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 to another episode of Nos Adiates on the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network, sponsored by Full Pool Wines and our subscribers. We're recording on Tuesday, February 25th, 2025. I am your host, Jeremiah Shan.
Joining me today is my co-host Aaron Campo and our engineer Lickett. In many ways, the CL Sounders regular season opener was exactly the kind of performance we had hoped to see. The Sounders dominated possession, were aggressive on the attack.
scored a couple of nice goals, and played what I think most would call attractive soccer. But after dominating the match for 90-plus minutes, a series of regrettable errors undid all the work, and the Sounders were forced to settle for a 2-2 tie after Jackson, Reagan, and Yamar combined for...
one of the worst own goals in team history. As we sit here on the eve of an arguably more important game with the Sounders already holding a 3-1 lead in their round one CONCACAF Champions Cup series, Aaron... Are you focusing more on the result or on the performance from Saturday? I'm definitely focusing more on the performance, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't pretty.
annoyed by by the result pretty irritated by the result and i think it's beyond just being irritated because they dropped points in a game that they dominated and clearly should have won it's just the way they got there is much different and much more encouraging but it's yet again dumb mistakes late in a game that should have been well in hand that were just uncharacteristic you know at any other
quadrant of the game right they only seem to make these mistakes late uh and it's it's it's just it's super frustrating and i felt the vibes were were great in the stadium i felt really good And that, I mean, that own goal just came out of nowhere and it's inexcusable. It, you know, it, it took so many breakdowns, so many individual breakdowns to get there, which.
in a way i suppose is encouraging right because it's it's unlikely to ever happen again but i just we've seen in the past um this team have results like this where In isolation, you can say it's not a big deal, but we've also seen it snowball. And so that's always in the back of my mind. Because early in the year last year...
They played pretty well in the first few games and just weren't able to get the results they were looking for. And that pressing to get those results turned into, you know, that start that we all recall. I'm not... worried about that yet really but it's impossible for that not to be in the back of your mind and i think that's yeah that's the part that's so frustrating about it yeah i think also the thing is is that one of the recurring themes last year was
This inability to hold specifically one goal leads in the 85th minute. It's a very strange stat, but it is true. Four times last year, they were leading or sorry. Five times last year, they were leading by one goal in the 85th minute. That's a key element of it. And four times, they managed not to win the game. That was the... Colorado game where they gave up the the rebound off the free kick when they were playing down a man. There was the Vancouver game where knew who.
was called for a handball they were also playing down a man and ryan gold hit a a penalty to tie it there was the rsl game where they uh where they gave up a 90 a 10th minute stoppage time equalizer which kind of came under pressure and then there was the san jose game which was another which was kind of similar to this in that the sounders were man you know they were playing with they had scored two goals in that game
Coincidentally, Jordan Morris scored two of them. And then just out of nowhere, they gave up a late goal. And then finally, in the fifth time that came up, they managed to hold a 1-0 lead against Houston. And, you know, I'd like to think that we put that narrative to bed, but it was also sort of part of a more troubling trend broadly because they gave up a bunch of late goals in other games. Like they gave up a late equalizer against.
Louisville city in the open cup. They gave up that late game winner against the Houston or against the LA galaxy. They gave up, you know, some other, they gave up a late winner against sporting Kansas city on the road. And so there were. Just a kind of a worrying trend of late goals, not all quite that statistic, the 85th minute thing. And I will say that they had five.
one goal leads in the 85th minute on the road and they held the lead all five of those times so i don't think there's some sort of like inherently uh panicky thing that the sounders are doing But for some reason, it is a recur. I mean, they dropped eight points at home last year on situations very similar to this. Those eight points would have.
given them the top record in the western conference last year they would have won the west theoretically of course you know whatever we're not going to get into all that but It's just a very frustrating trend. And I will say that I was mostly really encouraged by the quality of the play. And I will note that in none of the games that the Sounders had these leads, were they playing nearly as well as they were in this one?
