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. Good even everybody, welcome in and welcome back to Sounders Weekly. Jackson Feltz here for the first time, and what it feels like at least a month and a half since we did Sounders Weekly, so many games on Wednesdays here over the last month or so that we haven't had a traditional Sounders Weekly. We've just
had game after game after game. Finally, we have a break for a week. I'm on vacation in the middle of next week, and then the Sounders play on Wednesday again. So I'm just here for a brief week, and it's good to be back with you because we have a lot to talk about here over the last month for the Sounders and everything that's been going on. We're also gonna hear from general manager Craig Wibel the final two parts of
our sit down that we've been waiting to play here for a while. Some really interesting comments coming up from Craig Wible on roster movement, why the Sounders have not sold any players, and what they all be looking to do during the summer transfer window. That and more from Craig Wible here coming up, and of course we'll go around the league with Ari Lillian Wall. So much to talk about with Ari. Gonzalo Pineda fired by Atlanta United. Could he
return to Seattle. Brian Schmetzer has said today there's no room on his staff, so we'll talk to Ari about that. Columbus Crew, thank you Columbus crew for losing Conca Calf. They lost the final at Pachuca last weekend. That's the reason the Sounders didn't play last weekend. By the way, game got rescheduled to September. So Columbus losing Conca Calf means that Seattle Sounders still are the only MLS winners of the modern Conca CAF tournament. They'll be in
the Club World Cup for next year. So good stuff from Columbus. But listen, there's a lot of Sounders action to talk about. We'll have Ari later in the show to talk about that and much more. Sporting Kansas City ahead really quick before we take a look at the last month for your Sounders broadcast details for this Saturday, it'll be a provident Swedish premat show of five o'clock kick off at five point thirty as the Sounders are at Sporting Kansas City.
You can listen to the match over on our sister station of Sports Radio nine fifty am this Saturday. You can also watch the match via MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app. So we will talk to you coming up on Saturday for Sounders and KC and case, a team that's lost seven straight games, bottom of the table, definitely a match where we hope the Sounders can get them. We'll talk to you at five o'clock on nine to fifty
am. They're on Saturday. More with Ari later, but listen. This last month for the Seattle Sounders has been Man, I've been thinking about exactly what word I want I want to use here, and even in this moment where I've been thinking about it, you know, for the last few days, I still don't have a great word. I wouldn't say that it's been good or great. I definitely wouldn't say it's been bad or anywhere close to bad, because you look at the last nine matches and this team is five
three and one across all competitions. And yes, you can say, oh well, but two of those are in the Open Cup, and that's fine. They still count all the same, and they had first team players playing in those games. Well earned wins there that have the Sounders, by the way, in the US Open Cup quarterfinals against Sacramento, that match coming up there on to believe, Tuesday July ninth or Wednesday July tenth at Sacramento, so we'll have that for you later on there in the quarterfinals. They would
host theoretically LAFC if they moved on and beat Sacramento in that match. So Sounders are moving ahead in the US Open Cup. It's just been great to see out at Starfire, the exciting penalty kick win over Louisville that featured you know, Andrew Thomas in that epic epic moment where he says, no soda keidahara, I'm taking this. He saves it and then he wins it in
the eighth round. And then Phoenix rising the great two to one win that featured Kalanakozi Rienzi's epic winner at the death for the Sounders that put them through over Phoenix two to one. But you take out even those two matches in Open Cup action against USL opponents and you look at MLS and it's three one to three over the last seven games in MLS, and if you extrapolate that over a thirty four game season, that nearly gets you to sixty points.
I will take that every single day of the week. So you can't say that's bad in any form. But at the same time, I think we can all agree that the Sounders offensively are not where we need them to be right now. I mean, you look at these games. You got the dramatic and thrilling you know it shouldn't have been, but you were up three nothing at Philadelphia and you hold on to win three to two. That was a very unique match. But you know, Raoul has the fifty yarder.
