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Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart podcast network. Welcome back to another episode of Nos Adientes. I am Jeremiah Oshan. Joining me today in place of Matt Doyle is Joseph Lowry of Backfield. Very excited to have Joe on the podcast. in a series that we're calling How the West Will Be Won, where we kind of focus on the Western Conference. Joe, thank you for joining us. It's great to be here. I don't know if I can replicate Doyle's...
impressive level of cynicism at times that he manages, nor do I know if I'll be able to replicate his level of insight because I very much enjoyed him coming on the show and you two talking about the Western Conference. I do also love the branding for this recurring episode. Not least because the West feels kind of like a big old giant crapshoot right now in a way that the East does not. And there's a certain amount of that that we should expect so early on in the season.
But the longer I like look at the West and think about the West, I feel like I'm entering the spiral the longer I sit there and look at it. So maybe talking it out is going to help both of us. Yeah. You know, I still think I look at the East and I still think. my priors are holding pretty strong. Like Miami is going to be good. Cincinnati is going to be good. Crew are probably going to be fine. Atlanta looks like improved and you know, and you can kind of go, I don't know.
The order might be changing a little bit, but it's still ruminating, whereas the West feels like three weeks in, we're getting some curveballs. Yeah, very much so. That's spot on. I'm right there with you. Yeah. And so I don't know, for me, the biggest curveball, maybe you weren't quite as surprised. You were apparently much higher on San Diego than just about anybody else. But the biggest curveball to me has been San Diego.
being uh what are they 201 now yeah they're sitting on seven points so far this season i had them yeah i had them eighth in the west coming into this year and
You know, you're always going out on a limb with expansion teams, right? I mean, there's things that you think you know about them, but you don't really know a whole lot. And I guess that's true for a lot of other teams as well. Like, you know, the Rebs over in the Eastern Conference. Back, I think, 37% of their minutes from last year to this year.
They're the closest thing to an expansion team outside of San Diego that we had in this league. There was a lot of turnover. And so it's hard to know exactly what to make of teams sometimes. But San Diego... For them to lose Chucky Lozano in that game against St. Louis last week, for them to lose Chucky Lozano 30 minutes in, and then for them to go on the road and beat Real Salt Lake 3-1, and they didn't look great, I didn't think, in that game.
but neither did RSL, and San Diego did just what they needed to do to get a couple of goals late in the second half to walk out with three points. So I didn't expect them to be quite as comprehensive as they've been so far, but they have been impressive. Yeah, road wins now at LA Galaxy, which is starting to look maybe less impressive as the season goes on. Still beating the...
Defending MLS Cup champs on the road in the season opener is a huge accomplishment. The Sounders are very well aware of what a big accomplishment it is to win at RSL. Here's your stat of the day. San Diego in three games in their existence have won as many times at RSL in the regular season as the Sounders have in their... I don't even know how many games the Sounders have won once at RSL in 15, 16 seasons. This is unbelievable stat, but they.
And I don't know. RSL missed a lot of chances in this game. They probably should have been leading going into stoppage time, which is when this game sort of turned on its head. But full credit to San Diego for taking their chances. They look like they are, you know, their season has some eerie similarities to LAFC's expansion season in 2018. Yeah, I would certainly agree with that.
Yeah, yes, 2018. That sounds right. I'm with you on that. This San Diego team has legit quality, and a lot of their unknowns coming into this season have become very, very... strong notes already even just through three games and the two players that really stand out the most to me are two of the first players that san diego ever signed in yepe tverskov at the base of midfield who is this like kind of hulking number six but is so incredibly technical
And then Markus Ingvartsen, who is their striker, who has a 10-goal Bundesliga season under his belt. Both of those players were sort of black boxes to me coming into this year, where I watched a little bit of tape, but you just don't know how it's all going to fit together.
And neither one of them had been lighting things up over at San Diego's sister club, FC Norgeland, over in Denmark. And all of a sudden, Tverskov is looking like the most reliable possession-based midfielder not named Darlington Nagby in Major League Soccer. He's been that good.
He's been excellent at the base of midfield for the San Diego team. And then Marcus Ingvardson scored a goal over the weekend against RSL. He had the second of those two stoppage time goals for San Diego, but he's also showing real positional flexibility where.
He is built and plays like a classic number nine, where maybe he's got a little bit more finesse, kind of dropping between the lines in a classic nine. But he's got that sort of frame and generally plays that way. Without Chucky Lozano, he played on the left wing. in a very narrow left-wing role, but it was Tomas Angel, former Phoenix Rising player Tomas Angel, stand up, by the way. It was Tomas Angel playing through the middle for San Diego, and Ingvartsen was moved wider to the left because...
Well, one, because San Diego don't have great depth in their squad, but also because he's really, really technical. He is capable of doing a lot of very creative things, and he's a savvy player. Those two guys have looked really, really good. And even if San Diego didn't look altogether perfect against RSL, they lost Patty McNair 10 minutes into the second half. And they had to make a change at center back, which is a concern for them because they don't have depth.
But man, I have been impressed, like far more impressed than I thought anybody was going to be about San Diego through three games. Yeah, and Anders Dreyer, once again, just coming through in the clutch for them. He seems to have been a great signing. He was their biggest signing, right? Or maybe I guess Lozano was probably a bigger signing. But this was another DP signing who's been every bit what they hoped for, I would imagine.
