Coming to you live from Marelliot Avenue Studios of Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM. This is Sounders Weekly with your host Jackson Felt. Good evening. Everybody, Welcome into Sounders Weekly. Where for the next hour here on ninety three point three Kids JR FM, we are going to be talking all things Seattle Sounders FC soccer. Jackson felt in the chair and her first producing He's going to be joining us to take a look at COPA and the Euros.
A little bit later, we'll also go around the sound That's way Later tonight, Ari Lillianwall will take us around the league talking MLS. A lot going on around Major League Soccer here this week we had perhaps the most embarrassing loss
in league history happen over the weekend. We'll talk about what Garth Logerway is doing down in Atlanta, as well as a coach opening here, a shocking coach opening here in the Western Conference that I want to ask Ari if gonzopin Ada could be the right candidate for it as well as of course you're Seattle Sounders. And that is where we start tonight. Show a lot to get
to, but we start with the comeback kids doing it again. The Seattle Sounders found themselves down one nothing to the Chicago Fire, the last place team in the Eastern Conference. It was, honestly, as Brad Evans said in the postgame show, it was a tale of two halves. The first half I have here in my notes. It was flats bad. It was just it was no good, dirty, rotten bad forty five minutes. You know,
it was just not good at all. And it didn't look like the team was ready to face a last place Chicago team that they should whoop. And you know, I think I don't know what happened in the locker room at halftime exactly, but clearly there was a switch turned and you know, despite being down one nothing, they came back. They turned on the jets and they you know, turned it on and looked like a right now playoff
team in the Western Conference. Because because they won, and they because they got the three points with the two to one comeback win, they have slid themselves into a playoff spot ninth place in the Western Conference, still a long way to go, but they're only three points away from fourth place Colorado. This is a Western Conference right now that is has the fourth place Colorado team
and the tenth place Austin team divided by just four points. And really with the Sounders getting Pedro de la Vega back, great to see him coming off the bench and kind of, you know, getting his sea legs under him. We're seeing you know, haha, sea legs, you know, as we see you know, his his you know, form coming together here and
his health coming together. We hope that Pedro de la Vega can get this team I would think maybe even above Colorado and we finished the year anywhere in the top four because that means hosting that first round playoff series where it's best two to three. So honestly, right now, I think it's all there for the Sounders now that they're geting healthier, Pedro's back and they're playing well. I mean really ten points in the last four games, three wins in
a row at home, Sounders are looking good. So in that second half we kind of saw that where it felt like they turned the switch and they turned it on. You got two penalty kicks, the first coming in what was a fifty seventh minutes where you know, hats off to Paul Rothrock and I think it was a great change for Brian Schmitzer at halftime. He made the right subs in this game, and the first correct sub was Alex Schrouldon coming off at halftime. You may think that that's just minutes limit for Alex
Roldan coming out of concussion protocol. And when Alex comes off, you had Christians slide to right back and Paul Rothrock come on and play on the right wing. Great call from Brian Schmitzer because Paul Rothrock has just been a workhorse. He just runs, runs and runs some more. He works his butt off and we're seeing these results when he comes onto the field. Produce goals in different kinds of ways, whether it's Tim's scoring or him being a part
of the play. And in this case it was him drawing a penalty kick where he makes a massive run. It was actually our emilal quin Casino play of the match where he makes this massive run all the way towards goal and he's played in right in front of goal, and then he has his jersey polled. And because he has his jersey poll they went to var they looked at it, said yes, that's a penalty. Roosnack hits bottom left corner
and Sounders bring it back to one point one. You know, I would have loved in the next half hour to see the Sounders get a goal, a normal goal, and you know, take a firm grasp on this game. But I still thought they played pretty well in that half hour. Stephen Fry should be mentioned, and Stephan Fry, you're gonna hear from him in just a matter of moments. Had the chance to visit with the Sounders goalkeeper
in the locker room. He came up with some massive saves, including in the fifth minute when he had a one on one with the eventual goal scorer for Chicago. But he made a great kicks, even abute there in the fifth minutes to keep the game scoreless there. So Fry came up big. But you know, the Sounders weren't able to kind of get a normal goal. They had to wait all the way till the added time, till what was the ninety third minute, and then finally Albert Rusnak hits another penalty drawn
by Jordan Morris. One of those things where I looked like as Chicago defender just stepped on the back heel of Jordan Morris. As we have found out many times in Major League soccer. That is a foul. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. But thankfully they called this one. It went through and the Sounders got the penalty and Albert Rusnak once again bottom left corner. He hit it there in the ninety third and the Sounders came away with a
two to one win. Dramatic again. But these comeback kids, man, I tell you what the fight in this team we're seeing it. You know, from two nothing down at Houston to come back and get a road result to too, to last week a week and a half ago against Dallas where you're down too and you score three goals the final sixteen minutes. And in this game where you're down one nothing and you have to kind of flip the switch. And they sure did, and they scored two to beat Chicago,
a team that they should beat. I mean, listen, if this finished one to one, I think we were all going to be really disappointed. I mean, there's the cliche that Brian Schmitzer always says in his interviews with Softy and Dick here on KJR. He says, it feels like kissing your sister, and that certainly would have felt like that if it had been one
to one, but thankfully it wasn't. We got the winner and it ends to to one and the Sounders, as we mentioned, have a playoff spot right now, ninth place in the Western Conference with a really poor New England Revolution team coming to town this week. New England's a team that, like Chicago, just down on their luck this year. They're second to last place in the Eastern Conference nineteen points. They have six wins, one draw and
e eleven losses. Eleven losses that is the most in the Western and colle sorry, that's most in the Eastern Conference. Uh. And they're just having a poor season under Caleb Porter. New England are coming off of a five to one loss at home to Columbus, So you know, like like Chicago, I mean, it's a team that's you know, coming off of a bad loss. Uh. And you know, hopefully the Sounders can take care of business and hopefully not go down by a goal that would be even better.
