This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounder supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest. Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounders legend.
Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart podcast network. Welcome back to another episode of Nos Adietes. I am Jeremiah Oshan, joined today by new friend of the show, longtime friend of the show, Matt Doyle, the armchair analyst. Welcome back. Matt.
New regular guest of the show, but yeah, longtime friend and supporter of the show. There we go. There we go. I like that. I think you captured that well. So we're going to try to do this regularly. This is the second time we've had you on, but we're going to do our...
best to to make this at least like a monthly feature where we sort of go through the western conference and come up with different ways to talk about it this time i thought here we are coming out of week one and i'm gonna call this
We're going to do it. Maybe this will be an ongoing bit. But today I wanted to play a little choose your own adventure with Matt. And so what we're going to do is we're going to run through the schedule of Western Conference games. And I'm going to give you two. Oh, clearly. overreacting storylines and we'll let you choose which one you want to get into and uh and then we can we can kind of dig it into it from there how's that sound that i'm always game for a bit you know that
Yeah, I figured you love bits. So this would be, you know, I had to make it worth your time. And I will say, I hope everyone goes and reads your column today on MLSsoccer.com. It is always some really fun insight into some of the finer points. I liked the videos you're doing.
how sad are we that you have to use twitter though to like make these videos blue sky needs to start making longer videos like allow us to do better videos i was able to get them on blue sky too so i was able to learn uh how to use handbrake which is pretty simple software to compress video files so they're all up on blue sky as well the problem is our CMS doesn't take blue sky embeds which is why they're still going out on Twitter
Which I would prefer not to use at this point in our decaying democratic world. But, you know, it is what it is. Yeah, well, that makes sense. I guess I'll now have to go back and find these. things i i missed him on blue sky but i i i did watch the videos and i i thought they were that they were well done so anyway fun to make man and they they weren't as hard
It's not as hard to learn the software as I thought it would be, especially for, you know, an old guy with a half century old brain that's probably mostly calcified. Like, all right, we'll figure that out. okay okay i like that all right well let's just start with uh i want to say i i like that mls is moving finally to this game of the week model where we are going to have a chance to as a
as a soccer nation, embrace a game every week and, and, you know, kind of treat it like it is like, like the big deal that it should be. And this week we got galaxy versus San Diego FC. And I guess the two narratives I'm going to let you decide to cook on is, did we underestimate how much the galaxy will miss Ricky Pooj, which I know is something you said they wouldn't do?
Or has Mikey Varys decoded MLS after one week? Let's take the galaxy one and kick on that because I actually am currently overreacting on that. Okay.
handed in my my power rankings um and i you know i had the galaxy i think fifth or sixth in the first power rankings because i i thought they would be able to compensate without ricky um i had him 16th in this week's power rankings because they just were not able to do anything in terms of um ball progression, finding Marco Reus between the lines, and then they weren't really able to effectively stretch the field.
either and like part of that was um you know mikey varis doing a really good job structurally setting that san diego team up a part of it was like oh man they really sucked at the things they were good at last year. And the biggest reason why was, was no Ricky Pooch. And it just made me feel like, Oh, they're going to.
kind of have to go back to the drawing board this week. They're going to have to do a lot of what they did in the last 15 minutes of the game when Elijah Winder came in for Lucas Sanabria, and he gave them, I think, more dynamism and sort of transitioning from possession to... attack and getting them to be a little bit more vertical with I think more aggressive positioning and off ball running and like I honestly feel that way after 90 minutes
Which might be an overreaction. Well, you know, I think one of the stats that jumped out to me was Marco Royce only had, I guess, one key pass. And 32 touches in 72 minutes. And you look at him as the player who you assume is going to kind of fill the Ricky Pooj role. And that's like. I don't know, a quarter of his per 90 touches per... That's a very different player. Whether or not 32 touches is enough in a vacuum, if he's the guy that needs to be Ricky Pooj, Ricky Pooj is getting 120 touches.
