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We're recording on Wednesday, April 9th, 2025. I am your host, Jeremiah Shan. Joining me today is a friend of the pod, Mark Castor, and our engineer, Lickett. Aaron is unfortunately out right now. Mark, how is it going? I wish the Sounders were playing a little bit better, but it's the start of spring. There's no more snow. Beautiful day there in Minnesota, it looks like.
It's been a nice few days. Over the weekend, it was 60 degrees. Yeah, I mean, not a whole lot to complain about outside of the Saturday nights I spend watching the Sounders. Chaos that is the... being an American citizen these days, right? Why what happened? So, you know, we're coming off of a week here where the Sounders had one of their worst losses in a bit. It was a pretty good gut-punchy kind of loss.
I don't think we're going to spend a lot of time dissecting this loss, but I did want to get some of your broad... broad ideas and thoughts on it and sort of how that dovetails into the rest of you know, the next few weeks and the season. I went back through today, actually, and I wanted to see if my personal recollection was correct because I saw a fair amount of discussion online. about how the biggest thing the Sounders struggled with was San Diego's pressure.
And I got to say, I watched the game again. I don't think that was really the issue. I think really what the Sounders issue was is what they did once they broke San Diego's pressure and how effective San Diego was at.
sort of turning counter attacking opportunities into real chances. And so sort of the, the two polar opposites of this with the Sounders did poorly, San Diego did well, but I thought like the Sounders, for instance, I thought the Sounders were very effective in the way that they press.
They forced a bunch of turnovers from San Diego by forcing them to play out of the back in ways that I don't know that San Diego had to do a lot. They were oftentimes content to just kick it long. But the problem was, is that... the Sounders just had no, they got caught sleeping repeatedly on, on counterattacking opportunities. They got caught sleeping sort of on that first minute free kick or a second minute corner kick. Sorry.
And it was sort of a theme that Brian Schmetzer hit on yesterday when we talked to him. And he was talking about how the Sounders just didn't show. the sort of vision and creativity that he is expecting from them. He took that somewhat on his own shoulders and said, you know, we clearly didn't set them up very well. But Mark, you had some thoughts on that as well. Yeah, I think right now the thing that's kind of snakebiting the Sounders in general is...
I'm sure Sounders fans will be tired to hear their underlying numbers are good, even coming out of a San Diego game where they got shellacked by an expansion team. I really do think that there's a lack of... creativity and bravery in these last let's say handful of games that is just sort of like really unbecoming and like untraditional of a brian smetzer team i've seen Brian Smetzer coached Sounders' team play really bad before. Of course, it's happened. He's been a coach for a long time.
One thing that's kind of different, I would say, about this year, as opposed to maybe last year or even previous years where they've had slow starts, is there's just a lack of... There's nobody like really kind of grabbing, grabbing this team by the scruff of their neck and like dragging them over the finish line. Hey, that's one thing. B another thing is just like the lack of like. Nobody's making that brave run. Nobody's trying to do something with the ball that is...
maybe a little bit unorthodox to just try something, you know, like there's just, everything is just so methodical, so structural. So like, well, this is what the rubric says to do. And there's just not like. I don't know if it comes down to the new formation or the group of players that are playing together. There's just not a lot of what, in my opinion, comes down to. bravery on and off the ball from players that have been plenty brave and plenty creative in previous iterations of this team
Yeah, I think that's a fair criticism. I do think one of the other things that's hurting the Sounders is that. Their most dynamic players or some of their most dynamic players have not been available right now. And by dynamic, I mean... Jordan Morris being able to make those runs in behind repeatedly and not just making one or two runs, but just sort of consistently stretching the back line. And I think that's, you know, we're seeing...
bits and pieces of dynamism. We see it from Jesus Ferreira will attempt a run like that every now and then, but he's not doing it with consistency because he's also happy to sort of peel off. and receive passes in half spaces and whatnot.
Georgie Munungu is another player who he's capable of making some of those dynamic plays, but he's not going to be your central, you know, he's not going to be your primary playmaker. That's not what they should be relying on him to do. He's more of a supplemental piece. Albert Rusnak is a player who is very good at what he does, but dynamic movements is not really his bread and butter. And, you know, you're missing a Pedro De La Vega is another player who is who that is his hole.
