Mailbag: Was this year a step forward or step back?

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They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest. Welcome to another episode of Nos Adiates, part of the Sounder at Heart podcast network. sponsored by Full Pool Wines, Hacks and Ferments, and our subscribers. We're recording on Wednesday, October 8th. I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan. Today, I am again joined by my co-host, Aaron Campo, and our engineer, Lickett.

Well, welcome back, Aaron. We're going to be doing a mailbag today in the second half, but before that, what did you think of the Timbers game? You got to sit in the stands. Yeah, a lot of fun. I was in the Bromend in Upper 122, which was cool. I haven't been down there in a bit. And yeah, it was a good time. All those games are nightmare slogs that are exactly like that. So I wasn't too privy to the discourse around the game, but I feel like anytime you can win.

in in the portland rivalry you're doing okay and you know first one since 2017 right so how how can you be upset about that yeah uh that that streak was unbelievable frankly it was hard to wrap my mind around and it feels like a significant burden was lifted that we just don't have to talk about that streak anymore because it does start to be one of those things where it's

It takes on a life of itself. And I think back to a couple years ago when they were up 2-0 at halftime, and it seemed like they were just rolling to the victory, and then... Leo Chu gets sent off and all of a sudden they have to settle for a 2-2 tie. Then last year, I believe they took a 1-0 lead, but then...

They seem to be dominating the game, and then Obed Vargas gets sent off for the dumbest red card I've ever seen, frankly. Yeah. And this year, they score relatively early, and you're thinking... maybe this is the easy one. And it just never, it never was. They made it as interesting as they possibly could. I think they were the better team.

Really from beginning to end, there was maybe a brief stretch there where they had to hold on a little bit, but they were, I think they were the better team, but they had multiple opportunities to put the game away and they just refused to do it. They did, yeah. And I mean, to their credit, Portland's a good defensive team. Feels crazy to say that, but it is true. They made the Sounders work for it, but they did have opportunities that I would have loved to see them take advantage of.

It never did really feel like Portland was too threatening. And maybe there were chances that just didn't seem threatening from where I was sitting. I don't know. That's always the thing with sitting in the stands is.

You don't have a great sense sometimes of what's actually happening. But to me, it didn't really feel like they had a ton of great chances. So it didn't feel comfortable necessarily. But it also definitely felt like the Sounders were in control and it felt a lot more likely that they were going to score second than the Timbers were going to score first. So, you know, that's always.

You'd love it to be the easy one, like you said. You'd love to see the Sounders stomp the timbers into mud. But it's very rare that it happens. I think in the history, in the last level, the Sounders have won. at home by more than one goal like once i think um once or twice yeah it's not it's not a common occurrence i i feel like they only have won by three goals once yeah and that was like the year that

I think that was 2012 when when Gavin was the coach, right? No, it was after he'd been fired. They were so bad. That was like, or no, Gavin was the coach. You're right. You're right. Gavin was the coach because he had replaced whoever the first coach was. John Spencer, right? That was his name? Oh, yeah. John Spencer. Yeah. Good.

And yeah, that was the only year that I think they've won by three goals at home. Now they've won by three goals a couple of times in Portland for whatever, you know, somehow, but they, they, and they've scored a bunch of goals in Portland. They scored a lot more goals in Portland. I believe that they've scored.

in Seattle in the history of the rivalry, which is crazy to think about. But yeah, this was a game where the Sounders, you know, like I said, they look like the better team. The XG on this game was about the Sounders basically doubled.

Portland's XG, you know, 1.2 to 0.6 roughly is how it came out, depending on where you look. But the two biggest chances, I thought, or maybe even three biggest chances that they had to... to add a goal they didn't even get a shot off uh and unfortunately danny masofsky was in the middle of a lot of those. The most egregious was a ball in the 75th minute or so where Christian Roldan plays it in.

Mussovsky does this really impressive job of sort of shielding his defender and then turning. And he seems to be looking right at Paul Rothrock, who has nothing but space in front of him inside the box. But instead of just laying it off, he decides to take a touch. It's a horrible touch, and he loses the ball. And then late in the game, the Sounders have gone down a man.

which they seem to just love doing. And especially against the Timbers, which we'll talk about that a little bit too, but they go down a man and Danny Leyva plays this. gorgeous ball into Mussovsky. He breaks in on goal and he just takes forever to shoot. And Diego Chara comes in from behind and makes this amazing tackle. Just kind of a, you know, and then the center says,

Turned out they didn't really have to withstand too much pressure when they were down a man. They only had to play for a minute or two down a man. But the funniest thing was Phil Neville absolutely losing his mind. After the final whistle, apparently he wanted like four minutes of stoppage time, which four additional minutes of stoppage time, I should say. I will just note that when Albert Rusnak gets the red card.