It wasn't just the goals. It was that they were bossing the game. I mean, the goal came out. To say the goal came out of nowhere somehow understates how out of nowhere it was. Charlotte barely had the ball on the Sounders end. They had a couple corner kicks over the last 30 minutes of the game. I think Charlotte had two corner kicks. They had one shot. It was not on goal. They only had one shot on goal the whole game.
And the Sounders were just sort of like doing whatever they wanted, really. It was wild. And even on the sequence, I've seen this debated a fair amount. And it's funny because you see. people arguing both sides. On one hand, people argue the centers weren't aggressive enough and going for a third goal. And then there's another group of people that saying, why are the sounders playing the, you know, they were, they're just.
holding on the ball they were they should have just been killing it more right uh and this play itself is sort of a weird microcosm because it starts with the sounders kicking the ball long and then it going off of the uh charlotte defender but called for charlotte and so it starts this whole like it's kind of a funny you see the sounders on the field complaining oh no no
it's off it's off charlotte it's off charlotte and then later on in the broadcast you actually catch jordan morris saying something to melanda and he's like oh yeah that definitely hit me and so whatever good i guess yeah yeah he was not he was like not even like pretending uh but you know at that point the game's already tied uh but anyway so that starts uh that starts the sequence and at first when i in my head i was thinking god
Two games in a row, they gave up a goal on a play that starts 90, a throw-in that starts 90 yards away from goal. That's kind of frustrating. But what's worse about this one is they don't even start a counterattack. All they do is they just kick it around and then they kick it back to the goalkeeper and Kalina just sends a ball up to the midfield and Jackson Reagan is there flat. Like he's as rooted in the ground as you can be.
and he has an easy header. He has two choices. He can, or he actually has three choices. He can hit it sort of just back to the middle of the field. He can, or hit it over to, to Yamar, who's to his right. He can hit it to Christian Roldan.
who's in the midfield or he can hit it to john bell who's on the left sideline to me right the safe play is you play it to john bell on the left sideline because even if he doesn't get it it goes out of bounds and you just who cares right instead he tries to play it
forward to Christian Roldan it gets blocked okay big deal it gets blocked he's first to it he has a he has a beat on it and then he just totally fluffs instead of kicking it out of bounds though at that point which would have been probably the smart thing to do right
You've just misplayed a header. Don't get cute. Don't play it anywhere. Just kick the ball out of bounds. Instead, he gets cute. He tries to play it back to, I don't know, I guess he's maybe playing it back to Fry. Totally fluffs it. The defender is able to raise him to the ball. And at first, I was really worried. Sorry, I'm talking a lot here. But you're going to get a word in Edgewood, I promise. I was a little worried because...
The defender has a gets there first, right? And if he hits an early cross, he does have an attacking player running into the box. That could be trouble, but he doesn't hit the early cross instead. He takes a touch and he plays it sort of down towards the sideline, which totally cuts off any angles that he has, though. And it allows both Yamar and Alex Roldan to make recovery runs. Yamar is able to.
cut off the front. And then even Alex Roldan is cutting in in front of the the player who's making the run down the middle. And they have this very well defended at this point. Yeah. And he puts in an OK cross and Yamar just sort of like does the instinctual thing and sticks his foot out. And if the irony is that if he whiffs on it, if he does really almost anything other than.
stick out his left foot and kick it it probably is nothing and you go oh that was a an annoying mistake but you don't get too worried about it but instead yep we know what he does he just kicks it through steph fries legs and and there you have it um i don't know i talked a lot aaron no i mean you you you described it well i think uh i
As you know, because you've been in them, our seats are at the other end of the pitch. Yeah. And so I saw everything that happened in midfield, right? I saw Reagan misplay the header. and didn't even really think about it because that happens a million times yeah exactly and then i saw him then i saw him fluff the clearance and i said uh-oh uh
And then, like you said, it looked like everything was settled. And so I kind of calmed down. And then the next thing I know, the ball's in the back of the net. And when I watched it back, I assumed I missed the Charlotte player, right? Like I assumed there was just somebody I didn't see that got my foot to the ball. And so when I watched it back, it was just so much worse than it seemed. It's so much worse. It's super frustrating and it's...
