Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounders legend. Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart podcast network. Here we go. Come on. Hey, oh, shit. Let's go. I'm sorry, boy. Here comes Rezius from the middle, to crown it! And now they truly can start the celebrations! It's the Sounders MLS Cup! Nicola now leaves absolutely no doubt! The Sounders rule the region! Ah, this feels fucking awesome. This is a tiny... Nice work on your little yacht thing.
you know, what was the thought process? in terms of who you decided to use. Ever since Sounder and Har wrote a commentary that we didn't take them seriously. This episode of Nos Adiates is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Adiates since 2011.
Bull Bull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest. Welcome back to another episode of Nos Adientes. I am Jeremiah Shan. Joining me once again, Matt Doyle. We're going to do another episode of How the West Will Be Won. Welcome back, Matt. It's been... I feel like it's been a little bit.
Yeah, I think it's been like three or four weeks. I do this instead of therapy. Like every few weeks. Some men... We'll talk about the MLS Western Conference rather than therapy. Yeah, that sounds about right. That sounds about right. Well, as we normally do, we're just going to kind of go through... a hodgepodge of teams that i think are interesting in the western conference we're not going to go through everyone so i apologize if if you're listening to this and you're
a real salt lake fan and we don't talk about you i hate to break it to you but you're not on our mind my mind right now so right i'm hijacking i'm hijacking it so today in the editorial meeting one of my colleagues I think Diego Luna is a nailed-on starter for the U.S. men's national team. Oh, okay. I usually doze off in meetings, but that one perked me right up.
I didn't unmute. I have a general policy of speaking as little as possible any meeting. I was like, wow. It made me start thinking. I can't quite get there, but... This dude, he's clearly one of the best attacking players in MLS, and he's clearly one of the best attacking players in the U.S. national team. Well, and okay, so now we're on this, let's get into it. This is sort of my point. Does it help or hurt his case that he's like the only interesting player at RSL right now?
They're really a god of disrespect. Come on, you know my brand. Look, I think it kind of helps his case. I think Xavier Gozop has been really, really interesting in three weeks since he started getting first team playing time. I still like that deep central midfield pairing of Inale and Ojeda as well. So I think there are more interesting guys there. The problem is...
The attack's just been a mess, right? Diego Gonzalez has been kind of a disaster of a signing, and center forward has been a disaster this year. Diego Luna has been forced to keep it. all together and just barely afloat. all by himself. And I think that is a certain type of competence and emotional responsibility that you want to see from someone who might be wearing the number 10 at the World Cup. That's what we're talking about.
with this kid so it's like I think at this point it helps him, but I think longer term, the second half of the season for RSL and obviously for the national team. You want to see him being the straw that stirs a functional attacking drink, and that is doing more than just keeping the team afloat, but actually elevating the other players.
And I think, I mean, I guess in that sense, you know, one of the criticisms of the U.S. national team right now is that there's a lot of players who are on biggish teams but don't have biggish roles. And I suppose he is. He is the opposite of that. He's a player who has a very big role, a very important role.
for a not great team but he he does put them on he has to put them on his back the goal he had this week was absolutely spectacular goal and he seems to be conjuring stuff like that on a pretty regular basis so I mean, it does throw back to... You know, the U.S. national team of a dozen years ago with Donovan and Dempsey.
Landon Donovan is, for my money, still the greatest player in U.S. men's national team history. He obviously spent 95% of his career in MLS being in the role that we're talking about. Diablo Luna has now in a stronger version of the league. And as great as Clint Dempsey was in England, his best and most productive U.S. national team years came when he came back to MLS. I like to remind people of that all the time. So it's, you know.
There's parallels to be found, and you don't even have to look very hard. So I hijacked the show. I got us talking about Diego Luna, which we did not intend at all. It's a good bet. That's better. Going on this thing where I don't quite know what the bet is this week, the Whitecaps and LAFC had a really...
good game that I thought was fitting of teams who you expect to be contenders in the Western Conference yesterday. The Whitecaps are, of course, sort of the cream they are just playing wonderful soccer right now they haven't lost since march 11th No, March 22nd. March 22nd. They have an 11-game unbeaten streak across all competitions. And this is not a, oh, you got an Open Cup win over a lower division type of all-competition streak. This is going through.
like a meat grinder of CONCACAF Champions League, Champions Cup, sorry, play. So this is as impressive as a run as I remember really anyone being on. They've done it without any stars. I mean, sorry, they have stars. They don't have big money stars the way that many of these other teams. but the question so i'll start with this i have This is maybe getting to the premise of the show. This is the first of these questions. Is Brian White more likely to win a golden boot or...
