i think mark said this but it was like it's very clearly it looks like a team coached by a defender
Yes, exactly. I'm pretty sure that's what Mark said, and that's true. Which is fair enough. If that's your identity, that's your identity. But like I said, if Seattle meets these guys again, in the playoffs or under different circumstances. They're going to play them again next time in Seattle. I'm not quaking in my boots about St. Louis at all just because they won this game. Negatives, you got shut out. So whatever positives I took from the offensive performance.
you got shut out. Yep. And also they're over two on the road so far this season with a negative three GD lost at RSL lost at St. Louis. So their road form through the whopping sample size of two games. hasn't been great to start. But that just means they're going to win MLS Cup because every time they play like Dookie and have a bunch of injuries, they end up going and winning MLS Cup. It could be true. The Senators never play well to start the season. Ari, that's my new agenda.
Well, that's a classic agenda that's been true in certain years. Last year, they actually started off really well. They did the inverse. Yeah, there's been seasons in the last couple years where they've kind of... gotten away from that narrative. That was a thing. I mean, the 2016 season is like where that really took off as a narrative. Right. But.
I mean, I thought they were starting off good, like in the Antigua series, in the Charlotte game, and even the LAFC game. Like, I don't want to let this L totally overshadow the good things that we saw against LAFC. We had a caller last night on the live show who was talking about how horrible the team has looked all season. I think there's been some good ball played so far.
I would say there's been more good ball played than bad ball. The bad ball against Cruz Azul is just taking most of the headlines right now, understandably. But... Like I said, they did drop five on LAFC, so maybe that goes back in the positive section. And LAFC lost to Austin. Yes, we're going to get to that in the winners and losers. Noah, you got any positives and negatives you want to throw out there? Honestly, I feel like you hit them.
I do want to say, like, I think I'm going to go opposite on you. Looking good in the last 15 minutes, I think, is my negative. It's like, why not play like that the whole time? That for sure. But I think that it just concerns me about Jesus Ferreira. Like when you plug in someone like Danny Musavsky, who again, like he's the third striker. I'm not saying anything past that because.
No comment. But like, if you plug him in and that system is working much better, but you have a player who is super talented, but is just... doesn't really work in that system, you get, you get this Giroud effect. And, and I'm, I'm, I'm obviously, I'm not trying to say that Jesus Ferrer is Giroud at all, but like the reality is.
He's the type of player that needs to be in the right setup. You kind of have to formulate a system around him because of the way that he drifts and the way that he plays. Or you have to tell him, stay up. Stay up, stay up. And honestly, I don't think that's what he is good at. And so I think that concerns me just on the basis of...
I'm not exactly sure how they're going to rework this team if he is that starting number nine. And maybe he's not. Maybe they go out and get another number nine. Maybe Jordan comes back quicker. Who knows? But I just... That was my negative, but also like, it's something that is fixable. Yeah. I guess I don't, I don't know how much of the uptick in performance towards the end of the game was due to Ferreira not being on the field and how much. I think it was.
Because they're also the clock is running out and they're pressing really, really hard for a goal. So it's not always in that situation that you're able to kind of control the game like they were. But the game state and the circumstances of the game were different than when he was playing. And I want to make it clear, I still love Jesus Ferreira. We're pro-hate. We were pro-the-trade. We're pro-Jesus. Yeah. And...
You know, in general, I stand by what I said earlier, which is that like an adaptation period for a new player is not the most crazy thing I've ever heard in my life. I'm willing. I'm open-minded. I'm an open-minded guy. I'm willing to give it more time to get him acclimated. Like I said, I mean, we don't need to get back into it, but my concern with Ferreira coming out of that game was the...
The crash out. Was the crash out stuff more than like the fact that he doesn't look fully acclimated tactically. I'm right there with you. All right. Let's do Lobbing Scorchers, Man of the Match real quick. I was going to say Stefan Fry. He made a couple really big saves that people are going to be like, oh, we'll see.
uh it should have been three zero because uh st louis had these chances that forced fry into some good that's why you have a good goalkeeper right no no no like it's uh they kept that one zero because They got a good goalkeeper, so I don't know. That was my shout. I'm going to go with John Bell. I like that. John Bell is my loving Scorchers man of the match. He's been playing well. He's been playing well. He was that central midfielder.
Central defender, I'm sorry. And I think that that's a tough place to play when you're kind of dictating tempo, you're stepping in for Yamar. I thought he played great. I thought that he... He won like four headers. He was just a monster on defense and great at completing passes, had a lot of touches. It's really cool to see him step in. I understand that he used to play for St. Louis. It was the revenge game. Honestly, that's what makes it even sweeter to have him as my Lobbing Scorchers man.
John bell. We love you. One of the best styles on the team too. So there you go. Um, all right, let's get into our agenda check. And I have, I have a, uh, a topic that I want to hit. Like that's kind of. More in depth than our typical agenda check. All right. But, uh, I mean, we're, let's do, let's do a little bit of Roosnack discourse. Unfortunately, this was another, this was another big talking point after the game. Basically, this is, uh, this is the system that's.
been implemented. Which is that literally... It's a puppy mill. Anytime that the Sounders lose or get shut out... We get people giving us a hard time because we've been pro-Rusnack on our show. We are not... We are not, nor have we ever been outraged by his DP status. We think he's a good player, and he's been a very, very good player at times for this team. I think we've both been on the same page with that, like, the whole time. So there's...