It's the 94th minute. That means they have about a minute left to play. And it took two and a half minutes or whatever to review it. And they ended up adding on about a minute and a half to the end of the game. They got plenty of time. There was no question that they got. And they had not had, I mean, they had one shot after the 85th minute. Like, it's not like they were busting down the door.

I think, in fact, the Sounders had the best chance after Rosnack got sent off to score, if I remember correctly. Well, that was the Mussofsky, yeah. That was easily the best chance. Yeah, so very funny, but also very on-brand for Phil Neville. to behave that way, I think they just Geo Sabarese was, I thought, generally.

you know, pretty likable or at least neutral guy, but every other coach they have had has been so easy to despise. So it's, it's nice of them, you know, to commit to the bit. Um, but yeah, I, uh,

I think that it's just really hard for me to take anything away from this game other than, man, I'm really glad that we finally won in this thing at home. Obviously, I would like to see the Sounders get back to scoring three goals a game. We haven't seen them be that dangerous in a little while. And if they're going to get through the playoffs, that's what they're going to have to do it that way, I think. It does seem that way, yeah. Yeah.

And so obviously that would have been great, you know, if they had been able to do that. But, you know, this rivalry just isn't the place where that's likely to happen necessarily. We're either going to it's going to be a shootout or. More frequently, it's going to be a game like this one where it's low scoring, intense and defensive and nobody wanting to make a mistake. So, yeah, it was not the most exciting game on the merits of it, but.

the the end result i think justified how much of a slog it kind of felt like at times yeah uh i would say if there's a thing to take away from it and i don't know how much i would take away from it is this did this and the in the whitecaps game to me had the energy of a playoff game. And so in the sense that I think we've seen the sound, like I up the first three games after the league's cup break, I think there was some intensity.

deficit that they had to make up. And in these last two games, I think they showed that they can still do that. I think, you know, like the most encouraging thing may have been that Christian Roldan looked. Great. I think there were starting to be some questions as to whether or not he just has emptied the tank and is sort of running on fumes at this point. And I think the Portland game showed like, no, he's perfectly capable of still being an elite.

defensive midfielder. And, you know, he's never going to be Ozzie Alonzo in his defensive play, but he does so much else. that sort of he can make up for it in other ways. And he had a couple of great passes in this game. Jesus Ferreira, I thought, looked really good. There were bright spots in individual performances, I thought.

If there's a concern I have coming out of it, though, it is like what you said. It's that the offense doesn't seem to be quite clicking the way that it was. Jordan, they struggled to get Jordan the ball. in dangerous areas you know i wish jordan had been able to get some of the chances that that masofsky got but you know masofsky to his credit this is what he does he gets himself he seems to always find himself in dangerous areas and and so it's like

maybe that maybe Jordan wouldn't have, you know, maybe we're not, we're not giving enough credit to Masovsky to, to helping, to putting himself in positions to, to be in, you know, dangerous scoring opportunities. And. Sometimes he doesn't score them all, but that's the trade-off, I guess. Yeah, I do think that this was a performance with Mussovsky where you understand why Jordan is...

first choice when he's healthy, even with the goal scoring numbers Danny has put up because the Rothrock chance is a great example of just like Jordan is not being he's not going to be selfish there. He's making that pass. Right. And Danny either doesn't see it or doesn't feel confident in his ability to to pull off that pass or whatever it is. But he is exceptionally good at finding those dangerous spots and he's not going to finish them every time. But.

he finishes about as often as you would expect him to. Unfortunately, he didn't finish one of them, you know, in this game, which would have made the end of it a little bit easier to deal with. Yeah, I definitely after Jordan left the game, even though he wasn't getting a ton of chances, he wasn't super duper involved. You could just kind of see the impact he had that to the non goal scoring.

aspects of the game um that that danny just doesn't bring yeah the the other downside for this game was that they frankly they lost a couple players uh albert rusnak is going to be is out for this week That's a big, and both of them are pretty big losses because they are short in both the defensive midfield and in defense against RSL. And then they also lost Kim Kihee at halftime to a calf strain. Unclear still.

how serious that is, but he's not going to be playing against RSL. Let's talk a little bit though about the Rusnak challenge. I have two, two, I'm of two minds on it. On one, I appreciate the hustle. He had first, he had gone down the field challenging for the ball. I think maybe not his place to do it though. He probably should have hung back. Georgie Manungu was also up there.