Is fixture congestion going to finally start to get the better of the Whitecaps at some point and they will, I don't know, finish outside the top four? Which of those two things do you think are more likely? Brian White winning a Golden Boat is more likely. Because if you look at his underlying numbers, I wouldn't pick him against the field. I don't even think I would pick him number one overall.
His underlying numbers, even before Jesper Sorensen, were really, really good. And now they're excellent. And the fixture congestion is winding down because they have... ran that gauntlet. And as you said, they haven't lost in almost two months. That loss came during the international.
Yeah, they were without their top eight players, including Brian White, because that was Nations League, and he was in that team. Their only other loss all season was in their first game of the season, down at Saprissa. which they only lost on like a 96-minute header from Kendall Austin. So they've played, I think it's 18 games or 19 games now across all competitions. 22 losses. 20 games across all competitions.
Only two losses, and both of them have asterisks. So I think they're going to keep doing this, man. And they're going to get Ryan Goldback within the next four weeks or so. AS THE BABY as the schedule kind of smooths out for them. So I think that I don't see a reason for them to take a step backwards. And if it was going to happen for real...
I think we would have seen it by now. I think last night was a really good chance, especially because Stemper Halter was terrible. It was his first really bad game of the year, and they still found two goals, and they still had that comeback. Brian White. So it's like... I am fully on board. I am fully a believer in this project.
and the process and the fact that they're able to take guys like Semper Halter and Jaden Nelson and Pedro Vita, who's a little further up the food chain, and turn them into elite or mere elite players in MLS. It's awesome. It's exactly what I want to see from teams, from coaches being brave in this league. Yeah, a couple of stats I want to share just because I did the research and I was sort of like shocked to see this. So Brian White has 13 goals across all competitions.
already this year. He's got eight in MLS, which does actually tie him for the golden boot lead. He's got five in CONCACAF Champions Cup, which is another wild stat. So his career high is 18. He's pushing up against that before we're halfway through the season. But that's sort of underselling how good he's been since he got to Vancouver. He has 38 goals in...
Let's see, what is it? Yeah, he has 38 goals, which he's tied for the most non-penalty goals over the last three seasons of anyone in MLS. He's tied with Christian Benteke, who... That's pretty good company. He's third, even if you count penalties, he's third in goals in MLS play. He is just a... a grossly underrated striker at this point i mean he has been
He's been playing at a DP level at least since he got to Vancouver. He's not played as a DP. And I really do hope he gets a shot in the Gold Cup because he just does... that seems like it should translate to almost any competition. So the other argument then for the golden boot thing is he doesn't take penalties for this team. I think if it gets late in the season and he's in the golden boot race...
I suspect that, you know, Ryan Gould will say, no, Brian, you, you know, we want a penalty. You take it. Go for that 20th goal or whatever it is. Which they're running away with the supporter shield. Which they currently are now. And it's not just points per game. I was looking at the American Soccer Analysis database and they have a stat.
is a very granular all-in-one stack called goals added that doesn't just measure expected goals, but it has, you know... final third entries and box entries and the value of the passes they make but also the intersections they have and the fouls they draw and the fouls they get everything down the list all goes into this one stat. by that number. Vancouver is the best team in their database going back to 2013.
I believe better than 2014 Galaxy, better than 2019 LAFC, better than 2022 LAFC, or last year's Miami, which was an overperformance, obviously. So they're like, this all feels sustainable. And right now, as good as Andres Kuvas has been, the MVP of it is Brian White. This is a team that's on pace to set the points record in MLS. I don't know how, you know, they may come off that pace, but they're doing it while playing this, like I said, meat grinder of a non-league schedule as well.
It's just, and they're doing it from, you know, we out here in Seattle are quite aware that the travel realities of being in the Pacific Northwest are different than playing in almost any other part of the country, especially once you tie in. international play, and they are just passing this test with unbelievable marks. It's very impressive to see.
