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. episode of Nos Arietes sponsored by Full Pool Wines. I am Jeremiah Oshan. This is a bit of an emergency podcast. I guess we weren't planning in the sense that we weren't planning to do this when I woke up this morning on New Year's Eve day.
And I'm joined by Mark Kastner, who I recruited to do this because I figured, hey, Mark, we haven't talked to you in a while. How's it going? Good. I was standing in line at Walgreens when you texted me. So I was having a great time. Why were you standing and were you getting a flu shot or something? No, I was picking up a prescription. Just. Oh, yeah, we don't need to. That's a fair. That's a fair point.
Standing in line at a Walgreens, I will mea culpa this, not that people care, but I slept in until about 8 o'clock today, casually got out of bed, had a meeting with... I had a meeting unrelated to the Sounders. Didn't really get online until about 10 o'clock. And I started scrolling my feed. And I'm like, oh, it looks like there may have been some Jesus Ferreira news. And it's like, oh, oh.
Not only has there been news, there's big news and it's three hours old and I have been ignoring it all this time. And then I played some catch up and here we are though, in case you missed it. It looks like it's not official, but all the details have been finalized. And we are at the point now where the Jesus Ferreira deal is basically just waiting his signature on a contract and waiting the league to sign off their approval.
And I guess I'll just open with this, Mark. What was your initial reaction to this news? Yeah, I think the initial reaction today or the initial reaction like three weeks ago. I mean, what's your... What's your reaction to the Sounders acquisition of Ferreira? Yeah, I think he's a really good player. I think the Sounders kind of entered this offseason with, let's say.
maybe with self-imposed constraints about how to improve their roster. And I think within those constraints, there is probably not a better acquisition. So for instance, a couple of weeks ago, um inner miami got 3.2 million In game for Leo Campana, who I think is not as good of a player as Jesus Ferreira, but they are certainly comparable in age and sort of status.
Kampana seems sort of hell-bent on leaving MLS as quickly as possible. Jesus Ferrer just signed seemingly long-term extension with the team, so there's at least this theory that he's comfortable.
staying here for a while and kind of contributing to the Sounders for a long time so I think he is really good I think he's coming off of a down year he was injured I know People have sort of fears about that because last season, the Sounders signed a really good player who was coming off an injury and was injured for basically an entire season.
I get the concerns. I get the... Let's say sort of like you open up a Christmas present and it isn't necessarily the PlayStation 2 you wanted, but it is like... something cool um i get that sort of like feeling of disappointment but man i think that this deal is so good on kind of like a nuts and bolts level for making the sounders better um
going into next season. Right. And I think that that's a, that's, I think the initial prism I want to view this through is the immediate, like take all the external stuff about. what we expected to happen, what we hoped would, huh? I said, yeah, all of that sort of like a different conversation. Right. And we'll, and we'll, we'll touch on that today too, but let's, I want to focus right now on sort of this, the immediate.
part of this which is if you if you take out your expectations if you take out the you know you strip away all the externalities of this and you just focus on the sounders just made a trade for the most prolific young goal scorer in MLS history, a player who is just literally the other day turned 24 years old, who already has 53 goals in MLS play, 34 assists.
started a world cup game for the United States, a knockout game at that for the United States. He is, he already has an 18 goal season under his belt. admittedly coming off a down year last year, five goals in six assists, but that's a down in less than 1400 minutes, not even really a bad season, but not a, not a great season, admittedly. And.
He's added to the team without really having to break the bank. On paper, they gave up $2 million in GAM, an international roster spot, and Leo Chu, which I suppose if you... wanted to stretch the definitions of these things, you could kind of come up with $3 million in assets that they gave up, which is also still less than what Miami got for Leo Campana.
But when you actually break it down to what they gave up, they're giving up a million in GAM this year, which is a fair amount of money, but not an outrageous amount of money. And then $500,000 in GAM each of the next two years. uh an international roster spot which they they still have an open one they can open up another one if they wanted to and and then leo chu who very clearly was not in their plans like at best case i think
Most people thought that Leo Chu was a player that was, you know, like the best case scenario was that they transferred him to somewhere in Brazil for like a million dollars. And that's not, that's not GAM. That would have been just cash that goes into the bank.
which who knows if they're going to be able to spend it. So they got, you know, they got actual assets in exchange for forum. I mean, this feels like a really good move that makes them immediately better. I mean, essentially, if you look at. at Ferreira as a as a one for one swap for a 34 year old Raul Ruiz Diaz. I mean, that's not not hard to like. Yeah, I think. He's like exactly the type of player I wanted the Sounders to go after in this offseason. And I think he provides...
