SoccerWise - Weekend Recap/Mailbag Edition: ORL-KC Clash, El Trafico, Shield Races & Coaching Salaries

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

An absurd weekend of MLS & NWSL action and David is here to keep you up to date. We start in NWSL with the big rematch between ORL & KC and how this one looked different than before. Then a rundown of the rest of the playoff race in NWSL, some oddly timed loans to Europe & the u20's miraculous comeback. The weekend may have been even bigger in MLS headlined by the LA Galaxy's come from behind stunner in El Trafico somehow beating out Messi's two goal return for moment of the weekend.Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Hey everybody, welcome back to SoccerWise, your weekend recap here. David Goss, I have made it down to Florida into the prime hurricane season, getting ready for the rain. Thank you all for checking in on me and worrying about me along my travails and my trips. Unfortunately, I just missed the Orlando Kansas City game on Friday night as I drove by. Otherwise, I would have been able to attend that one. An awesome game and something for me to recap here. We've got a big week coming up here at SoccerWise.

Full MLS midweek slate. So myself and Tom will be on tomorrow to preview it, Thursday to recap it as well. We also oddly have a Monday night NWSL match with Gotham facing off against Seattle. So myself and Jordan will be back on on Wednesday to break that down as well as to reset things and get you ready for the weekend. Make sure to subscribe to the Patreon if you don't already. Get you access to our Discord. We have some gear that we're going to start sending out that we are excited for, our top subscribers, as well as the ability to access the mailbag for this and chat soccer with us all weekend. It was so much fun on Saturday night as MLS craziness was

happening in there on Friday, as well as all the NWSL games were happening. So it is the spot to be. And of course, Pochettino reaction in there as well. We talked about it last week. So if you want a little bit more about our thoughts and feelings around the Pochettino signing, as well as the process, you can go to last Thursday's show on SoccerWise to listen to all of that but let's dig into the weekend we start with the clash of titans Orlando against Kansas City last time it was two undefeated teams this time just the one in Orlando sitting on top Blue Penguin with the question in the mailbag says probably an easy one but which weekend showdown lived up to or exceeded

its billing Cincinnati versus Columbus Galaxy versus LAFC, or Pride versus Current? How did this Pride versus Current showdown compare to the last? I thought it was one of the best games I've seen the Current play in a while. And to my amateur eye, it appeared as though they were able to impose themselves in a way that they struggled with during the last meeting. I love this question. Thank you, Blue Penguin, once again. I think you are right in the top half of this. It's going to be El Trafico, which lived up to the billing.

And we'll talk about all the stats Tom put us through last week and how that game went. But on the second half of this, I completely agree with you. I thought Kansas City looked very controlled in this game. What it felt like happened here was Orlando dropped their lines to say, we don't want you to beat us over the top with Shawinga. And Kansas City was happy to play within the midfield, to play and build out and connect with their backline and midfield, to control possession, to play calm and to play composed in the space that Orlando allowed them. And I thought Kansas City looked connected in this game. I didn't think they left huge gaps for Banda to run into,

which then allowed them to be closer to Marta more often when she picked up the ball. And I thought that this Kansas City team looked very solid. Shawinga had the big chance at the end of the first half, could have put them up 1-0, changed the way this game plays out. But still, I thought overall a really strong performance, as you said, from Kansas City and a change in identity a bit to be a little bit safer to not bomb both the fullbacks higher up the field to play Prince and allow Shawinga to float off and have Dabinia sort of sitting in the midfield. But to have Wheeler out there who gives you width, who will get

crosses in, but also is a better 1v1 defender than the other attacking options in this team. We have said it a bunch of times, this team managing time without Claire Hutton while she is at the U-20 World Cup, that is a trip that will now be extended, as we will talk about, in just a moment. And so a lot going on there, and yet I thought a really strong performance for this KC team. But Orlando had their chances to win this game. You saw the stars show up in their moments over the course of this match. I said the showing a chance in the first half. Banda had a huge opportunity 10 minutes into the second half that she creates pretty much on her own. Then Marta back-to-back opportunities later on after that. So you saw all the stars

pop up, but you saw the quality on both sides of the field. And I think this is a matchup that will continue to progress as these teams get to know each other a little bit more. This, as you said, was much different than the first match. And I think it would be even different in another matchup, which would have to be in the playoffs going forward. Some big notes out of this one. Anna Morehouse, the shutout was her 11th of the season. So she breaks the NWSL single season record of this one. Anna Morehouse, the shutout was her 11th of the season, so now four points over the course of the week for Kansas City. But they are in murderer's row for this schedule. They've got Gotham next week.

