This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounder supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest. 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. Welcome back to Nos Adientes. I am Jeremiah Ochan. I am here at Long Acres, the Sounders training facility. I am joined today by Craig Weibel, the Sounders GM and Chief Soccer Officer, which... We're contractually obligated to say chief soccer officer. Oh, wow. That's a huge part of this, I guess. No, but thank you for joining us, Craig. It's always a pleasure to...
to do this and chop it up. We just had your end of season press conference. I wouldn't say this is a controversial issue, but there is a lot of discussion and we talked about it at the press conference was the idea of this being a successful season or not. you know i think you can make a very valid argument that it was and i brian i thought articulated this well he said there were aspects of it that were successful but like you said if the season doesn't end in
Or smiles in smiles. You're not ultimately satisfied. But how do you when you're assessing the season? I'm sure it's not as black and white as success or not success. But how do you assess the season? I mean, look, there are successes in any year. In the worst year, there's still some success, right? And so it depends on how you want to spice it. Is your glass half full or half empty? And we all know someone who's half empty and we all know someone who's half full.
I try and drink from both of those glasses. Look, we had a lot of success. We obviously were the second best team in the second half of the year. Out of the entire league. And I think we finished with one less point than Miami. You know, we went to quarterfinals, semifinals, semifinal of three competitions this year.
Conference final. Sorry, not semifinal. But, you know, so we're knocking on the door of what ultimately we really want. But then, yeah, you know, I said it in the press conference. When your season doesn't end with smiling. It doesn't feel good. And it, you know, you got to start back over and there's an emotional toll that that takes where you got to roll back down to the bottom of the mountain.
And get back on your feet and start climbing it again. And so that's the job. That's where we're at. And I can look back and tell you a laundry list of successes in terms of the way we... Turned a season from what it looks like it was going to be, which was a very painful 10 months into, honestly, a painful three months and a really, really fun five months.
I can tell you about the young guys, Obed Vargas, Reed Baker-Wetting, Josh Tensko, Danny Leibov, Jackson Reagan coming through, and really this year, not just being a guy that looked promising. Defender of the year finalists. Becoming, yeah, finalists. And Yamar being, again, named to best 11. And Jordan. having his best scoring year ever, Albert having a wonderful contribution year, his best scoring year. All of these are great successes in a micro level conversation. My position's more macro.
Right. And so my position is more of where did we end? How did we get there? Or the puzzle piece is correct. We got a lot of the people, right? And we got a lot of the environment, right? We got a lot of the culture, right? And it's hard because.
Everyone doesn't get to be in these walls, and they don't get to see the unification of this group this year and how the staff and the players worked through some difficult times and got it to where it got. But I also have to... own and I'm not blind to the fact that while we were an elite defensive team this year and last year, while we were... continuing our success in terms of points which fifth best the last two years overall um you know so confusing more points this year
Worst finish. Right. You know, but overall, like, you know, two year stretch, fifth best in league, best defense by a light year and then struggling to score. 19th, I think, in scoring if you go on a two-year average, or 19th this year, 18th overall, something like that, right in the middle, below middle. So we've got to address it. I mean, it's not a defensive problem right now. We can't run away from that.
You know, because we're not going to go pick up seven attacking players or six attacking players. But we've got – we have to attack and we've got to go get some pieces that allow us to be more attacking, more guys that – We have a lot of guys that like to score, but, you know, it's a habit. We need guys that enjoy that habit. And so I guess the question then is, in some ways I could see how...
The relative levels of success almost makes it harder to identify the areas for improvement because you aren't improving from, it's not like you have real obvious holes in the starting lineup. Right, right. But you know you have to improve in the aggregate.
And, you know, in the big, I suppose you can say even in the biggest games. So how do you go about assessing, like, where are our areas for obvious improvement? Because it's one thing to say, well, we need to add 10 goals. Yeah. Okay. So where are you going to get those 10 goals from? Look.