per 90 minutes, basically. That seems like it's a problem. I thought it was going to be split more between... uh the the two deeper lying defensive midfielders and i think greg vanney did too right because vanney was yelling this is as per weeby who was on the sideline and could hear all of this happening vanney spent the whole first hour yelling at sanabria
Sanabria, how you say the guy's name, for being too high, for not being in a position where he could get touches and help combo play with Edwin Cerio. And I think the feeling is if Sanabria had been... deeper like that more of a two one rather than the one two um that they would have been able to find royce in between the lines more so
It goes back to my overreaction, which was that Winder just did a much better job of that, both getting on the ball and then progressing the ball. And the reason why it probably is might be... could be an overreaction is like all that came in the tactics free zone over the final 20 minutes of the game when the galaxy were like uh you know what
We're throwing the kitchen sink and we got to go for it. But it was worrying, man. It was a worrying, like super sterile performance from a team that on paper has the pieces to make up for not having Ricky Pudge for most of the season. Yeah, they had one big chance in the game, and that was with Miguel Berry on the on the end of it. That does not seem to be, you know, even missing Joseph Paintsville. That was not.
I don't think anyone really expected them to be so feckless, really, in the attack. Honestly, good job to San Diego. because they were playing that super tight 4-3-3, and it almost reminded me of those great RSL teams from 15 years ago. They played a super tight diamond, and they were like, if you're going to beat us, you're going to have to take risks by playing out loud.
out wide and overloads and get your fullback to the end line for pullbacks. But if you do that, you're going to open yourself up to be countered. And that's exactly how San Diego got the second goal to kill the game off. So saying, okay, bring them all up. We're going to go in the other direction because that's what you're taking a risk on. So like all of this, you know.
in how we're discussing the galaxy um all of this is at least an equal measure well done to the newcomers for inflicting this level of suffering on the champs Yeah, and that is quite an impressive way to open. I honestly, I suspect there's going to be some growing pains for San Diego. There is always some growing pains. Although, I don't know, not...
We sometimes overestimate how much growing pains expansion teams are going to have. I, you know, I heard, just read some of what they said going into the season and it felt like, wow, that seems a little naive, but Hey. At the very least, that last goal was one of the prettier goals. I like just it was just a very pretty constructed like the way it unfolded.
uh yeah was just very satisfying visually yeah and thomas on hell who i don't think has ever looked like an mls caliber player and from what i've seen of him like he hit a perfect pass right into drier stride for for the goal so like it like i don't think they could have asked for a better overall performance in their in their
inaugural game. I think the only thing they maybe would have wanted was for Ingevartsen to look at all dangerous, which didn't happen. But yeah, 90 minutes in three points, that type of performance, they're happy. Yeah, and it can do nothing but go up from here, right?
I mean, for the galaxy or for San Diego, because it could definitely go down. I mean, it could definitely go down. Oh, you were being sarcastic. I got it. I was being sarcastic. Yeah. Yeah. It's the whole you can whatever can go wrong. expansion team is too much success early on uh all right well let's let's move into the next game that i these are in no particular order i hope the listeners do not mind that i just sort of like randomly pulled the games out of the
off the shelf to sort of like talk about. But the next one I wanted to get in partly because I'm interested in it. Obviously the Sounders are going to be playing RSL this weekend. A few things can change between now and then. But San Jose versus RSL, these are the two storylines I came up with. One, did we sleep on RSL's wooden spoon candidacy? And two, are San Jose like a playoff team? Oh, both of those feel like overreactions. Well, they are. I think the San Jose one.
is less of an overreaction than the RSL one. So we should talk about that. RSL is a potential wooden spoon team. And I'm going to read you a quote from Bruce Arena. The scoreline wasn't fair. I don't think that's a four nil game. RSL had a lot going against them coming in with their game on Wednesday in Costa Rica and those challenges and all that. So it was a starting point. Let's be fair about that.
so it's tough to say that they're going to go from 59 points to wooden spoon which is what usually 28 points last year was 21 drop off it would be a really big drop off and i don't I don't think it's going to be that bad, especially because look, Pablo Mastroni gets his teams to play hard, but they also look like a team.
that got rid of three of their four best attacking players last year that lost something like 70% of their goals that are changing their system a little bit and rotating their center backs a little bit in a way that. I'm not sure makes a ton of sense. And when you add all that up, like I still can't get myself to wooden spoon for RSL, but I could get myself to like sub 40 points.
