What We Learned This Week: Grading the Sounders' transfer window and a new show/co-host!

0:00Hi, I'm Will Bruin and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounder's legend. Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network. Here we go. Come on, Ailshan! Let's go! Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS co-pointers! The Sounders rule the region! Seattle Sounders is going to be on the field! The Sounders rule the region! Seattle Sounders is going to be on the field! Now go! Go! Now we go! Oots of the Gooch! All creatures created small! We're all working in collectity. It's just about runs into the advertising order. Go to our lab. All goes in! All goes in! All goes in! All goes in! All goes in!

1:00Where's my cop? I got a bunch from in the car. We're pending off for free already. Are we in the pasta? 50 bucks? And I'll set my name. Gooch! Seattle! This episode of Noose Adiates is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Noose Adiates since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by long-time Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, the special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest. Welcome back to another episode of Noose Adiates on the Sounder Heart Podcast Network. It is Friday. We are here at the Sounder Heart Studios in downtown Seattle in the ID. I am joined by Niko Moreno and new member of the Sounder Heart Podcast Network, Adam

2:05Rays, who is getting ready to start a new live show. We are ready to start talking about this new live show on Monday afternoon, one o'clock. We're going to be on YouTube live, starting hopefully this Monday. We're still trying to figure out some technical parts of it. But Adam, we're here for what we learned this week. I should say, welcome to the show. Welcome to the network. Welcome to the family. Good to have you. Thank you so much, Chermai. I just want to say I've been going to every single Sounder's game at home since 2009, since I'm a little kid. My family has been seasoned ticket holders since then. And it's just so great to be here. I've been reading Sounder at heart as long as I've been reading sports journalists. Oh, I mean, this is this is love to hear that. Love to hear that. I love to hear that. Sucking up to the boss. All right. Yeah. No, no, no, look, Flattering will get you everywhere. That's right, Niko. You could take a lesson from them. I'm doing it. No, look, to be honest, Jeremiah and I had been looking for a cause for quite quite a long time for that Monday show.

3:07We talked to a lot of people. I made a lot of calls with Jeremiah. I was talking to a lot of people. But ultimately, what really won me over in terms of Adam and I'll go ahead and be very concise on this. I love the fact that he was so involved, so soaked into the culture and the community of Seattle sports. Not just soccer, but sports in general, you know, broadcast for baller, broadcast for a Seattle you not just soccer either. All these things. I mean, it's to me, there's a certain value that a lot of people need to see in that sort of commitment and our audience, if any audience out there is really going to feel like you're part of this, man. And so to me, that was worth more than any of the other, you know, candidates that we had. So man, Adam, I'm just excited for us to start on our Monday show. I'm happy and proud as, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the guy just under Jeremiah,

4:12just another worker, but just being able to just have you as part of the team, man. Yeah, Nico, thank you. I mean, I just want to say, I mean, if I could speak on what being a part of the sports community in Seattle means, I think sports are uniquely human thing. It creates community in a way that really nothing else does. And I love all sports, but soccer is a uniquely human sport the way that anyone can get involved. And as someone who has been involved in soccer in Seattle since 2009, like I said, when I was what, six years old, I don't mean to age you guys there. Sorry. But to see it grow in this country over the last 10, 15 years, and, you know, it's amazing to watch and to be a small, small part of it and to bring it to more people. You know, what you guys do is great to be a part of that is great. It's, it's something that is so prevalent in how we interact as people.

5:17And I don't think people give enough credit to the fact that that is what sports is and that is what soccer is in our city. Oh, I'm ready. I'm ready. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's going to be Mondays on the Sounder Heart YouTube channel. We're going to be going live. It will be, there'll be a new experience for Sounder Heart. We have not really done a live show on any regular basis. Of course, there was a Jason things that we did, but this will be the foray into live. So I hopefully people are a little bit patient with us on that. I think we are ironing out the Kings to be giving a little bit more peak behind the curtain. We were actually, I was going to, I was planning on doing like a live test today, but we couldn't figure it out because we over complicated things, but that's okay. This will be so we good. This was an active week in the Sounder. So we did learn quite a few things, but let's start at the top. The transfer window closed on Tuesday Wednesday.