I think we did a Sounders weekly after that game to celebrate that goal and that crazy win. But then in the wins after that, you know, the two to one at Portland that I mean, I think that will go down first win at Portland in a few years. I felt really good. Boosted the team clearly. I think they were coming off of the Open Cup
win against Louisville, so that was just a massive win. But again, you got a twenty yard strike from Rollery Diaz at the winner at the start of the second half, and you also got a deflected goal from Christian Roldan. And you know, I'm kind of going against myself because I always say, listen, however, you can get a goal, you get a goal credit where it's due. At the same time, some of these goals that were going through here, they're coming in wacky ways, and we're going to
jump ahead all the way down. You know now that I bring that up to the Saint Louis game, which was on Saturday May twenty fifth, where the Sounders get their opening goal on an own goal. Technically, I mean Christian Rodond puts that ball into the box. It looks like it theoretically even could have been a goal had that slipped through. He had runners and had a great play and it was a great ball by the way, from Albert Rusnak as well, who also had another assist in that game, a great
goal to Jordan Morris who was in transition. You saw Jordan Morris after scoring against Saint Louis. He kind of goes finally like, yes, I told you we could do this in transition. We can use my speed, and it finally worked. But one of those goals I mentioned it comes as an own goal, so you're kind of getting these wacky, wild scenarios here that
leading the results. And then you know, the other reason I wouldn't necessarily use the word great for the Sounders' last nine overall seven in MLS is because the draws are happening that should have been wins too. Specifically, we look back to Vancouver on May eighteenth, that Saturday evening, where about as frustrating of a situation as you could ask for, considering the Sounders are up one nothing. In the eightieth minute, Jordan Morris puts a header on goal that
is very clearly deflected by the elbow of a Vancouver player. I'm not sure how deeply they looked at it, but var and the official I believe it was revis eventually determined no, we're not even going to determine that, and we're not going to take a second look. That's just not even a penalty
shout. And then ten minutes later, nearly the same thing happens with new Who's elbow as he's sliding down at the edge of a box at a shot, let alone on the line like the Vancouver player was when his elbow came out, knew who was on the edge of the box, and new whose elbow hits the ball. That's a penalty though, and Vancouver gets a PK it ends one to one back on May eighteenth, that was just crap.
That was poor and just embarrassingly bad officiating. And God, if we had done a Sounders weekly after that, I might have spent ten minutes just swearing out the referee and the var and everybody involved for that sham of an end of a game. So you have that situation, which of course not on the Sounders. I don't think that is about as much on officiating you can say. But the Sounders didn't get a second goal in the run of play.
Sure whatever, you can say whatever you want about getting that second goal. They should have had the handball. They should have been up to nothing on that penalty in the eightieth minute. So listen, Yes you can say it's parked on the Sounders. I'm putting a lot of that on the just
embarrassingly bad officiating. But then you have RSL, and that brings us to this game last week RSL, where you're up one nothing and you get a breakaway with Red Baker Whiting, who looked great in his return, and he streaks down, finds Danny Mazowski balls in the back of the net and it looks like it's two nothing. Sounders there late in the game, and like the ninety sixth minute, then they rule, I think rightly so foul on
Danny Mazowski to lead to read Baker Whiting's breakaway. I think that's the right call. Looking back, it just looks like the right call, and everything
functionally happened as it should by officiating. Credit to that entire crew, really, but you pull it back and it's still won nothing, and then like forty seconds after RSL kicks back off, they score, obviously heads down from the Sounders, and you know, you just kind of felt it a little bit that it was coming, and unfortunately it did and RSL got the equalizer to make it one one. So, you know, overall these last nine games, seven n mls, it's it's been okay, but there's a lot
of room to grow for your sounders. We got to quit making tiny mistakes. We got to get better on the offensive end, and hopefully that will start here coming up against Sporting Kansas City this Saturday, So we'll talk about that with Ari Leanwallt later on, but coming up next year in Sounders Weekly, we're gonna hear it from the Sounders general manager Craig Wibel to get to here about roster movements. You're gonna hear from Wible next on Sounders Weekly on
Sports Radio ninety three point three kjr FM. Now back to Sounders Weekly on your home for sunders fc SEL's Sports Radio ninety three point three kjr FM. Welcome back Sounders Weekly, Jackson feltz here. Good to be with you. Back for one week and then another couple weeks off here in Sounders Weekly, as I'm gonna be on vacation for the middle part of next week, and then of course the week after the Sounders are right back at it playing another
midweek match. There's a lot of them this season. But we'll get back to normal on an every Wednesday at seven o'clock basis here in a few weeks. But it's good here tonight, as we kind of had that opening segment to kind of just reassess here after the month of May overall, you know, points wise, a good month of May. I just I think we're all just not seeing the complete picture of the puzzle coming together, and we'll talk to Ari LILLIONOLVML soccer dot Com about that here in a little bit as
well. But one thing we haven't hit in Sounders Weekly since, I mean really the last couple episodes, because it's been a long time since we had a show was our conversation with Sounders General manager Craig Wibel. Craig and I sat down a couple months ago for more than a half hour, and in this long conversation you heard parts one and two. In our previous episodes of
Sounders Weekly, we still had parts three and four. I'm going to combine those right now and we're going to get to all of it here in this segment, because there's some really interesting stuff about roster building and mechanics and what the Sounders will be looking for come the summer transfer window. And this may have been two months ago, but it very much applies for this moment right now, coming off of this last month, and about the process of selling
players. Some really interesting comments here from Craig Wible. We're going to do shortened part three, We're going to shorten Part four. We're gonna play them both here really get the meat of the conversation. We'll get the kind of the meat and potatoes first, then we'll have the dessert afterwards with some It's a little bit more lighter conversation that Craig and I did to end the interview.
