Coming to you live from our Elliot Avenue studios of Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM. This is Sounders Weekly with your host Jackson Felts. Well, good evening everybody. Jackson Felts here. I wish I had the same emphasis and fervor to give you a big, old good evening, but unfortunately for tonight leading into our episode, just don't have that level of excitement unfortunately, So welcome in Sports Radio ninety three point three kjr FM. Jackson felt here
for the next hour talking all things Seattle Sounders FC. And there is a lot to talk about, a lot to be mad about, be frustrated about, be concerned about, and we're gonna try to get into a lot of it here tonight, coming off of a Sounders two nothing loss at home to the Vancouver white Caps, a game that saw two red cards, one extremely
questionable on Jackson Reagan, one very deserved from Alex rol Don. It's a loss and now the Sounders will be missing both Alex and Jackson for the upcoming match on Saturday against DC United. They also play on the road in what was the rescheduled rainhoud from Philadelphia, where they played what six minutes. That game will start in the sixth minute next Tuesday, but we'll focus on DC here for now. Quickly broadcast details before we dig into the two nothing loss
for your Sounders. The DC match will be heard on Sports Radio nine fifty kr AM this coming Saturday, Providence, Swedish premat show will begin at four o'clock. You know, so watch the match on the MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app and listen in Spanish language on l Ray thirteen to sixty. I'll talk about both DC and Philadelphia ahead with ARILILLIONWALLOFMLS Soccer dot Com and
the podcast Lobbing Scorches. We'll do that later on tonight. We'll also have a bit of a lively debate with Ari on the red card to Jackson. Listen if you heard my halftime show from Sounders broadcast there last Saturday against Vancouver, you know, I thought the call was absolute bleep bleep. I think he even said that on the broadcast, and I still think that. I
still think it's an absolute crap call. But Ari sees why they called a red and we'll get into his exact take and his exact reasoning for why he understands and agrees with the Red but that will come up later tonight in that nice, lively debate before Ari Lillian Wall. We're gonna get a couple other things first. In this first segment, we're gonna hear from both Steph and Fry and Christian Roldan, who spoke after the Sounders to nothing loss against Vancouver.
I think it's important to go in the heads of these players right now, who not only you know, saw we're out there for their performance the to nothing loss, but we're in that locker room and can kind of add some context for how these guys are feeling right now and what these guys are thinking, because that is a big question, you know, in terms of the state of this team as we look at a very very busy month of May ahead and knowing that you know, May, because of how many games
there are, could decide the season one way or another, either the kind of falling on themselves or they rise up and see the adversity that they're facing and make a you know, nice play of the season ahead, there's still twenty six games to go, so we're gonna hear from both of those players, and then coming up in our next segment, we're gonna get part two of the conversation with general manager Craig Wibel. You know, I got some
Maybe we can save this for before we actually chat with Craig Wible. I have some thoughts about some reactions that listeners gave me about that conversation with Craig Wible, so I'll save those and my kind of my rebuttal to a few
people before we hear from Craig Wible on the next segment. I'll just say this right now, if you're coming to this as a understandably angry or frustrat rated a Sounder fan, and I'm not telling anybody how to feel, you should feel angry, you should feel frustrated, you should feel however you want to feel coming out of that too. Nothing loss. I'm angry, I'm
frustrated, and that's completely fair. But I would say, if you're saying I want you to call for heads, I'm calling for Brian Schmester's job. I'm calling for Craig Wible's job. If you want me, if you're coming to this show to call for people's jobs, that's a ridiculous expectation. I'm never going to do that. Ay, that's just not personally who I am. It's not my personality. I'm not going to do that. I'm a
glass half full person. If you've been listening to the show since it was Radio Cascade Alive in twenty seventeen, Sounders Weekly in twenty eighteen till now, I'm not a glass half empty person. So that's just kind of personally who I am. And with this Sounders thing, I just said it a second ago. Twenty six games left in the season, long way to go, so on that context, I'm never going to call for people's jobs huting this show with the Sounders. I'm just not That's not what I do. It's
not my personality. I'm not a shock jock who's just gonna go off in that direction. And moreover, I have relationships with these people. I have a relationship with Craig Wible, relationship with Brian Schmenzer, relationship with these folks you know, in the front office and on the field. I'm not gonna
call for people's jobs. I'm going to say when somebody should start over another player and say, man, I think Cody Baker is pushing new who and I think I would love to see Cody Baker get an opportunity to start over new Who and show us what he's got from the jump of a game. I'm gonna say that that's fair, but I'm not gonna say fire Brian Schmenzer, fire Craig Wible, And I think it's very hasty to do that eight games into his season. But again, feel the way you want to feel,
have the frustration, have the anger. I'm just not going to let it go that far here on my radio show. All right, So let's dig into it and we'll again, we'll hear from Craig Wybill come up in the next segment. I'll have more thoughts on that. But the two nothing lost to Vancouver. So Jackson Reagan's red card, that's the place to start here. And I made it clear I don't think it was the right call.