Yeah, Dreyer has hit in a real way. I mean, he was super impressive in what was an otherwise pretty tepid attacking performance against the Galaxy way back on opening weekend. And he's kind of carried that theme through where he has been the brightest.
final third player of anybody in the San Diego squad and that included the you know 100 or so minutes that Chucky Lozano played so far this year Dreyer looks like the guy who's going to pick out that final pass where Lozano looks like and this has been Chucky Lozano throughout his career
He's the guy who's going to terrorize you in the open field. And Dreyer brings a bit more finesse. And he has looked excellent. I mean, he absolutely has. And the other player who has, who deserves real credit here is Luca De La Torre, who has come in and immediately looked like...
one of the best number eights in this entire league where he's pushing forward and often into that sort of attacking line of five that San Diego liked to create, not unlike what the Sounders are doing and have done at times in the past, and a lot of MLS teams are doing that now. But De La Torre looks really good. And all of a sudden, you have Tverskov and De La Torre in midfield, who are both looking like excellent players, and Godoy.
who is a capable MLS guy for his 2,200 minutes or whatever it's going to be. Dreyer looks like one of the better wingers in the league. Ingvardson looks very capable. You hope he gets something out of Tricky Lozano. And defensively, you're doing a lot of work with the ball. You're doing what the crew do or what the Houston Dynamo have done in the Western Conference the last couple of years under Ben Olsen, where maybe you don't have the most elite 1v1 defensive personnel, but...
you can't get scored on if you have the ball and they don't, right? And San Diego were tested in a way maybe they hadn't been previously against RSL, where they give up a really nice goal from RSL. And there are other chances as well that you mentioned, Jeremiah. But man, the San Diego team have... They've hit so far, man. They absolutely have. So you've seen Thomas on hell play a lot more than, than most of us. I know there was a lot of skepticism about his ability to be.
really an MLS player, let alone an MLS starter, but he's looked like quite a playmaker. I didn't, I didn't really expect that. Like he's, he's go ahead. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt you there. He is. No. a fun kind of weird tweener player where he's played a lot of of nine throughout his career so far both in columbia with the columbian youth national teams coming into mls with lafc
Then they signed Olivier Giroud last year and Tomas Inel gets sent out on loan to Phoenix. He wasn't good in Phoenix last year. And part of that's because Phoenix weren't very good at creating chances. But he is a guy who works well in a high-functioning attacking team. He's a guy who works well when your team's going to have a lot of the ball, when there are other players around him that he can feed. Because in some ways, he's more of a 9.5 than he is a true number 9. He's not a big guy.
He's not a box presence. He's happier to have the ball at his feet pulling some strings than he is to go and really be the focal point of an attack. I honestly don't know if Tomas Angel is an MLS player. I certainly don't think he's a starter on a good MLS team. But maybe San Diego are finding a way. Mikey Varis is finding a way to use him in a way that makes sense. Well, I'm guessing that one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is your biggest surprises. I'm guessing...
one of your other big surprises is LA galaxy. I don't know. Maybe you were, I was not, I was kind of, I was, I saw some warning signs here. I don't think I'm alone in that, but you know, Matt was really high on, on LA going into this season, even. with all the struggles they had from a cap perspective. But, man, they are winless in four. They have four losses.
They are. And that includes losing at Aradiano. And then they just got absolutely smashed in the second half by St. Louis, who had not scored any goals coming into this game. And it just it just sort of fell apart for them. This week. It's been bad, man. We've never seen an MLS team. I start a title defense, start an MLS cup defense by dropping three straight games in the regular season. That's what the galaxy have done. They've made the wrong kind of history so far this season.
And they have looked legit bad. Not just like, oh, there's something coming. They're just not getting the right bounces. Maybe there was a twist of that against St. Louis where I thought the attack looked the best it has to go this season. Vanny seemed very upbeat about his first half, at least, in terms of the way they were moving the ball. And I thought that was fair, although it also felt a little bit like grasping at straws a little.
Well, and that's the thing is, even when the attack has looked good, it hasn't looked amazing. And there were some nice moments, truly. I think Vanny was right in some ways to reach for at least a couple of those straws. But this team looks kind of...
broken. Now, I still think that they're going to be a solid team come the end of this season. I had them third in the Western Conference. Honestly, though, a lot of that was, I think the West coming into this year was pretty questionable, almost across the board. I had LAFC and Seattle in that order.
on top of my Western Conference standings, and then kind of the Galaxy by default. Because you look at the rest of the Western Conference, Minnesota United did not make meaningful transfer moves this offseason. The Colorado Rapids did not make meaningful transfer moves this offseason. Real Salt Lake got worse over the offseason.
Houston Dynamo got worse over the offseason. San Diego is the question mark. Austin, I still don't quite see the vision. Maybe we'll talk about that later. St. Louis didn't get better over the offseason. Vancouver got worse. I mean, you run through the list of teams and it's like, where are the teams that are going to surge over in the West? And I'm probably discounting.
a couple of those teams there for the sake of this point i think colorado did get better some others did too but the galaxy with the top end talent that they have should still be a good team The problem is they've got a whole mess of injuries right now, coupled with the fact that Novak Mitrovic in goal has looked very, very poor so far. Amiro Garces is a crazy athlete, but looks positionally ill-disciplined, to say the least, so far.
The midfield can't figure itself out. Marco Reus doesn't seem like he cares, frankly. And you could see that in the first goal that St. Louis scored, where he's just standing at the back post, watching the ball bounce four yards away from him and doing absolutely nothing.
There's a lot of work to do, man. There's a lot of talent for the Galaxy, but I thought they were going to start this year a whole lot stronger, even with the injuries than they actually have. Now, this is obviously, you know, 2020 hindsight, but where we sit right now.