So listen, we will talk more about New England coming up here with Ari Lullenwall. Quickly, I will tell you that we can hear the match right here at ninety three point three KGr FM this Saturday, Providence Swedish premat show of seven o'clock kickoff at seven thirty. You can get your tickets to the match at Uminfield by visiting soundersfc dot com slash tickets, and of course you can watch the match fly a MLS season pass on the Apple TV app
and listen in Spanish language on l Ray thirteen sixty. Really quickly before we hit Stephen Fry tell you that, you know, for Rollery, Diaz and new Who, they've rejoined the team. We talked about how they did not take part in the game last week. They were not training with the team, they were training on their own. We you know, heard that they were in good spirits and you know, for Christian Rodan, who spoke at
his MIDWEK press conference, he backed Brian Schmitzer. Sounded like the team was still united despite Roll and Knew Who not being there and they you know,
won without them, so all is well. I spent some time talking about the situation on last week's show, the podcast about Roll and Knew Who and you know the situation there where I said that nobody is above the team and I still stand by that, and you know, hopefully those guys come back to the squad and motivated and they come back in a good place to help the team. But the reality is Jordan's playing well right now at the nine,
so Roll was probably still looking at coming off the bench. And for new Who, he's a defensive wizard, but on the offensive end not so much so. When the Sounders are down, and hopefully they don't find themselves down like they have in these last few matches, then you know, knew Who made me to come off. If they find themselves down and get Read Baker Whiting on, you know, wish I'd seen a little bit better of a game from Read Baker Whiting, by the way, but he has still
time to earn himself more starts in the league. But we'll see if knew Who comes back into the starting lineup this Saturday against New England. Once again, we'll previe that Revolution match with Ari Lillinwall in a moment. But after the Sounders two to one win, they're over. Chicago went down into the locker room, had a nice long conversation with Stephan Frye where we talked about the win. We talked about a lot of things from the leadership side.
We talked about Rowland, Knew Who, not being there this week and not being there for the Chicago Fire match, and we talked about what's ahead for the Sounder. So a nice conversation here with the Sounders goalkeeper Stephan Frye. We just opened by getting his thoughts on having to come back again, but the Sounders taking care of business with a win here with Stephan Frye. Oh feel great. I mean, first and foremost, it's all about the results,
and we're getting the results right now, which is great. On top of that, yeah, you could and we will look trying to start a little better and not go down. But you know, I'm always the optimists and try to look at positives. The fact that we are able to fight back and fight out of holes and turn things around is tremendous. It shows the commitment, it shows the character, It shows the tenacity, the willingness to go and and and give it all. It's it's it's amazing. That's
what That's what we need to see, that's what it needs. That's what it takes to be successful. Can we make it a bit easier for ourselves but keep that drive and that would that would help us even more. But you take it however, you can get it and and first and foremost the results is the most important, and we're getting those. Ye, that's great obviously, you know you mentioned there, you know, start needing to start
better. It's just right after the game ended. But are you sensing any common denominator in these last few games where you are going down early and in
terms of how to fix that? No, I don't have answers. I think what I'm what I'm sensing is and I said this a while back, is that when we were in our dark hole, and you know, we still have a long ways to go, but when we were in possibly our darkest spot, it felt like we were walking a bit on on pins and needles and and and afraid to make a mistake because the mistake would be absolutely costly. I think we've we're now starting to see that we can make mistakes,
not saying that we should, but we can. We're not defined by them. We we fight through it and we find a way to succeed regardless. And I think that gives people a little bit more breathing room to play, to to to to play a bit more free again. We we we want to we want to work on eliminating those mistakes. I'm not saying go ahead and make mistakes as much as you want, but it just allows guys to, I think, breathe a little bit more and and and yeah,
it works. So I think that that that comfort level as has increased of players in games, and that I take that as a good sign. I think it's a good thing. And going back to you know that the fighting this team and the drive to be able to come back and get these results. I mean, is this something that you've kind of found or seen in
the group as the as the captain here over these last few weeks. Is is it something that's kind of just emerged or have you had this kind of just always in this group somewhere that you're now just I mean, I'd argue you'd always you know, it's one of the Sounders. The principles of being a Sounder is to fight hard until the very end always, and and uh,
I think that's that's been a given throughout my time here. Having said that, you know, the motive motivation for that can come from different places. It can come from not wanting to let the fans down. I think that's always there, trying to represent yourself well, trying to you know, obviously get results another big one, and I think this year, for me at least, I think not letting your teammates down work for each other.