But listen, let let's jump in here and then we'll react to it here after part three, because this right here, this next five minute chunk with Craig Wible, really gets into a why the Sounders haven't sold any young talented players yet? Obed Vargas, Reid Baker, Whiting, Josh Atensio, the list goes on, and all we've seen is alone for Danny Lava here over the last twelve months. Why haven't the Sounders made a large handful of
money on any of these young players? And then secondly, listen, clearly this team needs help in the summer transfer Windo on the offensive end, What does Craig have to say about that. Let's hear from the general manager again. This may have been two months ago, but you might as well have this conversation yesterday, because I think Craig would probably said the exact same things.
Here is the general manager, Craig Wible. Here is part three of our sit down we'll play this on roster mechanics and we'll come back and react to it. Let's talk about roster movement. Last year when we were at Starfire, we talked about a bunch of young players. We talked about Obed Vargas, josh A TENSEI read Bigger Whiting knew who coming off the World Cup,
Danny Lava, who was then loaned out to Colorado. There were rumors at the start of the year about Leo Chu and all this movement, and there was nothing, you know, specifically listening back to it about like way we want you know, X y Z to you know, get time mails or whatever. But I'm wondering over the last twelve months there was just that loan for for Danny Lava. Why wasn't there another move Why wasn't there a
sale of a young talented player perhaps within the organization? This is a This is one of my favorite topics because I think this means something different to everyone. Okay, selling a player is is a wild topic, and mls around the world club sell players primarily to finance their team and their club and to keep their club financially stable and moving forward. The model of American soccer is wildly different, right we we buy and large are not required to do that
in order to keep our company moving forward because we're economically structured. We're structured differently. However, that's not to say it's profit profit problem. There's there's not a lot of that right now either. So there's a there's a there's a difference of like the why right, So now you get into well, when you sell a player, you can add allocation money back into your cap if if you choose to as a club, I think all again. Now
we're talking about another mechanism. Yeah, right, this is a sale mechanism on how you're going to add to your cap to go back into those other seven or eight mechanisms we talked about earlier, like and the layers get like thicker and thicker and thicker. You know, at the end of the day, it's not always beneficial to sell a player. It might be ego driven,
it might look cool. But for instance, if you sell an Obed Vargas or a Reid Baker Whiting or a Danny Lava or any of these young guys, if you sell them at the moment you get one million of allocation. I can encourage any any of our fans to go online and find out what a twenty nineteen year old, twenty year old twenty two year old holding
midfielder that starts games or winger that starts games. I encourage everyone to go online and find out what those players cost, because it's more than a million, so you might sell them for more. You don't always get to inject that back into your team, So there's a there's a in my opinion,
personal opinion, there's an imbalance of the how and the why. Right, we do see some teams around the league doing it and how what they're doing with those profits is up to them on how they're reinvesting, whether it's in players, infrastructure, or whatever it is. But it doesn't always translate straight
back into the on field product, which is what Sounders is about. Sounders is about the on field product, and it's my responsibility to make sure we're moving in the right direction to win, and frankly, that's that's been a problem so far this year. Yeah, winning And so I don't know if subtracting a player, a good contributing player right now to a player's sale is really going to drive anything other than a story as opposed to an improvement of
our on field product. Maybe it's a trade, Maybe maybe it's a sale to go pursue another position, something like that in terms of freeing up cap space. But I'm not sure in the moment when we talk about player sales if it fits anything other than a cool story or a perceived participation in a world product. Well, let's talk about cap space there and the potential of
buying players. You know, from the first games, initially in the start of the season so far, do you have kind of more an understanding of Okay, you know, come the summer transfer window, this is what we want to go do, this is what we could use, this is what we have the financial capabilities of doing. Well, that's another trick on the MLS, all these mechanisms. You know, you're not encouraged to hold money
for the summer. You're going If you do that, you're playing half the year without without this money invested, right, So it's very speculative to hold a significant amount of money to the summer in our league nowadays, without works. We do have a couple different ways to get there. If we move move a player, try to player, or those type thing, and and in terms of identified to identifying what we need in the summer. I mean, look, it's it's not hard right now. We're not bleeding goals.