I think that violent conduct. When you rule it's a red card based on violent conduct and endangering the other player, you have to factor in a couple things. You have to factor in context, and you have to factor in intention. And whenever you're making a game deciding call like this, you know, mean this clearly decided points in this game where it might have been one point shared, it might have been three point Seattle, but now it's
three points to the white Caps zero for Seattle. When you're making a massive decision like a red card in that regard, you have to understand context. Ball was out near midfield, it was really not very much in play. Jackson Reagan is just following, just simply following Ryan Gold running. He is behind Ryan Gold running, and as Ryan Gold slows down, Jackson Reagan steps on the back of his ankle, slash lower calf, simple as that,
and then you understand intention. Jackson Reagan is just running in the same direction as the players make their way towards a ball that's going through. So there's no world where Jackson Reagan is intending to injure or step on. He's simply just running through a guy. Well, running through a player is a play that we've seen a thousand times in soccer, and it never results in a red card, or rarely ever results in a red card, And when it
is a red card, it's usually the wrong decision. So Rommy tuccin, wrong decision here, yellow card, Yes, ran through him, understandable, accidental step on, it happens, red card, terrible, terrible decision by Ronny Tuccin and will debate that more with ari Lean Watt later on. But I would also say in the sense of Alex Reagan's red card fair absolutely understandable. And in the two goals that was terrible. To use the word again, but both of those plays, the Sounders are playing out of the back.
When you're playing a man down and then playing out of the back down one nothing plus a man down, you can't. You can't do that because then it opens you up to big mistakes that Yama Gomez Andrade made the poor pass giveaway, and then Javier ari Yaga who just has the ball completely stolen from him, and in that moment, Hobby pass it back to Stephan Frye
you're just welcoming the Vancouver people to come and take it from you. We're welcoming Brian White to come say oh I'll have that, thank you very much. And he just took it from him. Just boot it went in, doubt, boot it out, Just kick it out of bounds if you felt that pressure, Hobby. So both of those plays very bad by by Sounders defenders. And you know Stephan Fry the birthday boy. Happy belated birthday to Stephan Fry. You know, nothing he could do on either of those plays.
The defenders just left him out to dry. And I would say for Seattle, yes, you can say the mood was down, everything was down once we went to man down. But you still gotta play. You still got a fight and make the smart passes, make the smart plays. And neither one of those plays by Yamar and by Hobby we're smart, and unfortunately it's both goals for the Vancouver Whitecaps. And here we are frustrated and angry at a Sounder's too nothing loss that is leaving us feeling a lot of things.
Well, before we hear from Stephen fry and Christian Roldan, I'll tell you that Sounders FC Soccer is presented by Providence Swedish, the official healthcare partner of Sounders FC. So let's go into the locker room and let's hear from these guys and kind of get their reactions to what happened there in lumen Field against Vancouver this last Saturday. Let's start with the captain, Stephan Frye, who talked about the game, who talked about you know what the next forty
eight hours look like for him? Really good stuff here and kind of puts you in the mind of where the Sounders players are out right. Now Here is the conversation with Stephan Frye following the too Nothing loss. I mean today is a difficult one because you know, you go Dona, man, it's tough. I mean, kind of shoot ourselves in the foot with the goals we give up to and then obviously you go down two men. It's just pure frustration that gets a hold of us in all the wrong ways. And
so again, how can we harness that? You know, and sometimes maybe we are a bit more methodical in approaching games and we lack a little bit of aggression. Well, well here is a perfect opportunity to to feed off of the aggression you've just been given by certain things and and turn that into something productive. So we were not able to do that going forward. What
does this mean? I mean, we have a really tough stretch coming up with lots of games, and it's about, like I said, two days of taking taking your mind off of the games actually and getting recovered mentally, because who knows when the next break will where you get to do that. But then come Tuesday, it's all trying working hard and get better because that's
the only way you get out of these things. There's again, there's there's still lots of games left, lots of points to be had, but it's difficult when you put yourself in a tough situation at home against a good opponent that's going to take care of that opportunity and and makes you pay for it. So I'm got to move on and get better. What was the locker room like when you guys all came in here after the final whistle? If frustrated, a little defeated, I'm trying to figure out how we could have
obviously not ended this game the way we ended it. But yeah, we rather get away from the game now for a couple of days and get ready for a pretty pretty tough stretch. But after those a couple of days offten, we gotta go back to work and work our butts off to try to get better. Did you get a good look at all of the red carl On Jackson Reagan when it happened out Fortnatefield. No, I did not get
a good look. But for me, it looked like he was kind of going like with him as he was checking, and then maybe even stumbled a little bit and I don't know if it was a vicious so, I mean, I haven't seen it, so I don't know it was a strange game because honestly, like I think, one of the beauties of having human referees is that games can be played completely differently, right And I even went to the referee before and asked him, look, you got to let us know
whether you're calling this game loose or whether you call in this game tight, because right now we're at a loss for how you're calling it. And I even talked to Brian White and he had no clue whether it was being called tight or loose, and so it makes it very difficult and I think frustrating. Having said that, then it's it's upon us to to take that anger
and that frustration and turn it into something productive. And I think we we we stayed a little too long on on being frustrated at the referee rather than turning that into something productive, because obviously for them it was frustrating too, like I said, having talked to them about how they felt the game was going in terms of where there was loose or tight, and they adjusted just
fine, and we did not. And so that's on us that we have to figure out how we can utilize that, harness it and get us to the next level to be more successful. You talk about the mental recovery from this match, how do you personally handle the next forty eight hours. Well, I would have loved to be able to go home and celebrate my birthday with a glass of whiskey and be happy about it. And I'll probably have the opposite kind of whiskey. But you know, get away from it.
