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Welcome back to another episode of Nos Adietes on the Southern Heart Podcast Network. It is Friday. We are doing what we learned this week with Nico and Moreno at Starfire. At Starfire at Long Acres. I'm all thrown off. We don't have our normal... recording equipment so we are hopefully it sounds okay hey man sometimes it happens we gotta adapt we gotta
like you said we might be a little bit off today I felt off in the presser today so there's something odd about the week it's been a little bit funky it's because the noon kick on Saturday is throwing us off it's affecting us exactly yeah but you know that was a Tuesday Tuesday and then we're off. It's been a weird week. It has been a weird week. But coming off a stretch of games where the sounders i think passed i kind of did the bare minimum to pass the test and you know i think we this week
I don't know that we learned a whole lot this week, but we can talk a little bit about what we're seeing injury-wise and lineup-wise. The big thing is Danny Masofsky apparently aggravated some sort of muscle injury. He got a... Cortisone shot yesterday. We talked to, he wasn't in training. He wasn't really in full training today. We talked to Brian Schmetzer. He basically said he was questionable for tomorrow and that even if he's healthy enough to play,
Jesus Ferreira, even if Mossovsky is healthy enough to play, it sounds like there's a good chance that Jesus Ferreira is going to get a start at the nine. Yeah. And, you know, a good thing in my opinion is that we'll get another chance at watching Ferreira play with
With an informed squad. With a couple of new pieces that I feel like. Compliment his style. Compliment his style of playing the nine. And even with some of the things that he's going to want to do. We talked to Freddie. We talked to Brian. him being just closer to goal, being more assertive and a bit more aggressive towards goal. We'll talk a little bit about what he said here in a second, but the bad thing though, and I'm going to just put this out there.
Mussovsky's had some bad things for, if not a couple of months. Since the San Jose game. Yeah. So is it chronicle? Is it something to worry about? Muscle injuries are something that a lot of people don't really realize how hard they
to one, assess, and two, get over. I remember Tracy McGrady at one point, back spasms kill his career, sure. But, you know, back injuries are a little bit weird. So, kind of tough for a guy that had been kind of hoping to get in a great rhythm. He's in fantastic rhythm.
Even in the Portland game, the assist he puts in just kind of tells you where he's kind of upped his game. So unfortunate that he won't be around. Yeah. Brian called it a muscle injury, but he did not specify which part of the body the muscle was. was in so it could be a back muscle it could be a leg muscle it could be an adductor i don't know he was very he was kind of coy about the exact nature of the injury but the main takeaway here is like we said jesus ferrera
getting another look at the nine. I think it's funny because just last week we were sort of, we've been talking a lot about Jesus Ferreira for a while, but last week someone was asking us, what do you think, you know, I'd like to see him in this, in effect of the form the formation they're going to be playing today. And I sort of dismissed it like, I don't know if we're going to get that chance because to me, I thought of Saze de Rosario.
had sort of established himself as the backup. But clearly, the Sounders are interested in trying to get Jesus unlocked. And maybe this game sets up really... Not only is it against this former team, and it's not just any former team. I mean, this is a team...
he played for as a little boy, essentially, and who his dad played for. So there's a lot of, there's, you know, motivation and baggage and whatever else. But I can't, I really don't think it can be overstated. It looks like it's going to be Ryan Kent and Pedro Day. Pedro de la Vega on the outside and Albert Rusnek in the middle. We have not seen anything really like, there's been never, he's never gotten to play the number nine with that sort of collection of talent. Yeah.
And when you talk about a guy that, look, we talked to him today. And he is not afraid to say that he feels like he has nothing to prove. But at the same time, he hears everything. He hears the noise. And I like that about him, you know.
He's not lying to you. He's not shying away from the fact that, you know, he reads the comments, he hears what's going on. And I thought it was cool that Brian Smetzer brought him in, apparently, talked to him, sat him down, and he said how much it meant for him that he pointed out.
out what he does do well on the field defensively he said i'm one of the guys that as a forward do the most work i'm more effective you know the connectivity i thought has been good so i appreciate brian bringing in a guy like that that all
although maybe he doesn't want to show it. You know, confidence, it's a part of the game, and I don't know if it's at his highest, although... I mean, it helps when he feels like he has the confidence of his teammates and his coaches, even if he's not feeling totally confident in himself.
Even if he's hearing all the chatter on the outside. If he feels like he can joke around with his team. He made a joke today about how if someone puts in a header, if you could just put it on my head so I get the goal, I'd appreciate it. Just sort of like playfully understanding that he just needs to see. to see the ball hit the back of the net. I wouldn't be totally shocked if the...