Like, oh, this team's 20 points worse than last year. And that'd be a little surprising, but not a lot surprising. Yeah, I talked to one of our good friends, Matt Montgomery, who covers... rsl for for wasatch uh sentinel and i asked him sort of what he thought going into this and and he's what he's he was pretty blunt he's like we don't have an mls caliber number nine on the roster I don't know if that feels too harsh for you, but it certainly seems to be kind of what's been.
uh what we've seen early on you know rsl's played now two matches two competitive matches they'd not scored any goals uh forster iago is that how you say his name i don't know if it's a hard j or Okay, well, anyway, this is a player who started both of their games and doesn't really look good.
the part at this point i mean he he came out of mls next pro last year uh at nashville he had seven goals you know he was good in mls next pro last year in relatively limited limited minutes he hasn't done anything at the mls level though and Even though he got some decent, you know, he got, you know, about 400 minutes or so at the, at the first team level. But yeah, I mean, this seems like a legitimate concern. I assume that they will patch this hole at some point, but.
They don't have a quick fix on the roster for the number nine situation. They don't. You know, I think they really were expecting Elias Manuel to play this role, but he just didn't show up. They traded for him. You know, Tom Bogert's done a lot of reporting on this. And there seems to have been a pretty massive miscommunication between the clubs and the players, but like he's not there and he's not going to be there. And I think he's the type of player that would have been.
You know, it was a worthwhile chance to take on him had he been willing to play in Utah, but he wasn't. So it's kind of back to the drawing board. The name that I keep thinking is Duncan McGuire. because RSL has done a lot of good work in terms of transferring guys out and accruing some cash to spend. And now they should spend it on a center forward who could help this team. And Maguire is not a starter.
for Orlando City, and frankly, I don't think he's going to be. So can you get him for $5 million and a sell-on? And if you can, you should. Yeah, and my understanding is the Sounders and Orlando, at least I don't know who ultimately walked away from it. But my understanding is last summer, the Sounders and Orlando were talking about swapping McGuire for Jackson Reagan. And so which tells me at least that Orlando was open to that possibility of moving him on.
And, you know, granted, Jackson Reagan was at the time he was still out of contract, which was or he was going to be out of contract, which is why I think the Sounders were exploring that possibility. But it was, you know, that would be an interesting solution for them.
But if people don't know about the last Manuel story, this is something that's maybe gone under the radar a little bit. When you said it, it sort of jogged my memory. But so basically what happened, if I'm correct, he was at Red Bull. He got traded. And then after the trade happened, he's like, no, I'm not about that. Yeah. I'm not going to Utah. I'm like, okay. I don't think that that's what...
I mean, I haven't read all of Tom's reporting on it. There's just so much covering 30 teams. But like my understanding is like. There was some level of miscommunication between both organizations and the agent and the player. And it's, it's bad. It's really, really bad because he would help this team a lot. yeah so but they did so it's funny because the 4-0 scoreline at least does seem pretty flattering obviously to san jose and rsl did create some chances oh yeah they were
But they were every bit as leaky as that 4-0. They were just gappy all over the place. So they were gappy from the 65th minute onwards. And this is where... I need to pull it back a little bit. Right. Cause they weren't good the first hour, but they weren't, they didn't look like a team that was going to lose four nil. But then I think the, you know, to back to Bruce arena's point, like. They had a tough week.
rsl did playing in central america and all the travel that comes with that um and you know not being a fully formed team at this point and i think the final 20-25 minutes of the game their legs just gave out and san jose to their credit were ruthless in a way that san jose has historically not been um and so they took a a what would have been a good win and turned it into sort of a a landmark moment hopefully for them in the uh turnaround of that club rsl
absolutely do need to learn from it but i don't think what they should learn is throw everything away it's permanently broken it's like okay we we have to figure out um you know if we're playing a team that plays With true wide wingbacks, how do we have our legs in the second half to get pressure to them so Christian Espinosa isn't absolutely murdering us? And like, okay, we're playing a team with a second forward that's actually starting deeper and making kind of Jordan Morrissey.