You know, there's always footy on television and stuff, and I love soccer, but when it's time to get away from it, I try to get away from it. I'm going to go home, you know, my mom's gonna come over tomorrow. We're going to going to walk, We're going to do some weeding in the yard. I might do a little bit, a little bit of art. Definitely no soccer. I'm not gonna look as any
video that I'll come Monday Tuesday and then we'll move on. But it's very, very important to get away from it when you can, because, like I said, who knows when the next opportunity is to get away from Well, obviously this is Wednesday, so you wonder what Stephen Fryes last couple of days have been like they're obviously back on the training field and preparing for d C United this Saturday. But hopefully Stephan Fry was able to take those couple
of days. I did weeding in my garden too, and that helped take my mind off the two nothing game. But hopefully Stephan Fry used that and was able to you know, get his mind right for the game ahead this Saturday. From Stephan Fry, we go to another player who can step up and be captain when he needs to, and that's Christian rolled On. Christian Roldan stepped up to the microphone and had this to say following the to nothing lost to Vancouver. Yeah, decisions were made, and you know, we
we have to respect the ref's decisions. But to be honest, it's more us we were kicking ourselves in the foot or you know, we're you know, it's it's it's the mistakes that we're making, right, Those are things that that are unprofessional of us to do, and we have to eliminate, eliminate those mistakes, especially going on the road, especially with this tough stretch coming up, and and you know, use our energy in different ways, right we we we used our energy in the wrong way today and you know,
as a result, we ended the game with nine players. I know you can't blame the refs, but did what did you see on the Jackson Reagan red card? Yeah, look, it's an accident, right, we We don't think Jackson tried to do anything malicious. You know, he's he's stepping into he's doing a routine, you know, step and check and you know sometimes you use step on players on accidents, and I think that was
an accident. I think Alex as well, to be honest, there's an angle that I was right behind Alex and you know he's he's trying to play the ball, to be honest, and I don't think there was there was foul play in his intent, right, But you know, things happen. Ahmed does a really good job of covering the ball and it looks like a really bad tackle, right, But you know this part of the sport, right, we try to make plays and unfortunately sometimes these plays don't don't go
our way. But we can't, you know, have our our studs up right, We can't have those moments happened because you know, we're down a guy, we're down two guys, and we're just chasing the game and it's uphill battle from then, how do you mentally move forward from this? What are the next forty eight hours look like for you? Personally? Get your body right number one? Number two, gets your mind right right things things aren't going your way? How can you come into the facility with a with
a great attitude to come and train when things aren't going your way? How can I help our team? How can I be a leader? You know, it's it's the little things at this point that are that are you know, obviously it seems so drastic, but we're we're we're losing games by little mistakes, little mistakes that we can correct and we need to correct. And so I think that's that's attitude going forward. That's Christian rolled on Seattle Sounders
Midfielder. Good stuff there from Christian and yeah, you know he talked about getting the minds right and hopefully the minds will be right this Saturday. For d C United, Well, a flex membership is soccer on your schedule, Attend any regular season matches with who you want, in the seats you want, and save on single match pricing. It's your membership on your terms. Learn more by texting flex to two zero six eight three seven goa al It's
two O six eight three seven goal. Another thing that I forgot to bring up a few minutes ago talking about hovier Arioga's mistake. I got too caught up in the actual play forgot to tell you the big news about hobvier Ariaga. He has been traded to the New England Revolution. That official move came down just inside the first transfer window of the year yesterday. Officially, the Sounders are getting back up to seventy five thousand dollars in general allocation money.
