SoccerWise - Soccerwise: Weekend Review Edition

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

3:06 Colorado Rapids4:02 Nashville Tactical Moves5:07 Patrick Aguyemang Hype5:35 KC Current Dominant Win7:35 Bay FC Seeing Out Wins8:50 North Carolina - Chicago Reaction10:27 Trinity Rodman Hype12:03 Revs Mailbag Question15:41 STL Mailbag Question17:50 Vancouver Mailbag Question21:37 Minnesota United Mailbag Question22:59 Seattle Reign Mailbag Question25:09 LA Galaxy Mailbag Question  Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Hey everyone, welcome to Soccer-Wise, your weekend review. It's me, David Goss, of course, and this is me giving you my weekend thoughts. We are through what has been a hectic weekend of soccer. I think Jonathan Tannenwald called Saturday the soccer equinox in America. You had the European Championships. You had Copa America. You had NWSL. You had MLS plus USL and everything else going on throughout the day.

It was an absurd amount of soccer. I have tried to consume as much of it as I can. And then Sunday, it didn't really slow down the heat affecting the NWSL schedule. A little bit moving that Gotham against Washington game back. And then we had, of course, Copa America kickoff. We did a Copa America, and by we, I mean me, a reaction show live straight after the U.S.-Bolivia game. So if you found this but you haven't found that and you were looking for those reactions, that all lives there.

Soccer Wise, USMNT post-game edition in your feed, anywhere you find your podcasts. And don't forget, subscribe to our YouTube page, subscribe to our Twitch page as well. That's where we go live every week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, at 2 p.m. Eastern time, Tuesday and Thursday with Tom talking MLS, Wednesdays with Jordan talking NWSL, and we're going to be doing a live postgame show for every U.S. game

in this Copa America, working on some Canada stuff as well as we go along, and then maybe some more. That's kind of one of the things we want to play with so if you're interested in having some maybe midweek match night live shows for us to hang out and watch mls and nwsl together or on the weekends as well shoot me a message let me know let me know if you'd be interested in that shout out to everyone in the discord who has been killing it. So we have our first official mailbag, which is what we would like to do for these weekend reviews every single

week. So while you're watching games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, you can be on the Discord chatting with all of us and then shooting your questions into the mailbag that really sets this rundown. So I'm going to give my few thoughts from the weekend to open things up and then i will dig into the mailbag as we go along the patreon is how you get there so go search soccer wise at patreon also the link is in all of our social handles and you can go there and if you are able to subscribe and join at the five dollar or eleven dollar limit then you can get into the discord and that's how you get access to the mailbag as well as some of our notes and we're going to start doing our private shows for our subscribers coming up over the next few weeks it's been really fun so far i hope you've enjoyed our coverage and uh let's dig into the weekend a little bit let's stop let's start in

major league soccer and let's start with the hot team, the Colorado Rapids. Yeah, we're talking the big names here. The Rapids, another big win, a huge performance once again from Georgi Mihailovic coming off the hat trick midweek. He has been in incredible form for this team, and once again for the Rapids, they play high up the field. The mistakes they force from their opponents this time in montreal last time in st louis they occur in the attacking third they immediately lead to opportunities they immediately lead to either penalty kicks dangerous free kicks corner kicks or goal scoring chances on their own so the rapids

understanding who they are under chris arm, continue to improve, continue to get better. And I think they're for real. Are they the top three team in the West? I'm not sure. But where they are right now in this conversation, I think they'll remain there for the rest of this season. Let's talk Nashville for a little bit. A little bit of a shift over the last few weeks. Sam Surge getting pushed out wide.

But you see a real rotation across the front three for this team. Similar to what I talked about with Christian Pulisic and Florian Baligan in the USMNT postgame show of the center forward getting swapped out wide, being able to sort of play facing goal a little bit more, making the game a little bit more simplified as they move forward. And I think making life a little bit more, making the game a little bit more simplified as they move forward. And I think making life a little bit more straightforward for a player that's looking to gain confidence. And now you get into some finishing opportunities or not, but either way, as a player, I think you get to touch the ball a little bit more. I think you get to cover a little bit more ground, get more involved. And I can understand how that could be a little bit more fun and make the game

easier for a player like that. FC Cincinnati, it is a train wreck at the back right now. And what was amazing with the injuries that they've had is it was actually more possession issues out of the back than pure 1v1 defending, which is what you'd expect when you're missing so many center backs. So they're going to have to figure out something over the next few weeks to try and stay alive. And let's finish with an individual Patrick Ajamang, two goals for Charlotte.