His deal is breaking lines with runs and dribbles, and he's willing to sort of float and be unpredictable. And, you know, I go back to also the start of the season, which was, let's remember that they, the center started the season pretty well, you know, after the LAFC game. They were averaging basically two goals a game and were kind of flying in a lot of ways. And a huge part of that was Paul Areola and the way he was playing and what he was allowing the Sounders to do as that left wing back.
And I don't think Paul Rothrock has necessarily been bad, but he has not been as good as. as areola was and you you sort of take all these incremental steps down and i think what you're left with is a team that just is not good at these sort of dynamic plays. And that's part of why they've scored one goal in their past four games, which is obviously not good enough. Yeah, it's not a recipe of like a championship winning team, however you want to define that. And especially when...
You know, typically when the sounders go through scoring droughts, they... don't give up three goals like right like and the san jose game was whatever okay in that sense Yeah, yeah, yeah. And well, I think you're kind of bookending a really poor Cruz Azul performance with a really poor San Diego performance. Yeah, I'm kind of discounting that one, to be honest with you. But yeah, fair enough.
Um, and I think that just like in general, something that I think is lacking in terms of analysis of this team in kind of the, let's say MOS zeitgeist, you know, so for instance, I'm a real sucker for power. And I was reading back heels, power rankings and Matt Doyle's power rankings. And there's largely the sentiment that this team will be fine, which they probably will be. Yeah. But. Nobody like realizes that they actually like.
traveled to Guatemala and Mexico already this season and had to play like What was it like eight games in 14 days or something crazy like that? It was eight games. Hang on. Six games in 18 days, but go ahead. There we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. That's okay. I will just chalk that up to dyslexia or whatever. I think, and that's just kind of like, that's just kind of what happens when an MLS team crashes out of CONCACAF.
Champions Cup, League, Trophy, whatever they're calling it now. Is it just kind of like... I think every MLS fan experiences a Men in Black flash memory thing, and they just forget why that happened.
paul areola literally tore his acl in mexico so that happened right and i just think that like that has some knock-on effects obviously when you're kind of like um i think i completely sort of like railroaded the question you actually asked me but i know i think that was i think you answered it i think in general like It's worth trying to win the CONCACAF tournament. I think it's worth putting kind of all of your eggs in that basket to try to win.
The flip side of trying to win that tournament is it happens early in the season, injuries can happen, and it happens at a point when certain players' bodies aren't just ready for that workload. It's why Jordan Morrow's got hurt. You know, unfortunately, Paul Ariola had. kind of a catastrophic injury. And then, you know, obviously the minutes and stuff that went into Pedro de la Vega's legs contributed to his injury as well as. The injury Alex O'Don suffered this past weekend and Albert Rusnak.
I'm sure people are tired of talking about or hearing that as sort of an excuse, but I think when you have the combination of players that got hurt when they got hurt, you... And then to kind of consider everything else at the same time, you end up in a place where the sounders are going to be kind of boring. sort of ripe for getting shellacked like they did. And that sucks, but... I don't know what to do beyond being like, well...
I'm glad it's only April. Yeah. I mean, I think there is an element of glad it's only April. But the other good piece of news is that it does seem like. Both Jordan Morris and Pedro de la Vega should be back this week. It looks like, you know, I don't want to put too many eggs in the Ryan Kent basket because as good as I thought he's looked in practice, I don't. hope the Sounders are relying on him for too much production for the immediate future.
But there is reason to think that some of this should get better in the short term just because I do think Pedro de la Vega is potentially a real... a real impact player in terms of the way that he's able to affect the way the Sounders play. Jordan Morris, same thing. And so there is, I don't think it's... It's it shouldn't be. Too much panic at this point.