runs from the left to the right like how do we get our center backs in a position where they can handle that and not have to deal with it in the open field as much especially after an hour of running and you know 3 000 miles of flying over the past four days so one of the things i was a little surprised to see i i guess pablo ruiz was playing as a 10 like that's a new role for him is it not
It's a new-ish role. You know, they had him primarily as a deep-lying creator before the injury a year and a half ago. they don't really think he fits as a deep lying central midfielder in their new scheme. And for whatever reason, they do not want to use Diego Luna as a number 10. Which I think is a problem. I think at this point he's pretty clearly the best player on the team. Put him in the spot where he is the focal point.
of everything and just for him as a developmental piece he has to learn how to do that he has to learn how to be the first name on the team sheet and the guy who is responsible for how things operate and i understand why they pushed him out to the left last year and like kurt schmidt has good
reasoning behind it he's like he gets more touches when he plays as an inverted left winger than he does as a true number 10 and we want our young players to get like that is solid reasoning but like we have moved beyond that point because of the personnel moves that the team has made. And the way you help this team is to get Diego Luna in...
Spots where he could do what Albert Rusnak did on Saturday night, which was have a million touches on the ball and kind of conduct everything, whether that means he's in the box finishing or not. Yeah, the other player who I took note of is Philip Quinton, who is a player who had been, I think, mostly been playing on the right.
But they have him now. He's a big guy, but they moved him. I guess this is maybe a permanent move to move him to center back. What have you made of his play so far? I haven't. I mean, you could knock me over with a feather that I just got asked in a podcast. The person I took note of was Philip Quinton.
Can I phone a friend? No, I know. I'm not going to talk about Philip Quinton. Fair enough. He seemed like, I guess he seemed like he was okay in this one. He, I just remembered he struck me as a player who was. way too large to be playing right back and had been playing right back. I think primarily he, I think primarily he's been a center back in his career. They used him as a right back because there were injury issues last year.
Fair enough. Well, I'll take a note that I actually managed to kind of stump you on something, but that's a new one for me. Real quick, before we move off of San Jose, when I saw the plan that they were going to be playing... with three center backs, and they were going to move Espinoza to a wingback position. I thought that's an odd call, and it seems like it worked really well, though, in this first game.
It worked great. I was surprised that they did that because Bruce has always been a four at the back guy, except famously against Mexico and Germany 23 years ago. It allows you to play both Chicho Arango and Joseph Martinez and not get completely gashed defensively.
because you know the three five two is a naturally sort of wide formation and you have those two center back or central midfielders who aren't going anywhere right they're staying in front of the center backs and then you have those three center backs who aren't going anywhere then you just hope that you get enough defensively from those two forwards and Munoz the 10 or Lopez Munoz however he does it You get enough from them to sort of shape the opposing build out a little bit. And you have...
five guys in position to sort of keep it in front of them. I like, it's interesting to see kind of the three, five, two, or the three, four, two, one. It's becoming more and more the default formation in MLS because of that. Columbus, Cincinnati, Toronto used it, I think, pretty effectively last year. We've seen Miami try it at times as well. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's a club to have in the bag. I think for most teams, it's a real kind of like old dogs, new trick.
moment with bruce who's 72 years old pulling that out in this game but also bruce will tell you um that you're an idiot if you talk to him about formations at all so right yeah feels good to have him back It's going to be fascinating to watch. The league's better, I suppose, with Bruce in it. 100%. We're going to do Portland, Vancouver, which, I mean, I'll be honest, it was...