We both question the signing a little bit, but we both are like fine with it. Yeah. So, but because we feel that way. Like, last night, we had the predictable, like, ooh, see, like, Roosnack sucks after all, and this proves it, right? Like, they got shut out one time, so this means he is a bad player, the argument. goes so i guess as my classic statement goes you can say that if you are blind well okay so like outside of the fact that uh using just the exact like the most recent
game that just happened to make a blanket statement about any one player. It's not even about Rusnak. Like that's just not good analysis. Um, And there were people who were saying like they're like taking what happened in this one game as proof of their talking points. So fair play. Fair play. I'll say you're right. He had. I don't know. I actually thought Rusnak played decently well. He played decently well in this game, but let's not even... I'll even grant...
Go by goals and assists, because that's all that the brigade does. It's only about goals and assists. So the offense got... shut out and rust snack was out there. So that is that you got, we got one, you got one talking point in your favor, but so Noah, Noah, I went back, I decided, I was like, okay, there you have this one, they have this one game, this one example of the team getting shut out that they're using as.
proof of their, uh, talking point. They would say that there's more to it than that, but I didn't see more to it than that in our chat. Uh, but so I, no, I went back through and I watched the tape. Oh, I watched the tape because I was like, all right, well, let's see if I can find any counterpoints. to moments where Rusnak has come through in a way that you would expect your highest paid player to, to come through. Like, is there really, is, is there really just no examples of this? Like,
He's actually just been a complete no show and has not come through to earn his salary at any point during his entire time on the team. I'm going to have to challenge that. I'm going to have to challenge that. I'm going to have to go through the tape and I'm going to see if I can find any.
that might counteract this one example that people were coming at us with in the St. Louis game. So I'm just going to go through real quick and point out some of the examples that I found when I went back through the season last year. Watch the tape, okay? Okay. And then we're going to see where we leave off discourse-wise from there. I guess the first thing I would say is that I've always felt like he doesn't get enough credit for the role he played in the Champions League run.
He scored a really big goal against New York City FC, which was a really difficult series during that run. And in general, playing out of position, he turned out to be a key part of why they won Champions League. Now, uh He got signed as a DP or they signed brought him back as a DP after that. So the whole the whole thing was like, OK, he might have played well in Champions League. But does that mean that he's worth bringing him back on this number? So here anyway, here's some of the.
instances that i uh that i was able to find after looking at the tape last year i wish you guys could see this computer screen because this man has a color-coded document timestamps links All of this. You might have to, you should blog about this. You should post on Sounder and Hard about this. I'm just, I'm sorry, man. If you're going to tell me, if you're going to give me ghost snack, I have to challenge this. April 22nd.
Last year, game-winning goal in the 78th minute versus Minnesota United. You can say that it doesn't count, but that does count. They're a playoff team. They're a playoff team. But they have a bird mascot. Game-winning goal versus Minnesota United. of last year game winning assist versus New York Red Bulls who made MLS Cup last year. So maybe fraudulent doesn't count.
June last year, the 3-3 game at Charlotte. Remember that? Had an assist. That was one of his better games, I think. The whole offense ran great that game. Rusnak played awesome. That's a hard East Coast road trip. He earned his money. In that game, I would argue. Mr. Minty wasn't on the field. Doesn't count. I'll keep going. Keep going. July 1st last year, game winning goal against the Houston Dynamo.
Game-winning goal against the Houston Dynamo, who were a playoff team last year, who Seattle played in the playoffs, and that was a pretty hard series. So that counts. August. Away at Austin FC. Scored the game-winning goal. Remember this one? Scored the game-winning goal right at the end of that game. Austin, not that good last year, but that's a hard road trip. That's a difficult place to play. You pay your DPs to come through in moments like that. And he did.
Just a couple weeks after that, he had an assist in the derby against the Portland Timbers. A couple weeks after that, game-winning goal against the Colorado Rapids. He had another game-winning goal against St. Louis City. He scored in the playoffs against FC Dallas, no one talks about. that as a playoff goal he has two playoff goals for this team uh he had two in 2023 uh he had a great free kick goal against rsl who was
finished third in the West last year, his former team. That was a big money, big time finish. He had a multi-assist game against FC Dallas last year and led the team to a victory. I think his best game as a sounder came in League's Cup against Pumas. One goal, two assists against a Liga Mecky side. That is a circumstance where you need your big money DP to come through. And he did. Two goal contributions to lead the team to a win against Minnesota United just two weeks after that.
Then came the Sean Sawatzky game, which... I bring that up in here because it's a classic example of people saying that doesn't count because, you know, Sean Zawadsky was in goal. But part of what you pay your DPs to do is if you are given an advantage, if the other team does some dumb shit, like... not rostering a backup goalkeeper and then their goal, their goalkeeper gets a red card and you have a field player in goal. Part of what you pay your DPs to do is capitalize on that scenario.
OK, and he did so with a hat trick. So I give him credit for that. But I mean, you could throw that one out. And I've given a few other examples here. There was the Derby against the Whitecaps last year where he carried the team. He had goal contributions on all three of those goals. And they won the game three.
That was a huge game for him in a rivalry game where he's performed well against, against the Cascadia opponents. He had right after that, he had a game winning goal against Colorado, you know, Western conference opponent. playoff team. So I don't even know. I mean, I could keep going, man. I could keep going. Keep going. Well, and then we can get into this season where he has one goal, three assists already.
scored a goal against LAFC. Two assists and a goal. Two assists and a goal against LAFC, which is one of the teams that does count. uh it doesn't even matter if they're rotated you can even throw that out and you can't tell me that a three contribution performance against anyone it doesn't matter who it is so okay like if you're gonna tell me that he ghosts in
big games and doesn't has never earned his DP money on this team. You need to go through every example that I just gave and explain like why that is not relevant to the discussion. Otherwise. I don't respect the damn thing that you got to say on the topic because you are not basing what you're saying on the reality of what's happened on the field in these games over the past couple years. Okay. So, uh,
You'd even hit the LA Galaxy game where he had an assist in League's Cup right before that Pumas game. The LA Galaxy team that won the MLS Cup, Ari. That won MLS Cup. He destroyed them in that game. He owned them. His set pieces were incredible in that game. He owned them, Ari. And I'm sorry, man. If you don't think they count, like...