That's gam. They are also getting an international roster spot, which can be valued anywhere around one hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars, so that's a nice chunk of change. We don't have a lot of time to get into these specifics and what it means of this deal. Maybe I'll jump off the mic and do a added little segment for the podcast version here Sounders Weekly before the live show. We don't have time, but Sounders
making that move official yesterday. Javier Ariaga gone. Nathan slides up the depth chart as well. Well, let's take a break here in Sounders Weekly. We'll come back and we'll get part two of the conversation with Sounders General manager and president of Soccer Craig Wible. That's next on Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM. Hey there, everybody. Jackson Felts here back for a little bit of a interjection here in Sounders Weekly. I didn't have time to fully
talk about the Javier ari Aga trade to the New England Revolution there. I believe I just mentioned there. This is coming after this last segment, or I mentioned seventy five thousand dollars up to seventy five in general allocation money, and then also that international roster spot you put him together, that could be
as much as three hundred thousand if they sell that international roster spot. His money also is coming off the books salary you per last year mlspa seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a tam level contract, So he made a lot of money that's coming off the books, and that opening in targeted allocation money, which has a cap of course, that is going to be able to be spent on a new player. And we'll get part three of the conversation with
Craig Wiber. Next week we're obviously going to be carrying Part two in just a few minutes here on the Sounders Weekly Podcast edition. But next week our Part three conversation talks about buying players for the Sounders looking ahead to the summer transfer window, and Craig Weible will talk about exactly what this club is looking
towards and needs come the summer. Well, now they have an additional seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in targeted allocation money space to go spend on a new attacking player, if that is indeed what we end up seeing in the
summer window. So Javier Ariaga trade is it's nice to you know, get a nice little chunk of change, But the real value of the Javier Ariaga deal, which I mean if you total the value of you know, him coming off the books, it's over a million dollars potentially when trading the international
roster spot as well. So a million dollar move here by selling Javier Ariaga is huge for this club when you consider what we could be bringing in in the summer, that a player could help this team go to the playoffs, get potentially to a championship game. If they all stay healthy. So the
Hobvier Ariaga move is very interesting and very needed. I mean, yes, it would have been great to have done this in the offseason if this trade was there, not sure, if it was not sure, if it wasn't, but being able to offload Javier Ariaga, now get what you did, free up that target allocation money for a move looking out of the summer window.
I mean, it's huge for this team. And then I would just say on terms of Hoavier Ariaga, I mean five years with this team, you know, overall, you know, he's not gonna be looked at as one of the greatest sounders of all time, but I would say, you know, he's a real key player in a lot of moments, back to twenty nineteen, his Western Conference Final performance down there at the tackle in the box on Carlos Vela, which you know, thank goodness to the day that
was not called. You know, he was an instrumental part of this team for a long time, a great guy in the locker room, very well liked, always putting a smile on people's faces, cracking a joke, hobby, was a well liked player in that locker room, and overall, I think you know inside a guy to a guy, a man to a man. They'll miss him, and Nathan's gonna step up into that third center back role, you know, guy like Stuart Hawkins will slide up the depth chart
as well. And that's great for them, and it's great for Havi or Ariyaga too being able to go get hopefully a bigger opportunity there with the new England revolutions. So good for them, good for Hobby, and I think really good for the Sounders. We'll miss him and you know they will have all obviously the great memory of that twenty nineteen West Final. It's a shame that one of his final plays as a Sounder comes on a just terrible giveaway
that leads to a Vancouver goal. That'll obviously, you know, sit with a bad taste in my mouth, sitting a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. But you just got to kind of erase this last game. Look at it, the view from thirty five thousand feet and what Javier Ariaga
has meant to this team. So shame to see him go, but it is good that the Sounders were able to, you know, get so much value if you put it all together as we look ahead to the summer transfer window in this deal for Ariaga, so one to interject that here into the podcast version of Sounders Weekly, but let's get back to the live show coming up next. Here you're gonna hear part two of the conversation with Craig Wible, where we dig into one of the big issues on this team so far
this year. That is hamstring injuries. Pedro de la Vega. Obviously he has the new hamstring injury. He's gonna be out at least another four weeks per Brian Schmetzer, So that is not good. Even if Reid Baker Whiting is nearing his return, could be on the road trip to DC and Philadelphia, this Pedro hamstring thing just ain't going away. So you'll hear about Craig
Wible's thoughts on the amount of hamstring injuries for the Sounders. We'll also hear Craig talking about Pedro dal Levega. That's gonna be coming up right now on the podcast edition here of Sounders Weekly. Please enjoy. Now back to Sounders Weekly on your home for Sounders FC Seattle's Sports Radio ninety three point three kjr FM. Welcome back, Sounders Weekly, Jackson Feldtz, good to have you
with us here on this Wednesday evening. Good to hear it from Stephen Fry and Christian rol Don in that first segment coming off of the two nothing Lost to the Vancouver wy Caps. I will talk more about it with Ari Lileen Wall coming up here in our next segment. But now on Sounders Weekly, we get to part two of a conversation we had last week, sat down with about thirty six minutes with Sounders General manager and President of soccer Craig Wible.
Before we start that conversation and start the part two of that conversation, very quickly wanted to discuss something and I got some reaction to the big sit down part one eight minutes we played last week, saying you got to be asking the hard questions and the tough questions. This is absurd and you know, you know we aren't getting the answers we want from Craig Wible. A couple things first up, it's this was a thirty six minute sit down I
had with Craig. And whenever you do one of these long conversations that I do, and you know you've heard them over the years with guys like Garth Logger Way, it's kind of interviewing one oh one. You don't come out and just thrash the person that you're interviewing in the first few minutes of the interview. You you don't just immediately rush into that. You ease into the hard topics. You don't want to get somebody off on the wrong foot when
you're talking to them for a half hour. It's just logical obviously. You know, for those out there who you know, criticize the previous interview and said you weren't asking the hard questions, I would just say, if you know you're gonna sit down with somebody for thirty minutes, do you want to immediately start things off on the wrong foot and put them in a you know, defensive bad mood. Or do you want to ease into a conversation and
then approach those hard topics in a better way. That's the right direction to go, and that's the direction I go in these sit downs. And trust me, we are getting to the important stuff with Craig Wible. That's actually where we are going to start here with part two. Because one of the big topics and one of the big things that Sounder fans have very you know, understandably been frustrated about is the amount of hamstring injuries on this team.