Like tactical flexibility, which I know Brian Spencer said is something that like he really kind of wanted in this off season. And I think how the pieces fit together in like a. must win game playoff game final type of thing remains to be seen but we have a long time uh for right until one of those so um and you know
thank the stars that there's a really good coach on the center sideline to kind of figure all that out um and much better problems to have than the problems he was trying to solve let's say last season and should be said successfully solved um and i just kind of think like if you're trying to add a 24 year old who like you mentioned has scored 18 goals in a single season has
consistently performed really well on a mediocre team at sort of MLS level. Let's say Jesus Ferreira was coming out of Colombia at the same age. Same level of production, same injury history. Let's even kind of throw that caveat in there. You're looking at a player that would cost probably between 7 to 10 million actual dollars. And they acquired him for $2 million, which is literally just a number on a spreadsheet. There's not actual money transferring from bank accounts here. And I know...
Sounders fans inevitably are going to say like, well, that's because their ownership is cheap, whatever. Go have those conversations. I'm just not super interested in like... transfer fees i want the sounders to be better and the sounders are better today or whenever this deal is finalized than they were when they faced the team that eventually won at mls cup a couple of months ago so
Yeah, and I don't think it's unfair to be frustrated that this move seems to indicate that the Sounders, or it does, like I think at this point I'm comfortable saying the Sounders are not going to make a huge DP signing. anytime soon. They probably aren't going to make a big DP signing this year. My expectation is that it's going to be Jordan. At the same time, we also found out that Albert Rusnak's contract has basically been signed.
That's going to be for two years. He's going to be a DP. It looks like Jordan Morris is going to be a DP. And then you have Pedro De La Vega, who is a DP for, I think, at least two more seasons. You know, you add that all up and it's like, okay, I get it. I'm frustrated too. I would have loved to brought in a big splashy player who would have, you know, showed ambition, whatever that is. And I, and I'm actually getting really sick.
of having the discussion of what ambition even is because it, it does feel like you can get lost in the weeds. So I'm going to, I'm going to slap myself on the wrist and, and pretend I didn't say that, but I understand the frustration that people have that you're not raising, you're not. shooting to burst through the ceiling of your capabilities if you are looking mostly within the league. And frankly, I will say I'm sympathetic to the idea that this feels vaguely like a move that...
the Colorado Rapids might make, which is to say that it's a smart move and that it's a prudent move, but it's not necessarily a splashy move. But, you know, I do think that to your point, if you were to tell me that the Sounders signed a... 24 year old with 53 first division goals from Austria, which is probably a league lower in quality than MLS.
I think most people would be thrilled with it and they wouldn't be hung up on whether, especially one who started for their national team at a World Cup in the round of 16. I mean, on paper, I think you'd strip the names out. Jesus Ferreira is... a home run signing and by the way they're signing him to an extension that makes him not a dp which affect which maybe doesn't make a difference in terms of
It doesn't allow you to add another DP, but it does allow you to have a bunch of players on your roster that are supposed to be of DP quality. Pedro De La Vega, big caveat there. We'll see if that comes true. But it feels like a very prudent move. And I'll say that the thing that really differentiates this from a...
Colorado Rapids being able to make this there's no way the Rapids are able to sign literally Jesus Ferreira on a non-DP deal because there's no way that Jesus Ferreira is moving from Dallas to Colorado without getting paid and in this case He's apparently willing to take a pretty big pay cut. Yeah, I think your point about it feeling like a Colorado Rapids move is true. And I also think the point about...
it would not literally be a Colorado Rapids move because he wouldn't go there for this level of money. But what I think it feels like, I think it feels like a... Honestly, it feels a little bit more like an LAFC move in sort of a vacuum. You remember when LAFC traded for Kellen Acosta? Almost in very, very, very similar circumstances. Right.