I mean, it's a meme at this point that Jackson has one play like that a game. And I think it's fairly true. And ultimately, where he made the mistake should not end up. in a goal for the other team in that situation so much had to go to go wrong which is both like i said earlier encouraging because it doesn't seem repeatable and also discouraging in the sense that
it's really annoying to, you know, to drop points in that, in that way where you just did it to yourselves, you know? Right. Exactly. It's, you know, and I will say if, I don't know if this is a defense or not, but there were a lot of. poor defensive plays that led to goals this week. If you are really interested, Joe Lowry did a super cut of all these unfortunate kind of when playing out of the back goes wrong. I wouldn't even say this is playing it out of the back though. This was just no.
This is just sloppy defense. And, you know, there was a fair amount of consternation over, oh, you know, Reagan was on an island. Why are the Sounders pushing forward so much? Yada, yada, yada. I'm sorry, but. there's not really a lot of tactical changes you can make to prevent a play like this, because ultimately you're talking about your last line of defense, making a play that you have to as a, for you to create a game plan.
You have to believe that your best defenders can handle this play literally every time. Literally every time. 100%. If you are not pushing one of your center backs into possession when you're trying to just see out possession and in the game and you're... Then you're in a situation where the complaints are. Why are they bunkering? Why are they bunkering? Exactly. This is where all the problems start. Right. So it is it's not a tactical issue. It's a.
Two guys made four mistakes that none of those individually, none of those mistakes should have been made. And, you know, I think you have to at this point, chalk it up to just early season.
you know rustiness maybe i don't know i do think that it's i think because defending is so obviously physicality and skill is a huge part of it but it's so much more mental i think than attacking play a lot of the time and it's it's so much because in attacking play most of what you're doing doesn't actually come off right so when something doesn't come off
yeah whatever not a huge deal defensively you have to be pretty spot on you can't make mistakes like this because you know if you do they can compound you can end up in a situation like this right yeah yeah Yeah. And I don't know. I don't want to do too much on this play, but I brought all this up because I think it's important to just really understand how. how many mistakes had to happen for this play to unravel the way that it did. And it was not a simple matter of, you know.
I mean, yes, it is a team game. Yes, there were other ways they could have prevented this. You can unravel all of that. And the best way to prevent it from happening would be to just have a two-goal lead. And the Sounders, I thought, were... I thought that they were taking the right approach. They were aggressive with their subs. We saw Pedro De La Vega and Jesus Ferreira come in. We saw Paul Areola come in.
I was okay with John Bell replacing new who in part knew who had been playing for 86 minutes at that point with a yellow card. And, and you would absolutely like why there's no reason to risk him. picking up another yellow card and then you're, you're maybe, you know, in a whole other mess. So I didn't, I didn't mind that one either. Maybe you could have brought in JP for somebody. I don't.
I don't even know who you, who would you bring them in for? Maybe you could bring in Danny Masofsky for Jordan, I suppose. Maybe that would have, but again, the problem wasn't that they weren't defending well.
they have the ball the whole the whole last 30 minutes of the game that there was not like i just don't see a lot of tactical issues with this you know one of the other moments that I saw people getting frustrated about was there was a play in like the 83rd or 84th minute where Albert Rusnak picks up a ball.