That put the Sounders at a numbers disadvantage. And I think Albert knew that, which is why he's running to get back. And then he makes a tackle that he just doesn't really have to make. If he does not...

go into that tackle, nothing bad is probably going to happen. I appreciate the mindset of wanting to break it up. I appreciate him wanting to win that ball back. But it's a tackle from behind. He does not... execute it very well and it's a deserved red card and so on on one hand i'm annoyed with him for doing making some mistakes on it but on the other at least

I kind of appreciate the effort, and according to Schmetzer, this was his highest physical output game of the season, which kind of makes sense. He was playing as an 8 as opposed to a 10, so there was more opportunity. it does show that he sort of stepped up and maybe his most, apparently it was maybe his most, uh, his highest physical output ever. Uh, but yeah, it was so in, in that way, it's like, I don't want to beat up on them too badly, but it was a really dumb challenge.

It was there. There wasn't any need for it. It was definitely now. Obviously, Albert Rosnack is not a forward, but that is the kind of challenge you would call forward challenge, right? Like there's obviously no intent, but it's just clumsy.

It's just a really bad challenge to make. I just feel like he's a guy that needs to know better than to make that challenge in that situation. You know, on the one hand, neither of the games left in the regular season matter all that much. The Sounders are almost certainly going to finish fifth. I just, you know, whatever. He gets a week off.

Not the not the end of the world. But at the same time, I don't think you want to go into the playoffs on a down note. Like, it'd be really nice if you go into the playoffs winning your last three games. And yeah. you know feeling and and that's it's gonna and especially because they've been so good at home this year uh and they're probably only going to get one more home game in the playoffs like um

Going in and feeling like you can make the most out of that game is, you know. Now, the other side of the coin is that the Sounders are going to be very well aware of how shorthanded they are against RSL. And so... it's probably not going to destroy their confidence if they don't get a win in that game. But still, you'd much, much rather get the win.

going to playoffs on a high note. Obviously, they still have the one road game left, but still. Yeah, it'd be really nice to end the regular season on a win at home. So, yeah. Interestingly, they don't have any way, I don't believe, of catching last year's point total. Correct. Because they had 55 points last year? 54 last year.

Yeah. And I was going to say, it'd be nice if they could pass that. If they won their last year, don't they on 49? They're on 49. They had, what did they have last year? They had. Oh yeah. That's what I say. Like 57 last year. Sorry.

oh they had 57 last year oh yeah yeah yeah yeah they're gonna definitely fall short yeah and uh you know it'd be it would be nice to to match that total i think but uh there's a question about this in in the in the question section so i won't okay so maybe we'll get into that but it is interesting that the the narrative of the two seasons um how how different they've been and the reality is the last season you know the regular season at least was was better but uh

It does. Yeah, it's interesting the way it's played out. I would agree with that. I mean, I feel like this season has felt more successful than maybe the numbers suggest, mainly because of the. Leagues Cup run, which was a legitimate highlight. Even if we don't think the Leagues Cup is the biggest deal, those were games that they played that were a lot of fun. brought a lot of positive emotion, I think, to everything. LAFC, by the way, is beating Toronto, is going to win today.

They will officially jump into third place. So as of now, the Sounders are likely going to be playing Minnesota United. I would say it's almost definite that they're going to play Minnesota United in the first round. So, yeah.

It seems, it seems to be the way it's trending for sure. Yeah. Which, well, we have a question on that too. So I won't, uh, so maybe we should just, you know, maybe that's a good place maybe to call this a segment. We'll come back. We have a lot of questions from you. Not a lot. I'm sorry. We have some questions from you. And we'll do that. All right. You're listening to No Sarietas.

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September mailbag in okay we're running a little behind on these things uh but I just say we just say that this is october at some point in the past we we missed a month and we're sorry oh we're going forward good call yeah yeah yeah yeah so the next time we're doing it we're doing a good job we're just gonna say the next one we're gonna do is in november

We'll just call it like that. Maybe early November, probably. And I'll just remind everyone, we take these questions from our discord. The discord is where all the cool sounder at heart people hang out. If you'd like to get into the discord. It's pretty easy. All you got to do is become a supporter or above and then send us an email.

and we'll get you added. It is a manual process. I know a lot of people are caught off guard by that. Nothing is automated about this, unfortunately. But yeah, upgrade your membership. Send us an email. We'll confirm it. And then we'll send you an invite and bada-bing, bada-boom, all of a sudden you are one of the coolest people in the whole of Sounders land. So there you go. All right, Aaron, do we want to just jump into this?