We're not producing goals the way we want to. We're producing chances. But chances are only cool to talk about. They're cool at the water cooler. Goals are what we need, right and so we're We've got a sharp eye on a couple of attacking options around you know, around the league, around the world right now, and we'll continue to see as as we get healthy and see our team come back into full selection, which we haven't seen yet,
which makes this even more difficult to evaluate for the summer. But right now, it'd be silly to sit and say we need help on the defensive half of the field. We you know, if we're adding anything, it's it's an attacking it's an attacking presence. So Craig Wible right there, Sounders general manager, he listened. He's completely owning up to them needing help on
the offensive end in the summer transfer window. And if you're just betting me right now, I am betting that the Sounders will go get help on the offensive end, regardless of the health of Pedro de la Vega, and we think he's getting closer. I think this team very clearly and obviously needs help on the offensive end. You can't rely on Rol Ruy Diaz to hit a twenty or as it sometimes happens, fifty yard goal and end up kind of
coming away with a miracle play. In Saint Louis, you had the great play by Albert Rusnak to set up Christian Rodan for the own goal, but it was at the end of day and on goal. So you need, I think, more help on the offensive end. And clearly you just looked to the last RSL game. We talked about it earlier. If you had gotten just one goal in the run of play, then that game is two to one and you don't get you know, you don't lose two points for
giving up that freak goal in the ninety ninth minute. So clearly this team needs offensive help and I expect him to get that now. The interesting other answer he gave there was talking about the process of selling players how it is different in American soccer from around the world, because it's not about, as he said, keeping the company moving forward. And that's not to say,
as he said, it's profit profit profit. But it goes to this mechanic of you may sell an obed or a read for five six million dollars. I don't know what the number is, but you don't get all of that now location money. You only get one million. So the rest of that money, how that gets used to inject back to the team. You know that it definitely changes. Look at the Vancouver white Caps. For years that club would sell Alfonso Davies is a great example, selling him to buyern and
sending him overseas. Look what happened to that giant check for Alfonso Davies. It's taken a long time for that money to translate into success, and even then that success has not been consistent. So it's easy to see how you may get a large sum money five six million dollars for a guy. But yeah, and just an example. The number could be very different from that. But that money doesn't always come back into on field success, into on
field players that can help the team win. Maybe it does. Maybe that you know, you get that giant check and that turns into the next Rowl or Pedro or DP whatever, but there is no guarantee of that. That being said, I mean, listen, you gotta look at these guys having the potential to continue to grow overseas, knowing that at least some of that check. Yes it might be one million in allocation money, but a portion
of that should translate back to the team into the onfield product. So you know, Craig's saying, I don't know if selling a player right now is going to translate. I would think and I would hope that some of it would translate. So I just wonder when we do see one of those guys cool. Maybe I'll ask Ari Lulionoil about that coming up in our next segment. But it is interesting. I see it both ways. I see it how for him, you don't know if that whole check is going to translate,
So you're losing an on field product to essentially a question mark. I mean, Obed Vargas great right now, if you sold him, what you're getting back is money, but that money comes with a question mark. On the other hand, that question mark should turn into an exclamation point with something new to help the team on the field. But at the end of the
day, it is a question marks. As Craig kind of i'd come and you know, I'm not speaking for him, but I'm kind of trying to translate it and it does seem like a question mark indeed, but it is good again that he realizes that this team needs help on the offensive end come the summer transfer window. So that was the meat and potatoes there of our
conversation with Craig Wyble. We'll finish it off here with a shortened version of part four where we kind of just I wouldn't say have fun, but we talked about something that came up in the press box, a fun story from his playing days. Hopefully it'll be able to make you laugh, make you smile a little bit as we tell we're going to reminisce on how ridiculous Major
League Soccer used to be. And then also you'll learn about Craig Dalrymple, who's a new member of the Sounders front office, a big part of this club, and Craig talks about him as well. So Part four here with Sounders general manager Craig Wible, we're talking about comparing your time in MLS to