It seems like a significant part of their problem starts with signing Marco Royce last summer, where they gave up a lot of assets. They signed him to a big contract. I'm assuming they had to pull a bunch of money forward in order to... to be cap compliant last year. He, I don't know. He wasn't a non factor last year, but he wasn't a huge positive factor. I don't, I think you could probably talk yourself into them winning MLS cup with, or without him, frankly. And.
Right now, it's looking really questionable because he was sort of the fallback option for Ricky Puj going down, and he has not even come close to filling those shoes, and I don't know if it was realistic to ask him to do that. No, I don't think the Galaxy, that's a huge problem and is not necessarily new for Marco Reus. I don't think the Galaxy would have ever imagined signing Marco Reus as the Ricky Pooj replacement or the Ricky Pooj backup.
You don't plan. I mean, you'd like to plan. You don't plan for your star player tearing their ACL and being out for most of the season. So I don't put any blame for the Galaxy on that. In fact, I think, and Will Koontz told me this, and I wrote this up for Backheeled, you know, they thought they had the ability to go for it.
last summer when they could sign Michael Royce and you saw an MLS onside that Charlotte wanted him and the galaxy kind of swooped in and they made that deal happen. And I can't really blame them for that. If I'm being completely honest to get someone like Michael Royce on a non DP deal.
They got real tight against the cap. They went all in last season and it honestly, it works. And I think they did a pretty okay job of transitioning a lot of that squad where they had to move on from the Ovalich in all practical senses. Gabriel Peck was coming off that young DP deal.
So his cat hit was about to skyrocket, and that's what the Galaxy have dealt with. And then all of a sudden, you lose Ricky Puj, and the job gets even harder. It just isn't clicking. I can't shake the idea, though, that if this group was healthy, where they're not missing Mickey Imane.
They've had a fully healthy Amiro Garces. Maybe we're still seeing John McCarthy in goal instead of Michovic. They've also lost Sanabria. And they've, I mean, they've lost just so many dudes, even outside of Ricky Puj. I don't honestly know if there's, yeah, Paintsville, Paintsville, of course.
I honestly don't know that there's a team in MLS who can withstand this sort of injury barrage that the Galaxy have had. Yeah, and I think that that's a fair point. And a lot of those guys will get healthy eventually. may or may not but if you it's not just puj it's a litany of players who have gone out in and the sounders were sort of in a similar position last year frankly so maybe it's it's unfair to judge right now uh
But on the other end of the spectrum, you got the Vancouver Whitecaps who are, you know, they probably got worse in the offseason. They lost one of their big DP signings for basically nothing. And here they are. Sitting atop the Western Conference at nine points through three games, plus six goal difference. And I wouldn't say they look like a juggernaut, but and I guess to some degree that their schedule has been a little.
a little soft, but man, hard to argue with, with the results so far. Totally, totally agree with that. There are. There's only one team in Major League Soccer who's competing in the CONCACAF Champions Cup as well that has been perfect in MLS play so far this year. It's not Inter-Miami. It's not FC Cincinnati. It's not LAFC. It's not the Galaxy. I mean, it's the Vancouver Whitecaps. It feels wrong. It feels weird.
I had this team dropping in the Western Conference coming into this year and they still well might, right? That's the hard thing is it feels like, honestly, to me, because I watch all these games, it feels like the MLS season has been going on for forever already. And it really hasn't. Like the sample size is still so crazy small.
And I do think you're right. The further we get away from that Galaxy win, the softer it looks. You look at the Montreal win, Montreal are in the middle of their giant road trip to start the season. They're not super formidable. This is a Vancouver team that has not had... quite a super rigorous MLS schedule so far. At the same time, I think they look super competent. I think they look really, really capable in the early stages of 2025 in a season where
A lot of the other teams in CCC out West have tripped over themselves, and Seattle's not outside of that. LAFC are in that group. The Galaxy certainly, even though they got to the CCC party late. Teams are tripping a lot in the Western Conference right now.
And the Whitecaps just aren't. They are, at the moment, this is something I'm curious to watch going forward, they're missing already a couple of guys due to injury. So Jaden Nelson put on that four-goal contribution burner against Portland to start the season in a truly wild game.
And then he ends up injured a game or two ago. Ryan Gold goes down in the first half of Vancouver's two no-win over Montreal. That's a concern. Apparently, it's a knee sprain. Knees going to miss a few weeks. That probably ends their CCC. But not a disaster that it...
not the disaster that it looked like it might be though yeah not not a total disaster but if we're talking about this team continuing the pace they've been on that's probably not going to happen that was probably never going to happen But Jesper Sorensen has kind of normalized this team in some ways. I guess that's impossible to not do when you're following Vanny Sartini, but they play a pretty standard 4-3-3.
It looks like players understand their roles. It is a very solid, if unspectacular squad, and they're picking up results left and right. Yeah, and that includes a 1-1 tie, albeit at home, albeit against a somewhat rotated Monterey team, but they were the better team.
They needed a late goal to get the result there, but they're still in that series. You know, who knows? They might get smashed when they go down to Mexico, but it's a real team that they got a real result against that can't be discounted. I don't know if I would put a whole bunch of money on Vancouver winning the West right now, but I do think it's fair to say that their early season, they look as good as anybody. And who knows how long it lasts, but they've been...
really good and they deserve to, you know, they deserve flowers for that. Yes, totally agree. It's the continuity that I think has really served them well. When you look at the player perspective, losing Stu Armstrong hurts a ton because he looked like a difference maker.