I think we're an exceptionally close squad, and I understand that from the outside were some of the things that have may have happened, and you, you guys on the outside, know very little and it should stay that way.
But that that maybe that statement that I'm making here is is is a strange one, but I can guarantee you I think we were exceptionally close as a squad, and ultimately that's going to help us to to to to climb out and to keep going and to hopefully find success and challenge for something, because
that's one of the strongest motivation in a team sport. I think if you're willing to die for your teammate, if you're willing to break your nose for your teammate when you're when you see your teammate screw up, you see it as an opportunity to save that teammate. Those are those are very very strong motivational parts I think of a team sport and I see that and it's coming out, like I said, we're making mistakes but we're finding another gear through
them and finding results. And so that's a good song. Well, you talk about how united the club is, and and in only a couple more minutes here with your step Stephen Fry here in the locker room, you talk about how united the group is. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask about you know, row radios and knew who not you know with with the team will be joining the team Sunday morning tomorrow. You know, what's this last week been like with them doing their own thing and and not
participating in today's game. But what's that been like as as a team trying to stay unified? Well, they've heard, I hear they've been training really hard. That's honestly, That's what I didn't expect anything less. As for us, the guys that were going through theirimal trainings, we went through it like a normal week. You know, you assess what we did right, what we did wrong in the previous game, but we can do better.
Then you look at your opponent that's that's coming up, and what they do well and where they're may be susceptible to to exploitation, and and and you go about your your week. It didn't change anything, you know, it's I think we try to focus on the game. That's it. There's no there's no distractions needed, there's no distractions. There was no distractions because we
we we we're not going to allow it to be a distraction. The guys that we have available and they're pushing, are going to push to try to get results. That's what we did and we were able to to come out on the right side of things. Last thing for you, I want you just your take on Paul Rothrock. You talked about the fight and the drive and what are you What are you seeing out of Paul when he's come onto the field in in his minutes in these last few games of the club.
Yeah, obviously he's he's rewarded himself. I think with and I agree with Schmeetz. He's I think he said a while back that he's been training really hard and really well and then obviously scored a few goals for us. Has come in and worked hard, and today I think he was also involved in one of the p ks. So it's that hard work and it's I think sometimes luck is always involved, right, And I think the thing is you can create luck on defense, or you can create luck on offense. I
think we'd rather be lucky on offense. So but sometimes people can say that, oh you were lucky. I think you have a hand in that creating that luck. And Paul is a perfect example that tenacity, that hard work to get into that spot, to fight for that ball, to give Jordan the target to play that ball through, and then for for having to put the defender in a difficult position where then he makes the judge McCallum makes decision that that is an earned p K in a way, right, It's not
just you got lucky. I know he creates that with us with his work ethic, in his tenacity, So commend him for it. And it's it's contagious that that kind of stuff. And it doesn't matter whether it comes from a senior player that has been there for eleven plus years or if it's the guy who's been here for months, it doesn't matter. It's contagious. And it's good to see Stef. Congrats on the win and good luck next week. Thanks appreciate. It's good stuff there from Stephan Fry, your Sounders FC
goalkeeper. Good thoughts there. Well, let's preview the Sounders next match against the New England Revolution. Ari lillianwallf MLS Soccer dot Com and the podcast Lobbing Scorches. He will be joining us next to take us around the league. Still a lot to get to here on Sounders Weekly. Continue to tune in here on Sports Radio ninety three point three KJR Now back to Sounders Weekly on your home for Sounders FC CL's Sports Radio ninety three point three kjr FM.