But, yeah, I guess we can move on from the Whitecaps. We've drooled over them enough. But LAFC was the other team on that list. And I don't know what my question is for them because I just don't think I know what they are. They are unbeaten in five. but they only have two wins in those five. Before that, they were sort of struggling, which is frankly similar to what was going on with the Sounders. But unlike the Sounders,
You can't look at these last five games and say, oh, well, they just started doing this better because they aren't necessarily keeping the opponents from scoring. They aren't necessarily scoring a ton themselves. They have a plus one goal difference. The underlying numbers say they're about where they say they are, which is a top half, certainly top half of the Western Conference, but not necessarily an elite team in the Western Conference.
I just don't know what to make of this team. Do you have any grand... proclamations about LAFC so the big question right because you're doing this bit where it's like is A more likely or B more likely and I think quite a part of it is is Is LAFC going to figure out how to use the ball so that they don't give a team like Vancouver a million final third entries, allow them to set the tempo, and eventually come back?
Or are they just being more likely they're just going to double down, triple down, quadruple down on being a counter-attacking team like they did in 2023, which got them far. It got them to MLS Cup. But we saw what happened to them in MLS Cup once they ran up against a team that was... You'll meet with the ball. And that's been the whole question of the Steve Trandolo era. And I frankly think it's why ownership is probably not crying any tears that Trandolo is leaving.
despite all the success he's had. And I think that they are trying to be a team that is good with the ball. But I think that they don't trust. Playmakers. They don't trust guys who you have to carry a little bit defensively in that midfield. I made the quit before the season. Yo, LAFC. have finally fulfilled their vision.
of being a team that has zero creative passers in midfield, and now they're playing like a team with zero creative passers in midfield. And then you add on top of that the downgrade they made in central defense. from Jesus Murillo to the Eddie Segura-Marlin combination, and it's like, okay, they're a little less incisive. When they're on the ball and trying to have possession, and they're a little more vulnerable right up the spine in central defense.
and Danny Belonga is slumping a little bit, and that's not a great combination. And oh yeah, Hugo Lloris might be lost. They're vulnerable in ways that they were in 2023 because of the personnel choices that they've made, which have then resonated in not a good way with the tactical battle that they have been fighting.
from day one of Toronto's arrival. Is it unfair to say that this is a team that, even more so than previous iterations, is going to go exactly as far as Denny Bawanga can take them? It's looking that way, and it bums me out because I have such high hopes for Davian Martinez. I think if you put Davian Martinez in Columbus or... Vancouver, Oregon, Seattle. We're talking about a $15 million transfer out. I think he's that kind of guy. But, you know, Steve Trundle does not get that.
young attackers for the most part. And maybe that's a little unfair because they did film Mateus Bogus for... for $10 million to Cruz Azul, but he was a different kind of player. Bogus was more of a runner than a passer and a dribbler, and that's the kind of guy that sort of fits the game model. We've seen LAFC and Brightstone so fully.
Well, maybe the most impressive Western Conference result this week, I thought, was Minnesota United beating Inter-Miami 4-1. It's not so much that Inter-Miami... is a jug or not. I think it's starting to look maybe like... Maybe, maybe, maybe not. Maybe not so great. But just, I really don't get, I also don't quite get what Minnesota United is. Like, they are putting up results, but there's a lot of reasons to be.
skeptical of this team, and I guess the question, well, here's the question. I did have a bit for this one. Would you rather have Inter-Miami's respect or thoroughly enjoy a 4-1 win? I mean, I would much rather be Minnesota United having that 4-1 win after. After what happened this week. Did you get the, the bit is David Beckham. It was all up in Minnesota United's mentions because they were clowning on Inter-Miami and he did not appreciate that.
Have some respect. Have some respect and be elegant in victory. So... I would rather have the 4-1 win. Yeah. I think that Minnesota United fans are right to celebrate madly after that one, and they have a nice little two-game winning streak. Nothing that happened. Nothing that happened.
change the way I feel about Minnesota United, which is that they will be... able to absolutely ruthlessly punish disorganized teams, and they have enough talent to do that to the tune of 55 or maybe even 60 points. But when it comes down to it in games that matter a lot, somebody who is good with the ball is going to run right through them, which is what we saw the Galaxy do to them in the playoffs last year.
Well, and I did some digging on Minnesota United because I was also trying to prep for this show. And so FB ref has data on possession that goes all the way back to 2016. So we're talking about, you know, nine years, nine seasons worth of data, no one in their database has been below 41.7% for the season. Right now, Minnesota United is at, do you know the standard?