Sanders are in a position where they have a penalty. Normally you would expect Albert to take it. Maybe it's Jesus. It's that kind of thing where I think that he seems to be liked by his teammates. He doesn't seem to be putting off this air of I'm too good for this. for this and he's talking about grinding really is what he's talking about doing he's talking about doing the hard work
that is required to get yourself sort of going again. I will say that my concern about him is not, he's clearly a smart player. He's very talented. He has an engine. There are a lot of things I think we can see about him. The main thing I've said
this over and over again that is worrying me about him is that it's not it's not like he's gone stone cold in front of goal it's that he's just not shooting he's not and it and so i i would hope that if he starts just if he can get the ball to hit the back of the net maybe that
that sparked something. Yeah. We talked to Brian earlier this week and I said, like, look, the guy's taking seven shots in 13 games. You gotta be, like, this has gotta be a topic, right? And he's like, yep. He knows he needs to shoot more. You know, we talked to, uh,
So this is a thing where I think it can be solved. I think he's got the right mindset and it would be great if he could do it this week. Yeah, so a couple of things there. One, the effort cannot be questioned and it is something that at times is wrong. narrative or a misinterpreted narrative by people that they either look at what he does or doesn't do in the field and because of his style of play they might think that he is not putting effort that is completely untrue for me
He has been doing more than the hard work of just playing all, going through the motions. He's really out there for the team as a teammate. You see how excited he gets. Every time there's a goal. I mean, the guy really wants his team to succeed. So, let's make sure we put that to one side. But on the other hand, clearly, there is a necessity for him to produce.
The fact that he was brought in with this level of, like, expectations. I mean, there's no way around it. He was the big centerpiece of the offseason. There's no question that most of the preseason... wise focused on, and he looked I should, we should say
He looked really good in the preseason. He scored a few goals in preseason. So it's not like he's suddenly turned into a way... It's hard for me to honestly understand how a player who seems to be as sharp... I do think there's an element of him...
just trying to figure out what his role is and so maybe a game like this simplifies it because he doesn't need to be there's going to be no pressure on him to be a playmaker in this game. He's got Albert. He's got Kent. He's got De La Vega. He's got... He's got Christian. He's got Obed. There's plenty of guys to pick up the ball and move it forward. He should have the confidence to just
stay high, and know that if he gets in the box, he's going to get some service there. And that's exactly it. It's the services, and I think that's what ultimately this lineup gives him, right? You got the through balls when it comes to Albert. Same thing as the... the triangles and the diamonds they're trying to set up he's gonna not need to help out in the build that he's gonna have to be the guy that's running into those spaces
Pedro Lavega is a guy that likes to put those balls through the smaller spaces. So if he gets there, he's going to have those as well. Then Ryan Kent, with his ability on the ball, making things collapse, making the defenses collapse on him, that's going to create space for him to kind gravitate to so for me this is a great setup but it's also a double-edged sword because it does create a level of pressure of saying okay this game is built up perfectly I mean that just played a bunch of minutes
120 minutes with a lot of their main group. They were in New York. They were in Houston. Now they're flying to Seattle. They got another game on the weekend, on the midweek against Cincinnati. You're at home. You got the motivation that is Dallas. They're missing Kellen and Kellen.
Luciana Acosta this is the perfect stone for you to produce so if you don't produce it's like what else are we going to do for you exactly and look I absolutely love the guy as a person as a teammate you see it and the training field we've been able to really he cares he gives a shit every single time he wants to produce so because of that I am a little nervous for him in like a human sense of man this is your opportunity can you deliver
deliver. I think he will. And I will say the thing that helps him in this case is he's a 24-year-old, relatively young player, but he's been the on his team for a few years he like in a lot of ways the pressure is off and I think that maybe this is also an adaption to him realizing that he's not the guy here he's not even one of the top two or three guys really and so he just needs to
I think he's finding his own role. But like you said, it's a big opportunity. I would like to think that he's got the mindset that he can succeed in this situation. It would be a really nice time for him.
that to come through. And I'll add one more thing. I hope that it's not a problem, but I feel like the people like to know this because if I've learned anything from the Sounders community is that they like a little bit of the insight and kind of humanized people. He's actually soon to be a first-time dad.
And I think all of that is kind of, it's also been, you know, things that are changing. You're changing to a whole new team. You're adapting to a whole new city. Now, you know, soon you're going to be a dad. So all of those things are kind of have been, he's been working with that. And I feel like.