Of course, if they don't get a result in Dallas, we're going to be right back where we started. But I still look at this team and I still see a roster that I like a lot of these players. I like what they are.
trying to do and the the numbers tell me that they are doing a lot of the things they need to do in order to win games it's just that they are losing concentration like you said they are lacking bravery in certain moments and i don't know if the i don't know what the fix for that is other than to say do better which is a really unsatisfying place to be i think
Yeah, I think everybody, even people that listen to this that aren't professional athletes, certainly have moments in their job where they're just making... like stupid mistakes and you maybe you're on maybe you're a member of a team that is just like they're stupid typos in presentation or just like people show like they're they're
Everybody knows what it's like to make a mistake. And I think everybody is also acutely familiar with compounding mistakes in one's life. And I think the Sounders are just kind of in a place where like... There's screw-ups right now. That's just kind of like maybe harsh and unfair, but was it the second San Diego goal or the third San Diego goal where it kind of started with the Jackson-Reagan turnover? There was a third one. Yeah. In that situation, if you were to kind of pause.
that before Jackson Reagan... passed the ball, I think it was more likely that the Sounders were going to score in that situation than San Diego. Right. They had been playing well. I know San Diego had just scored again, but they had something to build on in that first half, and then he just did that. So it was just kind of like... Yeah, just stop making dumb mistakes. Yeah, and I'll give you another example from that game. This was a situation that...
that San Diego didn't actually score from, but I think it was illustrative of the sort of brain fartiness the Sounders were playing with. I don't know if that's a real term. But there was a free kick about 90 yards from goal. And this is another thing that's been a recurring theme this year is I feel like... Throw-ins and free kicks from deep in the defensive end somehow end up turning into goals against the Sounders. But anyway, I digress. And what happened was there was a free kick.
And they send it long to Chucky Lozano, who is isolated on Kalani Kosarienzi, who... You could maybe argue Costa Rienzi should do better on this situation, but the reality is he's in a one-on-one battle with... Lozano on the sideline. Lozano wins the ball, and then he's just freeing on goal, essentially, because no one is paying attention in the central defense.
He is essentially behind all – he's behind everybody at that point. And there's no reason that he should be behind anyone, frankly. And – And he ends up shooting it over the bar, but it was a good chance. And it's one of those things where it's like, what are we doing here, guys? Why are you allowing Lozano to get behind this way off of a free kick? There's no way in the world.
That should happen. And it was sort of like that. The whole, you know, all these opportunities, especially at the end of the first half where. It's just like you've got people who aren't quite running back to the positions they need to be in. You've got players that aren't playing sound positional defense. And I don't know. It was just a cavalcade. Cavalcade? I don't know if that's the right word. But anyway, it was just one mistake after another. Huh?
cascade of mistakes i think it's cascade of mistake there you go uh yeah it was just one mistake after another of of players not being aware of of the situation of you know, where, you know, where they needed to be. And it was just a very disappointing performance because this is also the kind of thing we don't normally see from Brian Spencer coach teams where they just are not turned on and they, they just seem to be totally.
off their game. And I don't really know what to do about that other than to say, Like I said, you guys kind of got to be better at this stuff. I don't know. I don't enjoy at all that we are sitting here. And I think the most frustrating thing about all this, and I guess this is where I'll put a cap on this part of it, is. You know, we talked a lot in the preseason. We've talked a lot this season about how deep this team is. And I do think if you go just player by player.
This is a deep team. There are a lot of players on this roster who I like, who I think can be very useful MLS players. But for whatever reason, they're not quite meshing together right now. And what's even more... frustrating about that is that most of these guys were here last year and they were sort of meshing and so i don't i don't
I don't know what it is really about this group that is like, we shouldn't be in the same position we were in last year when there were also a bunch of injuries, but they were different kinds of injuries and they happened in different parts of the season. And they were sort of struggling to play catch up last year. And this year, it's just like you said, it's it's the wrong injuries to the wrong players at the wrong time.
Yeah, and I think it certainly opens the door for a pretty valid criticism of like how the roster is constructed in terms of like... So you're never going to hear me be the type of person that's like... We need a $20 million striker like Atlanta got. I don't really care about... like how much money something costs. But what I do care about is like, it is better to move on from certain players a year early than a year later.
I think that that's just kind of a good rule of thumb in sports. It is better to move on the year before they kind of fall off their peak than... a year after they do. And we saw that with Nico Odero, Raul Ruiz Diaz, maybe Quinn Dempsey to an extent, although that was... interesting. And it just is kind of a Sounders thing that they maybe hold on to certain players for a little too long for sentimental reasons.
And there are now like maybe a handful of guys you're looking at that it's like, maybe. maybe we shouldn't have kept you around. And for kind of the sole purpose of like a fresh face in that position, doing a different thing, training differently. every day talking differently, every day just being a different person than the guy you've been around for, what's four or five seasons, that can kind of have an effect on a locker room and kind of revitalize.