I think they're at about 36 or 37%, right? That is a very good guess. 36.7% right now. So you nailed it. I just want to, like, you absolutely nailed that. So they are almost 5% below the lowest. I... possession stat in all of and this is there's some bad teams there's a lot of bad teams in this status set right uh and that equates to about 65 fewer completed passes per game than anyone else in...
And that's a lot of passes. That is not an insignificant number of things. And the thing that's so interesting to me about the way they're doing this is that... Usually when you see this, it's because teams are playing very direct or they're sort of... They're playing for, it's not about quantity, it's about quality of, now they get a lot of, they take a lot of shots from inside the box, so I don't want to make it sound like this is all smoke and mirrors.
but they don't pass the ball. They have one of the lowest long passing. They don't pass long. They have almost no progressive passing. I guess they're kind of a pressing team. What is... Is there any reason to think what they're doing is sustainable? That's the question. Is there any reason? So I think their defense is so well organized, and their two forwards are so good, and they do have quality in attacking midfield and a lot in Pereira.
And then they have some really good wingbacks as well now, Bongi and Gressel on one side. Mark Kanich, I think, is a good player, and Rosales on the other side. So the talent is there, and they don't overcomplicate things as you're so adeptly kind of showing with all those numbers. When you play that way, the floor is really high. We saw it for years in Nashville with Gary Smith.
I think you need more than that to win a trophy. Yeah, I mean, we've talked a lot about how... Oh, go ahead. No, it's not going to... I'm not going to say there's no chance that Minnesota United win something because crazy things can happen in this sport of ours, but I would struggle to pick them. We've talked a lot over this time on the show about how possession and winning have sort of become decoupled in MLS, but they seem to be sort of taking this to a...
beyond logical degree. I mean, it's one thing to have 40 to average 44 percent and say well we don't need the ball that much it's another thing to average 35% and say we don't need a wall that much because it's just the fundamental thing is that you're gonna when you come up against it when you do that against a bad team you kick them in front of you and you create chances to get out on the counter
And look, Miami are a good team. That's actually a bad team, right? They're going to give you those chances on counter, long throw set pieces. And that is the plan for Minnesota United. When you do that against a good team, you're giving them chances to get into the box twice as often as you're going to get into the box. And you don't want to do that in games that actually matter.
It's why Wilfred Nancy and Jesper Sorensen and Brian Schmetzer all bet on like, hey, let's have 55-60% possession. Let's have the ball because we can do stuff. with that and just the nature of how how Minnesota are playing. They're going to have to put out so many fires in the 18 every single game, and I just don't believe that is going to get them to the mountaintop.
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Well, you gave me an excuse to talk about the Sounders because you mentioned Brian Schmetter's name. I don't know if you did that on purpose, but now that's going to, I've been looking for the opening. How do I, how do I angle this into some Sounders talk? They're coming off a 3-1 win over Houston. They're now unbeaten in five, but they're 4-0-1 in those five. They have scored 12 goals. They suddenly look like the team that I think a lot of us thought this was going to look like.
But they're doing it not necessarily in the way that they're doing it. Danny Masofsky is all of a sudden on an unbelievable heater. While Jordan Morris is out, Jackson Reagan has been out the whole time. Obviously, Paul Areola has been out as well. What do you, and from where you're sitting, what are the Sounders doing well and what do they have to, like, and is this sort of like a sustainable path?
Of course it's sustainable. It's the Sounders, right? You guys make the playoffs every single year, just about. The numbers are good in terms of box score numbers and very good in getting better in terms of the advanced stuff. Mosovsky makes a huge difference in the way that Brian White does. It's a funny thing I remember. seven, eight years ago when both these guys were... just out of college. I think it was 18. They were among the leading goal scorers per 90 in USL.
And I remember watching some film of both of them and then looking at what advanced standard we had at that point and being like, oh, these guys are going to be good. Because box movement, if you find one-touch finishes... in your youth leagues and then in college and then you do it your first year as a pro in USL, it's probably going to translate out. The same thing happened, you know, we were just talking about Minnesota.