I have been in love with his game since I saw him in MLS next pro for the first time. Shout out to everyone. Who's part of Aja gang is what I'm calling it now, which is everyone who supports him. He has been a shining light for this team they've sold designated player forwards so that he can play in this team and they've only gotten better and better in that time so a huge performance from him on the nwsl side what a start to sunday the kc current exploding

in portland putting down the hammer three goals in the first half Labonta with two of them won the little flick off the header back across from Shawinga and then the long strike which was gorgeous to close out the half and what stands out with KC and I think you saw Portland get lost in this is they are not easy to break down even though they're so dangerous offensively because they can create with such few numbers up top and so you watch this first half and Portland are throwing numbers forward trying to break down Kansas City's defensive block and yet when it turns over KC already has enough attacking options high up the field to immediately create threats and a lot of those led to the set pieces that led to the goals

or secondary transition moments that are dangerous. And that's why KC is so difficult to beat because they have players like Labonta that can go both ways, but they don't need to. They can really sit in with six or seven defensively, be able to keep their lines clean, keep the game in front of them, and then be able to counterattack immediately

because they can leave the two or three players high that can create goals on their own and don't need a ton of support. Bia was fantastic in this game, even without getting a goal, being that linchpin in that attack that Schoenger can run off of and different options like that. Sophia Smith, fantastic goal to close things out. I thought she was too isolated out on the wing. And you heard Rob Gale talk a little bit about wanting to be able to break lines more.

And Sophia Smith being able to help with that. She just was too far away from options to be able to do that. So she could dribble through lines, which is what we saw with the goal, but not able to link up. And I think in the end, you want her to stretch the field and change the game in that way from that center forward position so it'll be interesting to see how the Thorns react to this one and what they do going forward Bay FC a big 1-0 win on Saturday night to rebound from the loss in the expansion derby on Wednesday that we talked about or excuse me last week that we talked about a lot on Wednesday with Jordan Angeli. They get the 1-0 lead. I think the key to this game was that they killed this game in possession. They were able to move the ball from sideline to sideline over the

course of the last 15 to 20 minutes of this game and play the game on their terms to close it out. They were not goal dangerous over the course of a lot of that time. And I think that's where they've gotten lost in the past, is going for that next goal, going to extend the lead. Second goal, third goal. And if they don't finish that opportunity, they've left themselves exposed. This time, they really sucked the life out of the game. They were able to move it across the field.

You saw everyone feeling comfortable. And I think that was the difference between being able to get over the line this time and the struggles they've had closing games out over the last few weeks. Kuninanja, I thought, was very good in this game. She is now suspended on yellow cards. So not available for the next match against Louisville. So that's the ups and downs that you're going to go through. Again, an expansion team still finding their feet, still figuring things out.

Let's close things out with North Carolina against Chicago. Huge performance from North Carolina. They get the goals. They get some of them in their style. All of them finished off in nice passing sequences. But two goals really coming from mistakes for chicago in possession and i look at this chicago team and i understand the issues they have connecting passes i understand the issues they have in possession i think where they really kill themselves though is when they are trying to attack

and i think you look at the first 55 minutes of this game and i thought chicago looked okay their defensive shape is good most of North Carolina's play is around them trying crosses trying to get balls behind the back line from outside that isn't really effective and I thought Chicago was fine until they put themselves in trouble trying to play out of the back on that second goal the turnover and then Ashley Sanchez scores a worldie that you don't expect to happen. But still, that moment comes from your mistakes playing out of the back. And so I think for Chicago, you look coming up over the course of the next six or so games, you play San Diego, they play Houston, they play Angel City, they play Portland in four of those six.

I think those are four teams that are higher possession teams where Chicago could look comfortable sitting in their shape, countering through Swanson and then having the support follow up in secondary transition moments. I think if you're Chicago, don't lean away from it. Lean into this and see if you can start to get some results and build some confidence over the next few weeks. I shouted out Patrick Ajumang on one side. You got to shout out Trinity Rodman on the other. The finish to really basically seal the game in the opening minute and a half of the second half after Yasmeen Ryan picked up the red card in the first half.