You're choosing. You're choosing to be upset. This is what happened is when he first got onto the team, he was playing out of position. So his numbers on the stat sheet weren't that hot. And people decided that they didn't rate him. And then when he moved to his more natural position, he started putting up numbers. But people had already formulated their opinions. So they have, like, done these honestly pretty incredible mental gymnastics.
try and like keep their talking points, even though he's very clearly proven at this point that he's a perfectly acceptable and sometimes good to very, very good DP in this league. But I don't know, man. Like, what am I missing? I just went through and gave 20 examples, 20 examples. So if you can explain to me what I'm missing on this, drop it in the comments.
And tell me, tell me what, tell me what you, tell me your rebuttal. Tell me your rebuttal. I give 20 examples. Also like 2022 game tying goal against LAFC. Do you remember that? Yeah. People don't talk about that one, but that doesn't count because, and that was when he was playing out of position in 2023, he had seven goals. Like what? It's just, dude, I don't get it. Congratulations on your one game that they got shut out in St. Louis that you've cited as proof of. But how is that a big game?
Yeah, that also wasn't a big game. People want to say, oh, the Cruz Azul match, the Cruz Azul match. No one did anything in that game. Everyone died in that game. What are we talking about, man? Anyway, I'm tired. Yeah. You know what? I'm here with you, man. Like I. I have let the slander go more dug in than ever. I have let the slander go. I have let the slander go. But honestly, if you watched the last match, if you watched this match and you said, and your takeaway from that was.
Albert Rusnak should have put the team on his back and won the game and scored five goals from outside the box. You're dumb. You're stupid. You're stupid. He is not that kind of player. facilitates, he moves the ball around, he has great vision, he spreads the field, he assists, he does all this stuff. You don't need to have a 10 that scores all these goals. Guess what? You're right. He's not messy.
He's not messy, but he is a very talented player with currently in league play three assists in one goal. And we've played what? Like, like what? Like two games in the league? Like. At the end of the season, I bet you that he has the best numbers he's ever had. He looked good so far. I'm perfectly happy with how he's playing and how he's looked. And that's all I had on that.
I just had to go through that list there. That was, no, we needed to do that. It had to be done. It had to be done. And if you're going to crash our chat with that stuff, I am going to challenge you on your talking point. Every single time I'm going to challenge you. Every single time. Receipts. All right.
Let's get to the rest of the agendas. I'm going to start with the one that I wrote down, Noah. This is not my agenda. This is one that I saw floated out there, but I wanted your take on it. Yeah. This is called the Nico and Raul wouldn't have let that happen. CCC agenda. What do you think of that? Um, what, what year of each of those player are we talking like peak peak peak? Maybe. I mean, maybe.
yeah they're like like i i think that that's such a stupid thing to say like yeah if you have two of the best players in the league maybe that happens well also i think there's a little bit of like a revisionist Like, so people were talking about last night how, you know. Maybe there's like a dearth of leadership or like Rusnak didn't provide like the same type of like mentality that he does. He's not a carry the load player. Or like just like a...
uh, like doesn't have the, uh, presence or aura that, and like all that stuff is true about Nico. And in fact, I talked about it last night, but like also if you really think that the team never took like a narrow one goal defeat on the road.
when Nico and Raul were on the team. Like, guess what? Games that played out like it did last night, those happened during those seasons too. They did. Like, it's not like... it's not like they went 34 oh and oh every single year that those guys were on the team so that's i guess the hey remember ari remember in 2022 when the sounders didn't make the playoffs yeah and then wait
but Ari, but like I thought, right. I thought that's a good point. Um, but I guess in general, uh, in general, if you're using one game, to illustrate a greater point that you have, that is bad analysis. Really, really bad. You have to look at the whole body of work on these things, man. I don't know. Okay. Now we're both crashing out. I'm crashing out. Get to your agendas, Noah. My agendas. Here we go. Number one.
energy agenda i thought this game was i thought he was good really good yeah he was putting people in hell and he's been putting people in hell this man this man can dribble like no other his touch is incredible Put him on the Tacoma Stars indoor team, and I think they might win every single game they play. He's really fun to watch.
And I want to defend him, too, on the play where Jesus was yelling at him. I didn't mind him taking that shot. He almost made it. And I don't think Jesus would have had a very good... angle for like a tap in. Also, he's been skying every shot he takes. Right. So I didn't mind Georgie taking that shot. Take that shot again, Georgie. I agree with you. I think the Georgie agenda, the Georgie stock.
We're actually seeing him produce meaningful assists now, you know, balls into the box, creating that danger. He's not just dribbling. to dribble or to like mess around with defenders. He's dribbling, getting past the defender, getting in the box, playing in dangerous balls and or winning set pieces, which is.
a huge part of the Sounders game when you have a player like Albert Roseneck who can play in an incredible ball. And that is something that the Sounders have not had in a long time. Well, so I was going to say, I think he is... the closest that Seattle has as not, maybe not a total like for like, but the closest they have as a replacement for De La Vega, which is, uh, I, at least I'm hoping that that's a reason why.
Without De La Vega going forward here, it's not necessarily guaranteed that they're going to fall into the same cycle as last year where there was stretches of good ball, but they just lacked that creativity, which has been the issue the last couple years without a player like De La Vega.
