Club World Cup preview

Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounders legend. Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart podcast network. And now they truly can start the celebrations It's the Sounders MLS Cup! This is a tiny dog. Nice work on your little yacht thing. You know, what was the thought process in terms of who you decided to use and who you didn't? Ever since it sounded horrible to... commentary that we didn't take the outcome seriously.

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Welcome back to another episode of Nos Audietes on the Sounder at Heart podcast network. We're going to dig down a little bit more into the two groups that are going to be playing in Seattle. Of course, there's the Sounders group. Before we get into the Sounders group, let's, I don't know, let's talk about this other Seattle group. And to help me do that is two people who I'm...

Super excited to bring in. I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of having them both on the podcast at the same time, but they have both been on the podcast. First is Charlie Boehm. You know him as a freelance, a national freelance writer. He does most of his stuff over at MLSsoccer.com. And then I also have Richard Farley who...

He may be our most frequent guest on No Sariotis, but we haven't had him on for a long time. But he's a former SB Nation colleague of mine. Both these guys know what they're talking about.

The teams that are playing here are Irwa Red Diamonds, who are a big, I think the biggest team in Japan. Inter Milan, who is a pretty big club as well.

And then I guess Monterey is in that group, but they aren't playing any games in Seattle. And then River Plate, which is, of course, one of the two massive clubs in Argentina. You guys have both... done a little bit of writing on these on these teams uh for previews that we'll have coming out on sounder at heart uh relatively soon uh i'll just ask you you i'll start with you charlie who do you find to be the most interesting

team in this group? I think I have to start with River Plate because the tradition, the culture, the support that they have. The footage coming out of Monumental, their home stadium down in Buenos Aires, is always spectacular. This is one of the clubs I would contend that sort of tells the world, shows the world like what...

what true hardcore fandom looks like and what a devoted fan really looks like in our sport. And so in spite of so many economic difficulties, sort of chronic headwinds in Argentina, the really just... brutal need that they, you know, limitations that they face domestically that force their players to go abroad. They, they continue to be an elite club and be competitive. I mean, they have.

good and bad years and good and bad phases of leadership. But it's still sort of just one of those really short list clubs that if you get a chance to go see them, I think you can be assured that you're going to see quality on the pitch. And it'll help you understand how Argentina is... true soccer royalty and why the national team is so good. And then you'll see the culture in the stands. I mean, they will, they'll travel from all over the U S and Canada, I would expect.

and beyond to support their team. And so I think that's, that's where it starts for me. And, and I could say a lot of nice things about Monterrey as well. I think that's a, an extremely well-run organization and a chronically successful Liga MEC East club. But River Plate, that's just bucket list stuff, I think, as long as you can get a good discount on those tickets, right?

yeah i mean you can get tickets right now for like 25 bucks to see them play uh red diamonds in the that i think it was like a it's a tuesday game at noon i'm actually planning on playing hooky that day to go to the game just because I'm fascinated by like, there's a video that's circulating of the farewell that red diamonds got from their fans. That is frankly unbelievable. I mean, it's just a sea of red.

of people that are sort of giving them this farewell. So I'm really hopeful that even if the casual fan doesn't show up for that game, that there's some good traveling support because... It seems like it's going to be super interesting. Do you have a team, though, that kind of piques your interest out of this group, Richard? It's also River Plate. I think the River Monterey matchup is probably going to define this group. Although.

enters another team where coaching change oldest team in champions league competition how serious are they really going to take this tournament coming off of uh what happened to them against psg but kind of

To build off of what Charles was saying, he talked about the culture around River Plate and no matter who would be in the actual uniforms, River Plate would be an experience to engage in no matter what. But River Plate has a couple of MLS hooks.

Their coach is Marcelo Gallardo, who used to be with DC United, spent a couple of years there. He is being described as one of these very modern head coaches who... possession style we want to we want to have like um we want to have 70 of the possession they lead argentina in possession passes uh short short passes all that kind of stuff they also have sebastian juici

who returned to Argentina, I guess it would be two years ago at this point, and he is their starting nine. They have Leandro Gonzalez Perez too, although he's more of a bench player for them at this point in his career. He's 33 at this point. But between their style of play, a couple of MLS hooks.

and the fact that they have a legitimate chance to be the best non-European team in this competition, I think. I don't think that they're better than the Brazilian teams, but you look at their Copa Lib results over the last four years, they're right there. competing with those Brazilian teams between this group and their talent level.