He also barely played for this team last year. And they were a good but not great team before he got there. And I would imagine when the dust settles on 2025, the safe bet at this point is that Vancouver looks like a good but not quite great team in 2025. The question is just...
are there going to end up being great teams in the West? I think the answer is probably yes. Well, let's talk about two of those teams that might be among the contenders for the best teams in the West. And when it's all said into the Sounders and LAFC. both rotated heavily. You know, they both had eight changes from midweek and the Sounders at least brought in, you know, by the end of the game, they looked more like the roster that you would expect to see.
LAFC, let's just go. I mean, they rotated and then they rotated those guys. So it was not. the first choice LAFC, but for a rivalry that has been as one-sided as this one, you know, there I'll, I'll throw a stat at you, uh, even including the Sounders win over LAFC in the.
Final in the quarterfinals of last year's playoffs, the Sounders had been outscored 18 to five in their last 11 games against LAFC. They score five goals, obviously in this one. And it was, you know, the first half was pretty even. The Sounders got a great goal, I thought, from Kalani Kosarienzi. It was probably fair that it ended the half-tide, even if it was kind of an ugly goal. But then the Sounders were just heads and shoulders the better team in the second half.
is that fair as a neutral observer yes no i think that is spot on this game was a bit of a snoozer in the first 45 and that's not a huge shock when you look at the rotation that's happened here outside of that goal which is absolutely phenomenal from closer it's a great goal right
It's a really, really great goal. That was like the one shining moment in an otherwise pretty bleak picture in the first 45 minutes. But Seattle, to their credit, they brought on a lot of the big guns and got some production out of players that are not.
big guns in this team, even though Paul Rothrock is making a case to jump into that sort of category. They were able to get some serious juice out of this team in the second half. They were better. And this is finally the case for Seattle's depth that I feel like I've been making.
for backheeled all year long where we started running myself and Ben Wright these in-depth power rankings that we do every Wednesday and we go through and we don't just rank every team although we do do that but we also analyze the teams and look at what's interesting about them each week and for Seattle
They've consistently ranked really high across both Ben and my rankings. And I've been getting roasted on social media for that when I put out the rankings because people see Seattle Sounders and they see a tuna loss for Real Salt Lake. Or they see Seattle Sounders and they see a 2-2 draw with Charlotte FC, even though that game was...
was bizarre. I'm assuming that some of these folks aren't maybe watching these games. This is the case for Seattle's depth where you go out there and the CCC result is disappointing against Cruz Azul, but you give yourself a chance in the second leg.
And in the meantime, you take care of business in what could end up being a six-pointer for seeding later in the year. Like when you can start a front three in a rotated game of Danny Mussofsky, Pedro de la Vega, unfortunate to see him go down with an injury. And Jesus Ferreira.
and get legit production from a bunch of other players in that starting 11 against a team that has Olivier Giroud and some other capable players in their lineup as well. You just have to feel good about that result. The scoreline helps you feel good about it. A lot of the individual performances in the second half help you feel good about it. This is sort of the rotated Seattle team that I was expecting to see when the season started.
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Yeah. So there are six games into their season all across all competitions. They've been averaging six changes every week, every game. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's the, it's hard. I think sometimes to understand what.
depth looks like in mls but what depth looks like in mls is how do you look when the other team is when you're rotating how do you compare against the other teams that are rotating it's not necessarily how does your second team look against their first team there's not a lot of there's not a lot of teams in mls that can
really rotate fully and beat any other team's first choice squad if it are fully rested first choice squad that's not always a fair way of looking at it but when you put up two teams that are both rotating And this is a good comparison, I think, of how the Sounders' depth looks to an LAFC. When the Sounders bring in their reinforcements, they're bringing Alex Roldan off the bench. They're bringing Christian.
Christian rolled on off the bench. They're bringing Jordan Morris. They're bringing Albert Rusnak was a, you know, Pedro de la Vega goes down in the first half and who do they bring off the bench? Albert Rusnak. That's a pretty nice fallback option. And I don't know. I think it probably worked out okay for Rusnak. I doubt he had to exert himself fully for whatever 60 minutes that he played.
So he might be able to go again against Cruz Azul. But I thought this was a really encouraging performance from the Sounders. And frankly, they needed something like this against LAFC, who has just absolutely owned the Sounders for...
you know, the better part of the last four or five years. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed on that all across the board. I think it's fascinating for the Seattle team and telling when it comes to their depth that Pedro de la Vega can go down, you know, 30 minutes into this game and.
To me, and I recognize I'm outside of Seattle, it just doesn't feel like that big of a deal. And I'm sure there's a lot of reasons for that. One is that he wasn't good last year when he was on the field. Another is that he wasn't on the field very much last year and has a pretty well-established injury track record. But man, and I wrote this in the Sunday night column that I've been putting together, like the depth for Seattle, the way that they have consistently tapped into.
atypical ways of getting players into the first team squad. You look at Costa Rienzi, who's, you know, you all were talking about how he's inked that professional deal, right? Like that's coming for him or has already happened.
You look at Danny Leyva as a guy who's come out of the academy in a more traditional way. You look at Paul Rothrock and George Minungu who have come from NextPro and Koso Rienzi fits into that bucket as well. John Bell adding depth from within the league when they acquire him.
There's just so much, there's so much here that when you lose a Pedro de la Vega, it should be harder than this. Like it should matter more to lose Pedro de la Vega for every other team, not every other team, for almost every other team in MLS, losing someone like that.
matters a ton and for Seattle it matters a little it may be more than a little but it doesn't feel like it matters a lot and that is a real testament to how deep and how well built this team is yeah you know one of the things we talked about a lot this offseason was within the Sounders community was when they signed De La Vega, it was sort of this hope that we don't need to rely on him to be a star right away. And that's part of why you can gamble.
a little bit on signing a younger player who maybe had a little bit of an injury history. And you sort of are playing on that upside. And there was sort of this argument like, well, but that blew up in their face. And it's like, well.