to where we are now. And I would smack myself if I didn't bring this up, because we talked about this a few weeks ago and we're up right outside the broadcasting with myself, Danny Jackson, Kip Dunning by that Evans, we're all standing around and you told this story that I would love for everybody to hear about about your time it but the movement in the em specifically
the player movement in Major League Soccer. And we can see how it is now, the mechanisms and all that, but how the league used to be. I mean, you talked about watch want in a locker room, but the player movement aspects of this league, as you can tell, was wild back then. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. So when I played for the Sounders, you can get called up from what was then called the A League to any MLS team. So Colorado had called me in a couple of
times. They had given me my first MLS appearance, and I was back with Colorado. I forget. I think it was two thousand and one. I was in Colorado. I remember, just singer. Remember I'm at the hotel. I get a phone call from the league office. They said, go to the airport. You've just been picked up by Tampa Bay. Go to the airport. They want you there this week. Across the country, across country. Yeah, I'm in Denver, fly to Tampa Bay. You're
on their team. Done. So I'm in the cab driving to the airport to catch this flight, and I get a call from the Colorado team admin. He says, don't get on the flight, there's something came up. Go back to the hotel. So I tell the cab and so we turn around. I drive back to the hotel. I'm sitting there. A couple hours later, I get another phone call. He said it from the league. They said, hey, you're on loan with Colorado. By rule, Tampa Bay can't pick you up until the loan is out. I went to
practice the next morning. You know, just fascinating to me is this kid from Northern Idaho and Spokane, Washington. Like I'm now in a locker room with Marcello Baboa and I'm just like geeking out right. I'm like, this is amazing and I'm having fun time we practice. I go back to the hotel, get a call from the then coach of Colorado, who is Tim Hankinson, and he said, look, you're on loan with us. I know you probably want to go, but I need you this weekend. You're
with us, Like, be with US. So now I'm at the hotel like great, no problem. Go to practice Friday morning, getting ready for the Saturday game versus the Galaxy. And the Galaxy, you know, I had spent the off season with them. I had actually played in the club, didn't play in, but I was on the roster for the Club World Cup in two thousand and I won that championship with them. And so Friday
practice with Colorado. Go back to the hotel, get another phone call from the league that says, Hey, just want to let you know the LA Galaxy just picked you up. You're on their roster. Now you're with LA. And I said, what does that mean? And they said, well you play for LA now. So I get a phone call from the Galaxy. They fly into town Friday night. I get a phone call from their admin says, well, you're already coming to the stadium tomorrow because it just
so happened Colorado's hosting the Galaxy. I drive to the stadium. I walk into the Colorado locker room. I empty my locker. As I'm grabbing my stuff, Marcello Abalvola looks at me and goes, what the hell is going on? And I just walk over and I'm like, thanks so much. I guess I'm on the Galaxy now. I walk across the hall, there's a jersey in there. I walk out for warm ups. Not even the teams didn't even know. I mean, the Galaxy guys didn't know that this
random guy's getting added on a road trip. The Colorado guys during warm up. It's the guys I had practiced with the days before looking at me like I've done something wrong, and I'm warming up with LA and from there, yeah, you're on the field. There were Hey were you just literally on the field explaining to some of the guys I had trained with the day before wearing Rapids jerseys. I'm like, yeah, apparently I'm with the Galaxy now. So a lot of growth, a lot of girl how far we have
come? Yeah, you can't really do it that way anymore. Yeah, absolutely not. Before we end last thing, Craig and I did just get a news release, just like you know, less than twenty four hours ago about your new head of Professional Player developed. Yes, who is he? What kind of a person you adding to your staff here? Craig Dalrymple is one of the best kept secrets to be honest, in North American development. He and that's not me trying to sell or sing high praise. That is
just a fact. He's he's he's done a lot in Vancouver, a lot in Miami. Where he fits into organization is you know, every organization spews storylines about our individual development and this and this and and and realistically it comes down to resources and people and personalities. And what he is really uniquely skilled
at is these highly focused individual plans. And so he's going to be focused on our top guys, our top talented developing players at the bottom of the first team roster, the top three or four guys on the defiance, and the top three or four academy players. And he's going to be working specifically with the coaching staffs and these players on their physical, nutritional, psychological, tactical, technical developments. And so it's a it's a really cool position that