Let's jump in. First one is from Ken W. Everyone is healthy enough to start when we know this is a hypothetical. If that's what we're starting off. Who is your ideal starting 11 versus Minnesota United or LAFC? But as we discussed, probably Minnesota United. Yeah. Well, you know, I wasn't really, that's, I, I didn't actually. This is a good phrasing of it. So my best 11, independent of who the Sounders are facing, if I want to put out the Sounders' best group, I think it's...

It's probably Fry is my goalkeeper, even though I'm not. Yeah, I'll go with Fry. New Who, Reagan, Yamar, Alex Roldan, Obed. And Christian. And then Pedro, Rusnak, and Ferreira, and Morris. I think there is some... My suspicion is that the areas for debate will be...

Ferreira versus Rothrock, which I think is a perfectly legit debate. Or maybe Ferreira versus De La Vega. I don't know. And then Reed Baker Whiting, maybe for Nuhu. And Thomas for Frye. Where do you fall, though? How does this differ from you? I think I'm with you, except I would start Reid over Nuhu, I think. But I think otherwise we're in agreement. I think you can make a case for Thomas. I might be, especially in...

The playoffs where penalties might be a factor, but that just doesn't even seem to be remotely in the realm of possibility to me. the tiebreaker in this case would be uh reality i suppose so um yeah but i i think uh and i you know i think some people would make a case for for rothrock as well and i think that's fair enough but

For me, it's it's Jesus and Pedro for sure are the better options. Yeah, it's funny. I don't know that we've seen maybe one game with that lineup. I'm not sure we've actually seen any games with that lineup, which is. I guess I could look right now. I have this somewhere. But, yeah, I don't think we've seen it. Because we came close to seeing it against Portland, but... Of course, both both Yamar and and Vargas were out. And then. Yeah, I don't think we've seen this lineup at all.

You have not. Yeah, which says a lot, I think. It does. Would you be at all tempted, though, to play a different formation, especially in Minnesota? Or do you think... that's just overthinking it and you play your best group. And then if you have to change it up later on, you'd change it up later on. I, I think in the first game you go in and play your best group. And I think the, the bigger question for me is.

What are the Sounders in playoff mode look like versus what the Sounders have looked like for most of the season? Is it the same approach, you know, as we've kind of gotten used to seeing, which is a lot more attacking, I think, than they have been in the past? Or do we see vintage Brian Schmetzer playoffs soccer? And so that'll be really interesting to see. But I think you go into the first game and do whatever you feel like you need to do.

and whatever you want to do in a perfect world right you don't you don't overthink it in the first game and then you use that first game to inform what you do in in the the next uh away game if there is one you know so um that's that's how i'd approach it um i just i think that you want to try to you don't want the opposition to dictate too much i think if you can avoid it unless they are clearly a much much better team um

Right. So the formation, I wouldn't change too much. But I do think you have to be aware of what Minnesota is going to try to do and try to counteract that tactically to some extent. You can't be naive and just feel like you're going to be able to fully. you know and force your will onto the game um we have enough experience playing this minnesota team to know what they do and uh

A lot of what we've done in the past has not worked to counteract it. So I do think you have to make some adjustments, but I wouldn't change things wholesale. Yeah. And I think if you get late in the game and you're looking for a goal, I could see maybe. putting Masovsky up top with Morris or even De Rosario and Masovsky, depending on how that goes. And maybe you drop Rusnak back a line.

I suppose maybe you take off Obed in that situation. I don't actually know. That's what makes it tough. Okay, you can drop Albert back a line, but then does that really make you better if you're taking off Obed? I don't know if it does. I don't think it does. I think Obed has been one of the most consistent players on the team.

You know, you're doing that because either I would assume either to get Musavski into the game or to play Pedro or Ferreira at the 10 and then get Rothrock into the game would be my guess. And I just I don't know that. musovsky or rothrock are enough to justify city no bed i would say right yeah i would agree with you there all right uh this is from

Veritatum7, I think that's right. Nobody wants to face LAFC attacking tandem in the best of three round, which makes sense. But are there any good arguments for wanting them in the first round where we at least get a home match? And selfishly, I want to see Sun. rather than in the later rounds? Nope. Not as far as I'm concerned. They're the best team in the West and arguably, I think, in MLS right now.