I think that they have a chance and they've low key over the last three years brought back seven players from Europe who are all starting for their teams in Europe. They had to pay transfer fees for them. So. Just a couple of days ago, they confirmed that Real Madrid had hit the... the sell clause on their 17-year-old right-wing superstar, Franco Manstantuano. So that's $45 million coming in. And it's the third time. It's actually the fourth time in the last four years.

that they've had this kind of sale. They've sold a midfielder named Claudio Echeverry to Manchester City for $35 million last year. They sold Enzo Fernandez onto Europe, to Benfica at the time, I believe, for $45 million. And then they sold Julian Alvarez to... Manchester City before that for like $25 million. They are raking in the money. They have solved the finance problem that so many Argentine teams had been facing. And they are consistently selling.

their 17 to 19 year old talents and bringing back 24 to 28 year old players. Amongst those seven people, they brought it back from Europe. Only two of them are over 30 years old. They're bringing back players in their prime to river. And I think that's why river. River hasn't failed to reach the knockout stages in Copa Lib in 11 years, which is something because Boca didn't even reach the group stage this year. They went out in the preliminary rounds. So River Lowkey has gone...

kind of like done a full circle since they were relegated 14 years ago. They become a model team in that part of the world. They got relegated, and then that was the year where they expanded the Argentine Premier League, right, in order to keep them from actually staying in the second division?

I can't remember the timing on it, but I remember them talking as if they were going to fast track that. They did have to go down to the second division. They actually got a couple of prominent European players. I don't know if anybody remembers the former Franz Stryker, David Trezeguet.

He actually went and joined River in the second division. And then one of the best players in Russia at the time was a number 10 named Alejandro Dominguez. And he came back from Russia to join them. It was very much like when Juventus went down and some key Juventus players like Gigi Buffon just stayed with the team.

out of pride. River went down and a couple of people came back. Well, Trezeguet's case, not come back, but came to the team. We're like, we want to be part of rewriting the history here. But then shortly after that, that's when Argentina started.

really messing with this league which i i find really fun um and it's also kind of like thumbing a nose at people that are so upset about mls's model it's like hey you want to see what a big mess of a league looks like let's go to argentina well and maybe I may be getting my relegations mixed up, but I'm pretty sure that was Matias Almeida. Again, always an MLS link up these days. Matias Almeida, Pilato, that was his first number one managerial job was he led...

plate back from the second division in 2012. So the, the, the Pilato legend began before San Jose earthquakes, before Chivas, there was, there was his time at river plate. Yeah, so I'm just a lot in addition to them, the team being good, having a lot of talent. There are like a lot of small MLS hooks into River, which is kind of cool. That is kind of cool. I think one of the most fascinating things about the entire Argentine.

league is all of a sudden it felt like they were they were flush with money and it was it also it seemed like that was also the league where during covid there was this real existential fear that they were that you were going to have all these teams crumbling and falling apart, and yet somehow they got flush again, which I guess if they're selling all kinds of players to Europe, I guess that would explain it. Yeah, I think...

Unless you're like one of the top four or five teams in Brazil, you got to come to grips with the reality, right? And that's why in looking into River over these last few weeks, I've been very impressed that in the early 2000s and maybe even before COVID. There was this real kind of like, no, like we're a real football nation. We shouldn't have to do this. We're not subservient to anybody, which is an understandable way to look at the world. But now that the reality has kind of set in.

And you're not even you're not just saying seeing teams like River just just sell to Europe. They're selling to Brazil. Occasionally, like MLS will dip down there.

And then in turn, they're able to take that money and dip back. Ezekiel Barco is somebody that was sold to MLS, brought back by River, and he's since been sold to Spartak Moscow. And in those transactions, River made like... four or five million dollars off that so they've become just like a real kind of um i don't know uh they're kind of day traders in the global stock market you love that you love that uh

All right. Is there a player that is in this group that that you really think is worth paying attention to? Charles, you can go first. Hold on. Let me make sure I get this right. Yeah, there's I could think of a couple. What I will focus on, we'll stick with our good friends, Riatos, who again, I think they've broken a lot of MLS hearts in CCC and TCL over the years. But nonetheless, it's their...