Is it probably too early to call certain players out? Yeah, I agree. But at the same time, this time last year, we thought the Sounders needed... a complete overhaul by the end of the season. It was like, oh, maybe they only need a couple of pieces. Well, they went out and got a couple of pieces, good pieces. One of them lasted a month, unfortunately.
Which is a real shame. I don't want to make light of that situation at all. The other one, I think as a good player, is going to be a good fit long term, but is being thrusted into a position of needing to be... the it guy on this team, like really, really early into his time here. That's obviously Jesus Ferreira.
And now just the vibes are, they suck. The vibes are really terrible. And that invites all sorts of what I would say are really valid criticisms of how kind of... ownership and the front office has gone about creating this team. That's the flip side of this coin. You get the preseason flowers. You get all the credit in the world for building a deep team. But if that deep team doesn't perform, you have to take that criticism on the chin of like...
Maybe we should have found a different way to get a DP or something in the office. Are there particular players that you feel like are maybe past their sell-by date? I think if you, regardless of the position, but if somebody is 38 years old, still playing. And probably could make two, at least two better saves in a game. I just, okay. All right. Gloves off, whatever. I haven't been super impressed with Stephen Fry this season. And I am worried about him in general. I think there are...
And then just kind of all over the place. I think you can name players like Alex Roldan, Yamar, New Who, maybe Jao Paulo, although he's hardly played this season. Sure, maybe even throw Albert Resnack into that mix, even though I'm his biggest fan, apparently. You just kind of start thinking like... was this foundation actually there or, or what? And I think that like.
It's really important to point out, A, I think this is going to be a good team that could potentially compete for MLS Cup this season. But if this just kind of continues to happen throughout May, June, into the summer, like... That sucks. The Sounders kind of threw away their 50-year anniversary season. That was kind of a dud. If they throw away their Club World Cup season, which...
It matters to the extent that it is a new thing and they legitimately qualified for it. They're the only team in MLS to legitimately qualify for that. you got like, you got to start thinking of in terms of like, You can't hit a home run unless you swing. I know that the Moneyball thing is like, get on base, get on base, get on base. But at a certain point, you need a guy or you need something to kind of come in and...
hit the home run or like hit the double at the very least. Yeah. I mean, I see your, I definitely see your analogy and I'll, I, I don't. Without getting into the particular players that you mentioned, and I'm more inclined to... I actually think Alec Roldan's been pretty good. I think Roosnack's been pretty good. I think they've all been fine. Yeah, I think all of them have been. But I think the broader story here is that this was an offseason that felt like it needed a big shakeup.
And the Sounders opted not to shake things up almost at all. And they effectively brought back everyone, every contributor. And they brought in supplemental pieces. at players who we weren't sure were even going to be bang on starters. And I think that that's a valid approach. I think it's an approach that the Sounders have been taking for the most part since COVID.
But you're right. This was probably a year where they could have taken some bigger swings and they opted not to. And the reasons for that are probably... Right. On one hand, I'm sure that there was some thinking. having continuity was going to be a strength. I'm sure there was some... budgetary issues where they just didn't feel like they had the money they needed to go out and make big changes.
And I'm you know, and maybe there was some talent identification issues, too. I'm honestly not not sure I I. I think the issue is talent identification. I think it's more about budget and sort of more of a collective idea that having continuity was going to be their strength.
We'll see how this plays out. Where we are right now is very frustrating. I share in that very much. And I think it certainly calls into question a lot of the assumptions that I made about how strong this team was going to be going into this year. And what a lot of people made, what almost every outside observer looked at this team and said, oh, this is a supporter shield contender. Obviously, there was a lot of fans who said, no, it's not. It's going to be awful.
A fair number of those fans have been saying the same thing for several years. And, you know, I guess we'll see who ends up being right here. But I suspect it will probably be somewhere in the middle. I never really thought this was a Porter Shield contending team because the Sounders never are a Porter Shield contending team. I just don't think they're a supporter shield.
contending club i don't think they just don't this is yeah the sounders have won the western conference let alone the supporter shield one time And it was the last time it actually mattered, by the way. That is true. The last time we had on schedule was the year the Sounders won Supporter Shield. They can put that. They can hang that banner, right? And I'm not just saying that because that happened to be my wedding day. I'm saying that because it...