Welcome back Sounders Weekly. Good to have you with us here Sports Radio ninety three point three KJR FM, where you will be able to hear Sounders New England Revolution Providence, Swedish premat show seven o'clock right here on Saturday, kickoff right around seven point thirty. You know, also watch the match via MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app. Listen in Spanish language on l RA thirteen sixty and get your tickets today SOUNDERSFC dot com slash tickets for Saturday's match
against the New England Revolution. We'll preview that match with our sharp vision upon an out look in a moment with our guests joining us right now. He will also take us around the league. His name is Ari Lillianwall. He's from MLS Soccer dot Com and the podcast Loving Scorchers. Good evening, Ari, how are you my friend? I'm good, Jackson, how are you doing it? I'm good, man, I'm good. A lot to get to here, let's just jump right in the comeback kids did it again to
one over Chicago. Your boy Paul Rothrock being able to come on and help get one of the penalty kicks for Seattle. I imagine his agenda is pretty high. With you and Noah on this week's podcast. Oh yeah, it certainly is. I mean, the Paul Rothrock agenda is through the absolute roof once again. It seems like every week this guy somehow manages to skyrocket it even further. But I mean, in all seriousness, that wasn't the prettiest
win that I've ever seen. I thought the first half was pretty rough, but the second half was really really good and they managed to get the two penalty kicks. And it's been good to see Albert Russnak and Jordan Morris getting hot. So overall it feels like things are evening out a little bit,
and this run of good form has been pretty sustained. Now it's been the last like eight or nine games or so, so they put themselves in position where they can they can make a run down the stretch here and ari the team coming to town, New England Revolution. I mean, this is a team who, you know, like Chicago, just down on their luck. They've had a bad twenty twenty four. We know Caleb Porter is just doing absolutely terrible, which brings us so much joy here in Seattle. You know,
New England coming off of a five to one loss. What is this soccer team you know come into town? Is it one that the Sounders should be expecting no less than three points? Yeah? I mean they got off to a really terrible, historically bad start to the season, frankly, but they seem to have turned it around a little bit the last few weeks before that Columbus game. They had won four in a row before that game, and then they backslid quite a bit in that Columbus game, Like you mentioned,
five to one. So I definitely think that it's an opponent where coming from the East Coast, Seattle should be and will be heavily favored in the game. I don't know if they're as bad right now as that Columbus game might indicate, or the start of their season might indicate they do have at least one really talented player in Carlos Steel, who's honestly one of the most
talented players in the league. But aside from that, they just haven't had much going this year really, other than that little four game winning streak that I mentioned facing a team like New England, and I'll mention that Tonight's out presented by Sharp Vision, Modern Lasak and Lens, the official Lasik provider of Sounders FC. You know, it does give I think Brian Schmitzer, you know, full week of prep. You don't have to worry about him a
midweek game. It gives him an interesting option if Pedro d la Vega is still not available to start, and you know we'll see on that come Saturday, but if dalea Vega is still looking at coming off the bench in the second half, then Brian has an interesting choice to make, you know, between Leo two and Paul Rothrock. I think is it time to give Paul a start? Not only because you have to rest other guys, I mean,
I think you know my answer to that question. Objectively, Look, if you can kind of put on the MLS out of your hat right here, I think he should be starting, irrespective of squad rotation or anything else. I mean, I just think he's he's been one of the most productive attackers in the last certainly in the last few weeks here. And also I just really like see the energy and juice that he brings, you know, and I think we've seen that impact in situations where he's come on as a
super step. But I think, like in that Chicago game, there is a very stark contrast in how the team played, the energy that it played with, and just the fluidity of the offense between in the first half when he wasn't on the field in the second half when he was on the field. So I definitely like it. You know, if it was me making the call, I would ride that as far as it can take me until until you get more of a full strength lineup at your disposal with del Vega
in the mix. It's an interesting debate, and I'm sure the coaching staff is having it, you know, maybe even this morning, but they'll have it throughout the week about that. And you know, do you reward Paul? I mean, he's been such a spark plug off the bench, you know, do you want to remain him in that spark plug if you need him, you know, it's it's an interesting conversation. We'll see what happens
on Saturday. I mean, in a perfect world, day La Vega is ready to start and you have, you know, Christian and Dayea Vegas, your wingers, Morris up top, Albert in the middle, O Beed JP holding and you're you're back four Now that knew who's back. And that's a whole thing as well that we didn't even get to on last week's show, but we got to go around the league here. Ari ri Leanell was our guest. MLS Soccer dot Com and the podcast Lobbing Scorches. Check it out
wherever you get your podcasts, including the iHeartRadio app are. There's so much to cover. On Monday, Saint Louis City shockingly fired their head coach, first place in the West last year and their head coach is out halfway into this season. That is comes right a week after San Jose fired their head coach. New openings around MLS. I guess the questions are, you know, was the firing at Saint Louis right? And then I'll kind of just
add a secondary onto that if you can transition. Is Gonzo Panada a Canada in any of these open jobs right now. I was surprised to see Saint
Louis fire brad Carnell, to be honest with you. They had such a good year last year, like you mentioned first in the West, but I think there was a general sentiment from the people who really looked at it that they overachieved quite a bit last year relative to the talent on their roster, and if you looked at the underlying numbers, there was I mean, frankly, there was some luck going on that had them punching well above their weight.