Always competitive, often enjoyable to watch. They have done something comparable to what Richard just described with River Plate with bringing back top players, Mexican players who go. to Europe maybe and don't quite catch on or looking for something better. And then in combination with also the recruitment from Argentina and South America that is sort of the shortcut for competitiveness.

in, in Mexico. So I'm, I think this, I think they're going to play good soccer. I mean, the, the headliner is going to be Sergio Ramos, which it's, it's pretty, I mean, again, I think it's pretty fun to see this guy who's now 39 years old. everything there is to win, and he's left the continent, his home continent, and gone on this Mexican adventure. So I think that he's going to draw headlines, but there's players like Carlos Salcedo.

German Bertarame, Jesus Corona, who I think are just super technical, fun players to watch, have that aggressive mentality, both individually and collectively, that distinguishes the really... the top Mexican teams. I mean, if anybody remembers what Cruz Azul did to Vancouver Whitecaps last week in the CCC final, there's this thing that happens when good Mexican teams get on top of you. And it's just like an avalanche. I mean, they sniff blood, they can-

tear you open and, and end a game in a matter of minutes. Right. And I think that's going to be much harder to do in the level of opposition they'll have in the club world cup, but there's something there's a, there's a. I guess I've had to develop initially grudging, but now open respect for that sort of facet of the Mexican mentality and the style that they play where they can be so expressive and yet so...

direct and devastatingly effective with the sort of deployment of the skill. And so they've been given a sort of effective- home base of the Rose Bowl. I'm sure they're hoping to draw the big crowds of expatriates from Southern California. And maybe something fun will take shape there.

Monterey, the player that I'm most interested into is Sergio Canales, and it's the combination of him on a dummy Toronto team. And so this is me being a little bit of MLS pilled, but it's like the way that Toronto wants to play. And having that number 10 that can be the complete engine and then just seeing like, you know, just having flashbacks of Maxi Morales' prime days for NYCFC.

Canales is just one of these players, not quite like Sergio Ramos, but you do have to kind of pause and go like, this guy's really playing like here, like close to home. And the other one is, for me, is Otaro Martinez for Inter.

So Lautaro Martinez had the most goals in the recent Copa America, but he's more associated with not performing in the World Cup that Argentina won and not performing well in the two Champions League finals that Inter has gotten to. So I'm wondering if he has a... a good tournament if people are going to ignore that or they'll just or they'll say that he finally performed on the big stage, even though he has performed on big stages before.

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All right. So if you guys could attend one of these games, is there one that you look at and you go, oh, yeah, that's that's the game for me. It's River Monterey for me. I'm going to go with Milan versus River. Those are both at the Rose Bowl? Milan River is in Seattle. That's on June 25th. Oh, shoot. That's right. Good shout. Yeah. We'll have to get you out for that one.

Let's go. I believe he pitched that also. You need to check your email, man. Yeah, no kidding. Let's sell some houses, people. Let's go. Come on. Exactly. Exactly. The fact that Monterey River is going to be in LA is a big thing for me, though. Yeah. And it's interesting that it's going to be at the road. Well, I guess it's not that interesting. I guess the reason it's at the Rose Bowl and not at at SoFi is because of the whole.

expansion of the state. So if I still hosting the World Cup games, right? I think so. After some brinkmanship on both sides, they are following through. My guess is, too, the Rose Bowl must be... they must offer good rates or something. They must be very competitive. And it was so many, so many stadiums scattered around greater LA. Right. Yeah. That's a, that's a good, that's a fair point.

all right so moving over to the sounders group uh other than the sounders obviously who do you think is the most this is i should say this is a group that includes psg atletico madrid and botafogo it is two of the most uh story two of the most story teams in europe the most recent Copa Libertadores, yeah, they're still the reigning champions of Copa Libertadores in Botafogo. This is really a stacked group. But is there one team in here that you find, Paddy?

particularly interesting i think i find them all interesting in their own way um yeah i would say the same i would say the same um i mean psg are are It's easy, right? I mean, there's a real redemption story there. As unlikable as they may be to many, many neutrals just because of the... the sports washing project, let's be frank, that's happened there with a sovereign wealth fund kicking in effectively unlimited resources. I think it's deeply ironic and also revealing that

As much money as they spent on crop after crop of veteran stars, big names. We're talking about billions of dollars spent on Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Leo Messi, Neymar. Mbappé, of course, which is the no brainer, but it's not until they truly dived into their-

incredible reserves of local talent in and around Greater Paris that they found a true identity. It worked in terms of getting over the hump and winning Champions League, which was always the goal of that project. And it gave them something that made them...