on a counter a potential counter attack and he's got runners he's got areola to his left he's got jesus federa making a run down the middle and then there is an opening like if don't get me wrong if he plays that ball there's a chance he's able to play in and you know i don't know maybe maybe it works out right but he he sort of pulls it back and he doesn't push forward as hard as maybe he could have but this is he's sitting 90 yards away from goal
This is not a play that was like happening in the Sounders half. And there are moments earlier in the game where you would want him to do it, but it's two to one. It's the 83rd minute hold possession. You know, there's no reason to rush here. You know, I thought the Sounders were actually striking an OK balance of pushing for a goal, but not being dangerous about it. Yeah, I felt like the Sounders were.
the most likely team to score for pretty much the entirety of the second half uh yeah i they had played so well and done created so many decent chances and looked so comfortable and fluid in attack that I honestly genuinely believed they were going to get a winner. um after after the equalizer like they had three minutes of extra time left and i said well there's no way they're not going to push ahead and get a winner because they've looked so good um that's obviously
you know, game time emotions talking, but, but it is how I felt like it, because they had been, they had looked so comfortable and so creative and so just so competent in attack. I mean, I I'm, I'm willing to say. they looked better and more confident and more capable of creating chances and like they just had more ideas in this game than in any home game last year.
Maybe including the one where they scored five against Vancouver. I mean, because in that game that a lot of that was just brute forcing against the team that had kind of given up. Yeah, this was. breaking down a team that's actually pretty good defensively the second best defensive team in the league last year yeah you know i mean i watched dean smith coach teams for a long time and and this looked like a dean smith coach team and
They're hard to break down when they want to be. And I was really encouraged by the attacking play.
you know if you if you play that well in the attack you want to score four or five goals obviously but that's really hard to do like that's just not a thing that happens that much um and i think if they can repeat that performance in the attack they're they're gonna be fine and they're gonna be fun to watch again i think um for for most people and you know that's that's what i'm choosing to take away yeah uh with a little but like i said you know with a little bit of that
But I'm still annoyed. I was definitely annoyed about the result. I don't blame anyone for being frustrated with the result. I would just hope that most of us can... sort of walk and chew gum at the same time where you can be frustrated with the result but also appreciate that they looked really good and from a holistic standpoint i would rather my team look really good and
While scoring goals, that's an important element of it. It wasn't just that they were passing the ball around and looking sharp and doing all this stuff. They had scored two nice goals. And that's a really important piece of this. I would be singing a very different tune if they scored a penalty and then, you know, looked pretty good, competent in the attack, but ultimately didn't score. And then they gave up that goal. That's a very different to me. That's a very different conversation.
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.
Memberships start as low as $25 a year, which not only helps make podcasts like this one happen, but also gets you access to everything we produce. If you're able to support us at higher levels, starting at $75 a year, You gain access to a host of other perks, most notably entry into our members only discord where the smartest, funniest, and most engaged commenters share their thoughts and ideas to find out more.
Just visit sounderatheart.com and click the subscribe button in the top right corner. Thanks for listening. It's getting to be that time of year when you need to figure out how to watch Sounders games. If you're an Alliance member, you are getting a free subscription to MLS Season Pass and you're covered. Similarly, if you're a T-Mobile subscriber, you're also covered. But if you're going to have to pay for one, you may as well give us some of that money.
by using the link sounderathart.com slash MLS Season Pass. You'll help support independent media while also getting access to every Sounders game, every other MLS game, MLS 360, and all sorts of other content. Just to make things extra easy, we'll put a link in the show notes too. Thanks. Nos Adietes, admittedly, is not exactly known for our spicy takes. But that doesn't mean we want our food to be mild.
Spice up your life with Hacks and Ferments. Handcrafted in Georgetown and made with the best local ingredients from across the Pacific Northwest, they specialize in unique small batch fermented hot sauces and vinegars. Haxan Ferments brings bold flavors and natural fermentation together for something truly special. Whether you're a heat seeker or just looking to elevate your cooking, you'll find something you love at haxanferments.com.