I believe it's Washington the weekend after that. So a lot of this Shield race will be decided by Kansas City. Kansas City controls their own destiny in the drive to get as many home games as they can, as high as they can in the standings. But that also means it's going to be really, really hard for them. And Washington will be thanking them a little bit as they're able to move closer in the Shield race here. Washington won at home. It was a 3-0 victory over Houston. Trinity Rodman looking like an MVP. It's going to be hard for anyone to win it off this Orlando squad if Orlando remains unbeaten throughout the season, if Orlando

wins the shield. But if Washington comes back and wins it, it feels like it's going to be Trinity Rodman's trophy to take. With the way she has elevated her game over the last few weeks, coming out of the Olympic break and with Kroy Bethune's injury now, Rodman playing on the left side once again, an assist and a goal in this one. If you haven't seen the goal, go watch it. It's the trim spin out on the left wing, uses her skill to get through defenders, physicality to hold defenders off, and then the ball striking technique to be able to hit a screamer on the run from the top of the 18. That is just untouchable in the top corner to close this one out.

A great performance from her. Overall, a solid performance for Washington. Houston are in the worst sorts right now of any team in NWSL. You have to get three points off them if you want to be a competitive team. Unfortunately for them, we heard some of the comments after the game from some players about just the chaos and confusion with no head coach permanently in place, and they don't really know what's going on.

Tarsean out with an injury as well, probably out for the rest of the season. So that's your big attacking outlet for this team. It is tough for Houston right now, but this was a really good performance for this Washington team. They are four points behind this Orlando squad. The two of them match up on October 6th. So everything to look forward to in that matchup. That could be the one that decides the Shield race in the NWSL this season.

A couple notes on the edge of the playoffs. Louisville, 2-1, come from behind win against Angel City. This is why they went out and made the trades for the veterans and Balser and Becky. Both of them get goals to help them back into this one. Louisville said they made the trades because they wanted to be a playoff team this year, that it was short-term win now, and that's what they're getting in those performances. They're right on the edge of the playoff line right now, but we don't know exactly how it's going to look because Gotham and Seattle play tonight. So Seattle could jump up over them into ninth place. Gotham could drop even further in the playoff standings, or they could

reestablish themselves in the top four after tonight. So we're going to have to talk about that one on Wednesday. An odd week for those two teams, and we'll dig into this more on Wednesday, but for Seattle Seattle they sent Sofia Huerta out on loan to Lyon through the end of the European season so into next summer this week Lily Woodham as well sent on loan to Crystal Palace and then Gotham's own Katie Stengel has left Gotham and reportedly signed with Crystal Palace last week as well, which is a little bit of a surprise to me. A few of these are.

Huerta, of course, huge piece of this Seattle team, has done really great work on that right wing, is their penalty kick taker, has elevated her performances in this three-game winning streak. This is a very weird moment to make a move like that. With the window closed, it means that they won't be able to replace her. Now we saw the trade for glass earlier in this summer. That could be with an eye knowing that this might happen with Huerta and glass can replace Huerta in the starting lineup this year is not under contract after this year. And that's where

this gets a little bit weird is Huerta will miss the first half of next season, but extended her contract through 2027 in this summer. And so she is, I believe, and she said in her Instagram post, this is not goodbye, this is an opportunity, but it puts Seattle in an odd spot in terms of roster building, as well as the competition towards the end of this year. Stengel has been a really good fill-in for Gotham at center forward, the 10, and the wing as they've had injuries. They added, of course, two attackers in the summer. And then you look at this team, if they get healthy, there are not a lot of minutes for Stengel. So maybe this is a sign that Gotham has some belief that they've gotten healthier. They've sort of expressed that with Stengel, and Stengel decided that she wanted the opportunity to play more often rather than be a bench option for this Gotham team but a very weird moment there