This is where it's important to remember we're in MLS. So we do have salary cap. We do have roster structures as opposed to if we ask that question and we were in Europe, basically anywhere else in the world without it. literally anywhere else in the world, we ask the question, Hey, how do we go get 10 goals? We go, well, it costs this much money. Right. And then we go, do we have this much money? And that's it. That's the conversation. And then you go with scouts.
This is a little bit different fitting it into how we have our structures. So you've got the 3DPs and then you have the target allocation and all the different math problems that I am. happy to go through as you know and dissect and try and break down and we will over time but um adding to this team is
taking our current situation, our current resources, financial resource that we have, and figuring out how to maximize it within the constructs of what our limitations are. And the limitations in MLS are not always money. Sometimes they're money. But we have a great problem. We had Jordan have a career year scoring. We had Albert have a career year scoring. And we had Pedro de la Vega, who unfortunately had so many injury.
issues that we just started to see at the end of the year, his true style of play and his mobility and the way he breaks pressure. And so... We need to add attacking players. I don't think it's limited to position. I think we need to add attacking players that are goal dangerous, whether they be wingers, as Jordan was until this year, or strikers. And that also gives us an opportunity to play Jordan and another striker together. Can we pair them?
and on the weekend one drops into the wing position. Is it Jordan? Is it this other player? And are they interchangeable? And then we can also rest because that's one thing. we were battling the entire second half of the year is how are we possibly going to manage all these minutes on these guys? And we saw it like, you know.
We lost Jordan in the playoffs. Right. Don't forget that, right? Lost Albert. And lost Albert in the playoff. And we were able to overcome that. Lost Paul. I mean, and so we need to bring. players in that give us the ability to rotate and maintain quality. But let me change that, rotate and improve quality. And that's not a shot at our current players. That is acknowledging the fact that we haven't scored enough.
And so I guess when you go into the marketplace and you start looking at players, does it make it easy? It sounds like you're almost agnostic about positionally agnostic about what you need to do to improve. Does that help you go into the market or would it. be nicer if you could just say we need a number nine and that would be like your laser focus uh that would that would make it a little easier um but then it then when you start talking about like true nine
Only nine. It's a really easy conversation. You can theorize all you want. But if you have 15 million to spend versus 10 million to spend versus seven and a half million to spend. Your profiles are determined. This is who fits in those categories. By the way, those are all huge amounts of money. Right. None of those are trivial. So.
It's not necessarily, it is a bit agnostic positionally. It is not agnostic in terms of player profile. You know, I'm very specific and specific Lee, we are looking for... players that fit and can play multiple positions if need be, because we are not going to go add six players.
We are going to add a limited amount of players based on where we are on the cap and the promise that our young guys have shown. So we need to be very, very careful on the profiles we're looking at that we don't lock ourselves into one formation of play.
with the amount of games we're about to play next year. Yeah, you alluded to this, or you said it in the press conference, that you're going into the season expecting to play at least 42 games. That would be 34 regular season games, three Club World Cup games. two Champions League games, and then presumably two Leagues Cup and one Open Cup until we hear otherwise, right? That's a lot of games to start with. You played, I think, 47 this year.
which included, obviously, four playoff games. And three extra Leagues Cup games. Right. It's not hard to imagine getting higher than 42 is my point. It's going to be a lot of wear and tear. MLS teams almost never get... over 50 and you guys are looking 50 pretty squarely in the barrel i would say yeah uh if you have a if you have a successful season i suppose but so does that
Do you feel like you need to sort of expand the roster as well? Not necessarily in numbers, but in terms of players who you are expecting to play significant minutes. Yeah, we need – I think a few things we need to add this offseason is obviously we need to add at least one attacking goal dangerous player. We also need to add an attacking veteran player that –
can be goal dangerous, but to be fair, we need to add balance in the selection of players that we have. So as Georgie develops and as Paul continues to develop, we also need to acknowledge that... Neither one of those guys are seven-year pros, right? And so we'd love to bring in a profile that complements an away match midweek. We could easily start next year.