Vega and De La Vega was injured all last year. Georgie wasn't on the scene yet. So without De La Vega last year, it felt like a repeat. Right. But with Georgie emerging the way that he is, I think now the more I think about this take, I think he and De La Vega are like. pretty similar players, like in terms of what they bring to the table, maybe not exactly like for like, but there's, uh, there's creative, creativity elements and just like, uh, pace and trying shit.
trying shit, having a presence from out wide, sending in those low-driven crosses with pace. Georgie can do some of that stuff too. So I'm hoping that that helps.
With the absence of De La Vega, I guess. I don't think that they are very... I have to be honest. I don't think they're super similar. I see where you're coming from, though. I think it's more of a Georgie... can be creative in these small spaces which is very similar to de la vega but i think de la vega i mean de la vega brings such a different level he's like a technical ability and like dribbling and weaving and like floating
Like he is a player without a position. Georgie is a player with a position. Do you know what I'm saying? If that makes sense. Like I think, but I think that you're right in the sense that. You have a player who is going to pull off defenders, multiple defenders, and still be able to play a pass or play a ball in that's dangerous.
He's just a handful to deal with. It's the same thing with De La Vega. They're both just a handful to deal with. Yeah, honestly, I think Georgie could have had a shout for man in the match. In a game where you get shut out, it's kind of hard to give it to... like an attacker but i liked what i saw from him it was he was my backup man i think i think that's not a bad shot yeah he's on the bench for a team of the week in my brain yeah um my last agenda here uh start
Kosa Rianzi agenda Ari, I love what I see from this kid every single time he steps on the field He gives me that 2024 Paul Rothrock vibes. He is so creative. He is so good when he gets the ball at his feet. He makes shit happen. He sees. It's just like with Paul Rothrock. The way that he sees the field is awesome. His work rate is crazy. I love it. He also brings that chaos, kind of like Georgie. And I... want him to be starting it's not a it's not about who would you start him over
That's always the question. That's always the question. It would have to be Alex Roldan, right? Yeah, in which I don't think that that's a realistic swap. It's always fun to be like, this guy should start agenda, but the reality is like... uh, in this league, you need to be, uh, like two to three deep at every position and got like
Your your first backup in those situations is gonna be getting a lot of minutes So like I don't think he needs to be considered like the weekend week out starter but deploying him in a tactical situation Where you need more? offense out of your wing back. I think that he provides that more than Alex rolled on. And it seems like he's gaining a lot of confidence. He looks like he's having fun out there. I think he's kind of just sort of
enjoying the ride right now. He's a player who was really good at UW, but I don't think it was by any stretch a guarantee that he was going to be an MLS player. I think his mentality coming out of UW was, I'm going to...
Uh. wherever i get drafted i'm gonna go probably grind the next pro and try and see if i can make it and if i don't i might be getting like a real job yeah kind of like the situation that rothrock yeah i was gonna say it's very similar to the so he i think right now he's like wow i actually I'm like, I am good at this. Like I'm better than most at this. And I can not only step on this field and these MLS games and, uh, and hold my own, but like I can.
I can go up against these guys and I can win these matchups and I can ball out. I think Ghost of Ranzi is the type of player that you could develop into someone who is... A really good MLS starter, if not someone you could transfer on. That's my take on it. And you know what? Been wrong before, so I'm happy to put my money on.
on another player like this is, is here's what I was going to ask. Cause obviously there will never be a replacement for our one in true savior, Paul Rothrock. But do you think KKR could be our, are this season's Paul Rothrock or do you think it's Georgie? Like which one, but Georgie we had last season. Yeah, no, I think if, if there was a, uh, if there was a Paul Roth rock of this year, it's KKR. Yeah. Yeah. Which I'm.
I think that's what I would amend the agenda to. He's gone from, oh, that's a prospect that could be something, into he's on the Rothrock path. Yeah. Kalani Kosorothrock, KKR. We're going to take an ad break. We'll be right back. Ari, as a dedicated fashion expert, how do you do it? Day in and day out, I see you rocking the best fits. I need your help. Noah, I'm glad you asked. People ask me that a lot, and I can tell you need an upgrade.
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I heard something in my ear, in my earpiece here. It said, someone might have skipped our ad, and I just had to let them know, we know if you skipped our ads, and if you skipped our ads, we know, okay? So don't skip our ads. Jumping in now, back to the content, Major League Soccer has GMs. It's a thing that they do and have.
The Athletic likes to ask them questions. Now, some of the questions are very silly and fun and stupid, and some of them are actually really good questions. Anonymous survey. Anonymous, yeah. So all of these, this, all of these... executives all of these people who make probably too much money for what they do um are asked anonymously how they feel about certain things with the league and um we're gonna go through it we're gonna talk about
The Sounders highlights first. And then we're going to give our thoughts on three questions as if we were league GMs. Because honestly, Ari, I think we could probably both do that job. Oh, yeah. I'd be so good at that. Yeah. Like you just kind of like hang out and wear a suit and whatever. I don't know. That's my take. Craig, if you need an understudy, hit our line. We got you. All right. Here is the first part here. Major League Soccer GMs think Seattle...
basically has no chance in club world cup. I'm going to read some of these quotes here. There is a consensus among MLS executives pulled that the tournament will be difficult, but valuable experience for both clubs, Miami and Seattle. But there were some blunt reactions regarding the Sounders' expectations. Seattle in that group, it's going to be a bloodbath, said one CSO. Tough group, but I think Miami will be second in that group, and they will be in the knockout stage.