Sure, Kellen Acosta ended up not necessarily being very good in the long run, and he is actually on the Colorado Rapids now, right? Kellen Acosta is actually on Chicago Fire now. Anyways, that's way too... Not your point. It feels like the type of move that LAFC would make to really elevate the floor. that that team can experience. And in that sense, I think it does the exact same thing for the Sounders. I think the Sounders get a lot better with this move and the bottom...
doesn't necessarily drop out as low because of this move in the long run. And what I mean by that is I think both Albert Rosnack and Jordan Morris... played at a dp level last year so they sort of like deserve the contracts that they're getting i think um sort of like the heights that they hit and the ability that they played at
over the course of, let's say, the 10 months that the MLS season is, they are DP quality players. They're not Dennis Bawanga, but nobody is. Dennis Bawanga is Dennis Bawanga. They're very, very good DPs for MLS. And they proved like the Sounders reached basically two semifinals last year with those players. What?
jesus ferreira does is he he helps leave some gas in the tank for albert rusnak over the end Jordan Morris over the course of, let's say 2024, and makes them better players in the long run because you now have a tactically flexible attack where... You basically last year because of the constraints of the roster and the performances of the players on it. If you weren't starting Albert Rusnak or Jordan Morris, you were significantly hindered. And now I think you can rotate a lot more. You can.
change your formation a lot more and you can keep Jordan Morris and Albert Refsneck fresher for longer and hopefully being able to perform better because by the end of that LA Galaxy game If you were to pause it right after LA scored, I think everybody in the world thought you could play this game for three more hours and the Sounders were just not going to score a goal because they had nothing left in the tank.
And so I think they're an elite, maybe one of the best ever defensive teams that this league has seen. That's the platform they can build on. You add an attacker that could go on to be the kind of... MLS record goal scoring holder. If, if, you know, he kind of stays here, let's say for 10 more years. And that's like really, that's just a really good move. Setting aside kind of all the noise that a lot of Sounders fans like to listen to, including this podcast.
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To find out more, just visit Center at Heart dot com and click the subscribe button in the top right corner. Thanks for listening. No, I. I realized we had kind of moved beyond this, but I wanted to share something anyway, because I spent some time looking this up. And this podcast is nothing if not my ability to humor myself. I was kind of fascinated by this comparison between Campagna and Ferreira. And they conveniently both have been in MLS since 2022, which works out very neatly.
But they are very close to the same age. Campania is a few months older. But if you compare their MLS performances since 2022, so you have 22, 23, and 24 in this sample set. They are non-penalty XG plus expected assists are exactly the same per 90 at 0.53. Their actual production, meaning goals plus assists minus penalties, is 0.64 for Campania and 0.66 for Ferreira.
And then so there are basically the same type of goal contributions per 90 minutes over that period, over a three year period. If you go into shot creating actions, it starts to get far more. skewed towards Ferreira. He's averaging 3.88 shot creating actions per 90, which is almost virtually twice as much as Campana. Their goal creating actions a little bit closer.
It's 0.42 for Campana, 0.46 for Ferreira. And then if you go into the defensive actions, it's not really all that close either, where Ferreira is much more active defensively. I'm not going to get into the details there. My point is that the Sounders, I think what's sort of silly about this discussion is that if the Sounders had literally made the exact same move for Campania, they would have probably had to use a DP spot.
They would have had to give up apparently a little bit more in assets in order to acquire them. And somehow I think fans would be much more excited about it. Yeah. And I think there's something. I think it's like really, I think there is sort of like the U S national team discourse. And I, I don't know. I don't want to, I feel like we're, we're maybe giving too much, too much leverage in this discussion to the fans who have kind of come out.
frustrated about this deal i would imagine there's probably a lot more fans who are really excited about it but um i i do think it's important to just acknowledge some of these nuances yeah i mean i've like Kapania is literally not American, which I do think plays into it. I don't know. I don't I don't know. I don't know how to like really kind of.
square that round hole, uh, to be honest with you. So it's probably better. I mean, I don't know. I don't know either. And I guess maybe it's, it's pointless, but I, I just think it's. I guess what I'm saying here is it's okay to be really excited about the Ferrero deal. It's also okay to be frustrated that it might be the biggest move that they make just because we had set our expectations so high. But...
This, I think, undeniably makes the Sounders better in the short term. It makes them potentially a lot better in the long. This is a 24-year-old player who, if he performs at the level that we would expect. He's going to be either around for a long time and being making and making a run at the MLS scoring record, or he's going to be moving to a bigger he'll be moving on to a bigger league. I mean, I think the best case scenario is probably that.