He looks more in control of things right now. I think things are starting to settle for him, and I'm hoping that you can see that on the field as well. Because, look, the last thing I'll say about Ferreira, especially in Portland, is that when you look at the statistics, and we said this on Monday,
day a lot of scorchers between Ryan and Ferraro. The sticks are very similar on the amount of touches, the amount of accurate passes, all those things. But you kind of look at what Ryan Kent does, and although he got dispossessed a lot more, he had a lot more mistakes to be quite frank people still kind of gravitate towards it and even me I watched the game three times and there was one time that I had to focus completely on where Jesus was at and look honestly he's a guy that
doesn't do a lot of wrong passes, doesn't do a lot of wrong moves, but it's maybe that necessity to be very conservative right now that might be holding him back. So I feel like in this one, like you said, you got all these playmakers... need to do that exactly he's gonna have to just do his job yeah yeah and one of the things that Brian said that he and again I think it's go it does
say something about Brian's willingness to keep putting him out there because Brian isn't a guy I don't think especially for a player like Ferreira who isn't doesn't have a long history with Brian who doesn't you know there's There's no reason for Brian to be playing Jesus unless he is seeing what he wants to see from him. I mean, he had no problem benching Pedro de la Vega last year. I don't see why this would be any different than that.
I think that's one thing that works in his corner. Brian also made a point of saying he helped us out of a lot of jams last week. He does things that aren't always easy to appreciate on a first watch. So, again... Just looking at the roster, it is the right move. I've been saying this, and I think Ari has been with me on this, that it would be a mistake to completely pull the plug on Jesus Ferrer at the nine, the striker, and just figure out something. Right.
He's a guy that's going to be able to produce for you at one point. That he has the talent to do so. But why rush him? Why put so much pressure on him? Let's just make sure that Jesus gets another shot at it. Maybe he looks good. We'll continue to work with him. And then we'll see how everything else plays out. Absolutely. The other thing that other bit of news, I suppose that we got from Brian today was that Jackson Reagan is getting close to fitness, but they aren't quite.
It sounds like they would like to get him so he's fully available for the next two games. I think the under... The subtext to all that is he's just not quite ready. And so... You know, we'll see. It's going to be hard for a player that sees a teammate, but yet your competition doing as well as Kim has. And now you're trying to get back in. And the coaching staff or the science behind it.
That is telling you that you're not ready. He was in a tough position. He was in training all week, this week and last week. So, you know, I was surprised that he was listed as out going into the Portland game. We thought he might.
to be on the bench. We thought he would be on the bench. We had been earlier this week. It sounded like he was going to be on the bench this week. He might not be. But it sounds like he's... I mean, I think Brian point blank said he wasn't going to be available. In Brianology, yeah. In Brian's language...
you're right you're absolutely right so because i don't remember him saying if he was out maybe he did i think he said he's maybe he said probably but if he says probably not gonna make the bench that means he's probably not gonna my long story short is that he's clearly not ready yet and there's still some time for him him to be back fully so that is a piece of news yeah it is so
Other than that, other than those key players, it does look like this is a game that sets up very well for the Sounders, I think. A few weeks ago, when we looked at the next five games for the Sounders,
which included two home games, I listed this as the second most important game of that five-game stretch because they've got to win home games. They definitely have to win home games against Western Conference opponents, and they absolutely need to win home games against Western Conference opponents who are playing on short games.
shorter rest than they are uh who are traveling across the country there is no reason the sounders should not be looking at this as a a win and they and you know and they did not hide from that and they said in today you I think you asked him about the importance of starting strong which is sort of a throw and in some ways it's a little bit of a sure we'd like to start strong but he was really like
No, we have to start this game. We have to put this game away as quick as possible. There's no reason to let this team stick around. Yeah, and the word I used or the phrase I used was high tempo. You have to get out there and make them run. Take advantage of a team that's...
Clearly has a whole lot of miles, both on the field and on a plane. Yeah, they're going to race about 8,000 miles. It is insane. And look, if you go back, and we'll talk about Dallas here in a little bit, but that was a tough game that they played. But sticking to the Sounders, I really do.
You think that, and I'm going to throw this out here. No, no, not yet. You know, we're going to hold this. I'll talk about it later. But just to recount what they're going through right now, they flew to Houston, and I assume they went back to Dallas. Then they went to New York.
York, then they flew back to Dallas, and now they're flying to Seattle, and then they're going to have to go back to Dallas, and then they're going to get a Cincinnati. They're basically doing a whole, they're hitting every part of the... of the country uh in like the four corners almost of the country it's a brutal
stretch four games in a row on the road uh and this is definitely i would i wouldn't be surprised at all if they come into this game saying look we just got to keep it close for as long this is not a game like i don't think they're coming to this game thinking about three points they're thinking about
How do we keep it close? And then maybe we steal something at the end. And they don't have a great record anyway in Seattle. I don't think they've won here since like 2011 or something like that, 2010. So this is... This is the Oscar. I think since the Shellis-Heinemann times. Oh, really? It's been a long time since I actually think they won on, I mean, it's kind of a funny day for me, but I'm pretty sure the only time they won here was in 2010 on the day of the World Cup final because
because I had an accident where I busted up my face, fainted. This is good stuff. Wow, I have no idea. It's a whole other story we can talk about. But anyway. Another thing that I think I want to point out and I want to not let pass as we talk about what we learned this week and I attach it to the Portland game and I don't know if it's necessarily has been said enough.
is the level of play that Albert Rustin is currently on. You have to praise him for everything that he's done. And I hear the comments and I hear, you know, but what's the record of the team when he's starting and when he's playing? Look. Soccer is a team sport and at the exact same time, a lot of each component creates and changes the result of the end of the game. But when I look at what he's done specifically...