I don't think Seattle will, one sporting director said. This is anonymous, right? One CSO laughed. Because I think FIFA love Miami. Seattle is going to depend on how well they gel until they get there. They made a lot of changes. The odds are against them right now. Miami will find a way to get out of the group. Ari, I wanted to get your take on all of that to start. And also, like, do we really think that Miami have a chance to advance out of their group?
Well, first of all, I got a follow-up question for these anonymous CSOs. Why aren't their teams playing in the Club World Cup? Oh, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, when you say it's going to be a bloodbath, that kind of to me lands as like you guys have no like sort of scoffing at the. Well, why is that not an issue for your team, you know? Yeah. And that's also, I'll pose that same question to, because I think one thing I am dreading about the Club World Cup is...
If Seattle does get destroyed or if they lose it all, there's going to be a lot of stupid discourse of like how. how terrible the ambition is or whatever, and that everyone involved with the Sounders needs to be fired because they lost to PSG. Well, tell your team to play PSG. Yeah. That's my response to that. As for the sentiment that he's getting out of it being a bloodbath, maybe.
Probably. I don't know. I just don't care. What do you want? It's a showcase tournament. It's literally a team that's capped at being able to spend $20 million on the roster against PSG. What's their payroll? like $250 million. I mean, it's just they don't have one. Teams like this can spend whatever, you know? So, like, I just... I guess my take on this is that discoursing about...
Seattle's performance in this tournament. PSG spend in one week $4.2 million, not including bonuses. In one week. Four weeks of play for them is one whole season of MLS. Yeah, I just don't like discoursing about Seattle's performance in this tournament. I just feel like is. I don't even know why that question got asked. Like, yeah, it's I think everyone kind of knows that there's a fundamental mismatch at play here just in terms of roster spend right off rip. So I personally.
If they do, if it is a bloodbath and they get destroyed, I'm not going to... shed one tear over that. One thing I will say though, is that the calculation and the standard for messy and the bars to boys has got to be different than that. I'm sorry. Like they, uh, they put together a team that absolutely. should be able to get out of their group are you kidding me you have the best player of all time why not like and even if it was if their team was
Messi and no one else, I would be like, all right, that's probably not enough to make it out of your group. But, like, they have the rest of the Barca boys. And they have Segovia. They have Allende. They have all these guys upon guys upon guys. That... If Seattle gets destroyed or bombs out of this thing, that's whatever. But I actually think it would be embarrassing for inter-Miami. I do.
I think the whole point of their team right now is to be able to... They got put in here without earning it, by the way. Seattle earned it. Inter-Miami did not. And they got put in there because they went and got this super team and got messy. FIFA, of course, wants to showcase that. So they gave Miami the spot without merit. So if they go in there with this team and they bomb out, that's embarrassing.
Nothing that happens to Seattle in this tournament matters. I'm sorry. Well, I think to what you were saying, like, yeah, you know what? You can't have it be a bloodbath if you don't have the blood to give. That was sick. That's what I'm saying. It's like, you can't be in a bloodbath if you're not able to get cut. And let me tell you what, LA Galaxy.
LAFC, Toronto, Philadelphia Union. I'm just going to start Nashville. Where are you at? Why didn't they make it? Why didn't you make it? Why didn't you make it? I'm getting in front of the clowning that's going to come our way.
who loses to PSG and Atletico and Botafogo. That's fine. That's fine. I expect that, but you got to ask yourself the question why your team wasn't in it. And I think too, if they do get a win, at all or they do get a draw or god forbid they get out of the group what are all these people gonna say they're gonna say it doesn't count or say because like uh
What if they beat PSG and they have a couple backups out there and they'll be like, that wasn't the real team, so it doesn't count. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like all of these people love to hate on Inner Miami.
and be like, oh, all you do is talk about Messi. All you do is talk about Messi. And then you're like, oh, well, Seattle's a joke. They don't have a chance, whatever. I'm sorry. If any team has... been through the ringer before especially with these international tournaments it's seattle man i'm sorry i'm not saying they're gonna win i'm not gonna i'm not gonna even say that they're gonna be competitive but the reality is miami
has a way bigger weight on them than Seattle ever will. And the fact that none of these GMs even said anything about that, it's ridiculous. And this is going to come off of a deep CONCACAF Champions Cup run. This is on top of...
They better have everyone healthy because they're going to be playing two games. They have a real shot at winning CCL, right? And so if they do that and play through the whole season, they're also going to be playing MLS matches. They're also going to be in the lead up to this. It only works if you're healthy. It only works if you're healthy, okay? And yeah, you know what? Sounders aren't healthy either. Sounders have zero players on their roster right now who aren't injured. But...
Saying it's going to be a bloodbath? I don't like that. I don't like that. That's condescending in a way. I think if you asked this CSO if he meant that as condescending, he would say no. This is probably like the damn fucking San Jose CSO. It's like, why don't you work? about going and signing like a brand like some some league of mechies player for 200 million dollars like you're never gonna be there you're never gonna be there if you this is my new this is my new bit about this
if you've never been there, you can't say shit. If you've never been there, you can't say shit. And guess what? The only team from MLS to ever compete in a, in a club world cup that was earned. Seattle Sounders. And guess who's going to be the only team to ever compete in it twice? The Seattle Sounders. So watch your damn mouth. Anything else to say on that specific topic? I just don't really care how the Club World Cup... But I will say...
I'm not like, I think some Sounders fans are like dreading it or they're like, this is stupid. This is a FIFA money grab, which, you know, all that stuff might be true. But I will say, like I was thinking about this the other day, like I have always been. genuinely curious, uh, how, like how an MLS team would do if you like threw them out against PSG and, uh, Seattle's a good MLS team.