being involved in the Champions League, if we are able to advance past the first round, we'll start next season with eight games in 27, 28 days. What a way to start the season. To start the season, right? And so you can't just... throw paint at the wall in that scenario and have fun press conferences, right? For the coach. So, you know, we've got some different profiles. We've got some different things we need to add. We have a lot of youth. We need to add some veteran.
like calm to the group in the attacking half of the of the field as well because some of the games you're not going to go on the road and just attack attack attack and so i think those all those things add up to balancing out the the roster a little bit, but thankfully we don't have to do a lot of work on the back half of the field. Um, you know, other than we'll be signing Travian Sousa.
from the defiance who's shown really well with his time there and then bringing in one of our, um, one of our Academy players kind of, here we go back to the same, the same mold that we've had with a couple other guys. One of our academy players that we chose not to sign going into college, goes to college, does quite well. He's played locally for Ballard over the last couple of years and had a great college career. So we'll be signing Leo Burney to come back as like another young center back.
And so we're complementing the back line, but focusing up front. So I would imagine those are two defensive. They're players that played. farther back in the field, whether or not Travion is a defensive player. We can get into that later. Yeah, we'll get into all that. But these are players who are playing defensive positions. Safe to say then that when you're talking about bringing players from outside, it's going to be farther up the field.
field yeah you're not looking to bring in you're not looking to bolster your defense at this point no no i mean and barring the the fragility of getting into the semantics of soccer formations um you know whether Travian fits as a wingback or an outside back. Leo's a center back. So we don't have to debate that one. But look, we have the ability right now to bring some guys in and see if they're going to mature into first-team contributors.
far more there than in the front half of the field. We've got to bring guys in that are ready to impact. And, you know, like I said in the summer, we're not going to sign someone to come and watch. If we're signing someone at this point with the team we have.
They've got to come in and play. And that's a tough decision for coaches, but my job is to challenge them. Thank you for listening to the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network, which now includes Nos Anietes, Lobbing Scorchers, and The Cooler Guild. We've been independent since August of 2023, but need your support to make sure it continues. Although this podcast is free, it's only made possible by your continued support.
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To find out more, just visit center at heart.com and click the subscribe button in the top right corner. Thanks for listening. So it wasn't so long and we have a bunch of players on this. team who were signed as young, not just teenagers, but like 15, 16 year old. Right. It sounds like maybe we're moving away. I mean, I would imagine you're open minded to the idea of signing. young teens still but it doesn't there's no imminent
So you want guys to be able to contribute to the first team if you sign them to a first team contract, it sounds like, if I'm reading this correctly. Yeah, look, we've got another really young, talented player.
for those that have watched enough Defiance games and watched the Open Cup in Snyder-Burnell. Yeah, that's kind of who I was alluding to there. Yeah, I figured. I figured we were walking down the same path. But, you know, Snyder's a remarkably talented young man, and it comes down to timing. And we need to see him step into the first-team environment and not be overwhelmed, which he did a good job of last year. But there's no need to rush.
on a good player um and and we're you know we're confident that our development system given all we've seen over the last five six years is going to continue to get him ready whether it's sooner or later we'll you know we'll make that call when we when we see the right qualities um but other than you know kind of what we already had in house yeah we're
We're not focused on young, right? We're focused on contributing players at this point We still have you 22 spots open. So of course from a domestic standpoint, we look at that as young Whereas a lot of other countries at 21-22, they're like, this guy should have been playing every minute of every game. So we still have a couple of those roster spots open. We may designate some of the guys.
if we renegotiate with some of our young guys now may designate some of them into it, but we have to be open and we need to be open as a club to still pursuing those opportunities and, and really like keep taking. What has looked across our league, if you look at all the U-22s, it is a risk and it is a chance that this player is going to come in and truly contribute on a consistent basis.
that's what we've got we've got to stay open-minded about the fact that we need to keep challenging ourself on that on the Staying on these younger players, Stuart Hawkins was a player who got he's now at what? 4000 ish professional minutes at 18 years old. He's getting youth national team call ups. Hasn't he played two games for you in the Open Cup? Hasn't necessarily broken into the first.
team yet is he like where would you say he is on the his trajectory is he going to be someone who you're expecting to like compete with a Leo Bernie for first team minutes or is he still is there still more of a I know physically he has some growth still. Yeah, there's still some physical growth, obviously, with Stewart's age, but he's right about where we thought he'd be.