That's back when you actually played the Eastern Conference and all that. Home and away and everything. The last point I want to make is I don't want somebody to clip the show. God forbid, jump into my mentions or anything, being like, well, you're the type of guy that kind of always believes in the team. I do. I do think this is a good team. I do think Pedro de la Vega is that playmaker. and that sort of difference maker. And I do think...
In the long run, this season, they're going to finish between, let's say, first and fourth in the West, and they'll probably be playing in the Western Conference Final. That's sort of the expectation I have for this team. And I think that that's a really good season. However, I do want to be sympathetic to this. you need something to excite this fan base. And I think, I think that goes beyond just like winning a couple of games when it matters most, because like.
I went to my first Sounders game in... First Sounders home game in like two years, a few weeks ago. It was the, which game? It was the Houston game. Houston game. Yeah. Very boring game to go to. Good game to go to. Gosh. Yeah, and I'm not trying to draw too many conclusions from just being in that game. It was incredibly stark, the difference between the last home game I went to, which also happened to be a very boring 1-0 win against Dallas.
And the 0-0 draw against Houston. And there's just not an excitement in the stadium anymore. And I don't think one signing does that. I don't think lowering ticket. Loaring ticket prices probably helps, but I don't think there's like one solve for this thing, but the easiest way to make fans excited is to spend a lot of money on one player. It's an idea, Craig, if you want to give me a call. I got some ideas.
Uh, Adrian, uh, you probably have my number. Um, yeah. If, if you, if you need me to consult on some ideas, let me know. Just throwing that out there. Very, very big of you to do that. Well, I think that's probably a good place to take a break. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about we're going to do our power rankings feature. That is now a weekly thing this week. We're going to be ranking.
What did we call this? Ranking the things that are to blame for the Sounders start. And you came up with a pretty good list that we'll work off of. So we'll go from there. But yeah, you're listening to Nos Audientes and we'll be right back. Ready to kickstart your fitness journey? Whether you're an athlete, a fitness enthusiast, or just getting back into shape, BodySpec has you covered. For less than the price of a haircut, you can access Dexa Scans, the world's most accurate body...
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and right now if you use the code sounder at heart that's all one word at checkout you will get a free hot sauce with your order again Go to hacksandferments.com, use the code sounder at heart at checkout for a free hot sauce with your order. Hacks and Ferments is a proud sponsor of that sounder at heart. Welcome back to Nos Adietes. So we are going to close out today's episode with a feature that we call Power Ring.
And if you haven't heard us do this before, here's a little reminder. Basically, we come up with the subject. We pick five things to rank in that subject. And then we talk about it. So Mark actually came up with these five. I came up with the subject, which was why are you to the sound? What would we blame the sounders start on?
mark pick the five things and i'm gonna go through and i'm gonna rank them myself and then we can kind of discuss them so we're gonna start at number five number five you had fixture congestion which i think is an interesting idea to bring up because we're now three weeks the sounders haven't had much fixture condition for the last few weeks But you still think that there is a legitimate reason why this is impacting their system?
Yeah, and I think the reason why that is the case is that there's sort of like a delayed... There can be a delayed effect of... what can happen in fixture, excuse me, fixture congestion, congestion, congestion. Yeah. Um, um, sort of like a delayed effect to like how I can talk apparently. Um, So there's a lot of research sort of like within the world of soccer that like the amount of minutes in a player's legs matters. Like everybody sort of has their leg.
level and we're probably going to talk about another sort of issue that i think has been caused from like the sounders playing a lot of middleweight games early in the season but I think basically the reason why this matters is that the Sounders... had a lot of adrenaline to get through ccl or ccc or whatever it's called and then they kind of crashed out and there's there's a there's a lingering effect to those matches and i think one of the lingering effects is like
maybe something that went wrong when they were playing Cruz Azul is stuck in their head. Or maybe they're just still sort of like not fully, I mean, they should be fully fit. almost mid-April now. Playing that many minutes that early in a season can have some lingering effects. So I would have probably ranked that number five myself. So a good start, I'd say. Okay.