When it comes to being a guy that understands the half spaces, that has been so good on key passes, being a guy that starts and helps so much in the build up of situations on the quick passes. and specifically on goals this season. If it wasn't for Albert, the Seattle Suns would be in a hell of a problem because he's being a guy that just like so many, and I'm not going to compare him with Nico, but just like Nico did for this team so many times, when they...
When things weren't working up top, he was the guy that was helping out in that sense of being a goal scorer. He's everything. So well. So I. put on X, if you compare him to the Costa, to Lucho Acosta, to Evander, to Forsberg, all of these guys, he is just as or better than all these guys with even less minutes. He only has 800 and something minutes in this season. Yeah.
Yeah, I know he's been very good. I think he's been every bit as good as you could have asked him to be. I think if he plays like this, he has to be in the MVP consideration because that's what his numbers dictate right now. And we talked to him this week. He was as Albert as ever, which was basically like, sometimes you get into a hot form, sometimes you aren't in a hot form. Right now I'm playing well. I'm trying not to get, you know, he's not a guy who is beefing himself up.
He just sort of says how it is. He's cool like the other side of the pillow, baby. He's a joy to have around. Anything else you want to say about Dallas? I know you've watched them quite a bit. You kind of do... your scouting report oh i do absolutely yeah i'm sorry i wanted to get back to like the old school notebook thing but i didn't feel like it was going to be too like uh so i've been doing it on my phone but uh yeah look this is a team that um is best in transition offensively but
Struggles in transition defensively, something that I think Seattle can exploit. If you go back all the way back to that bid down that they got against San Diego FC, they've struggled against transition. Even when they have been able to keep up in the scoreline, like that RSL game against Dallas, transition moments is what really got them into trouble. For some reason, although Shaq Moore is the more proficient attacker in the fullback side, they struggle defensively on the left side.
Both goals against Houston came on the left side. This is a team that, in my opinion, Seattle is going to be able to dominate the midfield because, look, Ramiro, he had an awful... He's a bit of a hothead. challenges i think that seattle could really do a number on him um obviously not having a guy like luciano costa really limits that team offensively this is uh one of the worst teams on the xg for all ux
XG lovers. I think that they are one of the last six teams in XG. Pedrinho, it's kind of funny because I'm pretty sure that he's taken, him and Comungo are taking all of Leo XG's minutes, but Pedrinho,
Luciano has been a guy that, you know, looking back at the last couple of games, he's interesting. He's very creative. He's good on the ball. He's good on the one-on-ones. Not the final product, I don't think. Not in my opinion. But he's a guy that's going to have to do a lot more in this specific game without a guy like Luciano.
Costa. Last thing I'll say is Aibiaga. For me, there are three players to look at in this particular game if Petar Moussa starts this game because he played 90 minutes. So he played 45 against Houston. First 45 since April 12th, because he was injured. He played 90 in his Open Cup game. He looked gassed. Hard to imagine him starting, although we reached out to Big D Soccer, which is a blog that covers FC Dallas.
they thought he would start I'm skeptical I don't know why you would start him when you have another midweek game but yeah so he's the guy that I would think that if he starts he's your number one to look at number two is Anderson Julio former RSL a guy that has done it all for this
He plays out wide, has played a striker. I think that he's their most dangerous player, like on the ball and getting into space. So he's the other guy. And then Ibiaga, what he does in the back end for this team, he's the anchor of that defensive line.
Whenever they do decide to play in a lower block, he's that guy. And I think that's everything I got. This is a team that needs some points. They've been awful at home, but they've been better on the road. They have been better on the road. And they have a funny, you know, they've, in their last eight games, Yeah. Kind of a wild, very much a wild game, but then they followed that up. with a 5-0 loss to San Diego. So it's a team that is hard to really...
I take it back. I guess they were at home against Dallas or against Houston on the weekend. But either way, they've been flying all over the place. It's, yeah, they lost to... New York on the road they tied RSL at home you know this is just a team that's like all over the place they did tie Minnesota They also tied at Atlanta. Kind of just a weird team. Their wins this year were... on the road against Houston, on the road against Dallas.
on the road against RSL and at home against supporting Kansas City so it's not like their wins are particularly high quality wins either I'll just go ahead and say they're mid team or even below mid team I mean they are they struggle offensively there's no doubt about that they're very slow based and I
I said this from the very first time that we played them. They're just so slow-paced on the ball. And the last thing that I have here in my notes, Baxton Pomaco came back. That's got to help out some. Not a little chew, but he's going to help out that offense. He played 20 minutes ago. Houston played from the 65th on against New York City this midweek. I expect them probably to either start or be a guy that's going to be your first sub in. But yeah, that's about everything I got on that.