compelling in a way that they simply weren't before. And I've been reading the coverage of, you know, of course, doing it as emphatically as they did in the final will help as well. But to read some of the old heads of European soccer journalism. in some cases grudgingly, having to give them-

give PSG their props for the style with which they've done this and the redemptive aspects. I mean, Luis Enrique, I find him a deeply intriguing and likable character in general. So, you know, that's a factor as well.

we're still like, that's an easy one, right? Atletico Madrid is an incredible story unto themselves because you're talking about an entity that over a generation now has painstakingly and there's been some... some murky foreign capital that has sped it along too, to some extent, but painstakingly carved out an identity of their own and forced a long bipolar league to be something else, right? To put themselves in the conversation that they...

weren't born into, that they didn't really have the ancestral right to. And to have the stability they've had with Cholo Simeone being in the managerial spot for so long. I know they've had a little bit of, there's an interesting process here in terms of trying to evolve from being this tenacious, defensive, fundamentally sort of reactive.

identity as a, as a defensive Titan to, to trying to be something a little bit more without losing what they had. I mean, I find that all very compelling and I'm still, I'm still, you know, would have lots of nice things and interesting things to say about Botafogo after all that.

Yeah, Botafogo and Seattle both got really hard done by this because PSG just made the best claim you can to being the best club team in the world. And Atletico is a team that in any given year, they could win the league. Like they don't do it that often, but every year they compete. in one of the top two leagues in the world. So, I mean, Botafogo might have gotten drawn into a group with two of the top seven or eight teams in the world.

The thing with me, I don't want to be too cliched about it, but it does seem like Diego Simeone fits the bill of like. the one manager most likely to take this in tournament this tournament insanely seriously um and then i go oh come on that's just too easy that's too lazy like he's this guy's the next player he knows that he's guy the guys can't hit the gas pedal the whole time and then i remember

Remember his son, his son has ascended to being a starting striker for the team and is one of the most annoying players in the world. He is the guy that tries too hard in the pickup game that is always in your face. He is a. a foul merchant he's constantly diving constantly exaggerating he kind of fits every cliche that every person that hates argentine soccer says about what argentine soccer is and it's like there are no rules here i have razor blades in my pockets like that's that's truly

Giuliano Simeone. And if he has raised his kid to be this, like this play at the edge of the rules, dark arts merchant, I think Giuliano Simeone is only 19 years old too, or something like that. I don't think there's any chance that he doesn't take this tournament seriously. So, yeah. And it's also the type of thing like.

I think the teams that are most dangerous in this tournament are the teams that do need to win something. I don't think Atletico needs to win something. But if they can put all the effort that they constantly put into being...

right there with Barcelona, right there with Real Madrid, and most of the time coming up a little bit short, if they win this tournament, it should mean something to them. Well, and I would think that there's also an element of the money. It's real money for everybody, but then there's levels of what...

real money constitutes right and i would think for a team like atletico which doesn't have the global superstars which doesn't have seemingly doesn't have endless pockets of wealth to just keep funneling into the club like getting a you know, a nine digit payday is a pretty significant achievement, like from a, just a pure financial perspective, like that's going to fund some real. If they were to win this tournament, that would seemingly have a very real impact on the way that they're run.

I think it gives them significant flexibility. Like Charles is talking about how they, over the course of Simeone's tenure, have slowly tried to evolve their style. And they have to a certain extent, because before they were pretty much like, we don't want the ball.

Like at the beginning of Simeone's tenure, like we don't want them all. And now they're actually a team that unless they're playing like a European elite, they can dictate play. They will dictate play. But they've also had like a couple of misses in the transfer market. I think most famously over the recent years, this is Joao Felix.

transfer in from Portugal and they eventually had to loan him out. Um, and that was like their one big shot money wise. I think they ended up paying close to a hundred million Euro for him. And like, he's. He was barely playing when he was on loan in Italy at the end of the year. So for them to get like a cash infusion, it might give them the next time that they have the money to go out there and really get a player. They might.

have the ability to get two players. And maybe one of them ends up being Giles Felix again, but then another one ends up being like another Anton Griezmann who they... We're able to kind of like make some money off that by selling him to Barcelona and then Barcelona had to offload him back. And so he's still one of their best players, but they have to.

They have to find some new players to bring in because Griezmann's not going to be able to stay at this level forever. They got a couple of other players that are maybe playing on not quite borrowed time, but the next. The next great Atletico player, beyond just Julien Alvarez, that's turning out to be a steal for Manchester City getting him. But they need...

they need the next level of those kind of like 22, 23, 24 year old players to come in to, to inherit the core. And there's the bigger picture here is, is the. If you're trying to do what Atleti are trying to do, which is break into sort of an oligarchy in a sense, right? And really be able to compete sustainably toe for toe against FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. You have to build...