So I'm, I'm not like hyped on it. And I, like I said, I like, however the results go is whatever, but I'm like decently intrigued by the. fact that they're going to be playing in these games that might not be a popular take but like i'm i'm i'm somewhat looking forward to it listen i'm sorry when new who pockets some
PSG $200 million striker. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? The new discourse will be discoursing. Yeah, I don't know. It's going to be fun, man. If they can get one, if they can get one goal. how awesome would that be exactly jordan morris scoring against psg or like like we actually snack rust neck assisting against psg oh my god i would literally just have that clip and all i would do if any if
any Sounders fan came at me and was like, well, what's next? I would just boop, paste that video in, send. Anyone ever had anything bad to say? Any USMNT fraud squad? merchant bot ever had anything to say about Jordan Morris, I'd just paste in him scoring against PSG and tell him to shut up. I don't think it's unthinkable that they could get a goal or two. I think everyone's assuming that they're...
going to lose every single game five or six to zero, but you know, just because it's PSG out there, it's not like they, uh, they forget how to play the game. Like they could, they could, but.
I don't know if they're going to win, but they can score a goal. Do you think PSG gives a shit to beat the Sounders? No, I don't think they care, but you know who does give a shit to beat PSG? True. The Seattle Sounders. Yeah, they're going to want to be really balling. I agree, especially after crashing out.
of champions cup all right this next part we're gonna take a couple of questions from this survey and we're gonna answer them this is actually our application to craig to be his new interns okay craig i'm gonna email this to you I'm going to find you at the pinball place and I'm going to play it for you. Okay. So are you ready? Ari? Yeah. Is a fall to spring schedule good or bad for MLS? So let me preface this by saying currently.
The MLS schedule is opposite of the European calendar. There's been a lot of murmurs that MLS wants to switch that over to mirror the European calendar, be less competitive with... American sports and the playoffs would be in the summer. I believe. Yeah. I mean, people have been talking about like that for a while and it's definitely like part of the reason that, uh,
MLS clubs are at such a disadvantage in CCC, for instance, is like because of how the schedule lands. I feel like just the reasons that the calendar is what it is makes sense as reasons. Like wouldn't this, wouldn't this put you like the meat of your season and some of the coldest months of the year. Yeah. Isn't that part of what's always been at issue? I mean, I think the argument though too, is like, it also puts the meat of your season in the hottest part of the.
the year and you have to go play in Houston in 110 degrees. That's more tenable than playing sub-zero in Toronto. I mean, I guess it's honestly more similar than people probably give credence to. I was at those MLS cups at Toronto in December. That's not soccer, man. Neither is, uh, neither is like playing an oppressive heat, but at that point you're talking about just like two bad options, right? Yeah. So like, but I mean, they play in, they play in.
in the rain, in the cold, in England. It's like some of these MLS cities, man, like the winter is... just a different animal. Like Toronto, I think I've never felt cold like that. That's fine. We can disband their team. That's actually totally fine with me. Just take out all of the clubs that are too cold. Do we really need a team in Montreal?
Send them to the Canadian Premier League. They can have their fun. Like, we don't need them. You know what I'm saying? We don't need them. Oh, man. Now we're going to get the Canadians. We're going to get the Canadians. We are Canadian, Ari. We can't get canceled by the Canadians. You shouldn't say that. I'm pro Canadian Premier League. That's what I'm saying right now.
here um i think personally i think it could be really kind of cool uh it gives you way more of a competitive edge in the transfer market it makes it so you could transfer in really big transfers and signings before the playoffs. It gives you a really interesting, just, I think. There's a lot of things that it could change and help with the league being competitive in a very, very saturated American sports market. So I don't know.
That's my take. It could be cool, but I don't care. It's just always... The calendar's always going to be a hot-button issue. It's going to suck either way. That's sort of... Like every time it gets talked about, I'm like, there's bad, there's bad outcomes for both options. So like the, the constant, like talking about it, like people are just going to.
It's like a cycle where people just throw those back and forth and nothing ever progresses. I am pretty surprised, though, because on the business side of it, it makes way more sense. to mirror the European calendar, especially if you want to be competitive, if you want to be a league that like sells players and all of that kind of stuff.
It makes more sense. It makes more sense to mirror them. So I'm interested. We'll see how it goes. If you've got calendar takes, go ahead and drop them in the comments. Take the survey with us. I frankly have not... waded into that discourse that much. So I don't have like all that much to say about it. All right. This next one here, Ari, do you have your GM hat on or is, are you taking it off? My hat's on. Okay. Figurative hat. Could USL's Division I league be a threat to MLS?
So just for the background on that, there was reports out there that USL are gunning for D1 status. And the whole idea would be, right, that they would have pro-rel. So that would be the thing that differentiates it from... MLS. As far as it being a threat, I don't know if MLS would like it necessarily. This might be a stupid question.
Like, why does what they're technically registered as make a difference as to, like, how much of a threat they are or aren't versus MLS? Like, they're technically registered as a Division II league.
now and uh no one considers it like a threat so if they got it just feels like a it feels like semantics well the usl was division or the nasl was division one yeah they weren't a threat to mls like i mean when you know i don't think no i don't think it like has to be i mean i don't know this is another thing i would have to i guess educate myself on more but just thinking thinking out loud right now like
I don't see why what they're classified as makes them any more or less of a quote-unquote threat than they... already are i guess other than that like if they have d1 status theoretically d1 status there's all kinds of requirements you need a stadium that whole that holds 15k there's population requirements so Maybe that's what people mean when they say threat. But to me, anything that makes the USL...
bigger, better, and more healthier, I think is a good thing. I mean, I'm a huge diehard New Mexico United fan. That's my hometown club. And I would love to see them get as... big and popular and healthy and well-funded and have as good a team as possible. I don't see why anyone would be against that. I think it's the idea that you could sign professional players. You could sign players, bigger players, players who are MLS quality playing in another Division I league in America.