He spends the next two years just balling out, and then they move him on in two years, and they get a payday from him. Yeah, there's that possibility. There's also... I don't... necessarily think the Sounders roster is as inflexible in terms of movement as some kind of think you know I think people kind of initial reaction is
Oh my God, we're going to have the same, these same three DPs until 2027. And I just, there's not like, nothing is that set in stone in major league soccer. And it's really easy. move off of a player like I think if by this let's say this summer Pedro de la Vegas still isn't really kind of like hitting a level right I think there's a like it
And I don't think the Sounders are ever this aggressive, which I think is, again, just a different conversation. But they could move him back to Argentina at probably a significant loss, but open up. a possibility and right yeah there's always there's always there's always ways to open up roster spots especially when you're talking about a relatively young player who if he's healthy uh is not
too far removed from being productive in Argentina. There's teams out there who would be probably willing to take them off your hands or there's always literally the colorado so or or literally but one one thing that i think is like super interesting about this move that
i haven't necessarily seen in the zeitgeist yet uh is the fact that they move on from leo chu thus opening up a u22 slot and yeah that's a good point i think that if that slot is filled this offseason with let's say a fullback or a young central defender or something like that i think
it's totally fine for somebody to kind of look at this as like a two-for-one situation. And that might necessarily, that might, in my opinion, be more exciting than... just one big dp because we got we got one big dp last season as kind of the only thing to happen um yeah and that was what that was so um I'm sort of interested in seeing if that slot is used now or sort of later. But yeah.
well and i think the other thing that's interesting about the the leo chu aspect of this is i had sort of assumed that danny leiva would be the player like i knew i was pretty sure a player was going to be moving to Dallas and I sort of just looking at the roster I assumed Danny Leva would be the player who made the most sense he feels sort of like the type of player Dallas would want he has some potential sell on if you can build him up but losing him would have been kind of a
frankly, it would have been a bummer. I like Danny Leyva. I think he was really showing his usefulness towards the end of last year. I think he has still some upside, some real upside to him, and that they were able to make this deal, which... I don't know. I, I wouldn't imagine the sounders basically said, Hey, you can have one of these two guys and we're probably fine with it being Leo Chu, which, you know,
for better or for worse, Chu just was not making inroads with Brian Schmesser in terms of getting on the field. Like I do think Chu is a good player who has some upside. but he also did not progress at all like how we thought he would. You know, he had a great 2023, but even in 2023, his effectiveness really waned badly during the second half of the season.
And and he was just he was looking like a limited player for better or for worse. You know, I wouldn't be shocked if he has a good if he stays at Dallas and he's good next year. But. I don't think that was what was going to happen to him here. I mean, at this point, he was probably the, I don't know, fifth winger on the roster. He had clearly fallen behind Georgie Minungu and Paul Rothrock.
And they're not even probably starters this year. I would imagine you're going to have probably Jordan Morris playing out on the wing. You're going to have Pedro De La Vega obviously getting a lot of minutes on the wing. You might have other players that are sneaking in there. So Chu did not have a clear path with the Sounders at this point. And so to move off of him in a way that...
you know, maybe preserves a player like Danny Leyva, who even if he's not a likely starter, he's a useful player coming off the bench for you. He can play a few different positions. I like that part of it. And like you said, the, it also opens up the roster spot of a U22, which I don't think they were really up too much up against it in terms of, uh, of.
Like they could have opened it. They really wanted to sign you 22 players. That wouldn't have been that hard to do it, but now it's really, I mean, he was, that's a $500,000 player only hitting the cap at 200,000, but you, you can definitely.
do something with that roster spot. And even if they don't make a big U22 signing before the season starts, I would expect in this winter transfer window that they will be making... some overtures about filling it i don't know what they'll do with it but you know it could be a it could be a center back it could be a defensive midfielder it could be another offensive player it could really be anything because they don't have
a super obvious need and really you don't use the u22 spot on a on a on a need anyway you use it as sort of an upside play yeah and i think um So I guess, not to put you on the spot, but are you under the assumption that, let's say, a move like the Paul Ariel one still does happen, that doesn't involve any players? So Danny Leif is...
I don't think I think that I don't know what would be going. I mean, that's a good point. I don't I don't know. I actually don't know what they are potentially giving up in the areola trade. I did not get the sense that it was. a lot i i think that this is sort of being seen as a way for dallas to get out from ariola's contract which
He was on like $1.7 million, which is a fantastical amount of money. But yeah, Areola, I think probably still gets done. I don't know. I honestly don't know what they're.
giving up in that trade i suppose it's possible that they end up losing leva too but uh i i kind of i i think that more likely it's uh it might be like a draft pick honestly like they might be just giving up their next year's first round draft pick for ariola i legitimately and again that's another player who probably would have been ahead of two on the depth chart in multiple positions
Yeah, I mean. Right, in multiple, exactly. I think that there's like one glaring weakness on this team right now, and it's what happens at kind of a left wing back. um spot so that's where i would like to see a u22 player slot in with the understanding that yeah i mean it um with the understanding that that may or may not be the preferred formation next year. But I just...