weird timing for this squad last piece from the weekend I fell asleep but the USU 20s came back from 2-0 down against Germany in the quarterfinals at the U-20 World Cup down in Columbia to get the win in penalty kicks. Now, get this. Germany was up 2-0 in the 98th minute. Jordan Dudley scored the FSU striker. Great touch, great finish. I think she's looked phenomenal. She has been one of these standout players. She looks ready at the pro level to be a true center forward. The way she's able to receive the ball, put defenders under pressure. She's able to strike it with both feet. She has looked really, really good in this tournament. And then a minute later, Ali Centenor, the captain, steps up with a huge goal, puts her body in danger, able to get

a touch on it at the near post, pass the goalkeeper. That takes them into extra time. They win 3-1 in penalties, beating a German team in penalties. Nothing to sneeze at and move on to the semifinals where they will play North Korea coming up in that semifinal. So an odd matchup in the semis, but a big opportunity. This team, it has found its feet at times. At other times, they look almost passive in ways in which the game has gotten easy. I thought in the Mexico game, there was a ton of opportunity for the U.S. to put their foot down and just seal the deal and dominate the game, and they just were a little bit lazy in that final third moment.

And I think you saw that at times against this German team. Maybe the late comeback, though, inspires them to be locked in as they go forward and try and win a trophy in this one. Let's move to Major League Soccer. Three teams clinched their playoff spots. The LA Galaxy, FC Cincinnati, and Columbus. All of them playing in the big matches of the weekend. El Trafico, holy shit, what was that?

Tom rattled off the numbers on Thursday. The amount of goals in this game, how competitive it has been back and forth, the fact that it just delivers every single time. And this may have been the best one we've ever seen in this matchup. The LAFC come out, they explode two goals in 18 minutes, Buonga putting Jalen Neal on skates, dominating the space left by Mickey Yamane every time he pushes up and being able to do the things and show the warts for this Galaxy team that we've known existed and has been the real worry around this team. But the

Galaxy didn't give up. They fight back. I thought they held on to not make it to not have it be 3-0 in that first half. I thought they were a little fortunate to get out of the half at 3-0. They come back out of the halftime whistle with a ton of belief. And Dejan Jovalic scores an absolute banger of a goal. You see him the entire game when he subbed out in the crowd, pumping them up, engaging with the crowd, locked in. You just saw these moments where this Galaxy team was excited about this matchup, excited about the opportunity, even after going down 2-0. I thought Ricky was phenomenal. He gets steps off the field after scoring a banger. He's tweeting at reporters who are questioning his ability to step up

in this game. Marco Royce is putting in slide tackles to win the ball back to create opportunities in midfield for this squad. It was an all-hands-on-deck Galaxy performance from that halftime on, and they come back, they win this game. A couple stunners, Edwin Cerrio, who I talked about last week in our underrated squad, probably should have put him in there. He scores the unreal goal to give them what ends up being the winning goal at 3-2. Ricky seals the deal to make it 4-2. And you saw from this Galaxy team the ability to dominate possession

and create chances. They also leave themselves exposed. And so I thought this game was a microcosm of the entire season. The question is if the Galaxy are so dangerous that it won't matter in the playoffs. And this was an argument for it. LAFC fans will be talking about how much Buonga had to travel and how little he looked like he had in his legs in that second half coming off international duty for Gabon in this one. But the opportunities were there for this LAFC team. They were healthy. They had all their players out there. Boguch looked dangerous in the first half. Sherwood never really got into the game fully for this team. That LAFC can't complain about this one and the Galaxy stretch

their lead at the top of the Western Conference they are in control of their own destiny to win the Western Conference and they clinch a playoff spot what a turnaround under Will Koontz here for this LA Galaxy team he's been a part of the team for less than a year and a half now and he's been able to turn them into a Western Conference champion, potentially, and a shoe-in playoff team, which has not been the conversation around this club over the last five or six years. Some news coming out outside of this game for LAFC. They signed Carlos Vela.