I don't know if you track this, but the big breakout player they had last year was Logan Farrington, who was a player they got out of the draft, who they had really high expectations for this year. He hasn't quite picked up where he left off. He's got a goal and an assist. I would imagine if...
My suspicion is that if Pedro Moussa doesn't start, that he's probably the guy that gets the nod at the number nine. What have you made of Farrington? I think he's good. I just think that he has been kind of put into a position where now with Anderson and Julio, you have a... guy that might be able to stretch out. In that RSL game, when Moussa didn't play, they played a very interesting kind of a 4-4-2 with a diamond in the middle, and it was Kamungo and Anderson Julio as a
strikers because he has that quality in him. And honestly, if I have to choose, I'll probably go with him. But Ferretti is a guy that's developing, that I think finds himself in some really good spaces, and you love the effort. You love the drive that he provides on that end.
would I say that he maybe, I don't want to say got lucky, but I think he got into a really good start that maybe he didn't even expect. And now it's more of a reality check of where he's at. So he's probably in the middle of where he was at last season.
that season and where he's at this season interesting all right well that's probably a good place to take a break we're going to come back we have a whole bunch of stuff to talk about with the club world cup there were some developments this week uh the big one two big ones um about
the ticketing that's going on and as well as the way that the bonuses and sort of the way the players are starting to make, uh, it known that they are not happy with the way that the bonuses are working, but you're listening to no side at this on the center of our podcast network and we'll be. right back. Thank you for listening to the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network, which now includes No Sanientes, Lobbing Scorchers, and The Cooler Guild.
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to Nos Arrietas, part of the Sounder Heart Podcast Network. We're here with Nico Moreno, and we're going to talk a little bit about the Club World Cup. Some stuff that has been simmering for a while, kind of came to a head this week, both... with the whole ticketing thing, but maybe more interestingly with the way the bonuses are being paid out. We've known this for a while. The CBA, just to give a little bit of background here.
So when the players and the league signed the CBA back in, or renegotiated the CBA back in 2021, there was no real, an MLS team had never played in the Club World Cup.
that point the expanded Club World Cup was a idea but was not something that had been put to action certainly there was no talk of bonuses or anything like that and there but they did put a clock clause in the CBA that addresses other tournaments and the way that it's spelled out is that players will get a bonus of 50% of the prize pool or up up to a million dollars, which frankly is more than they get.
from playing in almost any other tournament so it seemed like a lot of money but then they announced this club world cup prize pool and the sounders are going to be guaranteed 9.55 million dollars that's just for showing up if they get a tie high that's another million dollars they get a win that's two million dollars if they get out of the group stage that's 7.5 million dollars if they get out of the group stage they're talking about maybe bringing home 20 million dollars and
Players are going to get a million, which a million dollars is not an insignificant amount of money, but it's a pretty small percentage of the money that is being paid out. And I think the FIFA probably in intends for the players the whole part of the reason that FIFA is making this prize pool is to sort of incentivize teams but also players to take this seriously to treat it like a big deal and so
This week, we started hearing, you know, there was a story in the Seattle Times that Jada Evans wrote. I would recommend going to read this. And I'll paraphrase some of what she said, but there was a quote from Christian Roldan where he basically said, we don't really love the idea of essentially playing for... which is maybe a little hyperbolic, but, uh,
Steph Fry also made it clear that they have been trying to talk to the league about raising the bonus, the amount of money that the players get, and they've sort of gotten stonewalled by the league. They aren't really, they're basically, the league's position is like, look, this is the CBA, this is what
in there if you if we want to talk about this when the cba comes due in 2028 or whatever they're going to start renegotiating it we can do that but this this is what we are right now i and i i can kind of see both sides on one hand i see where
the league's coming from i really see where the players are coming from i too would be frustrated if i saw a huge payday coming to my bosses that i'm going to be getting almost nothing from i don't know what what do you make of all this whole situation nico Yeah, look, this has been a concern from the very beginning, like you said, contrary to popular belief in Reddit, which I try not to read a lot. I don't love drama, and if I wanted to report on this, I could have.
a while ago, but there was something brewing within both Inter-Miami and Sounder players about what that position of the players would be if it was only a million dollars a day got. Where do I stand? I think that the players should be compensated for a...
unforeseen, uncharted waters of a tournament that has this sort of payoff. Because, yes, as much as I understand where the league stands from a legal sense, I think think that it makes a lot of sense to keep your players happy to provide the best product available to at least have the conversation of saying hey what where can we meet but if the stance of the league is I don't care
this is what you're getting, then I have a problem. And I will say, just from a practical standpoint, like, okay, I get it. The league has the legal position in this. Right. The players are bound by a CBA.