Because Pedro de la Vega suffered unfortunately, he had another hamstring injury. It's a new one, slightly lower on the same leg as the old hamstring injury. So he's now having to come back from a new, slightly less severe per Brian Schmitzer, last week hamstring injury. So now you have Pedro out with a hamstring, you have Braudeila Rodriguez, he's still injured with a hamstring, and read Baker Whiting was coming off of a hamstring. You had Stephan
Fry with a hamstring at the start of the year. Hamstring injuries, you know, there's there's the online joke hamstring FC and it's mildly amusing, but there's just seems to be a lot of them. So the next question I asked Craig Wibele as we begin part two of the sit down here with the
Sounders general manager, was a why are there so many hamstring injuries? B Are you concerned about how many hamstring injuries there are to this team right now and have been so far in twenty twenty four and also see is this Sounder specific, Is this just a thing that everybody suffers, or because it seems like the Sounders are uniquely seeing a lot of hamstring injuries. So here's part two of the conversation here starting with those questions. Here's Craig Wibel. It's
more normal than people want to give a credit for. But we've had a series of them all happen at the same time. That's strange. You know, throughout the season if you get five, six, seven, eight hamstring injuries over the course of ten months or ten and a half months, whatever the silly MLS schedule is, now, you know, I don't think anyone looks at it the same way. If you get them all at one time, of course, it draws more attention, right, And so I think
it's been a tough one to figure out. What's harder to figure out is most of the hamstrings are happening with younger players, which is which is a pretty wild It's a pretty wild phenomenon or anomaly there with Pedro. Look, he came into the organization and he got a hamstring injury. We can't go back five years and go, well, what were you doing at Lenus in terms of your lifting and diet, nutrition and blah blah blah blah blah. He was playing talker at a really high level, so they were doing a
lot of things right. But the demands in MLS and the way we train in MLS and some of those changes can can have a really quick effect on the on the introduction into the way we train and the way we play in the in the level day to day. So we we analyze it. We had a couple of meetings about it earlier this year, and every team is going to go through a phase where the wrong guys are injured versus the quote right are injured. And I think for the most part we've done well in
terms of overall performance on the field. We're not finishing. You know, if you look at you take all those injuries into account and you look at the way we played against Austin to not get a goal is pretty incredible. The way we dominated Colorado until the red card. You know, it's kind of a silly way to give away points. I thought we played at La
Galaxy straight up for aighty yeah, seventy eight minutes. Unfortunately, the first twelve minutes were lopsided their way, but we had chances in that game. If you look at the Dallas game, you know we missed three amazing chances. And I think you know it's not to cover up anything. We're struggling to finish, and a lot of times that's a momentum thing. You hear athletes talk about all, Oh, if I get one, I'll get ten. Yeah, you hear teams talk about it. We can't around a way
for it all year. But the productivity in terms of the chance creation is
there. The finishing hasn't hasn't been there, which ties into some of these injuries and the mentality and the psychology and getting past this hump of Okay, we're now back to our full squad and we believe we're gonna win and that mentality, and that's some of the things I see right now as guys work, as this team works its way back into full condition and shape, I think some guys are still trying to be perfect as opposed to just letting it
letting it go well. And you mentioned peedro dalea Vega, and obviously one of the reasons you brought him in was obviously to help with that finishing, help with what were the offense was last year. Let's talk about the overall signing of Pedro dale Vega. Yeah, for fans who you know, weren't able to see his little bit of action there at the start before this latest Let's go back to it and go back to the process. You know, when you first were seeing Peter de le Vega, when the scouting of your
the sounders, we're seeing Peter del Vega, what stood out? What is on those initial sheets that you guys wrote down when you saw dal Levega play that you said, he said, wow, this, this and this. Yeah, I mean the number one thing that drew us to him was he on the ball. He likes to drive at defenders. He likes to take people on. Secondly, physically, he's explosive, he's he can get, he can beat players on the dribble as well. You know, those two
factors were the main thing that subjectively our eyes drew us to him. Right when we dig into the objectives, Tyler Cox and you know, drives that and the objectives stood out as the same. You know, he's productive when driving at dimindion. It's not like he just tries to dribble around defenders. No, he does dribble around defendors. He also advances the ball. His
first and second touch typically take him forward. And the most impressive thing about Pedro, which our fan base will learn is his level of maturity at his age is just outstanding. The way he approaches the game mentally unfortunately he got an injury, but his physical approach to the game. I mean, the kid at a very young age is a very, very focused pro and I
think that's part of what drew us to him as well. The interesting thing was we've noticed, just us reporters that whenever he walks by anybody, he'll always shake our hand, and like that's something that we don't have all players do and not even remotely, So you do feel that maturity. The process in signing Pedro, I know, like you know, I first heard his name, like back in November. You know, it seemed to take a
hot minute a little bit. What about that process was was difficult. I mean, look like we're we're not the only club in the world looking for good players. So whenever, whenever we're on a player, it's generally us, and so there's there's a lot of competition these days to attract a good player, right, how do you do that, and how do you recruit him? And then and then there's a long negotiation every time because it's got to work for both clubs, and in order to work for both clubs,
there's a financial mechanism that you know. In order in this case, for Lenows to explain to their fan base that this is a good move for the club, they have to tell many, many angles of this story, and finances are a big part of it, right, So to work that out takes a long time because both clubs are fighting for the sweet spot where everybody feels like they got a good deal, right, So that takes a while, you know, But it was it was easy working with the news.