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I guess the two talking points that we get to decide between here it is, is Portland going to be doomed to another awful defensive year? Or are the Whitecaps the funnest team in the league? The overreaction. is the Whitecaps take. That makes sense. Because it doesn't, the Portland take doesn't feel like an overreaction to me. Because this has been a, what they've been in the league 15 years, 14 years. How many times have they been in the...
top half of the league defensively? Like three? Have they? I mean, I'd take the under on, if we're setting over underlines, I think the under might be a solid back on that one. And they didn't make any big moves defensively this winter unless it's signing in Ecuador a 29-year-old.
ecuadorian demon who has matt doyle speed um and showed it several times on the break so i don't i don't think that the portland one is an overreaction the The Whitecaps one is because so much of them being fun was based upon Jaden Nelson, who had himself an all-timer of a game and could end up being... a valuable piece but i don't think i mean he had three assists a goal and three assists he might he forgot like the goal was nice um the three assists like
He he might not double that for the rest of the year. You know, like he might end the year on five assists because I don't think he has that kind of vision or instinctive ability to create chances. It was kind of a. You know, even on the one that he had to Vitae, he kind of screwed that up. And Vitae just took an unbelievably good first touch to put that onto his left foot. So it was...
I was happy for the caps and I love that the new coach whose name I have yet to learn is willing to play the kids because that team needs to play and develop the kids. But it's. To say they're going to be the most fun team in the league felt like a massive overreaction. Oh, sure. Absolutely. I guess let's talk a little bit about that game, though, because I heard some of the discourse following it.
understandably came around the Kamal Miller dog. So this is the Schadenfreude, um, part of the podcast for your Sounders fans. Like let's talk more about the Timbers losing for one at home in their own. yeah exactly sure sure jeremiah all right right i mean i as a neutral observer i just am fascinated by the idea that uh that anyone can really are like i get it it's a soft foul but if you are running behind a a player who's in on goal and you tug on him you're gonna get
you're going to get the foul. Now in real time, I thought it was a, I thought it should have been a penalty and then therefore no red card, but it looks like they actually nailed the call on it. And I don't know. You can call it a soft foul, but again, you're putting yourself that and that was the second time that a a white caps a runner was in behind and that was like the 12 13th minute of the game
Yeah, I don't think it was a soft foul at all. I think if that foul happens in midfield and you have two other defenders back, it's a yellow card every time. Yeah, right, sure. You know, and like... I don't think White dove. I think he tried to keep his feet, but like.
lost his footing after and then immediately got up and tried to keep playing and then come up committed another foul that would have been a penalty had the first one not been caught I just I can't imagine um feeling at all aggrieved about a call like that yeah i i i agree with you it just is a i don't know it's it is very funny because
i think we've talked about it like the phil neville whole situation the way the i don't know just the whole situation around the timbers just strikes me as so as so funny uh right now i don't know i i i realize that's funny haha But yeah, exactly. Funny to me. Ha ha. But I don't know. I guess we don't have to. I probably need to be less petty because it's too early, but we got to get it out. We got to get it out.
But I don't know, I guess now may as well feel like as good a time as any to get into the Sounders Charlotte game. And I guess my overreactions would be, is Jordan Morris actually going to be an MVP candidate? and uh i don't i don't even know what what do we say about charlotte i don't what's what's a what's a takeaway from this like did they
Like I thought Dean Smith was refreshingly honest in his take after the game where he basically said, I don't think we deserved a point. You know, we'll take it obviously, but we were outplayed pretty much the entire game and. we were very lucky to sort of like get out of this with, with anything, but I don't know what, like Charlotte looked like Kalina looked like a goalkeeper of the year. He played very well, but they generated virtually nothing offensively.
And the Sounders, you know, it's funny. The Sounders, the criticism I think most coming from the Sounders is sort of like a here we go again thing because. they did blow a lot of late leads at home. This is a weird stat that I can't really make heads or tails of, but five times they led by one goal at home in the 85th minute or later.
And we're at the 85th minute. Actually, that's the stat. And in four of those games last year, they managed not to win the game. They only won one of them. And it was but it was usually a situation where like. they made their own mistake, but they weren't like dominating the game anyway up to that point. In this game, they were seeing the game out. I thought they were doing what you have to do.
to hold on to a lead and they you know they they took a couple decent chances they weren't super aggressive trying to build the lead but the subs were pretty aggressive you know they they put on jesus ferrera they put on pedro de la vega they put on paul areola uh They swap bell for, for new who. And, but ultimately the play that breaks down is the kind of thing to me where if you can't expect your defender of the year center back to handle.
a header and a clearance like he had that Jackson Reagan had your whole, there's no tactical approach you can take to. Limit those kinds of mistakes. It was individual errors. I don't think this was anything systemic. I thought, like you, I thought that, look, 3-1 felt a lot more likely than 2-2.