and if they were to not play, at least as far as I understand it, that would be violating the CPA. That's going to create problems. But at the same time, if I'm the league, I want to incentivize, I want my want my players to feel like they have skin in this game because the league does stand to lose a lot of face if nothing else if they go out there and they get embarrassed they if the if their teams lose all their group stage games if they
don't look competitive, that's going to be, that's bad. There's already enough bad optics around this tournament that the last thing the league needs is to just get played off the pitch. It would seemingly behoove them, even if they say look we don't want to mess with the guarantee but we feel like i mean i i don't think it would be unreasonable for the league to say like look any bonuses that you got any performance bonuses that you get we will share 50 50 with you or I mean, yeah,
I don't see why they shouldn't say that. And so then that puts a lot of incentive on the players to perform. Of course. And I think, and this is not a kumbaya, let's all get along kind of thing. I'm talking about like, let's just be practical about this. It's impossible.
to me, it's impractical for the league to say, no, you're going to get what you get and you're going to be happy. Exactly. Because it's just not, like, the players don't really, if MLS gets embarrassed in this thing, that doesn't affect Christian Rodon.
It doesn't affect Steph Fry. Their legacies are not going to be defined by whether or not they performed well in the Club World Cup. But could it do real damage to the Sounders' reputation? Could it do real damage to the Inter-Miami's reputation? Could it do real damage? real damage to MLS's reputation? Absolutely. And in this time where MLS shit...
MLS is definitely aware of where it sits in the global hierarchy. No one expects MLS teams to win this thing. I don't think anyone really expects MLS teams to get out of the group stage. but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be incentivizing them to do everything they can to perform. And you don't want a situation where players feel like they need to, I don't know, sit and not dress. And then it becomes an issue and it becomes a game of chicken. We're not.
going to play and you are going to play and there's fines and there's all these things. And I'll tell you right now, I think more than likely what happens in Indian Miami probably runs the whole course of events because they have a lot of juice.
Alba, Suarez, Messi, Desai, Busquets, we're not playing. That's a big fucking deal for the league. That just has a whole other movement. And, you know, we'll see what happens. But at the end of the day, I put it on the league to at least have the conversation. the conversation and give these guys the money they deserve because they are the product on the field because they are the ones that are more than likely for a tournament of this magnitude even if it's in Seattle
They might just be in a camp, right, where they're at a hotel, away from their families. That's extra minutes, extra training, all these other things. And from a legal standpoint, I mean, I'm not like, you know, Harvey Specter here or anything like that for suits, but...
with all of the series that I watch on lawyers and stuff on Netflix, it feels like because this is an unprecedented type of tournament, the biggest of its nature, one that is in a whole new facet, maybe there's this dance in legal. legally, where even with the CPA,
there should be some sort of component right in the middle, right? Because this is not something that, per the letter of the law, is kind of being equated for. This is something that we've never seen before. So why should not it be treated differently? So, you know, again, I'm not sitting here trying to give you no fucking...
legal advice but i think that there's something that players can stand on but more importantly and more surely the issues is going to be between players the entertainment for everyone who's decided to buy a ticket for this thing so
I hope that the league handles it with tactfulness. I would agree with that. And again, I think even if the players play, you want them properly motivated. You don't want them treating this like a friendly. You don't want them going out there saying like, look, I just don't want to get hurt. That's the wrong... I mean, obviously, you don't want to get hurt, but you just don't... You need to...
I don't think you can just take for granted that they're going to put their best effort because it's a big game. Like you, because you say it's a big game. Yeah. And that's the thing. If it's a big game, let's treat it like a big game. Absolutely. If it's not a big game, then let's, fine. We won't treat it. If that's what you want, we won't. Yeah. So, so anyway. Anyway, I think, I would hope...
The league sort of makes some movement on this and at least is having real conversations because what it sounds like is they're just not even entertaining the conversation. I think that's best case. That's a bad look. Let me say this. What if then I'm thinking, well, Well, shoot, maybe I should just try not to play this tournament hard because what if I get injured in this one where maybe I could be getting paid more for playing League's Cup and getting far in League's Cup.