6:19The Sounders did make a last minute move. They brought in Caden Clark, who is a name that you probably recognize if you've been around MLS. You know, he broke into the Red Bulls at 16. He was sort of a phenom. He earned a transfer to RB Lypesig. And that's where his career started to go off the rails a little bit. He didn't play it Lypesig. He went on loan to a team in the, I think the second division of Denmark didn't really play there. Came back to MLS a few years ago with CF Montreal. He had some, no, no, with Minnesota United where he's actually from. He's from Minnesota. He played with Cassani there. He played with the Sony there. He did not do much at Minnesota, but then he got a move to CF Montreal. First few months there, gangbusters, four goals for assists. Looked like he had rediscovered his career. He actually made a, he actually got into the US national team for the January camp.

7:24Score to goal had an assist in two appearances for the US national team. And then the career started to, the rear off the tracks again. Got off to a rough start at Montreal. Got traded to DC United. Did not really play a whole ton of DC United this year. He, he did not make a single start this year. There was a trade that you're supposed to go to the Red Bulls that fell through. Supposedly he cleaned out his locker, was done with DC United. The sounders were able to swoop in and get him for almost nothing. The sounders gave up a second round pick to DC United. They will only be paying his on cap portion of his salary. He is a U22. So there's about $250,000 a year that he's owed off cap. Sounders do not have to cover that. And the only way the centers have to pay anymore, they would have to pay $50,000 more in gam. If he were to still be on the roster after the sprint season. So the centers are basically getting him for almost free for the next ten months.

8:30We'll call it. Not a bad bit of business, but someone who comes to the sounders with quite a bit of baggage. They of course also signed in. Yovolik earlier. Was that this? No, that was last week. That was last week. He already played obviously. So those are the two moves the sounders ended up making. I would say underwhelming is maybe a fair way of putting it. But if you were to assess the moves as an entirety, let's start with you. Nico, what grade would you give this understrance for a window? Yeah, look to me and I've, you know, been vocal and I've said this a couple of times on X. I had a whole life year. Life X is open space here today where a lot of people chimed in on and. I'm going to stick to a solid C. Look, I think that you get a home run outside. Let's call it a grand salami, if you will, when you get a franchise player at $6 million to me is the best deal of the transfer window.

9:37It could be, you know, a historic steal for a guy that can produce at the rate that he does. I mean, look, I didn't analogy. You know, I love my analogies. It feels like whenever you were trying to get like the brand new J's and you get a raffle ticket, but everybody else got the wrong one. And the only one that was able to cash in on the raffle ticket was Craig Wyble because he kept asking about the player. He was relentless. No, not taking no for an answer. And because of that, you get the best striker at $6 million, half of what's in Lewis paid for Navajo, which is absolutely insane. So when you have a home run there and then you get a single with a guy like Clark, because look, both you and I Jeremiah know that the sounders were negotiating with the European winner that hit all of the boxes, right? He checked all the marks. That was their number one target. That was a guy that was going to come in. And as far as we know, he had all the right attributes.

10:38He got into the prime assistants consistently. He was a goalscord. He was athletic, but you were unable to close him down because hey, salary restrictions when he comes to that and the caps and times of fact negotiations. And that's what happened. You were unable to get him done mainly because I think you were a little laid. You were you were very behind on having a sort of negotiation. But your fallback is a guy like Clark, who located for everything that you just said, you know, there's been some sort of a fight. You know, there's been some ups and downs in his career. What I learned this week is that he's someone that I think knows what he's done wrong to me. He looked very honest when he talked to us and you know, he's you know, I asked him, do you feel like you have something to prove? He did not shy away from me. He said, yeah, you know, there's there's things that I got to prove. But mainly I want to be a teammate. I want to be able to come here and help support. I don't think he's coming here with any sort of expectations in terms of getting minutes. But hey, he did say I've been sitting on the bench a lot.

11:38I got fresh legs. I got fresh legs. I got young legs. I'm ready to go. So look, that's something that I'm sure is going to be valuable for the sounders. So jury's still out on what that's going to be. How that's going to play out. But I like it as a fallback. You know, I really do think that there is potential there. And I'm just curious what Adam thinks. Yeah, I mean, I think that you have to think of this in terms of grading an MLS team on their track. And I think that's the best team on their transfer window and grading the Seattle Sounders on their transfer window. It's no secret that the Sounders aren't the spendiest team in the league. And there's a lot of griping about that. But what they did this transfer window to me is so impressive because I watched that game with day on Yovolich. And I just kept thinking to myself, like, this was too easy. How do we get this guy for what we got him for? And it's an immediate massive change as a player. Then not only of course he can do it himself. He had the two goals. The second one was created largely off of his own strike, but his gravity that he has.