Once again, has not played since MLS Cup last year, has not been with a team all year. Confusion around what his passion was, what his desires were at this point. Was he ready to retire? Did he want to move and play for a new club? Still at this point in his career, nothing happens in the summer window, and now choosing as a free agent to re-sign with LAFC. So listen, it does make this team worse, and I think if you're LAFC at this point, with no other options to sign anyone else, you'd rather have Carlos Vela than not. He's been a great ambassador for this club.

He's been a great leader for this club. But his last seven appearances in MLS, he had zero goals, one assist, including an MLS Cup last year. He has not played now for, what, 10 months coming towards the end of his career. I don't know that this is a real difference maker for this team, but an exciting moment for the fans. They should be more excited about the signing of Luca Bambino, homegrown left back from LAFC2 at this point. The best left back, I think, in the pool for the U.S. Men's National Team group, available as well for Brazil.

Has played with their youth national teams. A really exciting attacking young left back. So I'm going to stick to my brand and say that's the more exciting signing than Carlos Vela. Hell is real as well. This weekend between FC Cincinnati and this Columbus Crew Squad. That one finishing at 0-0. Not exactly the fireworks we expected to see. You saw the quality on both sides. Lucho Acosta almost had the winner just offside.

You saw Diego Rossi step up, hit a couple of dangerous passes for this team. Alex Matan getting the start in central midfield as well for this Columbus squad, pulling some of the strings looking dangerous but a good toe-to-toe match and we talked about Cincinnati on Thursday saying they kind of had to reinsert themselves into this could win the Eastern Conference conversation I thought this performance did that I thought it showed the quality still in their back line even with all the injuries and their ability with Luca Oriano and Lucho to create chances and be dangerous. So I thought this was overall a good match for Cincinnati, even though they don't get the win at home.

So Cincinnati, Columbus, the Galaxy, LAFC, they're all battling each other. And that allowed Miami to probably clinch the Shield, this weekend. Of course, we will continue to cover it and look at it, but now a pretty big gap for this Miami team. They're up seven points on the LA Galaxy with one less game played than the Galaxy. They're up 10 points on Cincinnati on equal games played, and Miami saw the return of Messi. Two goals in the first half in his return as advertised the best player in the league the best player on the planet has been out injured you're

wondering how long will it take to knock off the rust took pretty much no time at all he looked like himself he's creating chances with the ball at his feet the second goal the opportunity set up by Alba he He reads the space, gets there, scores the goal. You saw the frustration from Kai Wagner on the first goal, wondering where the support was to try and defend Messi as he got stuck in a one-on-one chance pinching in. But this is an inner Miami team now with Messi on the field that they can create a ton of pressure in a ton of different areas. You've got to put two on Suarez. You got to go out and mark Alba. There's a bunch of opportunities for this Miami team and Messi able to probably lock down the shield for their squad. I will say Philly pushed them. I thought Philly had a ton of

half chances as this game went along. They tied it 1-1. They go down 2-1. They had a ton of looks to try and stay in this game and try and create opportunities. I thought, again, Gazdag looked good in this one. Quinn Sullivan, super active, creating chances for this squad as well, but not able to find that finishing touch. What a night for Andrew Rick. Forced to start in place of Andre Blake, the teenager, saving shots, diving to make some big saves against Suarez and Emesi. Just a wild opportunity for him. And he kept them in the game at times as well. And this Philly team just not able to get over the line right now with the way this team is set up.

Some other notes from the weekend. Minnesota United. A come-from-behind 3-1 win over St. Louis. I thought it was a really good performance from the new DP in Kelvin Yeboah. He had a goal and an assist. He showed his ability to create chances by himself, the speed, his ability to shoot quickly off the turn and create chances for himself off the half turn

and be dangerous all over the field. So a really nice win and a really nice moment for Minnesota. That's one of the teams I want to dig in on more this week. Houston, they look like true Western Conference finalists once again. They are continuing their form. They picked up four points against LAFC last week. Then a 4-1 win over RSL this week. They look connected.