I'm not going to put my body on the line for this, man. I'll just wait for the league's cup. Right. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well. And that sort of leads into this next subject, which is... the way that the whole tournament has been handled from a marketing perspective, from a ticketing perspective, I don't think this has lived up to the expectations that FIFA has set out. on virtually any level at this point. You know, here we are 30 days out and we just got news this week that
All of a sudden, the prices for tickets for a lot of these games came down dramatically. All of a sudden, you can get into, like, there's a game here between River Plate and Uroa Red Diamonds, which is a Japanese team. You can get in.
get in for about 30 bucks they're you know the best seats in the house are like 60 bucks so it's basically priced like you know almost like a regular sounders game and that's probably the right price point but why are we sitting here 30 days out and all of a sudden these prices are
Finally at a level that seemed to make sense. But beyond that, there's almost no mark. I mean, if you almost all the marketing is that's being done, you would not be able to differentiate this between a friendly or any other sort of like fly by night tournament. And this just seems like, I think FIFA really thought that if they just sort of flipped the lights on, everyone would fall into line. And that is just not the case at all right now. Yeah, look.
I have been almost at awe and extremely disappointed on the marketing level. There's literally two commercials and I'm talking about like when it's the exact same commercial. It's two different ones that that's all they're pushing and not adding what you look at on Facebook. I don't even think I've seen one of these commercials. I've seen a couple. And it's only the same two.
35 seconds and it's not great, doesn't tell you anything. Matt Winters, and let's give him some credit, he reminded me that when it was Super Bowl time, I was almost sure that FIFA was going to pay. for a commercial during the biggest event in America for everybody watching this to say, hey. Club World Cup. This is what it means. This is what it is.
Explain it short, whatever, or at least put something out there that's different. I have, you know, like you said, Bob Bunny and, you know, I don't know, Charlemagne and all these freaking people just talking about it. It's cool. Come watch it. We saw none of that. And actually the marketing that I'm seeing now really didn't really start coming out until about 30 days or so. Right. Yeah. And if you go around and you look at the inventory on Ticketmaster.
I mean, I'm talking tens of thousands of tickets are available for virtually every single match. I don't think there's any match that's even close to being sold out right now. We are seeing, you know, for games like... you know for a lot of these games that don't involve the highest profile teams it looks like they barely sold they probably sold hundreds of tickets there's no It's hard to overstate how...
much the American soccer public seems to just be going like, yeah, all right. I mean, I was looking at the opener between Miami and Fluminense, maybe. Probably about half full. Really? That's surprising. That's surprising simply because there's such a big Brazilian community in Florida and Miami specifically. And in Miami, if they're able to fill out a stadium for whatever game Messi's on, why wouldn't they be able to fill something like that? I mean, I think it's because...
it's because the tickets start at $110 oh yeah okay that makes sense that makes a lot of sense it's different and it's like even for these games like the PSG game that's here I don't know if the prices have really you know you can get The only difference between now and when they first came out is now the whole stadium, you can buy tickets all throughout the stadium, but still...
The cheapest seats are over $100. You can get better seats for $300 or so, which is maybe a little bit more in the... If I'm the kind of person that wants to spend $100 on a ticket, I might do that. I mean, who wants to sit in the upper deck to watch PSG Sounders for $110? I mean, I realize that they've sold some tickets for that. It just seems like the price and the value proposition for this thing is way off. I will say...
Some credit deserves to go to the Sounders, though, because about two weeks ago, was when FIFA first started dropping the prices for this. And the Sounders at that point basically reached out to FIFA. They reached out to Ticketmaster and said, look, we have, you know...
thousands of fans that bought tickets at these inflated prices. We have a bunch of people on staff that bought tickets at these inflated prices. Can we get a refund and buy at the lower price? And they've sort of been negotiating. with the various bodies to come up with something and it looks like what happened was
They got FIFA to agree. If you bought tickets from the fan club section or whatever, you can get a refund and then buy cheaper tickets if you want. Although I don't know if you can get still seats in the supporter section. they also are now offering about 20% discount tickets to sound season ticket holders to buy tickets for all the games that are here. So that's, that's nice. And then the other element though, and this is where it gets sticky.
most of the tickets they sold were still through Ticketmaster and it looks like they still don't have a resolution on what they're gonna do there but they're collecting email addresses of everybody So if you bought tickets, I would urge you. There's an article actually right now on Sounder at Heart. You can go there. There's a form that you can fill out. and there's also a link to the discounted tickets.
And I mean, I don't know that you're going to be able to make everyone happy at this point, but there's a lot of really frustrated people who bought tickets for sometimes two or three times what the same tickets are selling for now, who are sort of like feeling like they got.
got they got kind of scammed and i mean i don't know how much of an impact this is going to ultimately have on the world cup but i do know that it's putting a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths for a tournament that people should be really excited about when we first got news that we were going to be hosting the Club World Cup this summer and then the World Cup next summer
I thought that was so awesome. I was really excited. I thought it was this great opportunity. And now it just sort of feels like we're being looked at like cash registers, which is not a great feeling, I don't think. And you don't want unhappy consumers when this is supposed to be the dress rehearsal. Exactly. So it's already a bad start to it. You'd hope that they will learn from you.
the way they ran this thing that doesn't have wrong and then they fix it but that doesn't take away from the fact that We're missing an opportunity at this fantastic event, venue, opportunity for everybody to come see. And between the issues, between the pricing, the lack of marketing, maybe the atmosphere won't be as good as it could potentially have been. I mean, this is one of the things I think about.