12:38You talk about gravities with a striker so much. He brings those center backs in. He frees up room for players like Albert Rousin. He's going to make everyone around him better. So you're paying not only for a player that. I mean, he could bag. He could back 10 goals in the remainder of this season. I don't think that's that's ridiculous to say with with with how he's like he could immediately make himself the leading score on the team. Yeah. For the season we were talking over and over again, the press box that it was the first time a nine had started a game and scored for the Sounders, which is not a fun crazy. It's insane. The craziest step. It's ridiculous, but you have an answer. You have a solid answer. That is like Niko said, that's an A plus. That's perhaps the best bit of business done in the window. Caden Clark. It was so fascinating to see him come in because I saw the news. And I was like, I was following this guy when he went to Europe because all the USMNT fans were like, this is the next guy. This is one of the people coming up through the pipeline. And then he kind of disappeared a little bit like you said, he had he had some rough time back in MLS. He didn't really get the playing time.

13:38He wanted to get in Europe. But when I look at these two transfers, I really like to look at the personalities that we've seen so far. What I've been impressed with down your village is he's very confident. A lot of players, you're obviously a very PR train. You don't want to go out and say like, I'm really good. I'm going to score a lot of goals. Day on has a way of saying that in a way where you just like, yeah, I believe you, you're right. Yeah. And it's so honest, well also making sure that he is focused on winning. Brian Schmester talked about when he got the game ball in the last match. He said, I came here, not just to score goals, but to win games. To have that confidence in yourself as a nine. Well, making sure it's about the team. That's a huge win for the culture. Ken Clark being honest about the fact that he's got to come out and he's gotten opportunity here to spark something. This team needed to pick me up as plain as it is. This has been a really rough stretch on the fans. This is really an unprecedented rough stretch on the locker room.

14:40A locker room that's used to success. We heard Paul Roth, we're all coming off the field at train today. So the vibes are back. And that's what it feels like right now. And these players are helping with that. Yeah. So what you're great though. I'm going to say a B, a B. All right. Well, I'm going to come in a little between you guys. I, I've settled on a B minus. I think it's a little better overall than maybe Nico's giving it credit for in that. Look, I agree. I, I, I am honestly more excited about Yovolet. I don't know that there was a single signing that anyone in the league made who I'm more bullish on at least for the short term. I think Yovolet is most likely. I don't think anyone will be surprised if he's the top of all the players who moved, he scored more goals than anyone else this year. We'll see how that goes. But he's only 27. I think. Head to head against Greece. Okay. Griesman doesn't have a little bit of a head start. But I'm with it. Yeah, I think I'm going to stick with it.

15:41I'm going to stick with it. Clark is interesting. I, I am not as down on him as I think a lot of folks are and look with a lot of baggage. But I think it, and so no one really doubts his talent or I don't think a lot of people doubt his talent. And what's funny is that if you look at his numbers, you know, he's got 11 goals 19 assists in his M. West career in only about 6500 minutes. That works out to be almost a goal or an assist every or half a goal or a goal or an assist. It's 0.5. It's basically 0.47 goals per 90. You can work that out for yourself, whatever I'm trying to say. But look, if he produced, you know, if he were to come in and produce the way he did during the first few months with Montreal, he had four goals for his SIS. Sounders would be over the moon. This would be a home run signing. The fact that he comes in with no cost basically that he is, he is almost free is great.

16:42And I think he does know that he has maybe not put himself in the best position at his previous stops. And so it's really going to be up to Brian Schmesser to mold him. And look, the worst case scenario is that he flames out and doesn't really do anything here. And I don't want to pretend as if Caden Clark is just like signing some of these other players that they had lined up. And I think that you have to give the sounders some to merit for an inability and it's not necessarily on Craig. You can blame Craig. You can blame ownership. You can you can blame anything you want. But the reality is that they didn't get these signings done. They had a list of players that they liked. I've seen a six or seven players that they targeted to various degrees. They only really got far down the path. I think on one. They really liked them. Like you said, it's a Swedish player. We're going to write about this a little bit later. I don't have his name right in front of me. Yeah, what's going to share it until you. Yeah, no, I think we're okay to, if you know the name off your, of W head, you're welcome to share it.