That's H-A-X-A-N-F-E-R-M-E-N-T-S dot com. And right now, if you use the code sounder at heart, that's all one word. At checkout, you will get a free hot sauce. with your order again go to hacks and ferments.com use the code sounder at heart at checkout for a free hot sauce with your order accent ferments is a proud sponsor of that sounder at heart podcast network part of the key of this was that they scored two goals that Jordan Morris looked.
you know, as confident as we've seen him. I don't, I don't want to read too much into, you know, Jordan Morris, a big body language guy. I don't want to read too much into it, but I just love that pose that he struck after he scored the second goal. So good. And Obed Vargas jumping on his back and Georgie Manungu jumping on his back. And it just felt like all of a sudden Jordan was a different person. Like we've never really seen him be.
That kind of lift my team, like literally putting the team on his back type of guy. And I don't know, you know, again, don't want to read too much into it, but it did feel like there was some message going on there. I don't know if this was on his mind or not, but he did tie Raul Rui Diaz's franchise record for goals scored in all comps. So his next goal, he'll own that record, which is a cool little story. Yeah.
you know, whatever. That's not important right now, but it is a neat story that the Sounders all-time leading scorer is going to be a local guy. But it was... There was just so much to like in that game. I refuse to get too bent out of shape. I don't really feel like there's a lot of good reason to second guess this game tactically. I would say if there was one criticism.
it was maybe that I could, I would have liked to maybe seen them rotate a little bit more. I am, I'm getting a little bit worried as we go into. We're really going into potentially some serious fixture congestion here because assuming they don't absolutely crap the bed against Antigua, which people will be listening to this tonight, the Sounders are going to go through...
to the round of 16 in CONCACAF Champions Cup. Then they have two games against Cruz Azul. Those two games are going to come between league games as well. Minutes are going to start piling up pretty fast here. This seemed like a game maybe they could have gotten a little bit more rest for some guys. I would say the ones I'm most worried about right now are the center backs because I'm still not, until Kim Kihee is available, I'm a little worried about the depth at center back.
John Bell, perfectly capable. Stuart Hawkins, I think, is going to be a capable player. He's still relative. He's untested at the MLS level. I hope he starts to get some minutes. Maybe the RSL road trip. Maybe tonight we get to see some more of him. But other than that, I don't think I have genuine criticisms of this game. No, I think that anytime.
a result is suboptimal. There's going to be folks that blame coaching decisions. I actually thought that the tactical setup was great. I was I did think it was kind of funny that for the Antigua game. the lineup graphic was in 4-2-3-1. Oh, yeah. This is a game, I think. And they clearly played. Yeah, which is very funny. It's a very funny bit, and I do appreciate it. It kind of reminds me of Siggy submitting a 4-3-3 for every game.
uh because he was pissed off at garth but like and you know less less uh testy um but yeah i thought the i liked the way they attacked the game uh I liked the substitution patterns. We had two relatively early subs. We had two subs late for key players. Pretty much all we've been asking for, I think, from Schmetzer. I thought that they...
They looked a little bit, and there would be people who say this ended up costing them, and I don't actually think it's true because of the just flukishness of the way the goal happened, but... One of the big criticisms myself and I think a lot of people have had in the past would be the Sounders playing at home, protecting a lead, just go into a shell and give up a lot of late goals. And I really appreciated that they kind of kept their foot on the gas in this game.
Yeah. The other goal they gave up, I don't think we've talked about. We have not. Giving up a goal on a corner. Giving up a goal on a corner unless somebody just blows something. is never going to bother me that much. They're low percentage things. Sometimes a guy just gets a better jump. Yeah. It's just, you know, it's one of those things. The Sounders, I think, generally are pretty good against set pieces.