It was just the cadence took a little bit to get done. But the process was pretty wide open and the communication my style has just put it out there. Yeah, and so I don't think there were there were any secrets. Let's get back to the roster mechanics. Because Peter deb comes in as
the young designated player, the first young DPN club history. Now next year Pedro will turn twenty four, and I and you know, we talked about the mechanics, and I'm sure fans are wondering what that means to his classification of like, does the young DP, like what's the word like, transition or evolve into a full fledged DP. That's exactly right. Yeah, they just evolve on your roster into a full DP because age qualifies. Got that
title. Now, for anyone who's read articles over the last month of speculation of what could be happening, this rule wouldn't be affected. But yeah, he will age into what we'll call a full DP or a qualified DP or whatever we want to call it, but he won't be a young DP next year. Well, good stuff there from Craig Wible, Seattle Sanders, general
manager and president of soccer. A lot of stuff there on Pedro de la Vega, And of course the thought was is that we would play all that on Pedro de la Vega because Pedro de la Vega would be coming back to finally play again from his hamstring injury. Well, of course, getting a new hamstring injury Pedro de Levega did last week, a less severe one slightly lower on the same leg, so he'll have to make his way back from
that hamstring injury. But all that's still good to hear in terms of the financial place in terms of that roster mechanic, why it took so long to get done, and then the hamstring stuff as well that first question. If you missed any of that conversation with Sanders general manager and president of soccer Craig Wivel, make sure that you check out the podcast Sounders Weekly wherever you get
your podcasts, including the iHeartRadio app. Well, before we take a break here and move on here in Sounders Weekly, we have to get to our Western Washington Honda Dealers players to watch and find out who will drive good coming up on Saturday at DC, Obviously the Sounders will be without Jackson Reagan and Alex rolled On. So my thought is Cody Baker is the natural person to slide in at right back read Baker. Whiting still making his way back from
his own hamstring injury. So I'm thinking that Cody Baker is the guy that will slide in at right back. And I just continue to want to see that this kid play more and more and more because every time he steps on the field, he rarely makes bad passes, he consistently makes good runs, He's good in the offensive end. He had an assist off the bench at the right Back spot in San Jose, like what about a month ago. So I love what I see from Cody Baker and I hope we get to
see him at right Back coming up this Saturday. And that's who I think will drive a good performance coming up on Saturday. Four year Sounders. Now is the time to drive a Honda. Don't wait. Stop by your local Western Washington Honda dealer today and drive good. All right, will say you break here in Sounders Weekly. Coming up next is Ari Lillianwall of MLS Soccer
dot com and the podcast Lobbing Scorchers. We will have a lively debate on the red card for Jackson Reagan. He thinks one way, I think the opposite way, and of course we'll go around the league. That's next on Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM. Now back to Sounders Weekly on your home for Sounders fc cele's Sports Radio nine three point three kjr FM. Welcome back, Sounders Weekly, Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM. Great to
have you with us here tonight. Unfortunately that we've been bringing the content so far and kind of bringing the room down, but it was great to have part two of the conversation there with Craig Wibel in the previous segment. We'll have part three coming up, which will dig into roster mechanics, buying selling
players next week. Lots of interesting stuff. But joining us right now here for a lot including around the league and here for probably a little bit of a lively debate is our good friend from MLS Soccer dot com and the podcast Lobbing Scorchers. He's tired of being a loser. His name is Ari Lillianwall Ari. How you doing today, buddy, I'm good. Jackson. You know, that was definitely one of the tougher soundary games I think that either
of us have seen in quite a while. But personally I'm doing fine. It was very, very rough, one of those postgame shows did not have a fun time doing. But let's just start We're not even going to bury the lead. Let's just start digging into the red card to Jackson Reagan, you apparently, you know, via the podcast and then via social media, have made it clear that you don't think it was a bad call there on Jackson Reagan. I'll let you, in this debate take the first stab at
why Yeah. I mean, I'll start by saying that for me, I think that is a yellow card challenge, okay, but I was not overly surprised to see it get ruled a red And the reason why is that on that play you have studs making contact with the calf of the attacker, and that is a pretty clear cut criteria where anytime a referee or the var sees