17:46No, no, no, go ahead. Yeah, we, but with this name will come out. I'm not trying to hide the ball on anybody. But we've gotten some, we've been given clearance to at least talk about this player. And the problem was that the sounders didn't really get a budget for transfers until really late in the window. And I think that is that that colors the entire, the entire experience. If the sounders had been given $10 million of transfer budget, which is what they were apparently prepared to spend. Back, you know, at the beginning of the post World Cup break, I think they would have gotten, they would have gotten some signings done. They would have gotten more signings done. They may be have even been able to get this, these two players. But because the money came relatively late, and I will say in some ways, I think the Yovolich thing, it ended up working out. Because I don't know that Yovolich was entirely available early in the window.

18:48I think a big part of the reason he was available was because Kansas City got a new owner. They had kind of drawn up new plans. But as it was, I don't think they really ended up replacing Yovolich on the roster. No, not really, not playing for player. No, and that's a little honest. So yeah, but look, I do think that this is a good window. If you're judging it on the curve of, did the sounders do enough? If you, if you are insistent on looking at the sounders performance as a referendum on the last five years, it falls short. If you're looking at it in a vacuum of did the sounders improve themselves, maybe more than almost any other team. I think it starts to look a lot better. You know, I was going through Matt Doyle's transfer grades. And he gave the sounders a, I believe a solid B. Oh, wow. Yeah. And he only had eight teams above the sounders. And I think one of the things that's easy to forget is that there was a lot of teams that were more active that had more in and out.

19:49And I guess it's notable that the sounders also shipped out Osalze de Rosario. They put him on loan, which that deal, if they are able to get $2 million for Osalze de Rosario, that's the purchase option. Sounder Hart has been around in one form or another since 2009. In 2026, though, we make a pretty significant evolution when we go analog. Yes, that's right. In the year of our Lord 2026, we are publishing a real life magazine. We're calling this thing four as in Sounder Hart 4.0. But we're stylizing it as IV because we absolutely love Roman numeral. And if you want to refer to it as IV, that's cool too. The first issue has a comic book style cover that was hand drawn by local artists Kevin Newberg. Features by Tim Foss, Susie Rantz, and Charlie Bohm, a statistical deep dive by Catbush, a Q&A with Brian Schmitzer, a column by G. Willow Wilson, and photographs by Noah Rife, Max Aquino, Mike Russell, and Jane Gershvitz. I could not possibly be more proud of the work. Everyone put into making this, and I think you're going to absolutely love it.

20:50If you would like to get your hands on one of these limited edition copies, we're currently selling them for $15 on our website. Get yours now. That would be quite a bit of business. That would be good. But in the short term, it's a, I guess you can say it's a loss, although I don't know that he would have been playing a whole lot. No, not a thing he would have. And you give him the opportunity to get a fresh start. And you know, this is news that we broke through Sounder Hart, of course. And when that, when I first heard about it, you know, I thought he made sense. To be honest, I think that Ossasé had more talent than what he, what he has shown with the Sounders potential wise. And I don't know if it's a difficulty with the system or look to Brian didn't quite rate him. And I know that whether he talked about the way he talked about it, Ossasé was obvious. And I know that people don't like to think about this because they feel like athletes should be fucking robots. And that's all that they should just work.

21:51And you know, he's a professional like, look, there's a mental state to things like this. And my coach don't trust me. It's going to affect my game. And I really do feel like there was something about it. So I love the fact that he's a fresh start. And I love the fact that he's able to revalue himself in another league. There are 12 plays team that last of their legal non-mistaken in the Danish league. So can he get that team going? I think it's a positive. And if the center for sound for two million, man, I'll take that every day. And I mean, and that to me, what that tells me is that they're bringing him in with the idea that he might be a starter. And he needed minutes. That's more than anything else. The worst thing that the centers could do with Ossasé de Rosario is sign you over it. And then we know Brian rates Danny Moussowski over Ossasé. We can dispute that all we want. But I think it's pretty clear that Brian rates Moussowski over Ossasé. That was not going to leave a lot of minutes for Ossasé. That's just the truth.