Yeah. If you started giving up a lot of those, you get a little worried, but the first one or two, you go, I don't know. Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes you, you make a really good delivery and a guy gets a really good read on it and he.
puts a really good shot on you can definitely argue that Steph was a little bit out of position you can argue that the Sounders need to do a better job of bodying Melanda on that but that was not a that was much more of a charlotte doing something right than the sounders doing something correct yep yep absolutely and you know i i've been a person who said i enjoyed the way the sounders played last year and i did
Um, but I liked this too. Like it was something different. It was a different philosophy. It was, yeah, it was more fun. It was the same person in the stadium. You know, that's one of the things I think notable about this is that. With the rotation, this was effectively the same lineup that they were rolling out last year, and they just looked so much sharper, so much more fluid. It did feel like there was a real mentality change.
To me, it looked more like a 4-2-3. You know, you were sort of talking about this. On the lineup graphic, they called it a 3-4-2-1. They called it 3-5-2. Oh, 3-5-2. Yeah. But to me, it looked much more like a 4-2-3-1. Like we're going to have this conversation a lot this year. I think we can definitely get lost sometimes in the nomenclature. The reality is that they're going to attack with three center backs, but this was not a.
I didn't think it was a 3-5-2. I thought Munungu was really playing as a winger. I thought Rothrock was really playing as a winger. Nuhu got forward a little bit more than you would expect to center back in a... three center back set up but not not a lot more than he than he would have last year and the thing i go ahead oh go ahead sorry i was just gonna say the thing i appreciated
The thing I appreciated is that when Nuhu did get forward, he was staying central. He wasn't doing a lot of overlapping. And I did like that. And he actually put in a couple of pretty decent balls from outside the box. But sorry, your turn. Oh, yeah, I was gonna say Roldan also was not really playing as a wing. I didn't think Alex was playing as a wing back. He seems the way they seem to be using him more is tucked inside, which I think probably suits him a little bit better. Like he is.
I think you probably want to lean more into his mobility and his defensive chops more than his crossing. And maybe his ability to sort of like, like he's, he's good at making that inside run as well. We saw that in the. in the preseason, I guess, where he made a run like that. So I think it's interesting the way that the Sounders are using their personnel right now. My suspicion is that...
We're going to see the three center, a little bit more of a clear three center back formation against Antigua. I think we'll, you know, that could be an interesting, I'm actually really excited about the setup if they run the way that they were. doing it in training on Tuesday. I think that'll be an interesting wrinkle to what they've done in the past. So I like that they are thinking about changing things up.
I've been really, really like over the moon happy with the play of Christian Roldan and Obed Vargas in midfield. Yeah. Vargas had another secondary assist. Yeah. Christian. Matt Doyle has called Christian one of maybe the best six in the league right now. He's looking like it, man. He is. This looks like the position he should have been playing all along, which I'll admit I was someone who was a little skeptical of his ability to play this role.
Yeah, I think it's I think the league has changed a little bit to where in, you know, I don't know, 2018. I think he would have needed, you want somebody a little more physical in that role at that time in the league. I think now that's a little less important. The game is just a little more tactical in MLS now. It's a lot less about fear. pure physicality maybe than it used to be.
But I also think Christian has just matured as a player. I mean, he's lost some of his explosiveness as everybody does as they age and go through injuries and all that, you know, less fun stuff. But I think he reads the game exceptionally well. I think he understands the tactical vision of the team and how they want to play and where he needs to be and where everybody else needs to be in relation to him. And I think he's going to thrive in that role. And I think...
If he can keep at this level, guys that can play that position well can play for a really long time. Yeah, there's a guy in Portland that's been playing it. Right. yeah i mean i hate to compare christian to to that fella but uh in this in this one instance we'll we'll let it slide but i mean i think that you know
The key thing is just being able to adjust your game as you continue to age and your body changes a little bit and making tweaks to your game. But I think he's a smart enough player to do that. Yeah, I think he's found a home for the foreseeable future, which is nice because I think that was a position that's, as JP has aged the last few years, has been kind of a concern of where are we going to find that next guy.
that can play that role and having Christian play as well as he does takes a lot of that pressure off, I think. Well, I think that's a position that the Sounders would have been willing to go out into the marketplace and try to replace him with a... you know, a higher priced player. So if they don't need to do that, that's great because you can, you know, I would always rather see the money kind of put into the attack, I think, or at least farther up the field because it does seem like.