we're happy to have and and he is the right guy. Very cool, Craig, Thank you for sitting down, and hopefully we go see some some points and some wins get on the board here over the next few weeks. And anyone who wants to play pinball on a game day, I'm at Shorty's from about three to four thirty every every game day, So come on in. Well that's that sounds like a challenge to sometimes well it might be. Well there's the challenge from Craig Wible, so go meet him up before games
and see if you can. To me. Listen, there's enough trash talk on Twitter from fans and people who are you know, up to it with with Craig Wible and want him to be doing more. And you know, I can't agree one hundred percent with what I see on Twitter. I think that is a is a line that could be used for really any topic when it comes to social media. But listen, if you don't like what he's
doing, then go play him, go challenge him. He said it right there, so there you go for Sounders general manager Craig Wible was great to sit down with him a couple of months ago. All of that still very much timely. I think all of those answers and all those questions we could have had just yesterday and it would have still applied. So good stuff there from Craig Wibel. Well, really quick, I'll tell you that you can
join us coming up here in just a week and a half. On Saturday, June fifteenth, as we celebrate fifty years of Sounders and all who are part of our club's history. Kickoff is at seven thirty against Minnesota United and tickets are available at SOUNDERSFC dot com slash tickets. We'll take a break here
in Sounders Weekly. We'll come back and talk with Ari Lillionoil of Major League Soccer and the podcast Lobbing Scorches. Lots to get Ari's take on, including buying and selling players and the exactly kind of what Craig Wiber was talking about a few minutes ago. Ari is next on Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM. Now back to Sounders Weekly on your home for Sounders FC. Settle's Sports Radio ninety three point three kjr FM. Welcome back Sounders Weekly, Jackson
Feltzer, good to have you with us on this Wednesday evening. Back Tonight's off. The next couple of weeks I'm on vacation. Sounders have another Wednesday match, But soon enough we'll get back to things on a regular basis here in Sounders Weekly and Sounders FC Soccer is presented by Providence, Swedish official healthcare partner of Sounders FC, joining US right now here in Sounders Weekly, as he always does. Here is our good friend from MLS Soccer dot com and
the great podcast Lobbing Scorchers Ari, Lillian wall Ari. Good to have you back on the show, my friend. How are you. I'm good, Jackson. It's good to be back. Yeah, it is good to be back. I've been listening to Lobbing Scorchers religiously over these last few weeks with the absence of Sounders Weekly, and so let's just jump in because it has been you know, overall, I don't know how to describe the month of May. I mean, one loss and you've gone four to one and four
in the last nine. So you know, in the one game you lost, they rotated heavily at RSL, But at the same time, you know, didn't get all three points at home against Vancouver, didn't get all three points at home against RSL a week ago. How would you describe the last month and last nine games for the Sounders. I would describe it as better, but still not where it needs to be. That's kind of how I feel about it. It has been nice to see them win a few games
on the road. The win in Philly was a really good performance. The winn in Portland obviously was huge, but their home for him still is not where it needs to be at all. I mean they're one one in five I believe at home this season, which that's not really gonna cut it if you want to get up the table and up into a top four spot in
the West. And the ending of that last RSL game I think was really disappointing and left the sour taste in everyone's mouth, so that kind of might have overshadowed some of the good vibes they had accrued leading up to that. But overall, I do think it has been very improved compared to the beginning of the season, and it's been good to see them have a few games where they've scored two and three goals. That's much more with how they need
to be performing on that side of the ball. But I think the biggest thing to look at in the second half of the season here is can they start getting more three point results at home? Because one win at home that's just I mean, you need to be winning your home games and MLLs to get where you want to be on the table. They absolutely do. I mean, it's funny the Mariners are almost flipped right now. The Mariners are doing so well at home, and you know, not as well on the
road. The Sounders are doing so well on the road, not as good at home. We got to get you know, these three points starting to come in during these home games. It'll be a road game at Kansas City really quick. All right, let's just jump because we always go around the league with you, and we'll quickly hit tonight's Sharp Vision opponent atl look.