Did it though? Because they still made it to the Western Conference semifinals without virtually any production out of their big offseason acquisition. There's not a lot of teams that could afford to do that. And I think, yes, it lowers your ceiling when your most expensive player isn't on the field. That's sort of the nature of the game. But for the Sounders, it didn't bottom them out. It didn't push them. They were still contending.
They were right there with the LA Galaxy. They played as well defensively against the LA Galaxy as anyone did during that whole playoff run. And I think we're seeing it now too. It'll be interesting to see. where this team goes. I'm curious your perspective on Jesus Ferreira, who got his first start in MLS play. He has three assists, so it's not like he's been bad, but he hasn't been as gold dangerous as a lot of people thought, but.
I think there was also this belief that maybe he was a better playmaker than he had shown before. Yes. Yeah, very much so. I've always been a big fan of Jesus Ferreira as a sort of second forward or as one of the half space guys in a front five, which is what Seattle has been running.
This year, it's what they ran a lot of last. I mean, we've seen it for years now for Seattle in that way. I really like Ferreira in half spaces. I think he's very, very smooth on the ball. I also think when he is bedded into this team in a more real and concrete way.
we're going to see Mauro Ferreira, the scorer. But Schmetzer's not really setting him up to be that goal-scoring type. When you see him, he's not playing through the center very much. He's mostly been playing off the shoulder, or even further than that, of another number nine. So honestly...
I haven't really been surprised that Ferreira hasn't been finding the back of the net, even in the early stages, when you factor in the role that he's been asked to play and the stat that you dropped earlier, Jeremiah, of all the changes that have happened in this team from one game to the next game to the next.
Can I go back really quickly on De La Vega? Because I know this is probably pretty well-traveled ground, but I don't get the chance to talk about Pedro De La Vega a whole lot. Please. So I want to do my bit here.
I think this is a classic things can be two things situation where everything you said about the Sounders not bottoming out last year is absolutely correct. They did not need Pedro de la Vega, as it turned out, to be a very, very, very good MLS team last year. They were minutes away from making MLS. They were good. They were really, really good after the opening stages of last season. That's true. It's also true. And maybe I'm not quite ready to fully condemn this signing, but I'm pretty close.
It's also true that it just wasn't a great signing. I know we looked a bit better in preseason, and I think there was something there, so I don't want to go all the way on this, but the Sounders would have been a better team. And this is the most obvious thing to say in the world. They would have been a better team if they spent $7.5 million on somebody else. That's the reality. It was, it seems to me, a huge miss.
When it comes to this trophy window for the Sounders, where you have Jordan Morris and Roldan and the other pieces in this team, it was a miss for them last year where they couldn't quite turn what should have been a trophy-filled season or could have been into one last year. it's it's a whiff and i think it is a black mark on on the roster build it's just maybe the only black mark on the roster build yeah and i think that that's that's fair to say certainly of last year i think
The jury is out. We'll see it. You know, if he's, you know, what we're hearing, he's going to be out two to three weeks, probably with this injury. If he can come back and pick up where he left off, you know, he has three goals. Granted, all in CONCACAF Champions Cup play, he had a fourth goal waved off against Cruz Azul that I thought was well taken. He looks like a potential difference maker if he can stay healthy. And, you know, we'll see.
You're right. I think that it can be both things that you're right, that it can be both a failed signing and a risk that was possibly worth taking. And sometimes risks don't pay off. Yeah, that's true. And maybe... Maybe there's a risk worth taking. I guess the way I'd frame it is it was, it didn't ruin the sounder season at all last year that they lost him, but it put a cap on their ceiling, or at least it made it harder for them to hit their ceiling. And I don't know. I just.
I don't think it was the wisest decision to get ownership to shell out $7.5 million or whatever the fee was for somebody of his profile with his background who hadn't put up a lot of numbers in Argentina and that Brian's message didn't seem to know how to use or, or.
you know, didn't know exactly how we want it. Like there were just so many weird things about that signing. We don't need to relate, relitigate all that stuff. But to me, it is like, I guess I'm much slower to let Seattle off the hook for that. And maybe that's just because there's renewed hope.
around De La Vega but like imagine what last year could have been if they had a Diego Rossi in this team instead of a Pedro De La Vega like that I feel like that didn't get talked about a whole lot because the team was still really good and I feel like it should get talked about a little bit more Yeah, that's fair. I think the biggest question to me about De La Vega is that put the injuries themselves aside, the reality is that he was not at the fitness level that they wanted him to be at.
And that's a huge miss. That's something where you should like, there's no reason you shouldn't know what his baseline fitness is coming in. And clearly he was not meeting the sounder standard. And that was, that contributed a lot to. his struggles was that they just felt like they needed to build up his strength and his fitness so much that they, you know, those are related to the injuries, but there was an underlying concern there that I think there was a miss.
alignment in terms of what they expected out of them and what they were getting. And that is, you know, that's a, that's a miss on some level for sure. So yeah, I think what you're saying is fair. I'm, I'm a little bit more inclined to give them. a little bit more time and see how this plays out but you're not wrong i don't think you're wrong at all uh all right so moving elsewhere on to this uh onto our list of of surprises and maybe unknowns
San Jose started off the season with two straight wins, kind of come crashing back to earth with a loss at home to Minnesota United. A good Minnesota United team, but maybe that was a little bit more indicative of what San Jose is. We don't think San Jose is for real still, right? I guess it depends on what you mean by for real. I don't think that they're a real contender. Okay, maybe. I wouldn't be fully shocked. So I had San Jose.
at 14th coming into the season, the Western Conference, a whole one spot better than they were in 2024, mostly because I still think that they have a lot of gaps in this squad. The LaRue and Horrocks midfield is not one that inspires me. The center back pool still doesn't particularly inspire me. I think they're still missing a playmaker because I don't like Hernan Lopez a whole lot. And they missed him, I suppose, a little bit this weekend.