You have to build a financial base through a combination of investment and player sales and sponsorships, facilities to be able to... to get to that level and stay there without sort of getting into the financial fair play consequences, right? It's almost like there's an element of baked in superiority that you have to overcome. And so I think, I think this is.

This is real money for them. And I would imagine just in terms of the mentality and the spirit that they're giving this a long look, because again, this is not something that they can take for granted the way that maybe Real Madrid or an Inter Milan might just sort of...

sort of reflexively yeah i mean i think the other thing that's interesting is psg and atletico play the first game of this group so kind of like the decisive game the the team that's most likely to win this group is going to be identified 90 minutes after this group starts psg has played like one serious game in the last six weeks and it was the champions league final because they put away the french league so

And they have enough depth to where they were able to rotate during the league in the final stages of the cup. Atletico, they haven't played a serious game since like round 36 in Spain. That's just when their kind of title quest and league quest ended.

I can imagine Diego Simonioni during that time kind of saying, hey, staff, we've got three weeks to let these players recruit and then build back up because we want to take this seriously. Whereas PSG is probably like, we just won Champions League. Go away for a week and enjoy yourself.

And then when they come back, it's like, okay, are they even going to be motivated to build back up? If I were PSG, I'd be like, I don't want to build our players back up. All we're going to do is get them hurt. Like we're going to, we're going to ask them to do too much. They're going to be traveling all over the United States. It's going to be hot. No, we're these guys are going to play some, but we've won what we want to win. Yeah, I would say that the other thing I if I'm.

Looking at this, I would assume that PSG is just going to give most of their... starters the group stage off i would think i mean there's just like a practical element to this they were playing two weeks ago they were playing a very important game two weeks ago are they really gonna ask guys to just come roll off off the I mean essentially they're gonna have to get roll guys off the beach as it is you would think because a lot of their roster was active in Nations League

I mean, not a ton, but a lot of them were. But there are other guys that like, yeah, to the extent that they, you know, they will be active, you know, over the next couple of weeks training for this tournament, like they certainly got. enough time off as a reward. Yeah, fair enough. So obviously, the thing I'm most interested by in this group...

selfishly is just whether or not Sounders fans end up showing up. Now we sort of talked about the realities of this where the, the pricing for this tournament was, was I think very aggressive. And I think. maybe even exploring the outer reaches of what the American consumer is willing to pay for elite soccer. But as we get closer, I am really interested to see if Sounders fans, if Seattle sports fans.

if Seattle soccer fans, if, if people from outside the area start to flock to these games in part, because the prices now are pretty reasonable. Like you can get great seats for certainly the Botafogo game.

you can get great seats for $60, $70. For a lot of these games that don't involve the Sounders, you can get great seats for even cheaper than that. Now, the PSG and Athletico games are still pretty expensive, but... uh those are this is also i believe the first time that either one of these teams have played well certainly the first time they've played in seattle apparently psg played in eugene a few years ago i didn't i

Totally didn't realize that, but I actually just talked to the PSG Seattle fan club president. He said, yeah, they went and played in Eugene a few years ago. But other than that, they don't come out to the West Coast very often. But I do think... I don't know. That makes sense. Yeah, but not seemingly not wide enough for real soccer, though. Yeah, but I guess that also makes sense. Yeah, that would make sense. But yeah, I mean, I just as part of the cynical part of me is sort of enjoying the.

see seeing sort of the the crumbling of some of this but there is also a part of me the boot like i am ultimately i want soccer to succeed i want soccer to i want seattle fans to show out well

And so I am really hopeful that people eventually come around and go to these games, especially if they don't have to pay an arm and a leg to get there. I don't really, I don't know if there's really a question in there. But I guess it's a good way to... maybe close this out is there sort of a closing message that you think is worth imparting on on people who were maybe on the fence about whether or not they they want to spend their time worrying about this tournament or actually before that

Let's rewind. What do you guys constitute a successful tournament for the Sounders specifically? Obviously, getting out of the group would be almost like winning the tournament in a lot of ways.