And I think Bradley Carnell honestly deserves a lot of credit for getting the results that he got given the roster that he had at his disposal. And it's should not have been surprised to anyone really, let alone the front office grass in Saint Louis that that came down back to earth a little bit last
year so or this year. So I don't really blame that on the coach myself, but clearly they thought that they weren't performing to the level that they could based on the talent that they do have, and that's the decision that they made, but I definitely was surprised see that. As for whether or not Gonzo might get a look there, you know he might. I don't really know what his stock is around the league right now because of how his
tenure in Atlanta ended. But you know, if I was one of these teams, like a San Jose or Saint Louis, I would be giving a look at him, a look to him, because I'm still of the belief that Gonzo has a lot of potential as an MLS coach. Yeah, I completely agree, and it would shock me if Gonzo didn't have one of these six open jobs, you know, or maybe even more than six come maybe the start of next year. I think he just needs another opportunity. Let's
stay on the Atlanta train here. Speaking of Atlanta United, and they faced Toronto FC, and maybe you can walk us through what happened. But the question is, when was the last time you saw a loss as embarrassing as Toronto suffered in Atlanta over the weekend? And what happened, Yeah, I mean that was one of the craziest game winners that you'll ever see, certainly that I've ever seen. It was a situation where you see players try this
a lot, but it very seldom works. Basically, what the Atlanta guy did is there was a goalkick on the last play of the game, the game was about to end, and he before the goalkeeper took the goalkick, he kind of played a little hide and seek and sort of sauntered behind him towards the goal. So the goalkeeper had no idea that he was behind him, and none of the Toronto players turned around. They were jogging to the other end of the field, so they didn't see that he had hung back
to be able to warn the goalkeeper. And as soon as the goalkeeper drop the ball to take the goalkick, the guy just comes up from behind him, steals the ball from him, and has an easy finish into an open net. And like I said, you see guys kind of try this all the time, this goalkeeper deception, but it pretty much never works because either the goalkeeper notices him, or one of the other guys who's going back to
the other end of the field notices him and can warn the goalkeeper. Man on and in just this situation, it was a perfect series of events where he hit without noticing him. It was brilliantly executed honestly, and it was an incredible highlight. Went viral globally because of the novelty of it. But it was definitely one of the crazier endings to a game that I've ever seen,
probably the craziest ending of the season. I was gonna say it'll go down as probably the most embarrassing loss of the year in Major League Soccer. I'm wondering if it'll go down as one of the most embarrassing lotch losses in league history, one of the absolute craziest finishes having in the ninety seventh minute they pulled that off. And yeah, Toronto fans, a feel for you
guys right now. That was just horribly embarrassing. Ari Lillion was our guest, and Ari, let's talk more about Atlanta because also news came out at the start of the week. Thiago Almada their prized prized by you know, young player. He's being sold for what is it, twenty two million plus up to seven million in add ons. If those add ons hit, it's the most expensive sale in Major League Soccer history. Garth Logroway is hitting the
hard reset button in that organization, is he not? Yeah, No, it's definitely a full re build mode for them when you factor in that sale of Almada and Georgio's Jokamaka is getting sold to Cruz Azul, So they're definitely they're definitely rebuilding, and it's definitely not necessarily what I expected coming into this season. I thought they were set up to be a competitive team in the
East this year that can make a real run. And it still kind of surprises me how everything worked out with Gonzo getting fired and now them selling their two top attacking players. But I'm really interested to see how it pans out because now this is Garth's opportunity to really kind of build this team how he thinks that it should be built. You know, he inherited the situation that
he walked into and it hasn't really worked out. So now we can kind of see Garth go to work and try and pull off the same thing in Atlanta that he pulled off in Seattle, which was building the club into a cowerhouse exactly. And well, I always say that Garth has never been able
to hire his own coach. It's always been in an inherited situation where he, you know, come came into Jason Christ and then promoted Christ's number two when Christ left, and then he came into Seattle and inherited Sigi, and then he promoted Brian's Siggi's backup Brian Schmitzer. And now he then inherited Gonzo Panida and Panda's gone, and he has a chance to, you know, not only promote, but hire his first outside coach in his entire career.