Same thing happened with Antonio Larche. He did it in college, and then he goes on loan to San Antonio and USL and scores like 20 goals. And then, lo and behold, he does it in MLS as well. So I think once... Seattle, once Schmetzer figured out that, hey, we're better with a real nine and not a false nine, I think the stuff behind sort of clicks into place and then it just ends up being like, okay, can Kiki still play? He can. Cool. We can.
and we can survive an injury to Jackson Reagan. Like, oh, Ryan Kent is really good. Okay, we can, you know, it's a shame about Paul Areola, but we're actually in a good spot here. And on top of that, Pedro De La Vega is healthy and he looks like a DP. So it's... Like, yeah, I think there's a top three in the Western Conference with Vancouver and Seattle and LAFC. And I don't, you know, I named Seattle second there for a reason. Yeah, just to circle back.
Danny Masofsky and Brian White drafted in the same year. You maybe already know that, but they were both in the 2018 draft. They were picked about... 12 picks apart. No, 14 picks apart. So, yeah, they have followed a similar, and like you said, they were both very good in USL, and they kind of play similar styles. Brian White clearly doing it at a more sustained high level. But I've been very impressed with Danny Masofsky's off-ball movement. He's not...
I keep saying this, but it's not that he's on some unbelievable heater in terms of finishing. It's just that he consistently puts himself in these really high XG. positions so that even if he's only converting half of his real chances, he's still getting and putting it in the goal a lot because it's just a lot of chances, a lot of good chances that he's getting. The most valuable skill in soccer is finding one-touch finishes. And if you can do it.
In USL, you could probably do it in MLS, with the caveat being most of the guys who are good enough to do that at the MLS level. aren't also able to make the game themselves, right? They need to be in a... Because if you can find one-touch finishes... And you have the ability to, you know, create chances with a center back. right on top of you or can drop into midfield and be a playmaker, you're not an MLS. You're in one of the big five leagues.
in Europe. So, you know, guys who have the ability that White and Wisowski have to find those one-touch finishes, you put them in a functional attack, which the Sounders have. And they're going to bring that skill set to bear. And I think that's what we've seen over the past month and a half. And before we move off the sounders, you and I were talking a little on Blue Sky about Osaze de Rosario. And I have to admit, when we started the conversation, I was a little bit more of a...
Let's not get too excited about this guy. And then I started digging a little bit more into... the data around him, and I'm becoming convinced that he might be able to, maybe not, I don't know, I'm not necessarily going to sit here and say he's going to be a superstar or anything, but I think there's reason to think that he can at least spell Danny Masofsky in limited...
minutes and you know he because he does a lot of the same type of stuff which is just putting himself in dangerous spots over and over I know he had missed kind of a tap-in from, what, like six yards in his first, yeah. And I understand that fan. Fans were frustrated by that, but don't be frustrated by that. Be excited by the fact that the kid in his first appearance in MLS... If he's going to be in those spots. He's a 12-goal scorer.
And that's what we're talking about with your third string number nine, and you're in a really good position, obviously for the short term, but also it speaks to... the overall pipeline from the academy into Tacoma and then up to the first team. Alright, well, the next team I want to dig into is your favorite team, I think, in all of MLS. They are routinely overshooting what everyone else thinks. You're constantly overvaluing them, I think. The Portland Timbers. who I, in all seriousness,
You've been pretty down on them. I don't know that they're giving you any reason to change your opinion. But they are I just want to share a little bit of numbers around them. They have played one-third of their games against either Sporting Kansas City or the Galaxy. They've played four games already against Sporting Kansas City and the Galaxy.
They've only played four teams in the top seven of the West. Sorry, top seven of either conference. Do you want to guess their record in those four games against teams in the top seven? I'll say no wins, two losses, two draws. Very close. 0-3-1. Yeah, they have struggled against the best teams in the league so far. Is this a team that is more likely, you think, to finish in the... top five of the West or below the top 20 in the Supporter Shield?
I think they're more likely to finish top five in the West, but that's just because I don't think the West is very good. Fair. You know, I'm really impressed with San Diego thus far. I could see them dropping out. They're an expansion team. They'll probably hit a wall at some point, especially with those center backs. Minnesota, we already talked about. The shortcomings I see in that team, LAFC, I expect them to keep rising, but...
their flawed team in a way that they haven't been. So, like, there is definitely a path for Portland to stay in the top five even as they start playing real soccer teams. Look at, you know, I have the standings open right now. Look at 7 through 15 in the West. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's... There's not a cloud in there. Yeah. So I think Portland is going to be a playoff team and maybe even one that has home field advantage in the first round.