right up until it became it wasn't the case right yeah yeah um i i don't i i think given the track record of jackson reagan and yaymar who has i think only like five percent of the fault on this goal it was um like 95 reagan fluffing a clearance that he should have dealt with um twice given the track record yeah i just don't think you
I don't think you worry about this. Say, okay, it's early season and shit happens. And, you know, we were coming from Central America and there were probably some tired legs at that point. And, you know. Come midweek, we go again, and we figure it out. What did you make, though, of Jordan Morris' performance? Jordan Morris is an awesome center forward.
Right? And he's not the most, never going to be the most well-rounded guy. He's not going to go out there with his back to goal and be a Luis Suarez style. playmaker but like the way he set up two really good center backs with the run on that first goal and then the second goal like Morris has always been really good at finishing on the break and obviously still has the speed to get there. It's been fun to watch him take this opportunity. And if...
You had told me before the season, the line was 15 and a half. I probably would have taken the over. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I think that would be. I think that's probably about where he needs to be if this is to sort of work out in terms of his DP status. It'll be interesting to see how the Sounders juggle their lineup on Wednesday. I want to push back on that a little bit. The thing about Morris.
is that even if he only scores 13, 14 goals, he justifies the DP status because of his gravity. because he makes those hard direct unselfish runs at the heart of the back line that all of a sudden de la vega rust neck um rothrock whoever And we saw it happen last year, right? The season turned on a dime when Morris became the center forward because suddenly all those...
creative attackers had more space to play in. And it's because he is relentless and unselfish with those off ball runs. And like every one of those is like a body blow to the opposing defense. And it's why. Look, it's why he doesn't need to be a golden boot contender or a 16-goal scorer to justify that DP tag. I think he justifies it just by being out there because he makes the whole thing work so much better.
yeah he yeah no i i don't think i don't think that's uh that's unfair at all and uh i'll take that i i'm now as i'm looking at the conceit of this approach i realized charlotte's not a west coast team we don't actually have to talk about them at all no so there you go that's a freebie for you uh all right so uh lafc minnesota i read you wrote pretty extensively about this one
I thought you had some good observations. We'll get into those after we go through maybe the two potential talking points from this one. Is LAFC a possession team now? And get some good quotes in your story about that. And... Or, I should say, did Minnesota actually fix their midfield this offseason? I think both of those are overreactions. Let's take... LAFC is more interesting to talk about.
But let's go with Minnesota because it's like, I've never been a Will Trapp fan and I thought he was... really really good in this game um and part of that was like they played a lowish block and they kept the game in front of them and uh that allowed him to not have to chase uh but um
he was really good however you want to slice it and i think the overreaction from minnesota's point of view is yeah we we fixed our midfield we like we've figured it all out it's like no this was just one game and we have 12 years of data that says like, Will Trapp's not actually that guy.
Minnesota needs their new signings. They signed two new midfielders this winter. They need to get those guys into the lineup as quickly as possible, and they need to get them assimilated, and they need to get them playing big minutes because as long as... as it's will trap in that spot, they're not going to have the dynamism to turn those good moments into... into possession and penetration and chances and goals and the flip side is they can't really play any other way
with Will Trapp out there because he just doesn't have the physicality to chase plays and then make plays defensively. So I think it all...
ended up looking really good, and I think they have a valuable club in the bag, and I think he's a solid depth piece. But for Minnesota to get to... the level that seattle and lafc and the galaxy were at last year they they need the new signings to have hit and given their track record on these signings under this new cso like i think there's reason to be optimistic about it um but it's like
We saw the difference between these two teams in the second half, and it was not insignificant. How much of Minnesota giving up... so much possession was by design and how much of that is, this is sort of who they are. Like they're just not going to have a ton of the ball. I mean, Eric Ramsey was talking about it. He's like, we're not going to have a ton of the ball.
in this game especially but i think that is going to end up being their default um probably 70 of the time they play i think they're gonna have to come up against the team that's Like, no, you have the ball in order for them to climb above 50%. possession um and like it's understandable yabo is so dynamic in the open field and i think tani is as well and then obviously um you know bongi on one wing and rosales to a lesser extent on the other the other wing back um like
They're better in the open field, so play in the open field. I have my doubts about how far that game model can take a team in the modern MLS. Fair enough. All right, well, we got three more games here, and I'm curious, which one of these do you find more interesting? St. Louis Rapids, Austin, Kansas City, or Houston, Dallas? Houston, Dallas.