It's pretty amazing that Garth's gone this long. But yeah, we'll see what he can build there, and we'll stay up on that. Are just a couple of minutes left here. I got to ask you about the Western Conference because right now, four points divide fourth place to tenth place. Three points divide fourth place to the Sounders in ninth place. This West is crazy. I'm not sure if there's an exact question. Maybe it's like who of this
group do you think is the most likely to be left out? But it's just crazy to me that we're looking at a Western Conference right now, you know what, almost two thirds away through the season. That is just so ridiculously tight. Three points four points dividing. Yeah, it's a log gym. If you look at four through ten, they're all right there in terms of points and points per game, and if you look at every single team in there, they all have kind of flaws or reasons that they haven't been
performing to like their top level this season. And I think we talked about it last week, but it seems like that top three seems pretty well set and then everything below that is just a mess. But what that does do is it creates an opportunity for Seattle because I think we can all agree that Seattle hasn't performed up to the level that we all thought that they would so
far this season. But it does seem like they're getting on track these last few weeks, and they do have day La Vega coming back, so if they can parlay that into an extended run of good form down the stretch. Here, I don't know if top four is on the table, but certainly I think a top five to seven seed in the West is on the table. And if they get really hot, you never know what could happen. They could actually work their way into the top four. I don't think it's
out of the question. It might be unlikely, but it's not impossible. Yeah, no, it's definitely not. Ari coming up next to here in sunders weekly. We're gonna chat. We're gonna go. You know, you took us around the league. We're gonna go around the sound update on USL two and then andrews Hurst, our producer here, is gonna take us around the world as we talk about COPA and the Euros United States. Dude, I mean, now that we're not through to the knockout round, Greg Burholter,
for my money, we're about to talk about it. I mean, it's no surprise. I've made it clear how I feel he's got to go. And I'm wondering, really quickly from your shoes, does Greg Burholter need to be fired? And how soon? If so? Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at how big of a debacle this COPA America campaign turned out to be, with a loss to Panama that really can't happen, a red card to laps of discipline in that game that really can happen.
That put all this pressure on this Iraguay game, which was always going to be such a difficult game, and you just size up the totality of it. You know, I'm kind of of the belief that the coach doesn't necessarily make all that big of a difference. But given how this has panned out, and how and how important the twenty twenty six World Cup is, and just the generable vibes around the program right now, I would not mind just seeing a coaching change at all. And I'm not someone who's been like
fervently anti Burhalter everything. I consider him a solidly average coach for the most part. But this COPA, this COPA campaign was just this couldn't happen. Like you had to make it out of the group stage at the very least, because this was your biggest opportunity to prepare against high level competition for the World Cup, and they kind of blew that opportunity. They certainly did. We're both nodding our head when you said the word average. That feels dead
on. Well, Ari, great stuff today. We'll talk to you again next week. That'll be after the Sounders play Sacramento in the Open Cup there on Tuesday, so we'll chat after that and look ahead to what's next for the Sounders and MLS actions. So I'll see lumin on Saturday for the New England game. Hope all is well and we'll talk soon. Buddy good Thanks Jackson. Great stuff there from Ari Lillienwall, MLS soccer dot Com and the
podcast Lobbing Scorchers. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts, including the iHeartRadio app. Great to have Ari on the show again. Well, from around the league, we will go to around the Sound, take a look at USL two Rain as well as we'll go around the world with our producer Andershurst talk about Euros and COPA really quickly. Sounders FC Soccer is presented by
Provident Swedish, the official healthcare partner of Sounders FC. We'll take a break and we'll go from around the league to around the Sound and around the world. Up next on Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRCK out back to Sounders Weekly on your home for Sounders fc CL's Sports Radio ninety three point three kjr FM. Welcome back Sounders Weekly, Jackson Feldt here. Good to have you with us tonight. Thanks to both Stephen Frye as well as Ari Leleen Wall
for joining us there in those first two segments. Check out the podcast Sounders Weekly wherever you get your podcasts in case you missed either of them. Well, Ari took us around the league and it's now time to go around the Sound before we go around the world. If you can follow that, there will be a test later all right, So around the Sound, what we're gonna do is we're quickly gonna update what's going on around USL two with all
of our local soccer teams as well as the rain really quickly. On USL two, Ballard FC still at the top of USL two here in the Northwest Division. Seven wins, two losses to draws. They top it twenty three points. That's ahead of United PDX by six point as well as the Tacoma Stars by the way, and on that note, on Ballard, they played on Sunday to a tow two draw against Capital, so that's what they're coming