All the stuff I talked about, like being good on the ball and actually using the ball to make stuff happen, the first 10 minutes against Sporting KC. Big asterisk there. But the first 10 minutes against Sporting KC were really, really good. There was a lot to take from that, if you're a Portland fan, up to and including, obviously, Santi Moreno's bicycle game. The next 80 minutes, They just put everyone behind the ball.
And we're like, just like kind of hold it on for dear life and say like, maybe we can get another one on the break. And I think there's a feeling on that. And especially because I don't think Portland's defensive personnel is as good. as minnesota's is i do expect james pentemis to regress that he actually hasn't been in goal the past couple of weeks And then the big thing is that Kevin Kelsey is like the opposite of what we were talking about with Mussovsky and White.
and that he's a super toolsy player who can do all this. He has no idea where goals come from. Watch his off-ball movement and the spots he chooses to take up. he has a thunderbolt of a left foot so sometimes he'll fucking score anyway but like that goes away Those chances that he's finished pretty decently, they're not repeatable over the course of the season. We saw it last year with Cincinnati. We'll see it this year with Portland.
he has to figure out how to be a consistent threat to get those one-touch finishes that has not happened yet And I'll point out, he played against Tacoma Defiance in the Open Cup for the Timbers. And he was effectively invisible until he took the penalty. He's converted the winning penalty, so all credit to converting the winning penalty. But he really didn't do anything in the match until... like he was just
sort of out there, and he was yelling at teammates to get him the ball and doing all that kind of stuff. And this is, you know, he's facing Stu Hawkins and Kato Yamada, two 18-year-olds. who are, I think, very promising 18-year-olds, but they are 18-year-olds. And he looked like he struggled to get on the ball, frankly. You can see that he's a very talented player. You can just see the way he strikes the ball. He's like a 5-12 player, right? Yeah, he looks great.
everything that you would want. It's just like, get in the box. Yeah. Thank you. That's a deep cut for... Yeah, really, yeah. Excellent stuff. And you might probably have a career comparable to Ben Greve. On that note, I guess we should move on. I don't think we have anything else to say about the Timbers. So there's kind of a hodgepodge of interesting teams. It gets pretty dicey. I guess San Diego is the next team that is going to be...
may be relevant here. They are currently on a pace to tie LAFC's expansion record, but they do seem to be losing a little bit of steam. But they've been really impressive on the road. They got another road win this week. They are what they were promised, which is a high possession team who plays an interesting brand of soccer. In a lot of ways, I feel like it almost doesn't matter what they do from here on out because they've already sort of shown the basic proof of concept and that...
They can build on this. I just don't know how much of a contender we should consider. Well, I mean, they fight it pretty tough. a pretty tough schedule thus far. They got a draw against Columbus in a game that they were, frankly, I thought better. They beat LAFC, they beat the Sounders. You know, getting a road win at RSL and St. Louis is obviously terrible right now, but like still road wins are tough to come by for their next five or at home.
They come out of that five-game stretch with 12 more points, and they're really starting to cook. I'm a believer in Mikey Varis. I think he's already solved two problems. This past weekend, they were able to be patient and not give up big looks. When the mistake came defensively, they were in good spots to take advantage of that. And then they still have that DP slot open. And that's the, you know...
Chekhov's open DP slot later on in the story, that's going to factor into how the thing ends. And I think that they do have ambition to go out and use that. And because things are going so well and. Because... Chucky Lozano. does so much of the marketing for them, they don't have to go out and say, okay, it's on Kevin De Bruyne, or taking a chance on a 34-year-old European that you might have heard of. they can be a little more targeted and go out and get the 26-year-old.
who's tearing up the Eredivisie and nobody's heard of, but might actually be a best XI caliber player. in MLS and I think that matters and I think that Look, I want Kevin De Bruyne in this league and more like him. But I think if I were a CSO trying to pill... a sustainably winning team, I would look for the 26-year-old. I think that the excellent start to the season and the good off-field stuff for San Diego means that they can go out and get that. But the ceiling, ultimately...
Look, Patty McNair and Chris McVeigh have been a pleasant surprise for me. They need to, I think, reinforce that spot. as well, if they're going to be a team that really threatens 65 points and maybe some sort of trophy. Yeah, but if they can get to 57 points, that's their current pace. That's really good. I've been very impressed. I was a doubter of San Diego, I think. that they have at least shown that they are much closer to a competent team than a lot of the...
a lot of the teams in MLS. I mean, not just competent, but, like, a really good team. Yeah, I think they built a really good foundation. They're a lot of fun to watch. I think they play the game the right way. Mikey Varis has been brave about playing the young players. They're going out and getting guys like Emi Saidi and Oscar Verhoeven, who didn't really have a place in...