If you're going to play that way with the players that the Sounders have, I don't really want that player to be Reed Baker Whiting because he's just not left-footed. He's fine with his left foot, but he... specifically i just don't think he's a very good crosser with his left foot and i think you want more of kind of like a let's say a brad smith type in that role um which would be
nice to have on this roster. Also, just having that type of player to develop as a MLS fullback would be really good for this roster, I think. Yeah, I mean, and I would say sort of to that point, the big question for me is still what's the default formation for this? I think we will almost surely see a lot of two.
forward sets which to me means we'll probably see a lot of three five two but i don't know i don't know if that's going to be the default formation i and i think part of that is because we don't have an obvious left back or left wing back option it also doesn't really leave an obvious starting spot for pedro de la vega who i think could maybe play as a wing back but i don't i have a hard time imagining the sounders entering the season sort of
as with de la vega's default position being wing back so i i think that for for all of the change we might still see a form like we might see i wouldn't be shocked if jordan morris is playing as a as a left winger in this formation. And we see, you know, Pedro de Oliveira on the right. Nuhu starting at left back again, Alex Rodon again, starting at right back, maybe with.
read baker whiting as you know uh challenging him for that for those minutes and otherwise the team looking frankly not too dissimilar than what they looked like for the tail end of last year And I don't, I, and I, again, like I, if you had asked me at this time last year, do I think the lineup, do I think we're going to, or not at this time last year, but you know, at midpoint last year, if you had asked me, do I think we're going to see.
basically the same, a very similar team next year, I would have said no. I would have definitely expected more change than we're going to end up getting. But that doesn't mean that this, that part of that is also that they. Had a bunch of players who sort of earned their chance to come back next year. You know, Albert Rusnak being high on that list. You know, he looked really, really good for the second half of the season, if not more. Same thing with Jordan Morris.
can kind of go down the list or want a lot of players. I do think that the, to me, the one position I'm most concerned about probably is production from right back from fullbacks, really from both fullbacks. I think they only got one or. maybe two goals and two assists across all competitions from Nuhu and Alex Roldan, which just, you need more production from your fullbacks than the Sounders got last year. There's just no way.
really around yeah especially if you're playing kind of predominantly a a formation that where your where your width is coming from your fullbacks like they did last season because you know you would have a healthy Pedro de la Vega kind of going wherever he wanted to. So you do need a play like either on the left or the right, a player holding that sort of width. And if the, if the assumption is Jordan Morris is going to.
slot back to that left midfield position that is going to play a lot. I would just be super surprised. um to not see sort of like past maps where he's not the highest player in that formation So yeah, even if he's playing as a leader saying, basically if he's playing as a left winger, he's going to be a second forward. Yeah. Or, or just like, it's going to look like he's.
the forward but just on the left side of the field like where he right which is which is which is funny because he played striker last year for most of the year had really good production but if you kind of do look at things like uh game to game passing maps or heat maps of particular players he favors that side of the field anyways um and he would he would sort of abandon kind of
let's say where traditionally the center backs play and just kind of like float out to that area anyways to get involved so I don't hate it as much as let's say some and I We've done this whole podcast and basically referred to the lowest common denominator throughout several talking points. So I don't mean to do it again, but I really kind of like... what this move does in terms of like the fluidness between let's say the attacking band behind the forward and the forward um because
You have four guys, let's say, that really do sort of like to go find their pocket of space on the field. And that... can do some like really interesting things for the sounders uh i think so yeah if yeah well i think that's probably yeah Well, that's probably a good place to sort of wrap this up. Mark, thanks for jumping on this and doing this sort of emergency podcast that we did today. Wanted to say thank you, of course, to Lick It.
for producing it on an emergency basis as well. Thanks to full pool wines. I'm going to get out of here. Probably won't do another podcast until we have news, a little bit more news. You know, we'll see you when we see you. But I'm Jeremiah Shan. This is No Sarietes. And remember, you'll never get alone.