I think you want to play them as few minutes as possible. I would agree with you there. And I'll, you know, and I think there was some reason to be like, to the degree that there was doubt about. them it was mainly that they were so so reliant seemingly on Sun and Bwonga during this eight game stretch or whatever they've just been going crazy well

Granted, it's against Toronto FC, but it's against the Toronto FC that's been playing better. They were missing both of those players tonight. And LAFC won 2-0, which is understating how dominant they were. They had... 3.09 expected goals to Toronto's 0.6. This is a dominant, dominant performance. And that should, you know, I think that's going to do a lot to quiet any concerns that this team is maybe.

overly reliant on maybe the two best players, two most, uh, you know, dynamic attackers in the league. Yeah. Which is, is bad news because those guys are probably going to, for sure. For everyone.

those guys are probably going to deliver. So it sucks that on the off chance that they don't, um, there's, there's still good, you know, that's, that's a problem. Yeah. Uh, all right. Next one is from Derek R.

We are going to have to play most of the playoffs on the road. How are you feeling about the team's ability to win those road games? They've gone four wins, four draws, and eight losses in 16 road games, and their one even points per game on the road is tied for ninth in the West and 19th overall.

The only playoff team with the worst road record is RSL or Colorado if they take the spot. There are three things that give me some hope. We are better than our road record suggests. We have the third best road to XGD. per 90 in the league and are one of only six teams with a positive road xgd we are noticeably underperforming our xg for and against on the road 18 goals scored versus 23.8 xg and 27 goals allowed versus 21.7 xg

We've averaged 4.2 lineup changes per road game this year compared to 3.1 per home game. With no fixture congestion during the playoffs, there should be a more consistent lineup. Thank you, Derek R for including all that detail. That's yeah. Cause that kind of, I mean, I think to the degree that that question that he, he kind of answered his own question there, which I appreciate. I think so.

And I think I don't know that I have a lot to add other than I think there is reason to be. If the Sounders had a bunch of home games, I'd feel a lot better about their chances. But like Derek R. illustrates. It's not like they're so bad away from home. Their record isn't good, but they've actually been pretty competitive on the road. And there's a few results in there that you can say they should have had better results in. And the Austin one being a good example.

The Minnesota game was another good example. The Atlanta game was another good example. You can kind of go down the list and you could have found probably three or four wins and you add three or four wins to their. total and all of a sudden it doesn't look so bad uh but yeah i'd feel a lot better if they had if they finished hiring the table and had more home games but doesn't look like their only home game most likely will be the first round game that they host

Yeah. Yeah. Barring some kind of miracle somewhere else. You know, maybe maybe Portland knocks off. LAFC or something, you know, or I guess they play San Diego. Probably not. Yeah.

Well, who knows? All right. I'm going to jump ahead because I have a feeling you... Probably don't want to answer these ones. Spaceman Spliff, with our DP spots all filled for the foreseeable future, how and when do we expect to see the Sounders spend the bags of cash they earned from League's Cup and the Club World Cup to improve their team?

I mean, I don't know. They could sign a U-22. I think they probably will. They seem like they got pretty close over the summer and just couldn't land it. But I think, you know, they'll probably do that. They might pay a transfer fee for Obed's replacement, maybe. They might pay transfer fees for defiance, which I think they can use that prize money for. I mean, certainly that's money that they're allowed to use.

to spend on the defiance for sure. And they might do that. I've actually talked to some people in the talent acquisition department who think that that's one area that they could, you know, if they're trying to alter sort of the, the paradigm, so to speak of. of their system. It's why don't we spend some money and bring someone into defiance and take some higher upside chances there.

right yeah so that's an option um maybe they you know spend some of it on the academy um there's all sorts of stuff they can do to spend that money And maybe they put it in a high-yield savings account until they're ready to buy a DP, right? I don't think there's necessarily a time frame on when these dollars have to be spent. No, there's definitely not.

Yeah. And, you know, they do like the gam that they have, they have to buy from the league. Like they get the gam cap space, but they have to spend real dollars on salaries. So, yeah, I mean, there's tons of stuff that they can and probably already are spending on. But I think when people ask this question, they're talking about transfer fees. They are. And I think that's reasonable. Yeah, for sure.

I guess the thing I will always say is there are two things can be true. One is that I too want a shiny player to get excited about. But I do think we also have to be realistic in that we have to look at the players the Sounders have who are designated players. And, you know, I realize Jordan has not been healthy, so maybe that's not the best example.

Pedro De La Vega, I feel like, has given me enough this year. I'm not saying that's the best use of a DP spot, but when he is playing, he plays like a DP. He is producing. He has been producing for a few months now, like a DP. He scored a great goal in the Timbers game, which we didn't even talk about, which is kind of funny. But he... And then Albert Rusnak, to me, you just can't ask for more from a DP than what Albert Rusnak is giving in terms of this is what you expect from a DP.

So I'm not really itching to get rid of any of the Sounders DPs to make room for one, which I realize Spliff is not arguing for here. I'm just saying in general, I'm just not that. I guess what I'm saying is. I'm okay right now with their DP situation. Come back and check in with me in a year from now if I still feel early in six months from now. But right now I feel okay with it. And yeah, there are other ways I can spend the money.