Still in MLS, you can still find value in defense. You can still find value in number sixes. And if you don't have to spend money on it, that's good. And the Sounders are in a position where... They need to spend smart money because they are not going to go dollar for dollar with Atlanta and Miami and the L.A.s and whoever else. So I think it's important that they find value where they can find it.
One other player who I wanted to talk about a little bit was Albert Rusnak. This was his first start of the year. I think there was some... Probably overblown concern over the injury that he picked up in preseason. He seemed to be pretty confident that he was never going to miss the start of the season. But he looked very good in this one.
I love the play that he made on the assist to Morris, where he just sort of shrugs off a defender and weights the ball just absolutely perfectly for Morris, who doesn't have to do anything other than... sort of let it run and pick out his spot. And then he hits it well enough where even though Kalina got a pretty good amount of his arm on it, it was not, there was no way that ball wasn't going in. Yeah, it was.
You could see it coming from the moment Rosnak gets the ball and picks his head up. And it was just so beautiful because we've seen so many times... that run happen and albert or whoever else be in that position and not make that pass for one reason or another and to see jordan hold his run i got like that sinking feeling of like yep they're gonna
They're going to pull it back and play possession. And then when he hit it, and he hit it just absolutely perfectly right to the spot Jordan pointed to, you knew it was a goal. I mean, there was no way that that wasn't going to end up in a goal. And I mean, that's my favorite type of goal. Just, you know, a 10 hitting a nine inch right on the counter attack. It's, it's the best thing in soccer. That's, that's the good stuff right there.
For sure. A great finish by Jordan to two great finishes by Jordan in that game. And yeah, just a beautiful, beautiful goal. Yeah, this, you know, and I will say that. There was some real concern coming into this game over what the crowd would look like. I know ticket sales were not quite as robust as the Sounders were hoping. The weather was absolute garbage.
It was midwinter break. There was a lot of reasons that attendance could be bad, and it wasn't great. Let's be real. This was the second lowest attendance that they've had in a season opener. So that's not good. But speaking to how well the Sounders were playing, the crowd was loud. It was engaged. ECS was packed. And that's something that...
Last year was to me, one of the biggest concerns was ECS was starting to thin out. And that's where you really start to feel the energy is when ECS does not, is not packing it in, you know, that's, that has a trickle down effect. Yeah, I was actually surprised to see that attendance was lower than last year's home opener because I was at last year's home opener and it felt and looked pretty dire in the stands. I'm genuinely curious if there were more butts in seats this year.
um because it did it felt it felt a little more full to me but maybe that was the atmosphere because the atmosphere was as good as i've seen it in several years for sure um it you definitely felt the energy in the stadium you could definitely tell i mean it was noticeable right away when i got into the stadium that ecs was
back to being overflowing, which is just great to see. And I thought that people outside of ECS were a little more willing to... to make noise than they have been like the last few years, man, especially last year.
people were barely paying attention to the games a lot of the time like there were tons of side conversations going on people sitting and standing sessions having you know chatting not really paying attention to stuff and like who can blame them to some extent you know but there wasn't any of that in this game people were super engaged and um it felt it felt really good and hopefully they can keep that momentum up
Because I think that would go a long way towards making that feel like a can't miss experience again. And it hasn't felt like that in several years. Yeah. I think that does speak to the ability.
of the Sounders play to sort of raise the atmosphere, which has been one of the problems at Sounders games lately is that the atmosphere has taken a noticeable... dip and that has a you know that has a cyclical impact on things that are going on around the team i think in terms of the energy and whatnot so you know hopefully i would say that
It ticked a lot of boxes. I guess that's what I'm saying. I thought this game ticked a lot of boxes. It was a frustrating game not to get the result that they wanted, but I don't know. I'm just not... Like I said, I understand the frustrations. I was pissed off. I'm sitting there tossing and turning in bed. But I'm also trying to be a little bit more analytical about it.
