Two weeks of YachtCon: Back to School is now officially in the books. To help us close things out, Sounders GM Garth Lagerwey hung out, shared some insight into his philosophy, teased the hiring of a new sporting director, drank a couple beers and ate a bunch of spicy hot wings. A good time was had by all.
For the third class of YachtCon, we welcomed Cocktail MD was joined by Will Bruin to learn the history and origin of punch, found out that beer cocktails are a thing and crafted a classic Old Fashioned, with a bit of a twist. Tickets | Donate
Paul Zitarelli of Full Pull Wines welcomes Kelyn Rowe and Spencer Richey to his wine-tasting course at YachtCollege.
Brian Schmetzer helped us get YachtCon: Back To School started right, putting on his professorial hat to dig into his coaching philosophy and sharing some insight into his tactical approach to 2021.
It wasn't necessarily intended as a Martin Luther King Day episode, but the time of Jeremiah's conversation with Sounders Academy goalkeepers coach Joshua Ford and Head Strength and conditioning coach Sean Muldoon worked out pretty perfectly. Ford and Muldoon have been two of the bigger behind-the-scenes forces in terms of helping raise awareness of various social justice causes among the Sounders. Perhaps most notably is their efforts to bring attention to Manny Ellis' murder , a case that has ...
Jeremiah and Aaron get together for one final episode of 2020, providing some closing thoughts on MLS Cup and looking ahead to the offseason while sharing some thoughts on good albums to get us through the (hopefully) tail end of this pandemic. This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0) Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You c...
The Sounders scored a historic comeback against Minnesota United to qualify for their fourth MLS Cup final in five years. This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0) Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, pl...
The Sounders are back in the Western Conference finals. It’s the fourth time in five years and the fifth time in seven years that they’ve been here. That’s something that hasn’t been accomplished since the halcyon days of D.C. United going to each of the first four MLS Cup finals. The Sounders will now host Minnesota United on Monday with a chance to go to their fourth MLS Cup final in five years for a chance to win their third MLS Cup. Jeremiah and Aaron discuss the 1-0 win over FC Dallas while...
Well, we made it. A regular-season like none before and hopefully one we’ll never repeat is in the books. All things considered, I think this has to be considered pretty successful. The Sounders finished with their best-ever goal-difference, their best points per game since 2014 and put three players on Best XI. They’ll go into the playoffs among the favorites to go to a fourth MLS Cup final in five years. Yet it’s also been a very strange year that hasn’t felt as fulfilling as all this would su...
The Sounders are finally wrapping up this wild season, heading into the final game of the regular season sitting third in the Western Conference with a decent shot at still grabbing the No. 1 spot if they win and results fall their way. But it’s been a bumpy ride getting here, at least recently. They’re now 1-2-3 in their last six, which includes a brutal stretch of five games in 18 days. The most recent of those was a 1-1 tie with the LA Galaxy. The Sounders finally rotated their lineup in that...
Raúl Ruidíaz caught COVID-19 while on international duty with Peru. Jeremiah and Aaron would rather FIFA had canceled the window. This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0) Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-pr...
We usually meet with Sounders majority owner Adrian Hanauer a couple times a year. The last time we talked, the global coronavirus pandemic was just setting in. Now several months later there are still many questions around how this will all affect the Sounders. One effect we do know about is the decision to close the 300s to season-ticket holders. We talked about man of those things in this episode. This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Colum...
There is nothing normal about this season, from the schedule to the congestion to ... the world. So, maybe in that very specific way the fact that the Seattle Sounders suddenly can’t beat the Portland Timbers at home makes ... sense? OK, that’s probably a stretch but neither Jeremiah nor Aaron seem too worried about a deflating loss, assuming it doesn’t snowball into a string of bad results. This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Yo...
It's been nearly a month since the Seattle Sounders last played, but they return on Sunday against the Portland Timbers. It's definitely a weird one, though, as there will be no fans, likely artificial crowd noise and uncertain stakes. What we know is that this is probably about as close to "normal" as we're going to get for the foreseeable future. Aaron and Jeremiah discuss all of that, sing the Sounders' praises for the announcement of 2021 season-ticket renewals and answer many of your questi...
And just like that, it was over. After going 1-1-1 in the group stage, the Seattle Sounders were bounced from the MLS is Back Tournament in the Round of 16 by LAFC. The 4-1 scoreline may have been a little flattering even as the Sounders were thoroughly outplayed. Disappointing as that loss was, neither Jeremiah nor Aaron were quite ready to freak out about it or about the state of the roster in general. They were happy that no one seems to have gotten sick while they were there, though. This we...
The Seattle Sounders return from an unplanned four-month break tonight. Unfortunately, it's hardly under the best of circumstances. While there was reason to hope that this might feel a bit more celebratory when the plans were first announced, the reality is that the pandemic that caused the break only seems to be getting worse in the United States. As nice as it would be to focus on the soccer, Jeremiah and Aaron spend the first segment lamenting the lack of leadership that has gotten us to thi...