I think the implementation of it would be really challenging, challenging MLS at this point. I mean, MLS is a multi-billion dollar industry. I mean, you have... You have a club like New York City FC who just in real estate alone probably is worth a billion dollars. And they have a multi-billion dollar deal, TV deal. You know, it's like they're...
They've built themselves up to this level that challenge it's like it's like throwing a pebble at a window until it cracks right like Yeah, you could do it But it's going to take you a long time. You've got this tiny pebble and you have to keep throwing it at the window. Are you going to get bored and tired and be able to sustain yourself? I don't know. Like, I don't think that it's a threat to MLS. But what I will say it is.
It's more entertainment. It's more fun. I love the USL, man. I love supporting the Division III teams around here. You've got Ballard. You've got West Seattle Junction. Those, like... The amount of soccer that is able to be played and people are able to build their careers is awesome. That's great. Like, I am very much pro that. And you know what? Also, it would be sick because all the promotion and relegation freaks would go and watch USL and be super happy. And then they don't have to.
They don't have to talk anymore. They would finally get what they wanted. Right, exactly. As a diehard New Mexico United fan, I say D1 status. Let's go. Give them D1 status. Let's go. Zaha to New Mexico United. Oh, man. There we go. Now you're speaking my language. All right. Our last question here, Ari. This is anonymous, remember, so we can say whatever we want. What is one major league soccer rule?
that needs to change? Ooh, man. Might need, like, a list to pick. I think the thing that people always come back to is just... You know, I could, I could, I could go with less of a, less of an emphasis on parody, meaning like the, I understand, I actually, I really understand the reasoning behind why these roster rules. are in place and it doesn't surprise me at all that the panel of oligarchs would want a system where uh the the teams are like
evenly matched and can't like you can't spend like much more than the other and that keeps it so that there's not like a huge gap in quality between the bottom of the league and the top of the league. I think that we're at the point where Whoever's got the ambition, let them... Like, loosen it up a little bit. Well, they do, Ari. It's called being inner Miami. Well, right. So, like, they've taken steps towards that just with, like, the DP rules and Tam and Gam and stuff. But...
I don't know. I feel like we're maybe accommodating the clubs who like to be cheap. And some people would say Seattle falls into that category. But if you really think Seattle are cheapskates, you should go look at some of the other teams in the league. Seattle doesn't spend money like Atlanta United and Arthur Blank, but they did drop 7 mil on De La Vega. They dropped huge bags on Ladero and Rui Diaz. They have a track record of spending.
decently big money uh Dempsey you know that's another one I would much rather be a Sounders fan than FC Dallas fan yeah like a lot of teams in this league or like Look at the Rapids, for instance. They're not like a horrible joke of a team, but they're an example of a team that their ownership, they want there to be.
like these clamped down spending rules because they don't want to do that themselves. So they are holding everyone else back. That's what I would want to see change. Yeah. I think that's probably what everyone's kind of suggestion on this would be, would be spending rules. I think I don't mind the parody personally. Like, I think that's what makes MLS so fun and interesting. It's like, it's very uncommon since the galaxy, you know, won it like.
three times in a row or whatever for there to be the same winner in back-to-back years in MLS, right? Like that just, it doesn't happen. it makes it fun because you have all of these different competitions. People can focus on different things and you know, it allows some sort of like, I don't know. It just, it just allows.
for anyone to win. And I love that. I love that. I love the playoffs. It's an Americanized bastardized version of soccer. If you want to go watch unlimited spending, go watch unlimited spending. Every single team in Europe is doing that. I definitely wouldn't say unlimited. I think salary caps are good in general. I really think so. I think sports leagues that have them.
are better and healthier for it than, than like, then like major league baseball doesn't have one at all. Yeah. And I think that they just defer the contract for 200 years. Right. Exactly. Well, yeah. So that's how you get around it. But like, I'm not saying abolish the cap at all.
But raise the cap. I wouldn't mind that. I wouldn't mind that. Yeah, yeah. I would support that. Like raising the cap or like changing it so, you know, you get more DP. There should be more DPs at this point. There should.
Or just some way to accommodate that type of infusion of talent to the league, which I feel like the league is in a... a pretty good spot quality wise you know people love to like all like my friends who obviously know that I work for MLS like still give me a hard time sometimes about how like how much how bad it is
to other leagues and I'm like it's not that bad like it's pretty good it's a top 15 league in the world I'm sorry if you think there's any difference you're you're not I would argue top Eight to ten, I would. But, like, yeah, like, the reality is I would rather watch Major League Soccer, and guess what? I do, than go and watch the Premier League most times. Because, and not because...
It's not fun to watch. It's preordained outcomes. Yeah, it's like, I am a Brighton fan, Ari. I'm a Brighton fan. I'm rooting for us to get sixth. That's so dumb. That's so stupid. You can be a Vancouver Whitecaps fan and you're like, holy shit, we might actually win something this year. Yeah. I'm just like... that's essentially like being a Brighton fan. You know what I mean? So like, I don't know. I'm pro cap. So no cap. I'm pro cap, but I'm all right. That was our anonymous GM league survey.
Take the survey in the comments section. Let us know what you think. Let's hit winners and losers from Match Day 4 and MLS and get out of here. Does that sound good now? Sounds perfect. We're going to make these quick hitters. Easy. Winners. Chicago Fire. I'm giving them more love, man. Second straight win for Greg Berhalter. On the bounce. Held the lead. Held the lead. You know they did the exorcism. I think they might have done the exorcism. Yeah.