I don't think they missed him a whole lot given what little he's produced on the field so far. They look, though, so much more competent. This game against Minnesota, it's a bad goal they give up off of a free kick where it's shades of 2024 San Jose Earthquakes defending. But they create a few chances going the other way and stay largely defensively resolute in this match. And they've looked pretty good in their first two games in the season. So in a West that feels murky at the moment.
San Jose don't look out of place among teams in sort of the middle third of the Western Conference. Probably not higher than that, but also maybe not lower than that right now. Yeah, they are a team who look like they're going to be competent. And I think that's sort of a hallmark of Bruce Arena's coach squads, right? Like they just.
Bruce Arena's teams just don't ever look out of depth, out of their depth. I think the big question is like, how much improvement can you really expect? And they needed to improve a lot. Like if they were to make the playoffs. they would probably have to improve by 25 or 30 points. That's a huge jump for anyone.
That's an enormous jump. But Danielle looks like he has sort of regained some of his goalkeeping prowess of a couple years ago when he was, by the numbers, one of the best goalkeepers in the league and then fell through the floor last year.
I don't know. That's an interesting one for me too. I think it's going to be fascinating to watch completely unrelated to what they're doing on the field. As someone who has watched a lot of sounds, the earthquakes games, I love that. They actually seem to have. supporters in both ends of the field this year uh i don't know if people remember this but they have this thing called like the longest bar in america that opens up to one side of the field and it was kind of like a distraction
Because this is like one whole end of the field. And now they have supporters over there, which I think gives the games a much better feel, at least on TV. I love that. I love that so much. I had forgotten about the longest bar in America. It's incredible, first of all. And I think the atmosphere and the energy is improved this year. It seems like it, yeah. The quality on the play is...
So clearly better. And they had San Jose, what I think is a really good off season where they address every line of the field in one form or another. And you bring in two starting attackers as they view them in Chicho Rongo and Justin Martinez. And those two guys have looked like they're building some nice chemistry together in a front two, although it was more of a front three this past weekend because Amal Pellegrino slotted into that trio with Hernán López out injured.
But they add some energy in midfield. They're getting stuff out of super draft picks. Jamal Ricketts has looked fairly good as that left wing back for this team. The floor is just higher for this team. I didn't know how much higher it was going to be. And there still felt like a lot of unknowns, which is why I only bumped them up to 14th. I had Dallas 15th. I don't feel good about either one of those because those teams both look like they could be in the middle third of the West or.
you know what? We could go through another month of the season and they could be right back down where I had them. It is still just so early, but San Jose are certainly at this point. I think we can say with absolute certainty. going to be noticeably better than they were last year the question that you pose i think is spot on or the topic is can they be 25 points better and i don't i don't feel confident saying that oh of course they're going to be 25 points better yeah
Is there anyone that, who's the team you think you've changed your opinion on the most, understanding that it's still very early and that we are reserving the right to change our opinions many times throughout the year? Yeah, yeah, the Galaxy are... It's still too early for me to dunk on the Galaxy fully and feel good about it. The ones that do come to mind for me, RSL and Houston, I had both as solid playoff teams coming into this year.
And the reason for that is the known quantities that we're returning, right? Bringing back coaches, continuing tactical ideologies, both sort of similar teams in some ways in terms of how they play, and bringing a lot of players.
The problem is they both did get a little bit worse over the offseason. I just didn't know exactly how much worse. RSL, when you lose Chicho Arango, he didn't give them anything to end last season anyway. You know, he went half the season without putting the ball in the back of the net.
And RSL were still a very, very solid playoff team by the end of the season. The Houston Dynamo implode in that first round against Seattle. They lose Hector Herrera, they lose Coco Carrasquilla, but they bring in Jack McGlynn and some other pieces that I like into that team.
And then they lose Mikael, and it feels like some of the wheels have come off. But still, they looked like something more of a known quantity. And honestly, even though they have both struggled in their own ways, when I look at Houston and RSL, do I think that they're a worse team than Austin? or portland or skc or you know the quakes or dallas maybe not still so i i probably have changed my mind on those teams but it is still just so wildly early for me to look at these squads and think
Who has really separated themselves? And I guess I'll pose this to you, Jeremiah. Who has separated themselves in the West? Maybe it's Vancouver in some ways. Maybe it's San Diego.
minute I like it just feels super nobody yeah I think it's it's still very unclear like if you had to ask me who's gonna win the West I think I'm still inclined to pick one of LAFC or the Sounders even though they're not knocking thing you know they're not just they're not tearing it up you know before like before this for all the night all the the positives you know lafc had a four game winning streak across all comps coming into this game
They hadn't given up a goal in any of those four games, but they had also only scored four goals, right? They aren't looking like an attacking juggernaut either. And the Sounders, I think, still have some questions about their attack as well. This game doesn't answer everything. So I agree with you. I think it's still pretty jumbled in terms of who we think the elite teams are.
in the west i i'm i'm i've i agree with you on this one i do think it's interesting that you you really do not think much of austin's rebuild it doesn't sound like No, not especially, man. I look at this team, and I know Doyle has talked about this as well on this very program. It just seems like their offseason business was weird. It was really weird. They spent a lot of money.