I mean, we wanted to get him all these minutes. He has been very successful with those minutes. He's developed very nicely. You know, it is a little difficult to find minutes when it's Jamar and Jackson, you know, a best 11 and a defender of the year finalist starting there.
But with the congestion of games, and I think one thing that gets lost when we say 40, 41, 42 games, possibly 50, we're not talking a calendar year. We're talking eight months. We're talking middle of February to middle of October. you know, that's our regular season and that's where all these competitions fit in and then playoffs. And so, um,
there's opportunities. Whether it's injury or the tournament game or wherever we can see it. But the other thing we're looking at now, too, is with the amount of depth that we have. We have to make sure our guys are getting competitive matches on a consistent basis. So if Stewart comes in prepared and gets some first-team minutes, that's wonderful. If he's struggling to get first-team minutes halfway through the year, we might look to loan Stewart.
you know, to another country, a new challenge, physical challenge, cultural challenge, mental challenge, personal challenge to go grow in those ways. Those are things that our club has never really had the opportunity to do because we've never had the depth. We've always.
our depth has always been we got to play our depth. And so to have a spoil of riches, for instance, with a player like Stewart on the roster, I mean, he could easily step in and play this year. I think he could. I think he could get some games.
If it doesn't work that way, I mean, if Yamar and Jackson are healthy every game, those are probably the two names we're going to see. Jonathan's done a great job for us. And so, you know, we'll be open-minded to making sure all our guys are developing, including... You know, even Jacob Castro, we need to make sure we get Jacob Castro, our, you know, our third choice goalie on the first team right now. We've got to get him enough games to prove if he can be the two.
Well, it sounds like you're going to have plenty of opportunities to try to do this. I wanted to circle back a little bit onto the sort of the attack element and sort of the big job this offseason. You know, in the summer... There was a fair amount of reporting on there just not being a lot of budget, frankly, to do much.
to go out into the market do you feel any better about the state of sort of the transfer budget and like are you talking to like are you focused on players that are available like available for free or is there some money out there that you can spend? No, we've reset. I mean, there's money to be spent now. And in the summer, for a myriad of reasons, it was a little tighter. I mean, that's kind of how it works. When you get in the middle of a season, it's not always there laying around.
So we we've restructured, you know, rebudgeted. And so we have a we have a transfer of budget laid out. And now it's a matter of going out and really applying it within the cap. Right. So we've got to. We've got to look at Jordan's agreement, Albert's agreement.
pedro's agreement and we've got to work through like how do we line up in terms of designated players max tam players target allocate you know tam players all the way down through the u22 mechanism as well so um Once we get all of those senior decisions finalized, we can move into the next phase, which the investment might be on a U-22, depending on how some of these other contract negotiations go.
uh during the press conference you mentioned albert and you felt like are you in the albert and the sounders feel reasonably aligned are you pretty confident that he's going to be back next year yeah look i'm apprehensive to overstate because, um, I've known Albert now for 10 years. And so sometimes you can mix familiarity with, with solid agreements. Sure. Um, but.
When you know someone, as long as we've known each other, the conversations between Albert and myself are really direct. We're both unafraid of truth. And so we kind of approach the conversations that way. So I'm optimistic because of the way our conversations have gone. I think we both want to get something done. So now it's just a matter of kind of getting those final pieces over the line.