off of. The Tacoma Stars meanwhile in third place right now. For Tacoma, they have a match coming up this Sunday at home against Capital, so hopefully they will pick up a win where Ballard couldn't. Looking down the standings here West Seattle Junction FC, they're sitting in fourth place right now. They also play on Sunday and they will be hosting Only Town and then lastly, of our local clubs here Midlakes United Midlakes. If we take a look at
what they're doing there. A little bit further down in the table, they do not play again until Wednesday, July tenth. They'll be at Olytown on Wednesday July tenth, So a little bit of a break right now for Midlakes United. So that's what's going on there with our local clubs here in USL two. Make sure to follow it. If you're in any of those areas where the clubs play, give them, you know, head out there. It's really fun time I can speak for Ballad FC games at Memorial just a
tremendous atmosphere. So turning our attention to Rain and what's going on with Seattle Rain. We talked last week about how Seattle Sounders ownership as well as Carlisle Group have purchased RAINFC, and that's awesome news. Check out that podcast from last week in case you missed that news. So now they are under the
same umbrella as Sounders FC. On Sunday they went to Gotham FC and they got a late goal I believe that was in like the ninety ninth minute I want to say ninety ninth minute goal and able to get them a one to one draw at Gotham still looking at pretty far down the table there, thirteenth place in NWSL, so a lot of work for Seattle Rain. They have a match coming up this Sunday, They'll be hosting Utah Royals FC at three
pm there at Loman. Well, we go now from around the Sound and we now turn to around the World, and let's bring in our producer, Anders Hurst, who of course is our summer tournament correspondent, keeping us up to date on all things Euros and COPA. Obviously, there is really and there's one big discussion we want to have here. Before we get to that, let's just get through the other stuff. I mean, in Euros you have Spain Germany coming up, England get through by the skin of their teeth
with Bellingham and my boy Harry Kane. Is there anything you want to say about Euros or did should we just spend more time on the United States? Yeah, I mean, is there anything? There's a couple good matchups you mentioned, the Spain Germany matchup. I'm kind of watching for whoever wins that. That's kind of who I think we'll end up winning the tournament. Portugal versus France and BOFE versus his Idle Ronaldo. See how long Ronaldo lasts.
I guess that's kind of something to watch as well. But yeah, I think it's mostly going to be about the Copa America. It's obviously a compelling tournament to watch in Euros, but most US fans want to hear our thoughts on the Yeah, the situations. They certainly do really quick, just because I know you're watching this. Is it just me? Or is Brazil not the normal Brazil? They're not at all. I have a lot of leadership
lacking at this point. I think Casimiro was big for them. He was kind of out injured before the start of the tournament, so he's not with them and they I think a lot of people have I don't want to say overrated or underrated Neymar, but the fact that he was kind of the guy to take on the burden of being the player. Brazil has always had that star or stars, and a lot of people turn to Vinicius from Real Madrid as like that kind of replacement. But I don't think he's just there quite
yet. He's on the younger side, and you know he has the quality. I just don't think he's there as a player as where Nemar was so that them not having that kind of guy to lean on, coupled with the lack of leadership, I think is really big for them. They're still talented, obviously, but I would not say they are favorites by any means. It's Argentina and then the rest of the world or sorry, the rest of the Cone mebole there, and I would even put Columbia in Uruguay ahead of
Brazil in terms of likelihood to win it. Well, it was one to one last night between the Colombian and Brazil, so we'll see what it shakes out. A lot more on that bull Listen, we got to spend the rest of tonight's show and the rest of this around the world, So I'm talking about the United States didn't make it through to the knockout round here of Copa. They're ousted as they lose to Panama, and then they lose to
Uruguay and now they're done. The entire conversation about this, I think needs to be spent about the situation and the state of US soccer regarding Greg Berhold, because you can say, and I think it's pretty easy to say, Timothy Waya the red card, the loss to Panama is probably what costs this team a chance to get through. Yes, But at the same time, anders correct me if I'm wrong here. The focus of US soccer is squarely
on should Greg Berhalter be the head coach or not? Yeah, and a lot of people like you said that you can definitely point to that moment in the Panama game and not winning the Panama game as the direct reason why the US did not move on. But good teams get themselves out of those situations, sure, right, So, and the US knew they basically needed to
win that Uruguay game. I saw a good start from him in the first fifteen to twenty minutes, but after kind of Uruguay go into the game, it didn't look like they were taking a ton of risk they It didn't look like a team that knew they needed to win to me, and that comes with adjustments, That comes with mental fortitude, and that comes from the manager. So those are the three kind of things that I look for in you know, realizing that they need to fix this situation, and the US was