Yeah, I agree. I think that there is some impact there. And I think if you look around the league at the teams that are off to kind of rough starts, LAFC also is off to a rough start. Not as rough as the Sounders, but they do have four losses.
uh in seven years more losses than the sounders have which is actually more than the sounders have exactly la galaxy are off to a very very very bad start i don't know if it's necessarily fixture congestion that's doing them in but they're off to a very bad start RSL is off to a bad start. So it's, you know, you can kind of go down the list and there are some outliers, Vancouver Whitecaps, that are definitely doing quite well. They're probably the best team in the world.
They might be the best team in the world. Columbus Crew also undefeated. Off to a solid start. Again, these are a good team. Cincinnati is... more middling. They've gotten some wins, but they aren't necessarily playing quite up to what they were expecting. I think there's some evidence for what you're saying. Cincinnati is also in Ohio, technically, even though their airport is in Kentucky. Is that true? That's interesting. Yeah. Do they use the Louisville airport?
No, it's just on the other side of the border. Oh, interesting. Yeah. It is a weird place. So, all right, well, let's... Yeah, I think I think we're good on that. So number four on your on what I'm putting number four on your list is harsh end variance. And I I want you to explain what harsh end variance is for our. I think they are on the harsh end of variants. I think there are several...
If you do the thing where you play every, if you play out each of the games that they played 100 times, I think they're in the lower percentile of outcomes in a lot of those games. And I don't know if I think San Diego is or isn't a perfect example of this. So I'm just going to kind of put it on the other side. But I think, for instance, like. The Houston or the Charlotte game or maybe even the San Jose game.
Definitely the first leg of the Cruz Azul game. I think that the Sounders have largely played pretty well. And I think that the sort of underlying numbers support that. And the thing about underlying numbers early in a season is there's just a lot of noise in the data. Time will tell if that's actually true or not. And I do think that if you kind of look at some of the stuff that's happened. It's probably outside of dumb mistakes.
probably unfair they probably could have picked up at least two more wins and yeah two or three maybe even yeah and then we're we then the vibes don't suck as bad or at all the vibes probably don't suck at all if they have two or three more The main point I have about the variance thing is MLS is a salary capped league. There's so much controlled spending in this league.
And that's where variance is going to sort of like... spread like a epidemic where like, you're going to have some really good teams that are just going to be. for no reason you're gonna have maybe some bad teams that way over perform just because the environment is so controlled where in other leagues around the world that doesn't happen as much Yeah, so to give some more data to your point, the Sounders are on six points through seven games.
According to American Soccer Analysis' expected points, which basically looks at each game and tells you what they would assume you should get out of it, the Sounders should be on 10 or 11 points. which I do think would be a very, I mean, that's at least another win, if not potentially two more wins. And I think if you can look at their XG performance for the most part.
they probably should have at least one or two more wins. They definitely should have won the Charlotte game. They probably should have won the Houston game and they probably should have won the sounds. And you give the Sounders three more wins. That's five. I mean, that's five. That's six more points. It's a very different conversation we're having. That would be sitting on 12 points.
Three more wins is actually nine more points. No, three more wins, but they got single points in three of those, all three. Oh, you're right. Yeah. Two times three is six. Yeah. You're very right. All right. What happens when you have two, what happens when you have two writers do math together? Right. Exactly. All right. So number three, lack of imagination. And this is more you said a more of a broader criticism of the coach, the formation, the select.
And yeah, I think that that's what you're basically saying is the Sounders could have been doing more to tactically to improve their results. Yeah, and I think what I kind of meant by that point was... uh something i talked about earlier in the show in terms of like their lack of bravery and their sort of like really off-ball runs. I thought Brian Smetzer said something really interesting in his kind of media availability yesterday, which I watched on YouTube, where he...
He sort of identified the problem as like a lack of vision by certain players off of the ball with the runs that they make. And I think he singled out Paul Rothrock in particular. I don't... I don't know if I would like totally. say this is like individual players or what, but I think there's just a broader sense around this team right now of like that just extra half percent or that extra little.
To make that run or make that movement or try that pass just isn't there right now. I think that's because, like we talked about earlier, the lack of dynamic players on the field. I think there is sort of a commitment to... a particular play style that probably doesn't fit the players that are available right now.
There's a lot of chatter about the formation and whether that should change or what. But this formation looks a little different, but it really just isn't that different than how they played last year. the social media team tweeted out a different combination of numbers on a formation graphic. Like if you're going to play new who, this is how new who should play. Like he shouldn't be an overlapping left.