What would you think you want to see from this? What realistically do you think the Sounders can do in this thing? Play well and don't get more injuries. Yeah. Just avoid a 7-1. Just avoid... avoid a five zero like three three ones where you're fighting where all 90 minutes matter like go out there and make your hard work pay off um be take these games seriously um

But also, I think they have a game on the 28th of June, five days after the last group game or something like that. So it's like, realistically, we can't ignore the entire calendar for these three games. So Seattle, a team that hasn't had great injury luck this year. Let's hope the next three games can be a little bit luckier. 270 competitive minutes is what you're saying is constitutes a successful. Yes, 270 minutes that actually matter.

Right. Yeah. It's much the same for me that, that be competitive, take this opportunity. I mean, for all the politics and all the, the, the Sturman drawing, like they earn the right to be here. This is a, this is a. a huge honor. Whatever we may think of the powers that be, there's always been these kind of reservations. There's always something imperfect or flawed or compromised about.

modern capitalistic sports, for lack of a better term. The Sounders did something that still no MLS team has done in the modern era. This is the chance to show something, show themselves as individuals, as a group. and to feel what it's like. And I hope that fans get a sense of that too. And I totally respect that people will vote with their feet according to their conscience. But it's a great time of year weather-wise up there.

These are teams that just don't come here for fully, truly competitive occasions like this. I hope it becomes an infomercial for Seattle soccer, you know, in the stands, on the field. the way the organization carries itself because it took so much steady, relentless, dogged competence to get to this point. So, you know, don't throw it away now. I mean, yeah, actually.

For me, I've just seen too many of these like, you know, when we used to regularly have summer friendlies in Seattle and Seattle would sometimes be involved. And you get to see the Sounders go out there in a meaningless game and just get roasted by Manchester United. I just don't think any of the Sounders identity needs to be tied to any of these games. I think that ideally, like Charles is saying, this would be a way for people to around the world to kind of recognize.

Seattle for what it is, but Seattle is going to be what it is no matter what happens in these next three games. So I would tell people in any city just like, hey, if you feel like going to the game, just go to the game. Like it doesn't have to be a big deal.

If the morning of you're like, you know what, let's do that. Just go to the game. And if you don't go to the game, that's fine, too. But this is not something where it's going to be a league commitment. You don't have to be a fan. This is a show in a lot of these places. This is a show if you want to go see the show. Go see the show. I will say one of the things that's sort of refreshing is in this age of I don't I feel like walk ups have become a thing of the past.

Like that's just does not how people sport anymore. It's not really a thing that's part of the sporting culture these days. And I will say that that's kind of what I find intriguing about the way this is lining up is that. I do think there's going to be a lot of opportunity to walk to that day, decide I'm going to go downtown. I'm going to buy a ticket and I'll sit wherever I sit and I'll probably be a nice day and I'll probably be a fun match.

And you might see some of the best soccer players you're ever going to see in person. Yeah. Playing these games. So I don't know. I'm. I've actually weirdly, I really like these kickoff times for the most part. Like I'm actually really looking forward to like totally random. And that's, I say that as someone who can, whose schedule lines up very neatly to go to these games, but.

I don't know. I'm ready for this to start. I'm looking forward to writing about this tournament in a way that is... more interesting like it's so much of the coverage that i've done of this tournament is just about backroom stuff that is not really about the soccer on the field and i'm i'm looking forward to just being able to write about some actual soccer uh i think

I would love to read stuff from you guys that's just like, hey, this is the reality of trying to start something new. And even though this competition isn't new, the way they're doing this competition is new. So it is when you're on the ground, it's going to be a weird energy at Lumen, man. Like it's going to be.

preseason football piece with preseason seahawks energy in there um like it's it's not going to be like a an mls soccer game that we've become used to because there's such fan-driven environments at this point this is going to be so different it's like okay well If this is day one of the new Club World Cup, what do we have? And where do we go from here? Yeah.

So that said, thank you guys for I was I loved part of what I love about this sounder at heart project that we're doing right now is I get to find ways to connect with. writers and journalists and, and voices that I find interesting and I can give them a little money and I can give them a platform and we can hopefully make something people want to consume. And it was really awesome for me to get to connect with you guys. I'm glad we were able to do this. And hopefully people find this whole...

coverage compelling and interesting. And I wanted to also say thank you to my sister, Marty O'Shan, a realtor. in Seattle for, for sponsoring this segment and our club world cup coverage going forward. So with all that said, this is no side yet as part of the sounder at heart podcast network, and we'll catch you next time.

I expect an LAFC who is motivated to prove themselves at home, to prove to their fans that they're capable of winning in this league. And it's up to us to really brew in the party.