22:52He was not going to play a lot after the overlitch got here. So I think that that's a good move for him. They also loaned out Cody Baker. That's almost more of a trade. I really don't think Cody Baker is coming back. And then they also loaned out you sookanome to the USL championship. I have not been keeping tabs on how that's been going. But neither one of those guys were playing very much. Clearly two more players who Brian Spencer did not really rate. I like Cody Baker. I would have honestly liked to have kept him around because I think he provides some decent depth that left back. But it didn't look like he was going to get playing time. So I don't really blame him. I don't really blame the sounders at all for shipping those moves out. I think if you're going to really ding the sounders, it's just because they didn't get the moves done that they themselves admitted they wanted to get done. But still like they are better now than they were at the start of the window. There's really no way to put up a size you got a 27 year old and a 23 year old.

23:54Pretty good points. Good points. I mean, you look around the league and a lot of the times when a team is in panic mode and they want a splash cash. They go and get someone who's established someone a big name who's going to come in and turn heads. But they've kind of gotten the best of both worlds in this way, especially in down your village. He has room to improve, which is crazy to say because he already looks almost a league above some of these other players that we've seen. It's been so impressive. And for Kaden Clark, you have this baggage coming in, but you're not the big name of the window for the sounders. You have so much freedom and room to kind of grow. This is a great culture for a player like that to come into it because you have an established head coach. And he talks ad nauseam about how much he enjoys the culture of the locker room. And I believe him. I mean, this is a team that has been under the same coach, under the same philosophy and a lot of the same players for so long. It's exactly where I think a Kaden Clark can have success. Yeah. When you look at that, it's really, it's two pieces of business that are great for the player and great for the team.

24:54Yeah. And I was just going to just really quickly add. I think one of the underrated pieces of the Kaden Clark thing is that this is a player who has played for almost exclusively dysfunctional teams. He was at CF Montreal, Minnesota United, you could argue is maybe more functional, but I don't know that that really was a good situation for him. DC United clearly not a great situation. So this is his first real chance to play for like a real team. And I feel like you fit. He fits with the sounders one. I have seen him watch some this week. Very closely as much as he wasn't a long amount of time of me watching him play, but first touch is phenomenal, explosive. It's on the ball. The fundamentals on the way he just opens up his hips. The way he turns the way he attacks space. I was, you know, very impressed by the overall frame. I don't know why I had a thought that he was a little smaller than he was. He's a big guy. He's a big frame. I thought that he was physically soccer standards by the way.

25:55I'm not talking about the football here, but but soccer standards. I think he has a decent frame. He looks like a physical guy and he's played with a chip with his shoulder. So I like the move. I guess that another reason why I left it at a C grade for this window is because, you know, I thought that when it was important to get a third player, whether it was a holding made or a full back. That's some that you're kind of missing in terms of depth. But mainly because, and maybe there's a good segue into the next segment. I don't know how much of this falls on Craig Wyble because it feels like the budget opening up as late as it was was what really hindered this team of making that their move and maybe getting the guy that they wanted at the Winger position. I think that's like, as Jason Derulo would say, you know, when the roof cave then and the truth came out, I just didn't know what to do. Like the reality is that it's an ownership and it's, it is a little bit of an ownership to just allocate that money because look, what is the first thing that a realtor tells you when you go look for houses.

27:02Hey, man, go get pre-approved. Go go tell me how much you're worth because I can be showing you houses down and running your valley or houses down in Kirkland or in Mercer Island. If I don't know what you're worth. And so if the GM has no idea what the budget is, how are you minimizing the evaluation talent, who you're going to go after the targets that were maybe available five weeks ago, four weeks ago. They're no longer available. Four days before the window closed. So to me is a systematic thing. So for everyone who believes that just by removing Craig Weibull, things are going to be old, Peach and Dory and he's going to be amazing. And we're just going to be the new monsters of of MLS once again. And we're going to go back to a lean this. There isn't that amount of confidence for me because if it's systematic and it starts at the top, it's got to be fixed at the top. Yeah, I think the real estate analogy is really good. And I think to use another example here is that if you are you go out and you tell your agent that you have a million dollar budget,