Talking about the hosts for this Saturday's Sounders match Sport in Kansas City. Tonight's opponent A Look presented by Sharp Vision Modern las Can lens, the official Lasik provider of Sounders FC Kansas City. Right now, bottom of the table on paper. We look at this as a great team on the road in Seattle, a poor team overall in Kansas City. This seems like a great opportunity to after this kind of little mini break here for Seattle, come get three
points. Yeah, I would think so. I mean, like you said, they're at the bottom of the table right now, and they're actually on a seven game losing streak right now. Things are not going well for Sporting Kansas City. You know, their fan base. I think a lot of them are debating whether Peter Vermiz, who's been there forever, should be on
the hot seat. So it's definitely a wounded opponent. But you know, going into a game like that, I always kind of think of it as, Yeah, you're playing a team that's not in good form, but you're also playing a team that's gonna be desperate for a result, and they're going to come out fire and playing on their home field. So, by no means do I think that it's going to be an easy game, just because the amount of desperation that Sporting Kansas City has to be feeling right now has
to be very high. It has to be very high. So you're going to face that kind of a team coming up on Saturday in Kansas City. Well, broadcast details in a few minutes for you on that before we completely move on from Seattle. Then this is kind of partly Seattle related news, but Atlanta United on Monday hired head coach Gonzalo Paneda, the former Seattle assistant. I believe a assistant with Atlanta is going to take over the interim job
there. Garth Logerway has the chance to hire his first ever outside the organization higher at head coach because he inherited and then promoted guys at RSL, he inherited and promoted guys at Seattle, and now he inherited Paneda. So this is an opportunity for Garth logerway down there. So the two parter is where does Atlanta go from here because they've been struggling this season? And then where
does Gonzalo Paneda go from here? Does he take the rest of the year off and see about head coaching jobs or you know, do you think there is a chance of him to return to the Sounders And would the Sounders want him? How would they fit him in? There's a lot of tentacles here. Let's start with the Atlanta side though, really quick. Yeah, well, I wasn't surprised to see the news. Atlanta has been struggling a lot
this season and they have lost five straight games at home. Anytime you have a run like that, the writing's kind of going to be on the wall there, and this change had felt like a matter of time for a few weeks. Now. I was listening to Garth Logaway's media availability earlier and he was saying that they're not necessarily in a huge rush to make a new hire. Rob Valentino, the assistant who they have promoted to as interim coach in
the time for the time being. He's done that in the past when they'd let go of Gabriel Heinze. That was who was the bridge between Heinza and Pineda. He's very familiar and respected within the organization. And I'll tell you, Garth kind of made it sound like Valentino was going to have a chance
to make his own case for the permanent job. And I think, you know, if they if they had their choice, hopefully the team performs well enough that they can they can just do that because that would make it easier. But if that's not the case, Garth said that he's going to be
leading a global search, and that could really mean anybody. So it'll be interesting to see what direction they going if they let Valentino take the reins after this, or if they end up doing a search, because you have to imagine a club like that, there's going to be some very high profile names. Plank Yeah, yeah, big time. There's gonna be a lot of names there because Garth has a lot of pull. I mean, he was the front office Executive of the Year with Seattle just a couple of years ago.
Now, really quick, Ariy lean Wall our guest MLS Soccer dot Com podcast Lobbing Scorcheres Gonzolopanida. Where do you think he lands and could it be Seattle? You know, that's that's an interesting idea. A lot of people have been saying bring him home for a while now, so I don't think it's the worst idea in the world, just because he had a lot of success as an assistant here. A lot of people credit him for a lot of the game planning that he did, and that's why he got the Atlanta
job. So I'm kind of with that idea. But you know, I have to imagine that he he's going to be a candidate for other jobs around the league as well, So we'll just have to wait and see where he ends up. Yeah, I think it's I think it's definitely impossible. He takes some time to try to land another head job because he was such a hot commodity a few years ago before the taking the Atlanta jobs, So I'm
not sure it's gonna be immediate for him to come back to Seattle. As much as Sounder fans may want to see that, but you know, honestly, who knows. We've seen a lot of people come back to Seattle after time away. It just kind of draws people who've been in this organization back to the organization. So who knows? There, Aria, I want to ask you about and talk about and kind of laugh about Columbus also losing Conker
Calf because it's now two straight MLS losers in that final. Before we get there really quick on the Seattle front again, because I tease this in the previous segment, I had Craig Wible for a sit down about two months ago, and I asked him a question about why the Sounders haven't sold any young players, and he talked about how with the model of American soccer, by and large, teams aren't required to sell players to keep companies afloat like it
is you know elsewhere around the world. And he said, when you sell a player, it comes down to this mechanism where it's not always beneficial because if you sell a guy for five or six million dollars, you only get one million allocation money, and the rest of that is sort of you don't always get to inject that money back into the team, and you know,
some teams do, some teams don't. The Vancouver white Caps I referenced is a team that didn't really do that after selling Alfonso Davies, So it is kind of a question mark of where that money after selling a guy would go. What I want to ask you is, you know the process of selling guys and getting money out of it when you see it happen around the league. How often an MLS does you know, big sales then reinject money into the club that gets used for DPS, TAM players, bigger and better on
