Nos Audietis

Just about the entire American soccer world is in town for MLS Cup and boy did we take advantage. Among the guests on our triple cast of the Will Bruin Podcast: Bear With Us, Nos Audietis and the Sounder at Heart podcasts were Brad Evans, Taylor Twellman, Jimmy Conrad, Bobby Warshaw, Mike Chabala and Erik Friberg.

We hung out at Hellbent Brewing, drank some beers, talked soccer, Impossible burgers, mattresses and Brian Schmetzer’s genius. Enjoy!

While there were definitely moments of brilliance for the Seattle Sounders, their First Round encounter with FC Dallas was more about simply moving on in the MLS Playoffs. Jeremiah and Aaron discuss how blowing leads is probably not a repeatable path to success, but they do marvel at how well the Sounders seem to have mastered the art of doing just that and still managing to pull out a victory.

In order to squeeze in an episode before Wednesday’s Western Conference semifinals while Jeremiah is in Washington, D.C., this a shorter episode than normal. Hope you don’t mind.

This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)

Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.

It took us three episodes to finally get here, but we finally have a name for Will Bruin’s podcast. From henceforth it shall be dubbed “Bear with us.” We liked the double-entendre and thought it was playful enough without being overly punny.

Anyway, we talked about the Sounders’ chances in the playoffs, Will’s experience in the broadcast booth and did our best to avoid talking about Jonathan Campbell’s Instagram feed (we failed). We also brought back one of our favorite segments: #AskWillBruin. It’s an advice segment, and if you’d like to submit your own query please email us at [email protected].

Musics: "Bumped into Bigfoot" - Bedford; "Cutthroat" - prod. by Syndrome

For all the ups and downs this season has endured, the Sounders head into the final week of the regular season knowing that a win will secure the No. 2 seed in the West. The path to this point definitely hasn’t been as enjoyable as any of us would have liked, but I also suspect we’d have accepted this fate if it had been offered to us before the season began.

Their latest win was a reasonably impressive 1-0 decision at San Jose in which Jordan Morris scored in the 94th minute. That was fourth time since the end of the Gold Cup break that the Sounders won a game with a goal in the 89th minute or later, Those eight added points are currently the difference between the No. 2 spot and missing the playoffs.

This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)

Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.

At least once a year, we try to sit down with Seattle Sounders majority owner Adrian Hanauer to basically get a state of the franchise. This year’s interview comes at a particularly interesting time, as the Sounders are embroiled in a rough season both on and off the field.

Our interview last Thursday was mostly focused on off-the-field issues, but we opened with the idea that the Sounders’ place among the elite’s is being questioned.

“I’m sort of a slow and steady guy,” Hanauer said. “I like consistency over a yo-yo. If you can make the playoffs and host one or two games, you’re going to win some trophies.”

“If it gets to the point where I’m an owner who can’t put the Sounders in position to win championships, I’m going to find an owner, a set of owners who can do that. This is a passion of mine, this is my community. I want this to be fun and meaningful and important for our community and I get that winning is a piece of that.”

This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)

Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.

Sure, the Sounders lost last week, but that was with a roster that was missing 13 players due to international call-up, injury or suspension. Both the left back and defensive midfield positions featured starters who had yet to start at those positions this year, Luis Silva was playing as a No. 10 for the first time since 2017 and the centerback duo had played together just once before. The resulting 2-0 loss was hard to watch, but also a rather pointless exercise in terms of trying to learn much from.

So, I think we’re probably going to focus more on the results of the two previous games: a 2-1 win over the Portland Timbers that came after I was derided for even believing the Sounders had a chance and a rather bizarre 4-3 win over the LA Galaxy in which the Sounders blew leads of 2-0 and 3-2 before grabbing the late winner.

This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)

Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.

Believe it or not, we’ve actually made it to Episode 2 of the “Sooner to be named Will Bruin Podcast.” Nope, still don’t have an official name. Yes, we’re still listening to your suggestions. If you have any, please feel free to share and apparently Will has softened his stance on “no puns” (but please send us some that aren’t bear or Will puns).

Anyway, we talked about a lot of things this week. The new Sounders owners, MLS expanding to Will’s hometown of St. Louis, the upcoming Timbers game...

Oh, and we’re trying out a new segment. Will is going to start dishing out advice. Because we didn’t get many suggestions, we decided to hit up Yahoo Answers and found out that Will apparently drinks milk with dinner. If you’d like to get in on the phone, you can rest assured that we’ll keep your name anonymous but shoot us an email at [email protected] and we’ll be sure to answer it on the next show.

Musics: "Bumped into Bigfoot" - Bedford; "Cutthroat" - prod. by Syndrome

Normally, you’d think coming out of a week in which the Sounders secured a point at LA we’d be feeling pretty good about things. Instead, I suspect that the lingering emotions over what is now a four-match winless run, coupled with Saturday’s 2-2 tie leave us not feeling so hot. That’s made even more acute by the way the circumstances surrounding that point, as the Sounders played up a man for 85+ minutes and needed an own-goal to even secure that point.

This is all leading up to what could turn out to be a season-defining match at Portland on Friday.  We talk about all those things as well as take tons of your questions.

This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)

Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.

We come to you feeling not quite as good as the last time we were gathered. The Sounders are coming off a very disappointing loss which came at the end of a very tumultuous week in which the Sounders felt compelled to apologize to supporters and Roman Torres was given a 10-game ban for testing positive for PEDs.

Buy Nos Audietis Merchandise

The game was frustrating on many levels, not the least of which was falling behind 2-0 at home to a team that wasn’t much healthier than the Sounders were and in the midst of some pretty bad overall play. 

The one positive was a genuinely outstanding performance from Jordan Morris, who scored his third career brace and was a bit unlucky not to have his first career hat trick. 

By the time you listen to this, hopefully, the Sounders will have made at least one new signing although we don’t yet have confirmation of that. 

This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)

Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.

Way back in February, Will Bruin off-handedly mentioned to me that he’d like to do a podcast. I didn’t think much of it. But he was serious, or at least he seemed serious. He even announced it on Twitter.

Well, I think he may have underestimated just how hard it is to find time for things like recording a new podcast when you are also becoming a first-time father.

Six months later, though, we’re finally here. Somehow, we managed to not settle on a name yet, bu this is the first of what I hope is many podcasts.

The idea was to basically give Will room to just talk about stuff he’s interested in. We touched on the upcoming MLS CBA negotiations, got his thoughts on League Cup and how he went down a YouTube hole watching Sasquatch videos. Oh, we talked a lot about Jonathan Campbell’s Instagram page. Seriously, we talked a lot about that. Hope you enjoy and feel free to share ideas.

Musics: "Bumped into Bigfoot" - Bedford; "Cutthroat" - prod. by Syndrome