On Brandon Vasquez, and you spend $12 million and change on Mirtu Azuni, who are both good players, right? Would I spend $10 million on Brandon Vasquez if I was trying to get an owner to convince an owner to spend $10 million on a player for my team? No, I would not.
Is Brandon Vasquez a good striker in Major League Soccer? I think he is. So you spend 10 million on Vasquez, great. It seems to me that the next logical move would have been to find somebody to feed Brandon Vasquez. And that's just not what happened. They go out there and get Mirta Wazuni.
And Nico Estevez has been playing those two guys up top together. And that's fine. I don't have a real issue with that. But there's nobody to really feed them the ball. Ousmane Bukhari comes in for $7 million last summer. And he's their club record transfer at the time. He's coming over from Red Star in Serbia.
And he looks like a fun player, but doesn't look like a top-end winger at this point and certainly doesn't look like a top-end chance creator when you think about somebody to feed those two center forwards, which is really what they are. Austin hit 35 crosses. against the Colorado Rapids on Saturday. It's a lot of crosses. It's a whole mess of crosses. I think they only had more than 35 in two games last season when you go and look at the numbers. They went down to the 18th minute. They had...
They had like 70 plus, it ended up being close to 80 plus minutes because they had a ton of stoppage time in the second half to get an equalizer and they just couldn't do it. And Nico Estevez after the game is talking about how he's still so surprised that they couldn't score.
I just felt like I watched a different game where they had a couple of chances, and Uzuni looks like a good player when they can find him, but they just did not find those nines often enough. Maybe they figure it out. It's too early for me to say that they're going to be bad this year, but I felt...
a bit torn, even moving them up to ninth in my preseason predictions in the Western Conference as that last sort of, you know, that last year of playoff teams. And I don't know, maybe I should have listened to my gut and said that this team is just still super flawed and how Rodolfo Burrell.
has built the squad because they just don't look convincing so far. It's a lot of money to spend without really seeing market improvement at more than one theoretical area. And frankly, it's an area where you need service like it's just such a weird it's such a weird investment strategy i don't i don't understand it are there well are there any play just to finish off that to finish off that note
It's especially odd coming off of last season where it seemed to me that last year was the year of the budget striker in MLS in so many ways. Patrick Ajeman is scoring a bunch of goals for Charlotte and Alonzo Martinez is scoring a bunch of goals for NYCFC as like this converted... winger and you go and look around the league and there's a lot of players who are not super high profile scoring a ton of goals and Austin just got there and spend 20 plus million dollars on two guys
who need service and don't go out there and get somebody to provide them service. So maybe it's Bukari. I don't know. Maybe it's Owen Wolf. It just feels awkward anyway. Yeah. Are there any players who have sort of surprised you that have sort of maybe leveled up in a way that you didn't foresee or are you just been pleasantly you've enjoyed watching them do it?
Yeah, a couple of guys were already mentioned in San Diego when I think about Tvershkov and Ingvardsen. Tvershkov in particular, like if folks haven't watched this guy play, you know, maybe turn on a San Diego game at some point and just...
Just watch him. The weight that he puts on his passes is almost always perfect. He's always passing to the right foot. He's got the frame to shield the ball in tight spots. He's strong that he can charge out of midfield because he has that sort of size and ground coverage. He's just awesome. So that's one player. Another person that comes to mind for me, and this is not a new name, but he's in a little bit of a new old role, is George Mihaljevic, where last year for Chris Armas...
He was playing as the number 10 in a 4-2-3-1 for the vast majority of the season. This year, Colorado have shifted their shape a little bit, and they're playing in much more of a 4-3-3 with a single number six, and that's been Josh Atencio. Shout out, Josh Atencio. And then two number eights, and it's been Cole Bassett as the right-sided eight, and Ali Larraz as the left-sided number eight. So that's the three-man midfield. And then it's been...
George Mihaljevic as the nominal left winger. And I say nominal because he's still always coming inside to find the game, but his touches are happening further in that left half space. And he's been really good. He picks Austin apart on that opening goal that Hoffa Navarro scores for the Rapids against Austin over the weekend. It's a great assist. He was super influential, Georgie, in the Rapids last game out in the regular season. He had some bright moments in CCC play as well.
He has returned in some ways to the role that Wilford Nance was using him in way back in 2022 with CF Montreal, where Georgie was playing as this like half left winger, half number 10 sort of player for. Montreal, who themselves would pivot from a 3-4-3 with a front three with Georgie as that left-sided player to a 3-5-2, where Georgie would then come inside and drop into central midfield or drop into that 10 spot.
And he was really good that season. That was like Georgie's true breakout year in Major League Soccer in a lot of ways, even though he'd been around and had been a name for a really long time.
He's doing a lot of that stuff again. And I think George is probably going to produce regardless of where he's positioned on the field. But it's been fun seeing Armas and Ivan had a chance to ask him about this. But it's been fun to see him maybe take a page out of Nantes' book or maybe this is a decision made.
For other reasons, I'm sure there's a lot of them wanting to get Atencio and Bassett. And apparently they like Oliver LaRoz a lot. It's wanting to get those guys in the field as well. But Georgie has looked really fun a lot of the time in the early stages of 2025. Well, one note I forgot. I never think about them, so this is why I forgot to bring it up.