He should be this type of player or like Christian. I agree with you there. I think that the, to me, the conversation around the formation is maybe a little. like a little missing the mark because it feels like they're ultimately building, they're building out basically in a similar way. Although the, the idea here, and this is where I think it's interesting is like the idea here this year was that they were going to be able to commit an extra number forward. And I do wonder if that number is.
catching them on the back end. They're maybe a little bit more prone to giving up counterattacks. And they seem like this year that's been biting them. I don't think they can afford to do less offensively than they're doing now. That's sort of one they're just going to have to figure out. I don't actually think it's biting them on the back end. I do think it's biting them in the midfield.
Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. So number two, simply the lack of a Morris alternative at striker. And I think that this is. This is really interesting because I think this was the thing that most people identified as being the biggest need this offseason. It was also the thing that the Sounders seemingly addressed, and it has not worked.
Yeah, I think that in this formation, Jesus Ferreira is a terrible alternative, at least at this point in the season, to what Jordan Morris offered. They're completely different players. I think that the criticism of Jesus Ferrer's first half against San Jose... warranted, but reached a tipping point for me where I thought it was just harsh.
Certain people were just kind of downright mean about it, especially with how he played in the second half and how that game ended up just being sort of fine. If you get a point away to San Jose, you're. In a vacuum, you'll kind of just take that at any point in the season. It's about what Jordan Morris does. Something that sticks out in particular is something Matt Doyle said on this podcast early in the season. I think you asked him a question about, is Jordan Morris worth a DB contract?
Yeah. I do vaguely remember. Matt Doyle said something that I just... I really appreciate it. Put words to something that I've felt for several years now, watching Jordan Morris play. Jordan Morris is a type of player that has gravitas to it. around him. There's a lot of gravity around Jordan Morris. Even when he's not playing well, he occupies defenders. The defense or just sort of a team in general needs to know where Jordan Morris is at all times. And that's just the type of player he is.
He is a different type of striker to Raul Ruiz Diaz. He is a different type of striker to a lot of the strikers in MOS, actually. And I think that that's why it's really hard to quantify his content. However, one thing he does is he will make a run that opens up so much space for the rest of the team. And even if he doesn't get the ball and there's just nobody that does that right now, Danny Masoski probably does it to like.
a 40% level, which is why I think the Sounders have looked really good when Danny Masofsky plays is because like... Right. It's not that player. It is funny because Masofsky is, I think, catches the ire of a lot of Sounders fans because he's not putting up, he's not scoring, right? And I think that's a...
It's a fair thing to want your backup striker to do is to score when he gets those opportunities. And even in this game against San Diego, he had a couple of decent looks and he didn't convert. And so this is sort of an ongoing concern. But what he does do well is he does mimic.
He is sort of like a poor man's version of Jordan Morris, and that's kind of what you want. You want someone that's going to play in the same style, even if he's not going to be as good. This is MLS. It's not realistic to think that you're going to have backups that are just as good as your starters. at every position. But I can't help but wonder if this game against San Diego goes a little bit differently if Mosovsky was fully fit to be able to play in it. And, you know, it's...
I don't know. It's probably not worth getting into that particular debate. But I do think Masofsky... potentially is a good Jordan Morris backup. But what we're learning is that Ferreira is, the Sounders just have to play differently if Ferreira is going to be the nine. They haven't had a lot of time with him at the nine, admittedly.
And it doesn't look like they, you know, so I don't know. We'll see. We'll see how this goes. My suspicion is that Ferreira is going to start at one of the 210 spots. I think we're going to see the 3421 again. it looks like Morris might be able to start. So that would be good. And I think that will put this particular element to test for sure. But number one, I think it's...
hard to escape that injuries to the right players or the wrong players at the wrong time. You said the right player. I don't know how you want to say it, but the injuries are impossible. It's not that...
You can look at any one of these injuries and say, this should not have been... this big of a deal but you look at sort of like what we talked about earlier in the show you look at all the entries that happened and you look at who they happened to and you look at when they and they all happened at once Hard to escape, but that still feels like the number one culprit here. Yeah, I think this team was...