Okay. Houston, Dallas. We'll start there, and then we'll really zip through the last ones. So will the Dynamo pick up where they left off, or will Peter Musa carry this team until they figure it out? The overreaction is the Dallas one, right? Is more of an overreaction than the Houston one. Okay. Because Houston's problems are like strictly at this point.
personnel related like they just lost too much from last year's team and it showed on both goals dallas i think there's a sense that okay we have the high price number nine and we have the high price number 10 now and we're going to be fine because they're going to get chances like that and they're going to put chances like that away. And it's like, no, they're not. You don't get gifts like that week after week after week in this league. Like it could happen for, you know.
the first month like it did for st louis two years ago but it's not going to be an every week out kind of thing so they have to figure out um i think a little bit more how to be dangerous with the ball and to get lucho into spots where he can um release not just musa but both wingers right because anderson julio on one side and bernie camungo on the other they don't make the game
They are really dangerous off the ball, but they're not going to be combined. Like they have to rely upon Lucho to make the game for them. So it was like a really fortuitous. 2-1 win for Dallas and they did a good job of holding on down the stretch when Houston were kind of throwing everything at them trying to get an equalizer but it was like it it was fortuitous and they need to play better and be more connected going forward if they're going to keep collecting three points
all right well uh two more games here we'll we'll won't spend too much time on these but st louis rapids or austin sporting kennedy which one which one you like better there uh i think st louis rapids all right So we got City are actually good defensively or the Rapids were a total fluke last year. Which one's more of an overreaction?
Both of those are overreactions. I think the Rapids were a total fluke last year is the bigger overreaction because they beat LAFC midweek in CONCACAF Champions League, and they were the better team. And they didn't give up a goal in this one. Correct. They didn't give up a goal in this one. Maybe Zach Steffen is back is the overreaction. There you go. That's a good one. He's been really good.
In two games. And I thought he was pretty good for the national team in January as well. And I've never been a Zach Steffen fan. But like he like credit where it's due. He was he's been. really solid in 2025. But no, it's an overreaction to read too much into how punchless Colorado were.
and and say yeah 2024 was a fluke because they went on the road on short rest after emptying the tank midweek and oh by the way they're playing without three starters maybe a fourth starter as well um and then like two or three other rotation pieces on top of that like to go to a pretty decent team in st louis and get that scoreless draw i think that says um
You know, they have something in terms of their mentality and in terms of their depth that they didn't have in 2024. Like they may actually be a better team than last season. Though, if you gave me the points line at 49 and a half.
because they were a 50-point team last year. I would probably take the under still, but just barely for this rapid side. Did you get much out of the Austin-Sporting Kansas City game? I'm not even going to pretend there's a... uh like a fair overreaction here like just did not strike me as a as much of a game there wasn't You know, it was tough. Austin were missing their main guy, Uzuni, the guy they spent $12, $13 million on. I thought that Owen Wolfe was fun.
in central midfield and Danny Pereira was fun playing more as a free eight. I'm worried a little bit that they still didn't create enough. Sporting Kansas City have probably been better defensively through two games than I expected them to be, but no goals. Dialing too much in on any of that is probably an overreaction. It's one week.
yeah of course so early on you you put out your uh your power rankings right now who do you like as like who do you feel like is the class of the west right now who are the two or three teams that you feel pretty strongly are going to be punching in there at the end uh definitely the timbers uh For sure. Rail Salt Lake. Okay. No, if you're going to like the two obvious teams are still LAFC and Seattle. Okay.
i had look i i had the galaxy as the third team in that group even after all the changes i had them as the third team in that group heading into the season and like i said at the top of this show um I've already rethought that. So there is your, there is your big overreaction from the Western conference week one. The galaxy are no longer the class of the West. Well, you know, in all seriousness, I don't know how to.