It put the Washington Spirit up to zero, and it was a gorgeous finish. It comes to her along that right side. Jenna Niswonger off a step, trying to support inside. Rodman knows exactly what that means. She's got time and space. The goalkeeper coming across Golanberger. She's going to paste it to the far post in the high corner. One of the best finishes of the weekend.

One that had a couple of really nice goals the Washington Spirit continue to cruise they are a transition monster they are a pressing monster I think they are one of the most fun teams to watch in this league and I'm very excited to see what the next few weeks look like with Yonatan Heraldez joining finally this week he was up in the booth watching this game, but it looked like he did run training over the course of some of this week. So what does now his introduction mean for this team and how do they continue to progress? A super talented but very young team that's in really good form right now sitting in third place. was a huge win over gotham head to head three

verse four in the standings let's jump into the mailbag for the first time here let's start with blue penguin who was on fire in the discord thank you for all of the questions you threw in there i can't get to all of them here because i want to save some of them for some of the shows we're going to do over the course of the week so So I'm going to start with this one. The question is basically the New England Revolution this year's Sporting Kansas City. Last year, Sporting Kansas City started out the year 10 games without a win. They end up making the playoffs. They knocked off St. Louis in the first round.

They made it to the second round of the playoffs. The question is, are the Revs that team this year with their slow start? They are now four wins in a row and the question then ended from blue penguin and are they for real or not so are they for real i think they could be because like skc last year they have the framework of a good roster you have players that have won in this league that have won with that team and are high level players. So last year with SKC, you kept saying, I know how good all these individuals are. If they can get healthy and get on the same page, this team should be good. There is a lot of that with the Rebs.

You've got an MVP in Carlos Hill. You've got players in Dwan Jones. Brandon By returned to the bench this weekend who have played at a high level or played with the national team you've got obviously big time signings in Veroni and Dylan Barrero and different pieces like that that can be a part of this group as well over the last few weeks what's gone right they've gotten consistent and they've gotten stable especially centrally so Iva Chitz has been a stabilizer in the back the huge one is Xavier Arriaga alongside Dave Romney behind Ian Harkes and Matt Polster Harkes and Polster have swapped in and out but Harkes is playing at a really high level for them it makes things solid

defensively this is their second best defensive stretch statistically over the course of this season and then that all combines with Carlos heel being even more involved offensively he's moved back centrally matt doyle wrote this up really interestingly you should go look at it at mlssoccer.com and has now linked up with veroni they are on the same page but i think a lot of that comes from having ariaga in the back who's an elite passer out of the back and havingarkes and Polster doing a ton of work to keep things steady so he'll confine the game where he wants to. And it's easier for him because he doesn't have to stress about counter-pressing situations and where his responsibilities are if the ball turns over.

Right now, the Rebs are doing enough to shield the back line that it frees him up. The worry with all of this in the are they for real is one i don't know how for real means skc in the end we're a low seed going into the playoffs they beat st louis in the first round i think we're gonna see in our next question from cooper st louis maybe a little bit of a paper lion as a one seed. It also feels like Tomas Cankalai will be out for a sizable amount of time. If you follow Seth Mann on Twitter, the best covering the Revs out there, he said the expectation is he will miss a sizable amount of time. That is a huge loss.

It's also a DP. So this team would have to decide if they think this runs for real and they want to take a risk on the season, do they put him him on the ir then they can't reactivate him for the season they'd need to go out and get a new dp and then they'd be have then they'd have four on the roster to close out the season i don't know what they would do next year if that was the scenario so a lot of question marks in there but dylan barrera re-returning again is huge I think most of it hinges on the quality of play in that defensive spine if an Arriaga and a Harkes and Ivicic who have not consistently performed in their careers are able to do that then that gives them a whole

another element that they can continue to add to Cooper's question why are St. Louis crashing to earth and do you think a lot of it falls to the lack of reproduction from last year of a lot of these fringe players that overperformed last season I think that's an interesting way to go about it I think with St. Louis we're all kind of looking at the same ideas and we're just parsing them in different ways they do a lot of the same things they did last year they perform in in different ways they do a lot of the same things they did last year they perform in a similar style and they kind of do it at the same level so some people will say it's luck some people will say it's mental games that last year it threw teams off and this year they're ready for it sometimes mental internally is it a lack of

confidence for a lot of players and then the last is just, is it unlucky this year compared to what it was last year? I think all of that gets thrown in there. To me, I actually look at the stars of this team. And they may not be stars like Amessi and Acuccio, but Jao Klaus and Berkey and Loven. Those are the players for this team that a lot of the success has been built around. Even though last year they missed large stretches outside of Berkey, they were still the players that a lot of it hinged on. Lovin obviously has had to deal with massive issues or things in his family and in his life. So his performances have been different when he's been available.