28:10but you want a four bedroom three bath house, you start looking at four bedroom three bath houses. You're probably in Seattle going to be a little frustrated at what you're looking at. And so what your agent is going to come back and say is like, look, if you don't like the options, you can do one of two things. You can downsize your expectations or you can increase your budget. But I can't make a four million dollar player fit your dream in this case is to go back to soccer. If you want if you want to spend four million dollars, this is what four million dollars gets you. If you want to spend, but if you have these expectations, you're going to have to have these. You're going to have to change one way or the other. By the way, the player that we were talking about here, I went ahead and looked it up. It's Adrian Svonbach. He plays for BK Hawking, who is a Swedish team that Eric Freiberg is apparently the sporting director. Yes, that was pretty interesting. And apparently they had just sold a player. They were not feeling like they absolutely had to sell sell. And the sounders finally came in at a price that in that made them more interested to sell them when they talked to the player, the player was just not quite as willing to make the move as he needed to be essentially he wanted a lot more money than the sounders had in the budget to to make it happen.

29:32And we'll see if that ever works out, but he was a player. He looked, he's both a forward and a winner. He's been mostly playing as a winner this year. And they really liked his his profile, his physical metrics. He's a high, you know, he likes to press. He was a high action player, but that was that would have been a nice addition. But they didn't get it done so you don't get credit for trying. And it's like trying to balance that desire of like I said, I know a lot of people having their head that the sounders weren't even out there. And they were scouting, scouting players, they were scouting plenty of players. It's the ability to close the deal and that's a multifaceted problem. And I guess if we can transition this into, you know, Jada Evans asked Brian about the upcoming GM vote. He sort of like wanted to see what his, how he felt about the transfer window and how it affects the upcoming GM vote. And Brian will trim it down. He basically said, look, I would, I have a vote. I'm going to vote to keep Craig.

30:42I don't necessarily want to put you guys on the spot right now, because I think there's still a lot to go into our decision there. But overall, what is what do you think? How do we, what do you think are appropriate way to judge the job Craig, why was done? I mean, you just look at the trophy cabinet and you realize that this is someone who's done a lot of really good business. And like I said before, the sounders, they do business in a different way than a lot of other MLA teams do. It's, it's very unique, especially when it comes to the fact that the sounders are one of the big dogs in MLS. They are a trophy winner. They certainly don't conduct business in the way that you see from the other big names in MLS. Like, you know, an L.A.F.C. or even Atlanta United, it's, it's different. And I think that that kind of puts off fans sometimes. They see how other MLS teams are doing their business when they're drowning, when they're struggling. And they look and they see fashion Gomez on the right wing. And they're like, what are we doing? Like, that's a, that's a good quality player. Brian clearly rates him.

31:50But the fans look at that and they just get frustrated and I understand. Yeah, it makes sense. So I think frustrated. I think two things can be true when it comes to a player like Sebastian Gomez. He's made some real improvements. He shows him real promise. He probably should not be starting for a team that thinks they have playoffs on the mind. No, and look as much as you want to joke about it, just looking at the very small amount of training that I did. Getting called it was like a real player man out there. You know, like a real player like he, he just fits better and again, no, not conservation. I mean, he is going to be a good player. And you want him to develop, but he's not there yet. I would much rather see personally, I got like Hayden trying to figure things out out there. But look, going back to Craig, I think that it's very easy for me to just want to keep some sort of consistency with changes above him. Like I'm curious and I put this on X like are you not curious what Craig could do with a real budget with like a real sense and a commitment from the people above him saying, Hey, man, we are, we understand the next season. There's some really big decisions to be made and we want you to have a plan and we're going to back you up with X amount of money. I'm curious. So to me personally, I, I would want to keep it because I don't know what the better options are out there.

33:17You know, is Chris Anderson going to get fired tomorrow? I mean, maybe, but that's we don't know that yet. And if he is, is he not going to get more money or a better option than elsewhere? Does he feel like he's outgrown Seattle and he'd rather go to L.A.F.C. or somewhere else? I kind of think he does. I don't know. Chris has changed. Ever since he went from in Miami to Atlanta, United, those are big, big clubs. I don't know if he's going to want to go back to Seattle. So he's out of the picture. It would curse myth. Is that another option? Because he is. Has some sort of pass with the sounder. He's currently the RSL CSO. He is the son of Stiggy Schmidt in case you don't know. There you go. And so he is got some sort of known relationship with agent. That seems to matter a lot to the owner. So he's he a guy. I'm whether he's cracked and Kurt. I mean, no, no, they respect the curd, but you know, I rather just keep Craig. So who are the people that are really going to come in and make a difference? I don't know if they're out there. You're probably going to promote somebody within. That would be my sort of assumption. That's what when people just say, why will out, why will out, why will out, who are you bringing in?