Yeah, for sure. And I expect them to like I I know people are tired of hearing that, but I do think. I am a lot more convinced now than I was this time last year that they do actually want to actively spend money on a U-22. I really do think that they do. I just think that those deals are tough because they have their... constraints that they they put on themselves organizationally that makes them tough to get over the line. But I do think that they will do that probably pretty soon.

Next one is from Andrew. Assuming that JP and Obed are both gone by next summer at the latest, what is the plan for Christian's partner? Internal promotion, position switch, MLS free agent, signing from outside the league? So I think my hope. is there are two really good candidates on the roster right now to me to pair with Christian. One of them is Snyder Brunel, who I think is going to get plenty of minutes next year. And I realized that Danny Leyva has sort of...

graduated to more of a backup 10, but I don't see any reason that he can't like next year. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't drop him back and give him a chance to be the starter next to. Christian Rodon, assuming Obed has left. I like that option. I think I like that option better than a lot of external options that they would potentially have. I think that Leyva is a good candidate.

to partner with Christian because Christian is going to do a lot of the dirty work that Leyva doesn't necessarily need to do. And I think, you know, he's potentially a really good partner for Christian. We have not seen them play together almost at all.

So I would be interested in seeing that. I'd actually be kind of bummed if they go out and sign sort of like a MLS journeyman to sort of take those minutes. Now, if they go out and sign a, you know, like a TAM level player to partner with Christian, great. But I kind of and I suppose maybe that's a that's one like they don't have a whole lot of spots on the roster that they need to spend on. So maybe that would be a good one to spend on. But yeah, I think that would be.

I think it's reasonable to think they have some internal options, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah, I really like Danny, and my preference would be they go into the season with him as the presumed starter, and if he's not... Delivering, you've got the summer transfer window to make something happen. But I would like to say, I think he's done a lot to earn playing time this year. I have a much different opinion on his future prospects now than I did.

coming into the season. He's really impressed me when he's had minutes this year. And he's just got really good players ahead of him on the depth chart. And I think there's a chance Snyder Brunel could... could make a push as well. He's been he's been good. He's been really good as well. Maybe they could do a platoon kind of thing there. And then, you know, give yourself the option in the summer to.

improve that spot if you're not getting what you need but i i do i love the idea of having another homegrown in that spot um and i'm going to make a suggestion now we've got three defiance questions you just want to do those i'll ask them for you rapid fire sure get to our last question yeah all right

So the first one is from our friend Dave. Who would you like to see as the next coach of Defiance? Mike Morris is the guy who took over for Airway DSA at midseason. He didn't end up... getting to coach a whole bunch of games because he was part of the U20, the USA U20 coaching staff. So he went to the world cup and, and as a result, Wade Weber ended up coaching most of the last few games of the season.

But I think Mike Morris is a great candidate. He's been with the club for a really long time. He's done all the work that he was a candidate for the last time they had this opening. I think he's a great candidate. I think he's... pretty easy hire to me. Who knows? I thought he would get hired. Honestly, I thought he was going to get hired last time. I thought DS, it was an interesting hire. I liked him. It didn't work out obviously, but I don't think that means it was a bad hire necessarily.

But yeah, I hope it's Mike Morris. Nice. All right. Next one's from Derek R. We've signed quite a few players from the Defiance of the first team over the past couple of years. Have we bled them dry or can we expect them to keep or can we expect to keep getting solid contributors? that aren't from our academy, like KKR, Darrow, and Georgie. So, I don't know how many players...

we can expect that are not from the academy. But I do think, you know, Sebastian Gomez came from the academy. I think he is going to get a long look at a first team roster spot. Yusuke Nome is not from the academy. He's maybe the best candidate for the type of player that Derek is talking about. You just set the defiance record for...

goals in both an MLS Next Pro season and overall. He scored 21 goals. He had five assists. Really an amazing season. In fact, it's an organization-wide record for goals in a season. It tops. the 19 that Obafemi Martins had in 2014. That said, I don't know exactly how he's going to translate to MLS. He is sort of like... a Dempsey-esque type of midfielder forward. He's not necessarily a 9. He's not really a 10.

Maybe like a Freddie Montero type where he sits beneath the striker. This is his first really productive season. This is actually only his second professional season at 24 years old. So he's a little bit of a late bloomer. But he's an interesting player. He can play out on the wing. He definitely has a knack around goal. He's got good vision.