Philadelphia and San Jose, respectively, and they're immediately getting playing time. This is what you want to see from a new team in MLS. They're making the league better. They're not just your coach. Yeah, so another team who is fun to watch. I really don't know if they're good, but the San Jose Earthquakes are... All of a sudden, just a joy to watch. They are leading the West in scoring. They're leading the West in XG as well. They give up a ton of goals.
But they're scoring like crazy. But I guess the question is, should we continue to expect Chicho Arango and Joseph Martinez to be... golden boot contenders like this seems that part seems a little unsustainable So... I think Chicho will stay in the mix. But I think that we're actually at an inflection point already with... the pairing because Since Joseph got hurt, they've moved from a 3-4-1-2 to a 3-4-2-1, right? With two sort of winger or half-face types.
playing underneath Shichoku himself is really comfortable dropping in and becoming a playmaker. It's not just a number nine. And that's allowed them to, I think... stretch that first line of defense. sort of horizontally and make it a little more difficult to play through them. When it was Joseph and Chicho up top in a two, you could play through them really easy and get into that midfield and pull them apart. And that was causing a lot of the problems they had.
has changed a little bit in the past few weeks. And the other thing is like, look, if there's any Buddhas out there, He's like, what, 23, 24 years old, and he's already on Last Chance Cafe, and he's running his socks off on both sides of the pond. and that matters you need a runner out there especially if you have like if you have chicho and you have
Christian Espinosa and the other two attacking, you're going to have enough playmaking. You need guys who are going to put pressure on the back line. That is what the difference is between San Jose over the last three games, which had two good wins and a really good loss against the crew. Thanos had played really well.
versus San Jose in the eight games leading up to that where it was chaos and they could outscore you, but they did not have any chance of shutting you down. So I think how Bruce Arena handles Joseph's return. And whether he can get Joseph to buy into being a rotation guy is not an easy ask for him. And there are tables full of fried rice that can speak on that. Like that is the tipping point or that is the big question for the San Jose season.
On those types of questions, I don't think anyone has consistently provided better answers over 30 years than Bruce. Well, and one of the other things he's known for is unearthing players that many of us had never heard of. And I got it as a San Jose State guy. The fact that someone named Bo LaRue, who attended, who was a local high school kid as well.
Or San Jose. He went to high school in San Jose. And he is all of a sudden emerging as a legitimate midfield force for the San Jose Earthquakes. I have never heard of this guy. And all of a sudden, it seems like he's a real player. I have been doing this job for 15 years. And I can count on one hand the number of times there's been a player who's gotten week one minutes who I had never heard of before. And that happened with Balderu. He was not on my radar.
Anyway, and look, it's a credit to Bruce, and now he's working in guys who we got from the draft. Reed Roberts, I think is the name of one of the center backs. I mean, he was a top five draft pick, to be fair, and so was Max Floriani, who went second overall in the draft.
started a bunch of these games. And look, we know what Bruce does with high draft picks in the past. Eddie Pope, Omar Gonzalez, and Henry Kessler. All of these guys have been national team players to one degree or another. All of them. for center backs, taken in the top 10 by Bruce Arena. So it's like he's doing the stuff that has made him great and on top of that.
Daniel is now probably the frontrunner for goalkeeper of the year. So there's a lot of match winners out there, and there's a lot of reason to believe in these quakes. Yeah, it's been very, caught me by surprise for sure that most of this is happening. So the last team who I wanted to talk to you about, and then we can get you out of here. Austin FC, and this is the angle I want to take on this. This is a team who is currently averaging, they have eight goals in 12 games.
They spent $30 million on offensive talent the last two windows, basically. And they are currently on pace to miss to under. to score fewer goals than they did last year, and they had the fewest goals in the Western Conference last year, they will need to average 1.4 goals per game over the final 22 games of the season in order to match last year's goal-scoring total. What is going on here? I know we've talked about this a few times, but...
Since we last talked, the wheels have really kind of come off. I know they won this week. Or did they win this week? No, they lost this week. They did not. But this is a team that is not scoring, and they aren't really defending particularly well anymore either. Well, I don't think they have a ton of talent in that back line, so that was always going to happen to one degree or another.