This wouldn't be a show on the Sounder at Heart podcast network if I didn't ask you to throw a little dirt on the Portland Timbers who are not looking so hot these days. They just lost 2-0 to Nashville. but they gave up. They gave up two goals. You got it. Yep. They gave up two goals. They gave up two penalties and neither one of those penalties were converted.
yep amazing it was so bizarre i honestly don't know if i've seen a game like this before um this is like the easiest time to come on the pod and talk you know a little bit of attraction the portland timbers because I would be doing that regardless of where I was coming on to talk about soccer and MLS. The Timbers are just bizarre right now. And you look at how they play in this game against Nashville.
And it's Zach McGraw taking a page out of the Kamal Miller book of defending and is just clattering into dudes inside his own box. And they're considering a penalty inside of five minutes. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just wild. And this is a team.
that in some ways this is a positive point for timbers fans if there are any listening and in some ways it is a little bit of condemnation about this team this timbers team cannot afford to make those kinds of mistakes i mean not a lot of teams in mls can afford to make those kinds of mistakes but
The Portland Timbers are betting in a new DP number 10 while they try to replace Evander and Devin DaCosta. And he's only a couple of starts into his time in Portland. They're missing their other, you know, really two best... playmakers in Jonathan Rodriguez, who's a DP and was excellent. Very, very good coming in from Portland last season. He's a star and they're missing him. He's out with an injury. He'll be back, you know, as far as I'm aware, sometime in the next month. I don't know when.
sandy moreno is one of the better non-dp attackers in all of major league soccer is is a good maybe even very good winger in this league he's out injured as well sort of similar time frame maybe he's a little bit further ahead i think he is than jonathan rodriguez
They're missing both of those guys. And that means that they have very few options for DaCosta to find in the attack outside of Felipe Mora, who did not start over the weekend and is always sort of on the brink of an injury. They're missing pieces, which means one of two things.
It means either that this Timbers team is going to get better. And I think they will to one degree or another, they're going to get a bit better as the season goes on. It also means that their defense is just well and truly broken. When you have nothing else to do.
but defend very compact and be focused on your defensive work and try to scrape by withdrawals on the road, you should be playing better than this, especially against a team like Nashville, who aren't just not very good and not very talented. And for you to go out there and shoot yourselves in the foot yet again.
It's just, it's honestly mind boggling stuff and something's got to change. Hopefully for Portland Timbers fans, it is just them getting their attackers back healthy. I don't know if that's going to solve these problems. Yeah. And then to give up another penalty just like 10 minutes later, an even worse foul, like really no, there was no, it didn't feel like there was any point in it. And it should be said, it really should be said.
both were well saved like those were like i didn't i didn't think the penalties were actually bad attempts and uh i don't know to have just sort of like it just feels like it's it's such a a shame to like hang your goalkeeper out to dry like that to have them come up with two big plays that especially early in the game and then just and it to count for nothing to to literally count for nothing yep and it's and it's
This is a case where it's also a sort of things can be two things. It is a really soft goal that Portland do end up allowing from Andy Nahar. Pentemis does not cover himself in glory on that. But the guy had already saved two penalties. Like, he's still giving you a plus one across the board. even after allowing a bit of a soft goal at the near post. So it's just, it's one problem after another for Portland too. I didn't think we're going to be a great team anyway in 2025.
They are are bottoming out in the early season, even with the injuries in the squad in a way that I didn't quite see coming in this manner. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a it's a shame. It's a shame, I guess, is is maybe how although. Andy Nahar's flip. I appreciate that he was good stuff. It's good stuff. I appreciated that he did it. Although man, it looked like he almost hurt himself pretty bad on the landing. Like he did not, he did not complete that at all.
you know is i wonder if that's what uh what happens when you're on the other side of 30 doing flips like that i don't know if that if that's sort of the case for andy nahar yeah i mean also just out of practice man like national aren't scoring a lot of goals they're not doing a lot of fun stuff in the attack just getting the season
So maybe he just needs a few more wrecks on that, on the flip. Yeah. Well, Joe, thank you so much for filling in. I want to make sure to give a plug though. Back healed is doing amazing work. I mean, you guys are. I think if you are a smart fan who likes to read about this crazy North American soccer scene, and I do expand it beyond just MLS, you guys just did previews on every USL championship team.
I believe you're doing the same thing for NWSL, right? No, not for NWSL just yet. Although we do have some news coming out on the NWSL front that I'm excited about. But yeah, MLS and USL stuff, US Men's, I mean, there's... It's a lot. It's, it's a lot. I really am. I'm proud. I'm proud of the stuff we're doing, man. I think it's good. Yeah. And I want to remind if you are a sounder at heart subscriber at the advocate level or above, you get a free subscription to back yield and.
That that's money that we basically pay to backheeled in order to have this partnership. I love doing this. I hope people are. into it. I would urge anyone who is eligible to sign up for this account. And Joe, you guys are doing great work. Just wanted to say thank you again and keep it up.
Thank you, first of all, for having me. And thank you for all the amazing work that you and Sounder at Heart are doing, because I think in so many ways you all set the standard for what an independent outlet should look like. And yes, of course, there's a lot of differences in what we're doing and even...
At times the styles of what we're doing just because we're covering different things, but it is, it's encouraging to have somebody to look over to and get to even ask questions too. And we'll go back and forth and chat about some of this stuff all the time.
And I'm just really appreciative of the work that you all do because when I write about the Sounders, it makes my life easier. When I think about the Sounders, it makes me smarter at all that stuff. I hope people feel that way when they're reading about other teams and they come over to Backfield.
And they should be advocates on Sounder at Heart because that gets them back. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, with all that said, I am Jeremiah Shan signing off for Joe Lowry of Backheeled. This is no study at this part of the Sounder at Heart podcast network. And we'll catch you next time.