I think if you had a really honest Craig Weibel and Brian Spencer in the offseason, I think they would have both said, there's going to be a stretch of games where Pedro De La Vega is injured. There's going to be a stretch of games where Jordan Morris is injured. Maybe somebody on the team tears his ACL. Maybe that's Paul Ariel. I don't think even in their sort of like worst imaginations, they would have said all of that's going to happen in the same week. No, not in two weeks.
Sorry, in the span of four days. Yeah. All of that's going to happen between a Tuesday and a Sunday. Right. really the only person that I can think of that had a worse week than that. I'm not going to make that joke. Nevermind. I was going to make, I was trying to shoe in a youth pastor joke, but I couldn't get there. I just think like the timing of those three injuries, how they happened, when they happened, the fact that they got knocked out of the CONCACAF thing.
it all just kind of sucked. And I think that the Sounders would be like, okay, so for instance, we just talked about kind of Jesus Ferreira being a stand-in for Jordan Moore. I think of Jesus Ferreira as playing. at the number nine and Pedro de la Vega is playing on that kind of right side 10. I think that that works, especially because if Albert Rusnak's on that other sort of like half space, I think that combination of players work.
And I think if, especially if, if there's like some dynamism happening, like on the wings from, from the wingbacks, I think that combination works. I think if. Jesus Ferreira and Jordan Morris are able to play together in kind of Morris at the nine, Ferreira either kind of underneath him as a second striker or in one of kind of these number 10 things. I think that works. But the fact that in particular, both Jordan Morris... And Pedro de la Vega got hurt at the same time. Just is the like...
Just knocks the wind out of you in the way of like, if you crash your bike really bad when you're a kid. You're going to be fine long-term, but it just is such a shock to the system in that moment that it makes sense that they've just lacked a sort of dynamic. attack since that happened. Yeah, I would agree with all that. I think... The other thing is, it's funny because I feel like the conversation around Pedro was starting to change because he was playing well.
Now we're going back to just looking at his MLS numbers, and he doesn't score an MLS. And so we're kind of back to like, oh, this guy is kind of a bust.
I'm bullish. I'm just going to put it out here. I'm bullish on Pedro de la Vega. If he stays healthy, which is admittedly a big F, I think he's going to produce. I think he looked great in CONCACAF Champions Cup. Admittedly, they were... maybe not the best opponent, but he's just showing some level of dynamism that we haven't seen from him before that the Sounders don't really have otherwise.
And I'm hopeful that if he's fully... And I thought he looked good against San Diego. He brought some energy. Granted, this is a team... He wasn't playing against a team who was playing the Sounders straight up at that point. I was encouraged by what I saw. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on this. I'm not ready to admit the eat all the crow everyone, the detractors would like us to eat, I suppose.
I still think there's a way forward here. But I will also say that I'm not going to be here next week. The answer for any of this, you and Aaron are going to be doing the show next week. I am going to Mexico to visit my wife's. My wife and I and kids are going to go to Mexico and visiting family there. So hopefully that goes well. Hopefully I come back and the mood is improved and everyone is excited. And if not, I guess that's how it goes.
Thanks for filling in, Mark. Yeah, I think if the Sounders win while you're in Mexico, I think you guys stay. Yeah, that's what happened last time I went to Mexico. or no into hawaii sorry that was when i was going to hawaii but yeah you just go when you go on vacation and you they played pretty well against uh pumas when you went to the game there right They did. Yeah, they did. Yeah. I might have to keep going to Mexico.
I don't, yeah, I mean, maybe we need a few more subscribers for that to happen, but just an idea. When things are going wrong, you've got to think outside of the box. Absolutely. These are the sacrifices I'm willing to make. All right. Well, Mark, thanks again for filling in for Aaron. Thanks for filling ahead of time. Thanks for filling in next week. A little bit more. housekeeping. I'm going to be doing a show with Nico later in the week. So I guess you will hear from me again.
I will also be doing a podcast. I did an interview with Wade Weber to preview the Open Cup game on Tuesday. You're going to hear from me. I'm not going to be here to talk about the game on Saturday. Anyway, thank you to our sponsors, Full Pool Wines, BodySpec, Haxan Ferments as well. I am Jeremiah Oshan signing off for Mark Kastner and Lick It. This is No Sarietes. And remember, you'll never get alone. 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? Awkward joke, dad joke.