34:23Who's really going to make a difference? And is that really going to be the way that the sounders want to do business? Because you've got to be able to co-access. You got to be able to be a cohesive person for this job. And Nico, what I think a lot of Sounders fans may underrate is the fact that so much of this club is so cohesive. When you talk about the fact that you have a coach that's been there for so long, when you have a team that's built around veteran players, club legends who are still there playing at their best and helping bring up these young guys. And that's what I kind of mean when I say that this is a team that does development and business in a unique way. And Sounders fans, you know, you look at the losing streak and you panic. As a lifetime Sounders fan, I think I can say that we're a little spoiled at times. We win trophies a lot. We win games a lot, especially at home. And when you start to go to games and you're not impressed, you've seen that maybe two, three periods of time. Yeah, this is history and unprecedented. And this, and this particular stretch is particularly bad to be fair.

35:27Yeah, of course. And I don't mind that. I mean, I've always said that it is your prerogative as a fan to be irrational and to be more to demand more and have the bar be as high as it is. And to want to have a team like you had with Raoul and Nico forever. I mean, that's that's the expectation. And I don't mind that at all. We're just giving you the intricacies and the insight so you could have a better understanding of how things work and how potentially you can get better. Absolutely. Well, they do have a game this weekend coming up on Saturday against Red Bull New York, which I guess is actually the formal name of the team now. No longer the New York Red Bulls. They are a team that is in playoff position in the East, but actually is below the Sounders in the subordered shield standings. They started off very strong. They have a bunch of really good young talent. Michael Bradley is a good young coach, but they have struggled of recently. They are especially porous on defense.

36:29This is a chance for the Sounders to snap their winless kid to snap their winless kid at home. And honestly, it's something close to a must win for me. The Sounders do not have a whole lot of games left on the schedule where they are going to be such obvious favorites as they should be in this game. How do you assess on someone, Nico? Look, this is a New York Red Bulls team that has won only one of their last five games has left that they've have lost to Atlanta. They just got beat by Philadelphia. Pretty obviously and it pretty confidently by a Philadelphia thing that's not the best team. I think that they have some really good offensive power. They're just a team that, as you mentioned, gives up a lot of goals. I don't feel like there is enough in midfield. They don't have anybody to dictate tempo. And I feel like that's something the Sounders can try to expose, exploit and some sort of parts of the game. They are a high pressing team.

37:29I know that the Sounders are going to be waiting for that. Can they use that against the Red Bulls? Can they be the transition team that they were at the beginning of the season at some point last year specifically? It's about changing the point of attack. There are very small gaps in your playing a team like the Red Bulls where the shape is not going to be consistent at a certain part of the field. And change the point of attack is the key because that window is going to be open, but it's going to close pretty quick. And I think that Christian talked about it very slightly today because it is something that I feel like the team's going to want to do. So I do believe that speed is going to be something that the Sounders are going to want to improve on. They've been trying to do that throughout the window, but maybe having a guy like Klanikos are re-enceived playing a little bit higher at the pitch can be an opportunity to create more with. Maybe simplifying the game a little bit and allowing him to stay wider, not necessarily make it in common side. Now you're going to have a guy like Alex that is going to go back to his original position and right back.

38:31He's pretty good with those underlapped. So maybe he's the guy that comes inside in those inside channels. And that's where you create the overloads. So for me, the Sounders need to be able to take advantage of whenever the Rebels do press high, but they're going to have to be just as good as they were against Chicago in the first 23 minutes. Can they replicate that? Can they be able to be as swift as smooth in their offensive movements as they weren't as for 23 minutes? Obviously, Jovall is a big piece because he wasn't just good because of the goals. He was his movement off the ball the way he was able to create spaces open up things for other players and he's build up. I thought that he was really good on lincolp. Being able to just take those one touches drop when he has to. He demands a lot of marking, right? So when you have a guy that demands the sort of attention, it does create issues for a team like the Red Bulls that they're so based on active defending. And so I do believe that the Sounders can get a result.