that, you're susceptible to a red card. Now, I don't really think it meant the criteria of violent conduct that endangered the safety of the attacker, which is the criteria that the referee said that it did meet for why Jackson Reagan sent off. But I mean when a referee sees a challenge like that,
they're not just kind of pulling things out of nowhere. They have a checklist of things that they're looking at to see if it meets the threshold for a violent offense that can get a guy sent off, And in this case, one of those criteria starts to cast anytime you put yourself in that situation
as a defender, you're susceptible to getting sent off. And that's why I think in this case it was an ill advised it challenged by the defender, Jackson Reagan because even if he didn't mean to do it, when you go into a challenge that aggressively at that area of the field at that point in the game, you're susceptible to something like that happening. And the risk reward
in that situation I don't think was worth it. And I'm not personally just not super shocked that the var looked at that and said that it might be a red card worthy event. So let's start here, and Ari Lillion was our guest msucker dot Com the podcast Lobbing Stortures, and I think my first rebuttal would be, yes, you leave yourself open in that kind of a moment. But is context and intention not also a part when you review violent contact. So the referee romy tuccin and or two chan, how have you
pronounced it? I would just ask it's a play that is far away, far far away from the box. It doesn't have any implication in terms of goal scoring opportunity or anything like that. So that's part of the context, but also intention. Jackson Reagan's clearly not trying to injure Ryan Gold in that situation. He's just trying to make his way towards the ball and simply follow Ryan Gold's direction because he's obviously behind Ryan Gold. It's completely accidental. I
don't think you can deny it all. It's an accidental step by Jackson Reagan. So should intention and context not matter when deciding whether to put a yellow which I agree. I think it's a fair yellow yellow or a red out for a player. Yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying, and I think you know, you could argue that intent should matter in this situation, but by the letter of the law, I don't think it does.
I think intent is kind of considered irrelevant if the end result of the challenge is deemed to have in a violent offense or endangered the safety of an opponent. That was the criteria that got cited here, which is that the referees that that Jackson Reagan was endangering Ryan Gold's safety with that challenge. And another thing that they're looking at too. I mean, it is far away from goal, but proximity of the ball is another thing that the referee is
looking at. There. Jackson Reagan has no chance at making a play on the ball, and that is sort of something that the referee is weighing in terms of whether the challenge is reckless, and I'm not overly shocked that they wound up coming to that conclusion just because, like I said, you have studs to cash, So I mean, that's just going to get looked at by the letter of the law. That's, unfortunately, just how it goes. All right, Well, let's move on from that. Ari lilianol was
our guest. You know, I spend a lot of time in my obvious frustration of that red card, but we actually have the actual game to talk about, and the game wasn't any prettier because obviously you have the second red card to Alex trol Don. I think we can both agree that is very deserved, but you also have two ridiculously bad defensive giveaways where you're trying to play out of the back, a man down at the time, and then
a man plus a goal down in the second time. I mean, that's it's about it as rough a two goals giving up as we've seen from Seattle in a long long time. Yeah, I mean, it just felt like they kind of lost the plot after the Reagan red cards, both in terms of like, like you mentioned the defensive giveaways that led to Vancouver's goals, which really, they didn't have much to do with being down a man like
in terms of the individual sequences. They were just bad giveaways. And then you have the subsequent red card on Alex rolled On, which I mean that is just the moment of frustration where you know, he's obviously frustrated with how the game's going and he loses his cool, lashes out in that moment, and like you said, that's an easy red card, and you kind of you give yourself whatever slim margin you had for coming back in that game is
entirely gone once you go down to nine men. So it's just really they went into this game needing a result, and ideally a three point result, given how the start of the season has gone here and where they're at on the table. It's a rivalry matchup you have it at home. So to have it get entirely chalked like that with not one but two red cards getting shut out, I mean, I really on my podcast, Jackson, I kind of likened it to some of the other really bad losses that we've seen
throughout Sounders history, at least since I've been around the team. The twenty sixteen game at Sporting Kansas City, three zero. Right before the Schmidt comes to mind, the Red Card Wedding comes to mind. I mean, I don't know about you, but I kind of I ranked the vibes of that game sort of up and open the tier with either of those games or some of the other really really tough ones that you could name from over the years.