There were plenty of times when it seemed like the 2020 season was completely lost, but last week MLS announced that their long-rumored summer tournament would happen. On Thursday, they even released the draw. So, yeah, this is really happening. Aaron and Jeremiah spend most of the first segment discussing the pros and cons of going forward with the tournament. While both still have significant reservations, they also admit that they’ll almost certainly be very interested in watching it. Live so...
Spencer Richey came up in the Seattle soccer scene just before the Seattle Sounders launched their academy. The goalkeeper played for Crossfire then moved to the United States residency program in Bradenton before coming back to Seattle to play for the University of Washington. His time there coincided with the Huskies’ hiring of Jamie Clark and their subsequent rise to national prominence. During his five years with UW — he added a year due to a medical red shirt — he helped the Huskies become ...
Time has lost all meaning so it’s perfectly understandable that you might have missed that this was supposed to be the week that the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers met for the first time this year. You may have even noticed that the two teams’ websites have been doing all sorts of content about it, including an oral history of their first-ever meeting of the all-MLS era. We figured that was a reasonably good excuse to invite our good friend Richard Farley back onto the show. We talked abo...
The days and weeks are running into one another, but that hasn’t stopped us from recording another one of our patented “podcasts.” It’s now been about six weeks since the Seattle Sounders last played a game, and amazingly we still have things to talk about. Among the topics of discussion this week were a call from ECS not to play any games until it was safe enough for not only players, but also fans to be in attendance. We also discussed the Seattle Times’ story that looked back on the decision-...
All of us are handling this “stay home, stay safe” order in different ways. Some are getting house work done. Others are binging TV shows. A lot of us are simply trying to stay sane with a house full of people all the time. Will Bruin, like the rest of the soccer world, is trying to balance staying in game shape with all of this stuff. It’s understandably wearing on him a bit. That’s where we come in! In the latest episode of Bear With Us, we provided a list of six different houses full of six p...
The Seattle Sounders haven’t played a match since March 7 and we have absolutely no idea when they might start playing again. Thus is the new world we’re living in. Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t have lots of questions. Jeremiah and Aaron do their best to answer them and hopefully provide you with a bit of a distraction. This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0) Thanks to...
We’ve only played on league game and this season already seems to be taking us on a roller-coaster. The Seattle Sounders were in prime position to come home with a lead in the Concacaf Champions League series with Olimpia, only to be forced to settle for a 2-2 tie. They then fell behind in their home leg, only to find themselves seemingly cruising to advancement only to fall in penalties. The MLS home opener saw them fall behind the Chicago Fire, then storm back to win 2-1 on a 93rd minute goal....
For the fifth time, we've hosted something we lovingly dubbed YachtCon. Frankly, this one is going to be tough to top (which won't stop us from trying). Not only did we have an absolutely stellar panel of guests -- Brian Schmetzer, Jess Fishlock, Bethany Balcer, Bill Predmore, Brad Evans, Will Bruin and Garth Lagerwey -- but we finally had a venue that was all ours. Hale's Palladium felt just about perfect and we have some amazing ideas that we think at least have the potential to smooth out any...
Back in July, the Seattle Sounders hired their first ever President of Business Operations. At the same time, Peter Tomazawa also became a part owner of the team. We first got to know Tomazawa during a conversation with reporters back in August . But we figured it would be good to check in with him again now that he’s been on the job for a few months. Tomazawa is clearly enjoying his new role. At MLS Cup, he related a story where he told MLS Commissioner Don Garber that he should get used to com...
While the Seattle Sounders have not been particularly active this offseason, Will Bruin has been doing his best to get ready as close to the start of the season as possible. The good news is that he says he should be back in full training in less than a month and could plausibly be ready to start by the end of March. Of course, all work and no play makes a bear go wild. Will found some time to visit family, as well as visit Hawaii while doing his best to keep up on the training regimen passed al...
We recorded before today’s SuperDraft, but that didn’t stop us from talking about how we don’t have very high expectations for it anyway. We also answered a ton of your questions. This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0) Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a ...
We're now a few weeks into the offseason and we have to admit that it's been pretty slow. The Seattle Sounders have mostly been checking the required boxes by declining options, protecting players from the expansion draft and the like. Aside from the 18 players they have on roster, most of last year's players remain in a sort of purgatory with only backup goalkeeper Bryan Meredith officially leaving to Inter Miami and only backup goalkeeper Stefan Cleveland newly joining the team in a trade. Sti...
We won MLS Cup. Again. This time at home. It was an almost magical experience, all the way from the pregame scene at Occidental Square to the mood inside the stadium to the play on the field. Don’t listen to what anyone else says, the Sounders absolutely deserved this. They’ve been the best team in the postseason and showed it again against Toronto FC. Jeremiah and Aaron get into that as well as looking ahead to what this offseason might have in store. (audio file replaced 11-14-19) This week's ...
Just about the entire American soccer world is in town for MLS Cup and boy did we take advantage. Among the guests on our triple cast of the Will Bruin Podcast: Bear With Us, Nos Audietis and the Sounder at Heart podcasts were Brad Evans, Taylor Twellman, Jimmy Conrad, Bobby Warshaw, Mike Chabala and Erik Friberg. We hung out at Hellbent Brewing, drank some beers, talked soccer, Impossible burgers, mattresses and Brian Schmetzer’s genius. Enjoy!