And I think there was a lot of good things that happened in that game. And of course, if they win, if they look good on more than if they win, I think if they look good against Antigua on Wednesday, that sets them up really well for the weekend. RSL looks like they might be bad. Who knows? Maybe the Sounders can actually end this. God, they have not won in regulation.
in rsl since 2011 that's pretty that's pretty crazy that is and that was i mean and that was the first time they'd ever won there right So they've won in 2011. They won that game. It was like a driving rainstorm. Then they won in 2012 in the playoffs. And then they won an Open Cup game there in a shootout. Those are the only three times that they've gotten, you know, that they kind of come out with the win. Yeah, pretty crazy. Seems like time, you know?
yeah i think it is and you know why not why not why not and i think if they win the if they win the if they can win on saturday that probably does a lot to take away the bad taste from the tie this week. Yeah, I think so. By the way, RSL got absolutely boat raced at San Jose in the season opener. They, I don't know, this is...
not a team that looks particularly good. They also have a midweek game against Eridiano in CONCACAF champions cup. That game is, so they'll be playing on short rest, just like the Sounders, albeit both games are going to be at home. So that's a little bit of an advantage, but.
I don't know. This is this feels like the Sounders. There's no reason this has to snowball, I guess is what I'm I'm saying. Yeah, I'm with you, man. I don't I hope I didn't come off as being too negative or to do Cassidy and.
in the opening because I do I think this is a really good team and you know I think this RSL team is definitely beatable I mean anytime you play at RSL I don't care how bad they are I feel fine with the point uh and I feel pretty good about you know about them going up against LAFC uh at home I think that LAFC is a
I mean, that's who you've got to measure yourself against to some degree. It doesn't look like it's going to be the galaxy this year. So yeah, that was, you know, I think if you want to talk about bad results in the season opener.
losing at home to an expansion team pretty pretty rough yeah pretty rough yeah especially when you get outplayed on top of that like it wasn't like san diego stole one san diego was the better team in that in that game yeah absolutely so yeah i mean the west looks reasonably well open um but i don't know i i think i'm i think i'm feeling pretty good we'll see you know we'll see
You can obviously wipe this smile off my face pretty quickly if things start to snowball, but it doesn't feel that that's where we're going. It doesn't. This felt much more like the. annoying results that they have had every season that they've been good they have results like this and it felt a lot more like that than you know the rsl game last year or something like that
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I guess that's a good place to call it. Aaron, it was good to actually do a real show with you. We haven't done this in. Yeah, it's been a while. I don't know that we've done a regular show since they were eliminated from the playoffs.
yeah i think we did a season recap and that that was like a season recap and we did uh you know we did some shows together but we haven't done like a proper i mean i guess that makes sense yeah i guess that makes sense but anyway but it's still nice to do one do it do it again you know Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I guess with all that, thank you to everyone for hanging out and listening. As you have probably picked up by now, we have sort of re...
Jigger, the stream of shows that we have coming out. We've been doing a Friday show with Nico Moreno. We are doing our mailbag show still pretty regularly. I'm going to be doing every few weeks, getting together with Matt Doyle, talking about the Western Conference. Of course, other stuff going on in the center of our podcast network, Lobbing Scorchers is firing off.
episodes, live shows, live YouTube shows all over the place. So lots of stuff in the podcast content world that you can dig into. But Aaron, thank you so much again for doing this. Thank you to Lick It for producing it. Thank you to Full Pool Wines for being our sponsor once again going into 2025. I am Jeremiah Oshan. This is No Sarietes, part of the Sounder Heart Podcast Network. You'll never yet alone.