And what makes him comfortable? What makes us comfortable? And, you know, how do we project with, I keep referring to limitations. I don't like using that word within the constructs of MLS. Like, where does this best fit for the Sounders? And does that make sense for him? Those don't always align, right? So we're working through those final details to see where we're all comfortable. And I'm pretty sure.
we're going to find a resolution. When you're either talking to guys who are already here, who have sort of put in the time and are looking forward to this, or you're going out into the market and seeing the response to people, does the Club World Cup register as a... I don't expect anyone to be giving you big discounts for this, but is that a selling point where players seem genuinely excited about the possibility of getting on the field against... I know it's three games, but...
against a Botafogo, against a Atletico Madrid, against a PSG, some of the biggest clubs in the world. How could you not, right? I mean, this is why players play the game. It's for opportunities like this. And so unless they've played in Ligue 1 or Serie A or, you know, I mean, La Liga, like, of course, you know, I mean.
Give me a break. Like, that's what players want. But it doesn't give us a discount, I can tell you that. It might even spike the prices because they're like, oh, you're playing in that? Right. Oh, okay. Here we go. So there's no discounts, but it does definitely help in the conversations when you tell players, hey, not only are we playing the teams, we're actually playing them in front of our home crowd.
That, I think, is something that's going to prove the most memorable and special part of this whole event is our crowd. It's our home crowd mixed in with a true... international love affair with a lot of these teams. And I think it's just going to be an amazing experience for our players to be loved at home in front of these teams is it's unique and it's not going to happen. Not going to happen again in my lifetime because even if slash when we win the Champions League.
soon enough uh most likely we're not going to be able to host the next one are we well i mean and that's sort of the thing and i it's it's sort of a pinch me moment i almost feel as if because the club because the world cup is going to be playing games here it's a little easy to overlook what an opportunity this is. The Club World Cup has never been playing in the United States. This is the first time it's ever been this format. I mean, it is a true, you know, who knows?
how it registers this year, but it's not hard to imagine a world where this is the most important tournament in the world, like bar none, right? Yeah. And so to have that opportunity of it being played here, to be hosting games, it... It doesn't feel hyperbolic to say it's a potentially once in a lifetime opportunity. And I do kind of wonder, because there is a temptation in some ways to look at this as like, well, it's like three friendlies.
And I understand in some ways it's like the mismatch is what it is, but it's also an opportunity to put on a show to show the fans that you are serious about this. And I guess the question is. How much responsibility do you feel to not just be happier there, but to treat it like the once in a lifetime opportunity that it is? Well, I hope the.
approach from the other teams is it's going to be friendly because it's not. I mean, we, we won't, we will be respectful, but we won't be friendly. I mean, these, these, this is a real competition. It's not exhibition to your point. In terms of how much responsibility, I feel a lot of responsibility to make sure that we represent our fans well, that we fight, that our coaches are aligned.
as they always are with Brian in charge, you know, on focusing on the day, on what we can do and what we can control. What we can't control is $200 million. salary spends on rosters. But again, that- Billion dollar valuation. Sure. Sure. I mean- We can't control some of that, but what we can control is the way we prepare, the way we focus, and the way we go about it. And I think, look, I would love to see our players be fans.
of some of these wonderful players they're going to get to play against after the whistle. And I think we will see that mutual respect between the teams, but I don't think you're going to see us fan fan boy out on anyone. until we've had a chance to square up with them. And that's the wonderful thing about sports. The reason you play the game is because surprises happen. And the reason we love it is because surprises happen.
And for the soccer, whatever genre we want to go, soccer nerd, soccer geek, soccer expert, soccer journalist, soccer coach. Big sicko is the latest. Soccer sicko. Yeah, there you go. You know, this opportunity is not to be overlooked. This is for... Oh, here's a good one. The Euro snob. Yeah, there you go. You know, this is not to be overlooked by anyone. This is appealing to everyone. It is a draw for everyone. It is a time to go prove your point, if you will.
soccer opinions and it is also a time to be surprised because every competition like this has has some surprises do i don't know i know this was this last year around this time we were talking about all the the hype going into march to the 50th and you made a joke about how if i hear that again i might lose my mind or something like that and and i can understand and i understand i mean i i get it you are here to build a soccer team and you don't necessarily want to get involved in the
marketing aspect but do i don't know how involved you like is it important for the organization to sort of put forth this message that it's you know like that there is more here than Come watch Atletico Madrid play. Come watch PSG. No, come watch the Sounders try to take down the best teams in the world. We are the only American team, MLS team. That qualified to get in. That qualified to get in.