not able to do that. And even inside the Panama match, right, I talked to you about this last time, Tim WAYA Yeah, bad, bad, red card. He'll take the blame for it. He did take the blame for it. But they the US ended up scoring after the red card, right, So we were up one zero, still in a good
situation, and they didn't adjust at all. When you're down to ten men and you're up one zero, you should be basically parking the bus, making things as hard as you can for the other opponent, not to mention an opponent that probably isn't at the talent level you are to score goals. So if you're gonna sit back and get it ten men behind the ball, it's gonna make things extra hard for them. And literally, within four minutes of
scoring with ten men, you concede with ten men. And that's the mark of a mentally weak team, a team that's unwilling to make adjustments or unable to make adjustments in the moment, and it cost them. Two more questions here as we talk with andrews erstar producer here in Sounders Weekly about the United States not making it through in a COPA, and a lot was made about Greg Burhalter. Right before the set piece where Ugui scored, he holds up
two fingers one to one now listen. I'm not. I don't have it as deep of a background in soccer. I've just been a fan. But the big question for me is is that one one him really telling his players the score of the Panama Bolivia game. Is it potentially tactics Because if he's telling them the score of that game before an important set piece for the other team, what the hell just stay in Kansas City, Greg bur halt Well, not only I don't know if you saw it, he actually confirmed that's
what he was doing. I didn't see that. Well, then, Greg Burhalder, you should be out right now. And he told he literally said, yes, I was telling them to score the other game so they could prepare themselves and know what was needed. No, what Yeah, I sent you a clip the other day of Nico Contour, one of my favorite American soccer pundits nowadays. He works for the Colossal Network. He does great work
for the Champions League and all that stuff as well. But that just shows the weakness of your mentality that you're leaving the fate of the US men's national team moving on in Cope America to Bolivia versus Panama. Like, what are we in twenty eighteen? Now when we're expecting Panama to lose and where we can't be trended out in Tobago, as our great Taylor Twelman would say, what are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? So yeah, he did confirm that that's what he was doing. That's just
so embarrassing. We're both on the side of gregor Berholder needs to go. Yeah, and many, I mean, let's let's be let's face it here, pretty much the entirety of soccer media. We're all in agreement that Greg needs to go. But the national next question is before we end tonight is what then happens. Tim Howard said that he believes he could convince you're gonna
klop to take the job the former Liverpool coach. You threw the idea out to me about my former Tottenham manager Patchettino Mariso Pochettino taking over, which I would love. If you know, those are obviously pipe dreams a little bit. There were amazing, amazing dreams. But if you're a heading US soccer right now, what are the realistic expectations for where this job could go in
the next twelve months? Well, and before we get into that, I want to just ask and kind of as a general question, maybe you can shed some light on it. How deep do you think it goes. Do you think it's just a manager that's the issue here or do you think it's on a more developmental level. We don't have the time to get into that because JT. Badson Soccer US Soccer CEO. I think he he's illuminated some interesting thoughts about the whole structure of US soccer and the expectations, and maybe
we don't have an answer of the right person. Maybe this is something we can talk more about next week, but like they need to figure out this whole structure from the top. Yeah. I could be wrong, but I didn't come away from this tournament thinking that the eleven players that were playing on the pitch for the US men's national team were not the eleven most talented soccer players at the US. Like, I don't think player development is a as big of an issue as a lot of people are making it out to be.
Yeah, maybe that'll be a thing in the future when other teams start to catch up from smaller countries. But I think the US has done has taken huge strides in like where they send their players how early they go into the play in Europe for the top. But in terms of the coaching situation, you're right. I think Jurgen Klopp would be choice number one by far. This team needs to kick in the ass. He's exactly that type of
manager. But other than that, I just wouldn't expect them to go outside the US, which is unfortunate because I think that's exactly what we need. I think it's an interesting dynamic. We'll talk more about the state of US soccer next week. Okay, this isn't going away anytime since, for sure less than two years from the World Cup. Thank you, Anders, appreciate the time, and that will end tonight's show. One final note here.
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We will talk to you on Saturday seven pm right here on ninety three point three KJRFM for Sounders and New England Revolution. We'll see at at Lumenfield. We'll talk to you here on KJAR. Have a great rest of your week, have a happy Fourth of July and Fox Sports Radio is coming up next