Look, the scoring thing is just massive underperformance from primarily Brandon Vasquez and Merto Azuni, who they spent $25 million on this past winter. And then on top of that... Osman Bukhari, who they spent $7 million on last summer, he's only a part-time starter now. He's entering the Mergoni zone in terms of effectiveness as an Austin DP. The plan was to play a front three with those guys.
Izumi is not a winger in the way that it was clear on film from his time in Spain that he was not really a winger. He's a second forward. him and Vaz gets together on top. Like, yeah, and it's been decently effective. in terms of finding chances, but they're not working together. They have kind of like negative chemistry thus far. And part of that is, well, they're on their fourth different formation.
And it's been 15 games, not even. It's been a dozen games. They're on their fourth different formation. And they're doing it playing for a coach whose track record with Dallas was not one of high-level attacking success. And oh yeah, they don't have a playmate. Like they went out and they got After buying a winger who was not good in terms of chance creation last year, they went out and they bought two center forwards, essentially, instead of going out and getting a number 10.
So none of the personnel fits together. None of it really fits the scheme. And they have this glaring need in central midfield.
for the type of guy that the coach wouldn't want to play in the first place. So it's all disjointed and messy in the ways. And to be fair, this is like... a 10th percentile outcome right like all of this could be happening and they could like they could have three more wins just based on you know finishing off some counter-attacking chances so it's not destined to be the disaster that it's looked like the past five weeks.
But it never made sense the way Roderick Burrell put this team together, and they're a brutal watch because of it. And the fans and media there are letting... folks know about it, and I don't blame them for voicing their frustration. Yeah, Brandon Vasquez is the only player on the team with more than one goal in league play. He has all of three, which includes a penalty, so just two open play goals.
it's been brutal, especially offensively, just absolutely brutal. And like you said, it's not like they've been able to... keep games low scoring relatively speaking but uh not necessarily through great defense uh just sort of like numbers behind the ball yeah right exactly Well, that's a good place to probably call this. We can go on and on and talk about the LA Galaxy and their amazing... Apparently the MLS rules are...
dictate that MLS Cup winners have to be bad the next year, according to some pundits. How much joy are you taking out of this? I mean, I don't think, okay, so I don't know. I couldn't be taking, they're not the, if it was the Timbers, I would be taking a lot more, but I'm enjoying this a lot. I mean, it's definitely fun to watch a team that comes in with as much Ubris.
deservedly like like hey we're the sounders we get it uh we understand where this comes from but man the the weekly excuse making is what gives is what really gives me juice uh because it's And I will say, to Greg Vanney's point, I think he has actually done an okay job handling himself and handling the questions, but it's sort of like the...
the infrastructure around them that is every week coming up with a new oh well see yeah this is kind of how mls works it just it picks you up and it knocks you down it's like No one has done this, but no team has fallen flat like this, and there's too much talent on this team to be as bad as they are, and there's there's a lot of conscientious choices that were made and that created this current situation. And it is funny to watch. I will not.
So we got some RSL talking at the start. We got some Galata talking at the end. Exactly. It's his goal. That's exactly another successful therapy session. Absolutely. I'll send you the copay. Yeah, yeah, please do. I think I have a Venmo QR code on your way out. If you can just scan that. All right, well, Matt, thank you so much for doing this.
This is How the West Will Be Won on Nosadietes, which is part of the Sounder Heart Podcast Network. Matt, people can, of course, read you on MLS Soccer. They can also read you on your sub stack. How is the substat going these days? I gotta ask you. It's fun. It's just an outlet to sort of keep track of all this stuff because you know this very well in this modern social media era. We're all kind of, we have a lot of different...
I don't want to call it irons in the fire, but we have a lot of outlets, right? So I'm using the sub stack as a way to say, all right, if you're looking for... Where my work is, I'm going to give you this landing spot at least once a week. And hopefully, you know, I get motivation. I do more. We'll see. Motivation can be hard to come by sometimes when it's as nice outside as it has been. Well, what's the name of the sub stack again?
It's tacticsfreezone.substack.com. Perfect. Awesome. Well, Matt, thank you again for doing this. I'm sure we'll catch up with you at some point in the next... weeks or months, who knows. The Celtics eventually get eliminated. I'll need some therapy, so I'll let you know. Perfect. Perfect. All right. Well, thanks for listening. we'll catch you next time. I expect LAFC who is 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.