And that is not a shot at Miami because every host country in this competition will have at least one team, if not two. So this is no disrespect to Miami. But we are the only team to own every trophy. in North America, in MLS, right? And so that in and of itself is a statement piece. And that is, you know, when we talk about the March to the 50th, all these other...
marketing things that, yes, I do get a little lost in because my job is to make sure we are competitive on the field. It's not lost on me. What does get lost sometimes is how we got here. Right. And what we're still doing, not only are we playing in the Club World Cup, we are actually playing for the tournament and the championship that we won to get in the Club World Cup this year. So it's maintaining that level of success and that level of competition that our fans have grown.
to command, demand, and every other and word that there is from us. And so, you know. There are a lot of other clubs that would tell you success has already been reached. And there are a lot of other GMs and coaches, you know, coaches and GMs that would sit in front of the same microphone and compliment each other until you're blue in the face just trying to prove their points. You know.
Brian and I aren't those two guys. We're not going to sit in front of everyone and say we smiled at the end of this year. Yes, we understand what went well. We have a really good grasp on what went well. We also have a really good grasp on what didn't. And guess what? In eight, nine weeks, we check back in to start climbing the mountain. And that mountain is to win the tournament that got us in the Club World Cup. To compete in MLS at the same time we are doing this. Then...
to focus on the Club World Cup and then to focus on the League's Cup and then to come back. If we're in the League's Cup, that is, sorry, because you'll clarify, we don't know. But if we're asked to focus on the League's Cup, focus on the League's Cup and then... Flip all those switches off and refocus on winning the championship, which is what our fans demand and command at the end of every season. So, you know, all of the marketing pieces, I love it. But at the end of the day.
all that marketing doesn't matter to me unless we have a reason to market. Well, and that's it on that same token. There's a champions league draw tonight at four o'clock. I guess it'd be awesome. If anyone is, is looking at this, uh,
Were you, I have to imagine there was a part of you that was like, okay, we got another one. But were you, I know I was excited when you guys made by Galaxy winning. Yeah. Were you, was that like, what was the emotion you felt when you realized that you were going back to Champions League? Oh, yeah. So let me ignore all the other emotions that you have to go through to get there because you also have to cheer for the opponent that just beat you.
Although you used to play for the Galaxy. Even having played for the Galaxy and won an MLS Cup with the Galaxy as a player. I think the last thing they won was when we were on the team. Yeah, that's a long time ago. No, I mean, like the Champions League is... one of the measures of success that we hold ourselves to. It was painful not to be a part of it last year. And so being a part of it is very important from not only a measure of success, but also an identity.
for us and you know it's it's of substance and should be noted that we're in pot one that's the top 11 teams not pot two we didn't eek in We didn't sneak in. Yeah, we were the last team in, but the results over the last two years and specifically year are how we qualified.
And so we're in pot one because we're one of the top 11 teams. And that's what, that's what we have to remember as a group too, that even through some disappointment comes some of these other glass half full moments. And now we need to go prove it. We need to go prove we're one of those top 11 teams that deserves home field advantage in the second leg.
Well, thank you so much for doing this, Craig. This was a bit of a bonus for me. I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to do it. I'm really stoked that you were able to kind of give some more insight. I'm really excited about the Champions League draw tonight. I am too. I'm one of these sickos, but I'm glad that you are excited as well. But thank you for doing this, Craig.
I hope you get some offseason. No, no, no. This is my inseason. The team's offseason is my inseason. Your offseason was this last stretch. Yeah, my offseason will come when the window closes in May. Well, very good, Craig. Thank you for doing this again. I'm Jeremiah Shan. This is No Sarietes. And we'll catch you next time.