caught off guard you were by this but i was really the last i don't know week or so of moves that the galaxy were effectively forced to make starting with Buying out Sean Davis right after trading for him. Having to trade $125,000 of allocation in 2026 to get $100,000 in allocation this year. So you're basically paying a 25% VIG to borrow allocation money just to get right. And then they worked this weird trade where they gave up.
allocation next year i think another trade where they got what was that they traded an international roster spot next year for an international roster spot this year while also giving up a first round draft pick all of that you take all those moves together all any one of those would be a kind of
alarm bellies type of move like did something happen here you take them all together and their salary cap must just be like almost like did someone make a mistake on the spreadsheet type stuff well i mean They were famously inept in the front office up until Will Koontz got there two years ago. And he's been trying to unwind all of that while at the same time putting together a team that...
can compete. And then did win MLS cup fortune. Yeah. They won MLS cup. And my guess is that a lot of guys had bonuses in their contract for winning MLS cup. So suddenly the math that they had. thought was pretty likely for 2025 um changed pretty drastically and they i'm sure they brought forward $300,000 from next year's GAM into 2025 to pay for like, obviously they did that or they wouldn't have paid that 25% VIG to get another $100,000. So like, it's like they're scrambling.
a little bit but at the same time they have look this is the team that they're going to be for the next couple of years like they're in in pretty good shape with that royce will come off the books most likely after this year like he might not make it to the end of the year with the way he's looked so far but it's like it is Part of the difficulty of, you know, maintaining a team in MLS, especially if you're not going to develop young talent. And that's the rub for the Galaxy. Where they are.
in terms of the talent around them they should be selling a homegrown kid for three and a half million dollars every single year even if it's just an effort alvarez type to um to Tijuana, right? Like you should be able to max out your incoming gam every single year. And to that end, Ruben Robbins got on the field. which was nice to see. You know, I think that, like, I honestly think that Mikovic started over McCarthy in goal because...
Will Koontz was like, look, we have to develop and sell this guy so that we can keep this roster together and get $3 million of GAM to do that for 2026 and beyond. I think that was part of the calculus. I was wondering about that, that I was like, Oh, did something happen to McCarthy? I guess not. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they had planned to start him last year, but McCarthy is just a much better communicator. And that.
They felt the team needed that with all the new pieces on the back line and like, look, it worked out for them. But yeah, I mean, they're going to have to keep scrambling because this. Their cap situation wasn't screwed up in two years. It was screwed up in 10. And it's going to take more than just two years to unwind all of the damage that Karofsky and Klein and the rest of that group did. Well, Matt.
Thank you again for doing this. It was great having you on. I heard you on SoccerWise this week. I thought it was great. You guys had your golden boot draft. I hope you're feeling good about your picks. Are you also going to be doing SoccerWise pretty regularly? Yeah, I'm probably going to be on SoccerWise every couple of weeks and then writing two or three columns a week.
for mlssoccer.com, still putting out those tactics videos. Tactics free zone. Tactics free zone. Your sub stack. My sub stack, which... We'll eventually move to Ghost. I have to figure that out in the in the coming months. I'm here to help you with that one. Let me tell you. Oh, excellent. Excellent. But no, it's been fun to write like it's brought me back to like my blog boy roots to be writing that substack.
um so like there's there's a lot of matt doyle happening uh just about everywhere so Well, if people aren't already following you, and I don't know why they would be listening to this show and not following you, hopefully they have you on Blue Sky at Matt. is it it's matt doyle is it what's what is your handle it's matt doyle matt doyle dot blue sky dot social i think yeah well if you look for matt doyle they'll find you on blue sky yeah that's it well
Great. Perfect. Matt, it was great having you. Great talking Western Conference soccer. I'm looking forward to a full year of doing this on the regular. And, yeah, we'll catch up with you maybe next month. We'll talk some Philip Quentin again in a month or so. Exactly. Do some real Philip Quentin discourse. All right. Well, I'm Jeremiah O'Shann. This is Nosa Arietez, part of the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network, and we will catch you next time.