I don't know how he translates to MLS, but I think you have a season like he had and you almost have to sign him because it's like if you have a season like that and the team doesn't sign you, what is that? You know, what kind of message is that sending? So I feel like he's probably going to get a shot.

And then other players who might get a call, Peter Kingston is someone that I know the Sounders have liked, that people in the organization like. He is technically a former Academy player. His path to... Defiance is a little bit more circuitous. He played for both UW and Seattle U. He played for Ballard FC for a bunch of years.

And he's also playing his first professional season, I think, at 23. So a little different path. I like him, though. I think he has some potential. He plays a few different positions. But those are probably the three players who I think... have the most, that are most likely to jump to the Sounders. But yeah, the Sounders did kind of bleed the team dry a little bit in the last couple years. Yeah, but hey, you know what? I'm not complaining about that. That's what they're for, right?

Last defiance question from ATNSG2000. Do Defiancer Academy players lift, do rehab, eat, etc. with the first team, or is there more separation inside the facility? Motivated by news that Man United evicted... a few youth teams from the current facility and claimed it was an earn your spot move. So my understanding is that they have kind of created a earn your spot type of environment in.

at long acres. There are separate, there are definitely separate facilities for the first team and for the academy and defiance. They actually train on different fields and the centers train on, they don't train on.

I don't know if they ever actually train on the grass fields. I think they train almost exclusively on the two turf fields that are on the outskirts of the training area. They have their own weight room, which is... nice but not nearly as nice as the sounders weight room they have their own physio space which is nice but again not as nice as the

sounders physio space they have lockers which are nice but you know there's a theme here not quite as nice as the sounders so there is sort of this idea of even though you're in the same building Even though you will train with the first team from now and then, you are definitely not a first team player at this time. You're not being treated like a first team player. I assume the meals are probably the same, but...

They have definitely – that was something that they at least said that they were very purposeful about. Maybe it was – maybe that's a little convenient. They probably saved a lot of money by not having them the same quality of facilities. But they definitely wanted to keep them separated. I know that there were some concerns about having a whole bunch of kids mixing with a whole bunch of adults. And so there was some purposefulness there.

And yeah, it is it is kind of a an earn your stripes type of situation. So that I guess in that sense, it's good. Maybe it depends on your perspective. I've definitely heard some people express some frustration over this that they feel like the Academy players should be. elevated more. But I think it makes sense to me. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I definitely think there's probably some value in having like...

more active role modeling from the senior players, but I do, I think it's, it's gotta be a balance, right? And I'm sure there are opportunities for that. Yeah, exactly.

All right, well, we're going to close it out with a question from Josh. He says, aside from 2022's finish, for obvious reasons, the Sounders have never closed the season below seventh in the supporter shield and with Smetcher never below fourth in the West and usually second. This year, they'll probably... finish right around where they are right now. 14th and 5th in the West. 14th overall and 5th in the West. The Sounders used to be the used to

be the bar against which other teams are measured themselves. And in many ways, they still are, and yet they are languishing in mid-table. How do you process the state of affairs in a year in which they've lost just one game at home, won a cup final? and are playing exciting attacking soccer. Yeah, I mean, it is interesting to contrast things with how people felt.

Even at this stage of last season, when the Sounders had been playing pretty good soccer and winning a lot of games, but I think the vibes were still pretty rancid, really, until they beat LAFC in the playoffs. There was a lot of consternation about the state of the team. And a lot of that, I think, was the style of play. A lot of it was how bad the first part of the season had been. But ultimately, I do think there's something to the Sounders.

being more fun to watch the season um scoring more goals i think people are excited to see that um pedro coming good has i think been a huge part of it ferreira after kind of a slow start showing himself to be a really, really good player and becoming a key piece has, has been a big part of it. So that, that all helps. Right. But I think when you look at the injuries they've had this season.

And you look at what they have been able to accomplish in spite of that. Jordan Morris has barely played. They've missed every other key player for notable portions of time. Many of them at the same time. And, you know, yeah, they're going to finish fifth. That's a little disappointing, but they did win the League's Cup. And I think they are better than your typical fifth place team in the Western Conference. I think that that fifth.

They they've earned it. You know, they the games at the beginning of the season still count. But I think that they are a lot closer to, you know, a team like probably not LAFC, but a team like San Diego. than a team like Portland, you know, at the end of the day. And so, yeah, I mean, this is a team that even though they have typically finished higher in the table than they are finishing this year.