But Jao Klaus is right now on the same amount of games he played all of last year, half the goals, same amount of assists he played all of last year half the goals same amount of assists so he's not performing at the same level and Berkey's not either that you saw the mistakes in possession on Wednesday you've seen the mistakes as well in his shot stopping and I think now all the fringe players life gets harder for you because you were being carried at times last year now you have to carry these players and a lot of these players on the fringes of this team not capable of that so i think that's a lot of the problems now it's interesting as the summer window comes open it sounds like lutz fan and steel is

rebuilding some of this team adding some big time reinforcements two or three it sounds like more experienced players can that take the load off of all the players on the roster and maybe reestablish things for this team? Dan H asks, the Whitecaps eye test says Vitae and Schaap aren't progressing the ball enough so they don't create enough chances. Then Gauld goes from being a second striker to being an eight as the game goes on. A, would you agree that a ball progressing eight should be a priority for the Caps? And B, is there a realistic within MLS target that they could go and get? I think that's an interesting convo. Getting a ball progressing eight would make this team better.

I do think one of the bigger issues is there's no replacement for Andres Kubas, but I don't think you're capable on an MLS roster of doing that you're not going to go out and be able to get an elite player who's as good or can do any of the things or cover long enough for a player like Kubas and if you do just playing them together really work when Kubas is available so do you really want to build your roster in that way so I think Dan's questions is interesting and I think it makes sense in terms of who's available around MLS. If you went the route and saying, let's go get a pure more six that can fill in and maybe help us cover some of these matches around international breaks or a potential injury for Kubas to keep things more stable. There are not a lot of great names right now Alfredo Morales is one that comes up playing in San Jose obviously

played in an MLS cup with NYCFC does more of the defensive work not at all an eight not a guy who progresses the ball not a guy who creates chances either that would be an option there if you want something a bit more defensive I'm going with the random David Goss level deep in a roster names Rita Zuhir at Montreal could you go get him on a loan probably because Montreal is not going to want to trade to Vancouver a player that they think has a good future potentially. But can you go get that player for a season? They did it with Sebastian Berhalter when they went out and got him on loan originally and have done it as well with other MLS players. I would have said Nathan Saliba, but he's now become a full-time starter with Copa America

and with the players they've lost and might be able to maintain his spot in there and is probably higher on the depth chart going forward. We've got a bunch of questions from gray ghost one about the USL championship and where it stands and whether or not it can coexist with MLS. What does it look like over the next 10 years in the U S soccer landscape? Part of this, because of what's gone on in Indianapolis over the last few weeks,

as well as I believe gray Ghost lives right now in Colorado Springs where the switchbacks have become massively successful but is a Minnesota United event which we'll talk about in just a moment I love this question I've talked to some people about it I want to talk to some more people and do a really good piece about this at Soccer Why so these are the types of things that we can do for fun now and we can do as often as we want. So I'm going to work on that and I'm going to sort of put together my thoughts

and maybe put together some audio and try and put something out that fits into this conversation because I think it's a big one. And from what I get, no one's sure. And there are a lot of different ways that this can go over the next few years of if the USL championship merges into Major League Soccer, tries to compete, finds a middle ground as this third party that exists in the markets that fit for them. And then you get into the conversations of what those markets are. Some thought in

Indianapolis would have been a market like that. Some think that it makes sense as an MLS market. So those are the conversations I'm having. And I'm going to try and bring as much as that to you as I can. Grey Ghost asks with Minnesota United, the question, Minnesota United, one, regression to the mean, two, depth issues, three, everything will be fine when internationals return, or four, little bit of columns, one through three? I think it's a really good question. I don't think it's the internationals issue because they've had Robin Ludd come back. They've had big players return into the team. They've had enough of a roster available to them over the course of these games