field products. And as we kind of figure out how that could theoretically benefit Seattle if a sale were to happen, yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly the figures on how much of it get reinvested in the team, but my understanding of it is that's a mechanism that MLS clubs use a lot and the Vancouver white Caps with Alphonso Davies was a great example of that, and I think that that is one way that MLS clubs can get a leg
up is excelling at youth development, selling those players and reinvesting that money to strengthen your roster so that's something that you know, Seattle did with DeAndre Yedlin back in the day, and it's something with these academy kids that they have coming up that hopefully I would like to see them do more of that, both because it can be a way to strengthen your roster and it shows that
it's kind of proof of concept of your youth development. And I do think Seattle has a couple of kids coming up here that could be candidates for that
to happen. I agree, And I think that it's the question mark of would that money go back into the system, And I just don't know the consistency of Major League Soccer and how many clubs to you know, the owners essentially you know, you know take that to do you know, bigger and better upgrades to facilities or if it gets reinvested, because I just don't think
the Vancouver Whycaps reinvested the Davies money very well. It went to you know, poor places, and you know some other cases it didn't go to any place at all. So there's there's examples I know, on both sides of it working out and not working out. But as Garth Logerway, we referenced
him again I'll reference him again. As Garth Logerway said on this show a few years ago, we're in the great game now of you know, selling players, reinvesting that money, and I'm just waiting to see that great game hit the final stages for the Rave Green, which we just haven't seen yet in the form of Vargas, Baker, Whiting and others. So interesting question,
there's something we may continue to talk about here in the future. All Right, Before I let you go, we must celebrate the Seattle Sounders still being the only Major League Soccer winners of modern Conca CALF. The tournament saw Pachuca host Columbus Crew in the Conker CAF Champions Cup final this last weekend and
Pachuca whooped them. We can celebrate the Sounders and we can kind of, you know, talk about the element of the Club World Cup in Seattle, kind of being the MLS spot to earn their spot in that tournament next year. But on the other hand, MLS got rocked again. Man, how do you interpret that final? Yeah, you know, it's funny going into it. I'm someone who tends to root for other MLS clubs in Champions League
just because the better that they do. I think the better it is for the league, and I want to see the league grow and succeed, and succeeding in Champions League is an indicator of that anytime that it happens. That being said, as soon as the game started and Columbus started getting boat raced off the field, I'm not gonna lie to you, Jackson. I was enjoying it. I had a good time watching them torpedo and crash out of
the final. And I really think that every time it happens. You know what happened to LAFC last year, it kind of puts Seattle's accomplishment of winning that competition into an even better light. You know, it's not that easy to do. This Columbus team, they won MLS Cup last year. They're considered one of the two or three best teams in the league. They have who I think is the best coach in the league right now in Wilford Nancy. And I mean they didn't even get close in this game. It was
a non competitive game, to be fair. It did come out after the game that all of their players got viciously sick two days before the game and they were playing at altitude, So really, when you put in those factors. Playing at Pachuca is really difficult anyway. You throw in the fact that they got sick and were playing in that environment, they never really had a chance in the game. But that being said, yeah, it's another year where Seattle can lay claim to being the only ever MLS club to ever win
the modern incarnation of that tournament. And you know they've paid the price for that in the time since then. But for me, it was worth it all day to have that trophy. You said they crashed out of the final. I thought you were about to say they crapped out of the final with the diarrhea that Wilford Nancy said they had. Ha ha ha, you know,
jokes aside. Do you think that there was any funny business? Well, you know, I have no idea and I'm not gonna say that until I see of it, but I can tell you that Cuco Hernandez at his press conference after the game, it really seemed like he was strongly implying that. So I can't say that for sure, but it does seem like that in the Columbus camp they have at least implied that only in Conca. Caff right, only in Conca calf. Would this be a thing and you know,
somehow this is what we have. But at the end of the day, it is the Sounders still is the lone Conca Calf winner of the Modern Tournament and there in the Club World Cup for next year. Pachuca now in there as well. Ari, great stuff. I know we hit on a bunch of topics here in our short time. So well done with your answers. I'll be listening to your podcast Lobbing Scorches celebrating Columbus's loss here as I I have home tonight. So thanks for the visit and keep doing good work
on the podcast. Appreciate it. Thanks Jackson. That's good stuff from arililiuamls soccer dot com writer and editor and host of the podcast Lobbing Scorgers. It's a very good one. Check it out after you listen to our show tonight. Well, we'll talk to you coming up on Saturday. That's it for the show tonight. We'll have a busy pregame show coming up on Saturday as the Sounders have an opportunity to beat up on a last place team in Sporting
Kansas City. It's going to be a five o'clock Providence, Swedish prematch show and a five point thirty kickoff. It's gonna be over on Sports Radio nine jr AM coming up this Saturday. You also watch the match by MLS Season Pass on the Apple tv app. But we'll talk to you over on nine to fifty am five o'clock pre match for Sounders at Sporting Kansas City. Have a good rest of your week, everybody. Hope you enjoyed tonight's episode.
Check out Sounders Weekly, Wherevery Year Podcasts in case you missed it, But for right now, Fox Sports Radio is coming up next