We're going to get a game between PSG and Inter Milan for the UEFA Champions League title. Both of those teams... not playing each other, but both of those teams are going to be visiting Seattle this summer. There's almost no... I haven't seen anything about that. That's wild to me. This should be... everywhere.
No. We've got River Plate coming here. I haven't seen almost anything about that. You've got some of the world's biggest clubs that are going to be playing in Seattle. And it's like, oh yeah, here's some Google ads. Maybe you see a billboard. Maybe there's an ad on your... on youtube or something like that but i don't know it's a it's a bummer i think this has this tournament does i believe have some potential but it's not the potential is not going to be seen if
FIFA just comes in here and thinks people are going to get excited to pay outrageous sums of money to watch these games. And I'm really hoping, and I have no doubt that for the Sounders games,
There's still going to be all the Sounder fan pages. I think it'll end up being okay. But it's really sad that, let's say, like River Plate, who, by the way, I've actually heard from a couple of people already, that they're not going to be able to make the game because of Visa stuff. That's... and that's the other thing we've got all this other stuff going on outside that is not just ticketing that the United States is actively making itself unattractive to foreign visitors with
all this nonsense that's going on with visas and, you know, deporting people who are otherwise legally here. It's, it's a really gross situation. And, and I literally just heard, I was just checking my WhatsApp. They're literally, they had bought tickets already. Now they're trying to,
trying to sell them because they already have been told that their visa situation won't be able to come in by the time of the tournament. Ridiculous. I don't know how I feel about how the attendance is going to be for these other games that are not sounder games.
yeah well I hate to end things on a down note but sometimes that's the way that's what we learn sometimes this week that is what we learn sometimes but and don't be here for a second speaking of just negatives i did want to just comment a little bit on a comment that we got on our last um on our last show podcast uh where you know with some sense that we're sort of saying that uh you know there is that what we're doing was just being
just being if not you know uh we weren't being hard enough on the clock and let me just say that for me at least as someone who has consistently, or soccer ball says, critical analysis of our current situation is what is needed. A candid evaluation of where we stand seems not possible because you have to protect your access to the team.
Let me say this real quick. I am as critical as they come. I've actually been told that I'm way too critical. And the reason why I don't always criticize is because... This was coming off of a 3-1 win against Houston. Last week? No, off of the... I'm guessing... No, it was the 4-0 loss against LA. Oh, okay. That's what it was. 4-0 loss. We're talking about the Portland...
Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. I understand that the discourse and why even negative, but as we said on that show, there is a level of context that needs to be brought in. When it comes to me as a journalist, I want everybody to know that it's not a bit. When I criticize it because it needs to be criticized. When I bring up a story because of the way Nico was treated or because of things happening in the locker room, it's because I feel those are...
stories that need to be told. But it's not a bit. Right now, the team is in the course that I feel like they need to be in. There's nothing that I need to criticize at this time and therefore I won't because it is not a bit. It's just me doing the best I can of holding journalists like Jeremiah that are real journalists and I just try to abide by death. professionalism that's it i try to do as best as i can to do so so i love the comments good or bad i love that you guys listen
But, you know, I wanted to address it a little bit because, you know, we don't all just talk about good comments. I had a wonderful comment on Reddit that was shared to me by a colleague. And, you know, I put it on X. You know, that's beautiful. I love it. I appreciate all of you guys. But some of these bad comments, you know.
want to put those out there and explain them i will do so and thank you for indulging me on that there i did want to i did want to end on a positive note because i was reminded of this just now uh we are going to start sort of a partnership with pool so where we so we're you did an interview with andy rose last week last week uh yep uh well this week this week we're gonna put that on the sounder at heart
YouTube channel. We're going to start doing that more regularly. We're going to start sharing a little bit more content from Pulso. You do a lot of good interviews that don't always get the attention they deserve and we want to shine a little bit more light on that. So if you are looking for a reason to subscribe to our YouTube channel, there's a good one. And also want to help promote Pulso and the stuff that you're doing. You're, of course, still on soccer down here.
You're doing lobbing scorchers. You're all over the place. Nico. Thanks again for doing this. It's always good catching up with you on these Friday afternoons. Thank you, Jeremiah. Thank you to the audience for listening. All right, well, that is what we learned this week. I am Jeremiah Shan. This is Nos Adientes, part of the Sounder Heart Podcast Network. I expect an LAFC who's motivated.
to prove themselves at home, to prove to their fans that they're capable of winning in this league. And it's up to us to really ruin the party. You guys like that, no? Awkward joke, dad joke right there, huh?