They look goal dangerous with the way Ponce is playing, what he brings to the team. Then you bring Coco Carrasquillo back in fully healthy, and he looked fully locked in like the game he can play. He can be a goal scorer. He can be a chance creator. He'll win the ball in 50-50s. He'll help you counterpress, and I thought you saw the depth of this team. With Coco coming back in, you were able to move some of the pieces that have been starting back onto the bench. Lateef Blessing comes off the bench, has an unreal first touch and assist off a long ball from Steve Clark, who we did not make our goalkeeper for our underrated team because we thought he was slightly rated. But if he keeps getting assists, then maybe he'll move himself back into that team.

Or maybe he'll move himself into the goalkeeper of the year conversation. So a really big win for this Houston team. And they continue to go from strength to strength at this point. They obviously have the permanent injuries with Anali out for the year. But it still feels like this team could take a further step than they did last year. Western Conference Finals, it was a bit of a surprise. I think this year, especially with the way the West has set up, if you look at things and think about this, they get into the playoffs, they're probably meeting an LA Galaxy in the second round.

The Galaxy are phenomenal, but that game style fits what Houston wants to do. Two teams that struggle to defend 1v1, but want to have a ton of the ball, that could fit this team. Obviously, they are pretty comfortable playing in a match against RSL as well. So this could be a really interesting year for this Houston team. I think Houston fans should be really excited. Vancouver Whitecaps promising sign Stuart Armstrong, debut goal. And on the celebration, just saw the pure Scottish love between him and Ryan Gould. Gould just absolutely ecstatic.

It was a five or six pass, first touch pass move for Vancouver to finish this one off. And I don't think you saw things from Armstrong in this game that weren't in this Vancouver team. But it feels like another option, more depth, especially with the questions around Brian White's health, as well as some other players working their way back in and trying to find their feet. And the final one, Seattle on Sunday, the lone game on Sunday, a 2-0 victory shutout over Sporting Kansas City. Steph Fry moves to second all-time in MLS history for shutouts, 113 in his career, an unbelievable career for Steph Fry, a huge reason why Seattle has been at the forefront of the championship conversation for over a decade, pretty much since they've

entered Major League Soccer. And Steph Fry, he is going to go down with one of the oddest careers in MLS, only one all-star appearance for him. He's never been goalkeeper of the year. He's gotten into the top three in voting twice. He is one of those players who you almost, and a lot of people, I think, have just assumed his performances would be there to the point where they don't celebrate him. And I remember vividly when he made the all-star team in 2017, I believe it was, he made the all-star team, finally voted in, and Ziggy Schmidt texting me and saying it's good to see someone else respecting Steph Fry besides me Ziggy Schmidt was no longer the coach of Seattle at the time but that's how much he regarded Stephen Fry and how annoyed he was at the lack

of respect for Stephen Fry earlier in his career so shout out to him and Seattle starting to right the ship here with a couple of victories in a row. Let's dig into one last mailbag question. JKG96 says, random question. With Bocciatino's contract news, how much do MLS managers make? I'm sure there's plenty of variation, but just curious what the average salary is. Highest earners, lowest earners, et cetera, would be interesting too. So I don't have each coach's salary because they are not part of the MLSPA. So it doesn't get released. I can tell you from people I've talked

to from numbers that have been put out there in the past. And from my understanding, the range is large. It's between 500,000 to 2 million across the different clubs. So obviously Tata Martino would be at the high end right now. I assume Greg Vanny would be in that conversation as well. And then on the low end, you see exactly what you'd think, right? The teams that spend less on players, spend less on DPs. There is no salary cap to coaching. So they're normally the ones that spend less on coaching. And you're somewhere normally between the $300,000 to $700,000 range for most of those coaches. It is why I think we will continue to see the Wilfred Nance type moves, where I think Nance moved because he thought Columbus would be more competitive because he

thought it would be more stable. He thought it would be a better opportunity as a coach. We can also entice a coach by doubling or tripling their salary if you are in a market where you're choosing to spend more money. And that's just decided by the owners. I believe Pochettino's number that we're hearing is about $6 million. So that's the gap between just the top of MLS to Pochettino and the average coach in MLS to Pochettino and why the U.S. men's national team job is such a big job on top of the prestige and the opportunity there as well. All right, that's all for us on the weekend recap. We've got a big set of shows coming up this week. Really looking forward to it. We'll talk to you all again very, very soon.