to get some results so i think it's closer to the other two parts of this regression to the mean and depth issues i think it's a team that's still trying to figure out who they are under eric ramsey and it's happening at a time when you've had pieces moving in and out and you haven't been able to maximize on what you've built over the course of this season so far if i'm a minnesota fan i'm not going to finish top of the west this is a playoff team and i think that's enough while you start to build the future curvin ariaga sounds like is leaving that's a huge loss that is a player who is extremely versatile able to change the game at different positions gives you a little bit of bite and clearly has become a part of the

dna of this team so i think that is worrying if you're a minnesota united fan gray ghost really on fire with these questions uh one more here from gray ghost that i liked we can dig into this more on wednesday but are Seattle Reign cursed, flawed, or rebuilding? They broke their losing streak, but settled for a tie at home after having a 1-0 lead against a shorthanded Louisville for 87 minutes. What has gone wrong? Can anything be done this season? It's a huge question. You go ahead on a goal in the ninth minute and up a player and you end up tying 1-1 it's heartbreaking I think we mentioned this a little bit on Wednesday when we talked about the new ownership but I do believe that this is rebuilding this is a Seattle team that's lost

most of their major linchpins from last season they have not fully replaced them because they haven't really had that ownership group in because they haven't really had that ownership group in place. They haven't really had the decision makers in place as they've been able to go into this season. So the expectation is that a lot of that will happen now and it is massively needed for this Seattle team. The latest rumor now is that Norella Mondesir, 25-year-old Haitian international with Montpellier, is rumored to be coming to Seattle. Sandra Herrera reported that Mondesir was rumored to be coming to NWSL. And the rumor is it's for a transfer fee at $200,000. Then, I believe it's sounder at heart then connected mondes air with

seattle specifically this is a player who can play at center forward but normally plays out on the wings is second in the french first division in take-ons one and has 14 goals in 25 appearances for the haitian national team you talk about a a team in Seattle that did not score an open field goal in an entire game against Louisville at home, including 87 minutes playing up a player. And now you talk about a player whose nickname is Monde Gol. And that's exactly what you need

if you are a Seattle Reign fan. So it feels like I am going to lean on that rebuild. And let's finish here with Greg Venny yeah you heard that right the big name Greg Venny who asks what type of Galaxy centerbacks would you expect to see acquired in the offseason so he talked about what I talked about with the Galaxy on a total soccer Show preseason about the issues defensively and what I think they can add, I think it's pretty clear with this team. You look at the things that Caceres and Yoshida do well, their ability to pass the ball, especially progressively up the field.

You try and take a player like that and then fill in the gaps of what they don't do well right now, which is the ability to cover ground in space and especially win tackles consistently against some of the best opponents in this league. So that's what they're going to try and combine. They might, they probably would have been able to do it with Amaya Yoshida, who was 10 years younger. That's not going to happen at that level, probably, but that's the types of players they're going to go out

and look for right now to try and add to this team what a win for them this weekend though to be able to continue to win without Ricky Pooj to go to RSL be against the game for a lot of it and then you get Gabriel Peck to bail you out which is again now the other DPs growing into their roles and being able to carry them in ways that the Galaxy could not have been carried over the last two years. If Pooj wasn't on the field, Diego Fagundes had performed at a really high level. Dejan Jovovich as well. Oh,

really good run for the LA galaxy and a decent chance that we go in to this, to this El Trafico on, I believe it's July 4th. So I don't know why I'm going to look this up but I am it is July 4th and right now these two teams are first and third in the west tied on 37 points so that is just a difference of goal differentials so that's what we could be on tap for as we go into July 4th week we've got a big week for you here at SoccerWise.

We've got our Tuesday show coming up where me and Tom will talk all things MLS and USMNT. Myself and Jordan coming back on Wednesday. Cannot wait to sort of recap the first half of the year. We did a little bit of it last week, but we are at that midway point of the season. What have we seen so far? What have we liked?

What do we still have questions about as we go forward? And then Thursday, we will preview your Thursday USMNT match. We will preview the weekend of MLS action and talk about all the big rumors, transfers and news. And Tuesday, I forgot, we're going to talk Canada, of course, as well. It was the performance I thought we would get from Canada. They were bold. They were strong. They were brave. They did not have enough to knock off in Argentina. Peru and Chile are a completely different level. So I have big expectations for this team. And I

am excited for this Canadian side to continue to perform here at Copa America. Thank you all for listening. Hope you all for listening. Hope you all enjoyed it. We'll talk to you again soon.