I heard that I disagree with the Red Card wedding just because I remember laughing at the Red Card Wedding, and I just yes, it was. It sucked losing to Portland, but there was a certain moment where it just kind of became comedic, like it felt like we were in a Saturday Night Live sketch at a certain point. Remember being there for the Open Cup. I think I saw you there that night, but either way, I was there. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. It felt like a
comedy sketch at a certain point. And now for the Sounders, it's back to back road matches, the second one which will be on short rest at d C United and then at Philadelphia. Then now which will be a week from yesterday, So next Tuesday, let's first focus on d C. H DC is a team who's coming off back to back losses. But what are we looking at here for this road match of coming up on Saturday for the
Sounders. Yeah, I mean, any any road trip to the East Coast is already an inherently tough game, no matter who the opponent is or what type of form that they're in. But I mean, what I can tell you about DC is they're integrating the first year coach, Troy Lasain, who is the former coach of my hometown club, New Mexico United, and he
also was the coach of the New York Red Bulls last year. I think that he showed last year with the New York Red Bulls that he's a pretty solid MLS coach and I'm pretty high on him, and I'm a little biased because of his New Mexico United connections. But DC United, they're currently eleventh in the Eastern Conference, so the results haven't quite been there for them so
far in Troy la Saint's first year. But they do have this game at home, and they do have one of the best strikers in MLS in Christian Benteke, who you know, anyone who follows the English Premier League probably remembers him from his days at Aston Villa and Crystal Palace. In Liverpool for a while. I mean, he's probably the most dominant aerial threat in the league right now. So he's going to be a handful for Seattle. And you know, like I said, you're going to Audifield to the East coast.
That's gonna be a tough road trip no matter what. And you gotta deal with then take on top of that. So this is gonna be a tough game. And well, Ari and a couple more here for Ari lillenwallmlsccer dot com in the podcast Lobbing Scorches. Check out his new episode. We can continue our Sharp Vision opponent ALEC not only taking a look at DC United on
Tuesday or CB Saturday, but also Philadelphia. They're the match that will be resumed from about a month ago that got rained out that will be resumed on Tuesday. I believe it's gonna be a four to thirty re kickoff on Sports Radio nine to fifty kr AM, so our opponent ALEOC tonight. They are presented by Sharp Vision, Modern LESC and Lens, the official Lasik provider of Sounders FC Philadelphia. ARI is the only team in Major League Soccer that has
not yet lost a match they're looking good. Obviously, they play over the weekend against Salt Lake, but they had a draw against Atlance United, a win previously to that against Nashville and Philadelphia for my money, is just about it as good as we have in this league. So that'll be a really tough one on Tuesday. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, in addition to being undefeated three zero and four, you know, they're only in the sixth
place in the East because a lot of those results have been draws. But they're one of the toughest teams to beat in the league obviously, But this is also one of the best home teams in MLS over the last three or four years under Jim Curtain. They really don't lose at super Park, and I mean the stats are ridiculous. I don't have them in front of me,
but their goal differential playing at home is incredibly crooked. So I mean, this is just a really it's a pretty brutal back to back slave when you take into account that these are both East Coast games, and then with this Philadelphia game, you have the weird circumstances of having to pick it up in the sixth minute or whatever it was, and you have to play the
exact players that were on the field when the game initially got canceled. So it's just gonna be kind of bizarre circumstances and two really tough East Coast opponents on the road back and back. It is tough. Ari. Let's let's wrap up the interview here tonight, just like we did last week, which is a manual Reinoso watch over there with Minnesota United. Yes, they got a great win. Yes, Robin lud is looking fantastic in Emmanuel Renoso's spot.
But Emmanuel Renoso, who left to go get his green card in Argentina, still hasn't returned. He skipped his green card appointment down there in Argentina. This was Michael Bauxall, Minnesota's captain. He said, I think we've all moved on. He also said he doesn't care about the club. So Emmanuel Renoso, I think at this point the Emmanuel Renoso watch can almost end, and we can almost you know, just determine and say Reinoso is never
gonna play for Minnesota United again, is he? Yeah? I mean I hadn't heard or seen that Boxall quote yet, but you know, if that's if that's the mentality that they're looking at it with from inside the locker room. I think you're probably right, And you know, I wish I had any updates on Rainoso watch. I haven't heard anything since the last time we spoke of it, but hearing Michael Box, I'll say that it kind of seems like it might be a wrap on the on the Rainoso area in Minnesota.
Wild, so freaking wild. Glad we're not Minnesota in that context. I wish we were Minnesota in the context of coming off of a three nothing win. But Ari, we'll talk next week. I believe it'll be after the Philadelphia game that we'll talk. So we'll talk on Wednesday, Wednesday evening, and hopefully we're talking about you know, at least one result at DC and Philadelphia. It's gonna be a really, really tough week for the Sounders.
But we'll talk to you next Wednesday. Take good care until then, and hopefully it will be a little more positive in the next seven days. You got it, Jackson. Thanks, It's good stuff there from Ari. Lilionwill MLS soccer dot com and he hosts the podcast Lobbing Scorches. Make sure to check it out. But that will do it for tonight show, hopefully
we see results for the Sounders here this coming Saturday and Tuesday. For that match against DC United, it will be a four o'clock provident Swedish pre match show and a four to thirty kickoff over on our sister station of Sports Radio nine fifty kr AM. You want to watch the match on MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app and listen in Spanish language on l Ray thirteen sixty for Sounders and DC United. We'll focus on that first and then we'll focus
to Philadelphia in that postgame show. So have a good rest of your week, everybody. Enjoy the NFL Draft here on Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM for the rest of this week, and we'll talk to you on Saturday noon on nine to fifty AM for Sounders and DC United and for right now. Fox Sports Radio is coming up next