Yeah, in summary, it is kind of weird that the vibes seem so much better this season than they did last season and in past seasons.

given where they are on the table. But I think people understand how difficult it has been with some of the absences they've had. And winning a cup is always going to help smooth things over. Yeah, I'll just sort of... echo a lot of that it is funny to look back at last season and you know they finished the season 5-0-2 they didn't lose any of their last seven games in the regular season and then they

They beat the Dynamo in two back-to-back shootouts in the playoffs. And I think maybe what was coloring the dour mood around the team. was this sort of inevitable matchup with LAFC that we were all dreading. And last year, they had lost three times. to LAFC four times to LAFC. They'd been eliminated from two separate tournaments by LAFC and they had not beaten them in something like 10 games. And it just felt so...

like inevitable that they were going to lose again to LAFC. And I think that was, you know, and, and so basically what to remind people of what happened last year is they lost to them in the leagues cup. Two games later, they lose to them in the Open Cup at home at Starfire, a place where they're supposed to never lose. And then they followed that up by losing on the road to the Timbers.

So the mood around the team was just so bad. The fact that they went on a seven game unbeaten run was almost like secondary because of, you know, and they, they went into the playoffs, like kind of on a high in some way in some. But this year, their last seven games are going to end up being a much worse record than they had last year. But there's this sense of...

They've shown you already that they can win big games and big moments. And I don't know if they will get past Minnesota. Minnesota's beaten them twice this year. But I'm just not... At this point, I'm not that worried about Minnesota. Maybe they don't get past them, but I feel like they can. And LAFC potentially is two rounds away from them. If they get to a conference final against LAFC, I will consider this a very successful season. Yeah.

You know, if they can get over 50 points this year, I think I'll be satisfied that as a regular season, it's been a much more fun regular season. Like you said, just because of all the goals scoring, they've been really good at home. I don't have a lot of complaints right now.

No, and I think too, last year, there was a lot of uncertainty about what the team was going to look like in the future. Yes, I think that was another thing. Raul was still getting minutes, and we didn't know that Jordan was going to be a DP. Pedro looked like he may well be a bust. And I think now they look pretty well set up for the future. They definitely have some key guys that are aging, but Jesus Ferreira is young. Pedro de la Vega is young. Jordan Morris still has a couple.

years left where you expect him to be at this level christian rolled on same same deal um obviously you know obed's not going to be around that much longer. Gaymar is getting up there. It's not like everything is all hunky dory and they're set up for the next decade. But I think there's a pretty clear sense of like what the team's identity is going to look like going forward and that they have something they can build on. And that certainly helps as well.

When I think beyond that, I think there's a comfort with the idea that we might know what the identity, the fact that they had such a successful offensive season, I think just raises the baseline. expectation like the baseline excitement around this team because I think part of what was so frustrating last the last two years really the two previous years is that for all their success it felt like there was this hard cap

on how good they could be because they were just not very exciting offensively. And, and so when they lost, it just felt so like it was, it was really like, there was hard to have fun unless they were winning.

Whereas the Sounders are at least entertaining even when they haven't been winning this year. So I think that changes things a little bit. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we'll see. All right. Well, that was a great question, Josh. I think we had some really actually good questions. Some people who helped us out a lot with adding a lot of context to their questions and making it more interesting.

Just as a reminder, if you want to get your questions answered on our show, get into the Discord. Frankly, every day you get your questions answered on the Discord. It's a lot of fun in there. I hang out there. Aaron hangs out there. Lickett hangs out there. A lot of Sounder at Heart people are in there just hanging out. If you want to get on, I'm just saying, become a supporter and...

Email us and we'll get you all hooked up. It'll be a great time. This is a huge part of what we're doing here. The Discord community has become a really important part of the Sound of Heart independence. And yeah. So thank you to their sponsors, Full Pull Wines and Hacks and Ferments. Thank you, of course, to our readers who are supporting us and making this work. I feel like right now, KXP is in the middle of a fun drive. Fun drive?

Is that right? Fundraising? Fundraising because they lost a bunch of... A pledge drive. Thank you. Because they lost all this. They were getting, I think, a million dollars a year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that just went away. And so they're out there asking people to support them.

great radio station. I support them. I hope everyone here does their part to support them. It's a great resource. But I am reminded that we are not in a situation like that where we are constantly having to beat people up to... to help us survive. We're also running a much lower... We have a much smaller operation than KXP does, though. So who knows? Maybe someday. I don't know where I'm going with this. But I want to say...

Thank you to everyone. I guess what I'm saying is it's a good reminder that having independent media is super important. And I feel really gratified and satisfied being part of it. can't thank you all enough for making this possible anyway uh let's get out of here i'm jeremiah shan signing off for aaron campbell and look at this is no study at this part of the sound of heart podcast network remember you'll never get alone Let's go Sounders.