If they keep stacking wins, I'm going to give them their credit because I've had a lot of fun at their expense over the last couple years. They're playing well right now. Credit to them. I put San Diego FC not because they got a great result. It was actually kind of a letdown result. They were up a man and ended up tying 1-1, but they did get their first home.
goal in their first home game, which was a good milestone moment for them. And they look like they have a good thing going there to zero and two only the second ever expansion team, I think to be unbeaten through four. So, uh, and I did not think that their method was going to work. So I'm, I've been eating crow a little bit on that. I mean, we'll see like, uh, St. Louis did this for an entire year and then, uh,
It crashed and burned the next year. They were famously fraudulent. Yeah, exactly, which people didn't like it when we pointed that out, but then we turned out to be validated. And then my last winner, Vancouver Whitecaps, like you mentioned, 4-0-0 and beat Monterey. you know, like, uh, they, uh, they're, they've fared a lot better than Seattle did in CCC. Like I have to give him that, uh, I'm not super tilted about the Cruz Azul series anymore, but like,
The Caps did do it. The Caps look... And they're 4-0 in the league. The Caps look good, Ari. Yeah, I think they... You know, they look good. I don't know if they're this good, but I think they might be good. They're doing the classic... Whitecaps thing. They do the opposite of the Sounders, where they play Superman soccer in the first quarter of the season and then decide to just not.
play at all. They won this game without Scottish Messi, so I think that's notable too. He's out injured, correct? Yeah, but like a couple weeks at least. But they've got so many good... players on that team right now. Pedro Vite looks like one of the best players in the damn league. That's what I'm saying, man. He's breaking out. Brian White's a perennially underrated striker. He's breaking out. Losers. No, my LAFC fraud watch.
might be validated yeah you need to you need to you haven't officially announced fraud watch i tentatively said that they might be on fraud watch on one of the last live streams uh they just lost to Austin FC 1-0 at home, which Steve C was talking about the fatigue juggling competitions. I don't know, man. I don't know. Giroux can't score a goal to save his life.
That stuff is honestly getting embarrassing. They need to take him behind a shed and put him down like an injured horse. That's just not looking good. And that's another L at home. It's dicey. That's all I'm saying. I'm not. We had LAFC fans in our chat because you crashed the happy foot, sad foot chat, and they were happy about that. But I'm just saying, man. I'm just saying.
Okay, FC Cincy. Honestly, I think their season is sort of like parallel to Seattle's right now. You come in with one of the best rosters in the league, really high expectations, dreams of winning CCC. They crashed out against a really good Liga Mackey's team. Tigris. Against Tigris. And then they just got, they got bammed on by Charlotte this week, weekend worse than Seattle did by St. Louis. Okay. Let me say it again.
Charlotte loss wasn't that bad, or Charlotte draw was not that bad. Charlotte is a good team, folks. Let me say it. Charlotte is a good team. They're a good team. FC Cincy, like I said. They're down bad in a kind of similar way to the Sounders right now. Correct. And then this one went final just before we started recording. The Portland Timbys, I'm sad to report, blew a 1-0 lead and ended up tying 1-1 versus the Galaxy.
last place in the entire shield race la galaxy minus six gold differential dookie cheeks la galaxy three losses in a row to start the season la galaxy
No Ricky Pooj. No, no one LA galaxy. Continue. So I have a couple of friends who live in Portland. One of whom was a diehard Timbers fan. One of whom is a very casual Timbers fan. They were both like separately at the game today, like texting me about it. My friend who, uh, didn't follow the team at all was he texted me he was like hey this team we're out playing the galaxy and they won the ship last year like this is uh i think we might not be that bad and i was like
It's a matchup between two really bad teams. Yep, correct. Don't take that conclusion. My friend who follows it really closely, he knows how bad they are. He's been talking about how he wants them to tank to get Phil Neville fired, and he was crashing out my... DMs because
Apparently, I haven't watched it yet, but apparently there was a really clear penalty kick missed call that they didn't overturn on VAR. So the Timbs should have had a penalty to win it. He was like, I still want them to lose. Like, I'm okay with it because I want them to drop as many points as possible. so Neville gets fired. So they can get a better super job pick. Yeah, but it was a bullshit call. Either way, I think anytime...
You're feeling down about Seattle's result. It's looking like this season you might be able to at least take some humorous solace in the Portland Timbies who are just... It's tough down there. It's tough. Yeah. I take no joy. I take a little bit of joy. Take a little bit of joy. All right. I think we can call it right there, Noah, unless you had anything else that you wanted to get to. I was just going to hit one little thing. We are recording. There's still one minute left in this.
Atlanta United Inter-Miami game, and Atlanta just conceded in the 89th minute. They were going to draw Inter-Miami 1-1 and conceded to Fafa Peacold in the 89th minute. Kind of funny, kind of hilarious. It's funny that it's Fafa and not any of the Barca boys. No, yeah, literally. Like the definition of a random MLS lifer. Yeah, just like legend, so. Atlanta United might not be good.
That's my takeaway from that. All right. We're going to call it right there. Thank you, as always, to everyone for tuning in. We really appreciate the support. Like, comment, subscribe. Like the video. Like all the videos. Subscribe to the channel. Yeah, share with everyone affiliated with Atlanta United. Follow us on Instagram. Follow us on all socials. Write us a review. What am I missing? Crash out in the comments. Crash out in the comments. Patronize our sponsors.
We'll catch you next time. Until then, we out. Peace.