39:34I just feel very unsure of the defense. I and the whole didn't miss right? I asked Christian today, do you feel like it's important to have a solidified partner next to you? Because it's been a rotating door of the whole both pivots, right? I mean, because of injuries because of a bunch of things. I don't know if Christian today knows who his best partner is. He's a snider. He said Peter Kingston, you know, who is it? And so to me, that's going to be complicated against a team like the Red Bulls because I do believe that if anything, they are able to get moving forward pretty quickly. They can be direct. And if you're not careful when he comes to holding your shape and being a team that can keep certain guys at bay, you can find yourself in a lot of trouble. So I'm hoping for a result.

40:35I'm hoping for a draw, but this is not an easy game. Yeah, I think that going into this game, you can kind of expect it to be entertaining in the same way that the last game was, which obviously have a big crowd come in for that last match against Chicago that first 23 minutes. What I'm worried about is was that first section of that match was that a rush of blood was that we've got some new players. We've got a lot of people in the stands. This is our moment. And then it kind of dissipates and for the vast majority of that match, it looked like how the sound has been playing for the last couple of weeks. They're on the back foot. They're just holding on against a good Chicago team, which eventually breaks down and gets those couple of equalizing goals. Christian Rdont talked in training about how this is a high pressing and young Red Bulls team. And there's going to be space. It's a very good time for Kalanikosa, Ranzi to be in form, which he is in form right now. He is going to be very important for using that space in the wide area. Peter Kingston, as you said, Nico coming back from a yellow card suspension. I'm looking at him for a big game. He's being played more in a midfield role. He's usually out wide.

41:36I want him to be able to use the space in this game and get on the attack. We've seen glimpses of what he can do on the attack in Rave Green, but as someone who's watched him come up through the college ranks, come up through the USL two ranks. This is exciting. I've watched a lot of Peter Kingston and I've enjoyed every minute of it. I've really loved the fact that he has been able to shift into a few positions and cover pretty well in my opinion. He's a very active player. Obviously he has a winger's pace. I've seen him play in games where the entire game plan is Peter's on the left wing. Get him the ball and get in the middle. He's going to beat two guys off the dribble and he's going to get it to you and you're going to score. He can't necessarily be that for the founders right now. He just doesn't have the reps and the chops for it, but I think this is the kind of game where he can show his own creativity and make everyone else around him better. Of course, Paul Rothrock. This is the kind of game where you look to him on the break in transition to create a difference. Yeah, we have even mentioned that Jordan Morris likely getting the start of this one will be interesting to see what he can do when he is presumably healthy.

42:43This seems like an opponent that might set up well for him and we need to know if we're going to get much out of Jordan Morris at this point. Because I think there's real questions about what we're going to get out of them. I'm wondering, like I would like him to start, but I don't know if he will. Maybe we'll be Paul and Colony on the other side. I have real doubts on whether whether he will start or not. Because I feel like Brian does like to bring him in late against tire legs. But to me, it's easier to be very cautious before the game activating those muscles, making sure that he's stressed out. He's sure that he's properly warmed up. Just so there are no issues with injuries, but to your point, it'll be very important for us to have those wide areas open. I do think that this team with a force work is going to be important that you're very good at transition defense. And I asked this consistently this week because he can be a guy that can cut through you like a knife on butter. And if you're unable to really clear shape, he will see those spaces and open up.

43:46Julian Hall, he hasn't been in great form lately, but he can get behind you. They have been using Chupo Moten as this super sub of the bench. That could be dangerous. So the sounders are going to have to be in this game 90 minutes. You saw what happens against Chicago where and you give up a really soft gold there for that to to you. You cannot allow that to happen because you need to get some points. You look at the table and where you're at. This is a must win game. And I didn't ask that to anybody this week because I feel like nobody was going to really answer the way I wanted. And they might look at me like I'm crazy asking that question right now, but he feels like a must win game. It feels like a must win game to me. The other the other player who I think people are going to be interested in is Audrey Mimetti, the young defensive midfielder for New York rebels. He's only 17 people are comparing him to Sergio Bousquets though. He's an interesting player. I think that's probably a little getting ahead of ourselves. But hey, look, he is a good player. But I think that's good for this week.

44:48Adam, once again, welcome to the family. We are very excited to start doing our live show that's going to be on Mondays on center heart YouTube at one o'clock. We're going to get all the kinks ironed out before then. Of course, I'm Jeremiah Shan signing off for Nico Marano and Adam race. This is no study at this part of the center heart podcast network and we will catch you next time. Let's go. It's sound.