Nos Audietis

This is the third and final installment from YachtCon. This is effectively just the Sounders panel, which included Stefan Frei, Cristian Roldan, Garth Lagerwey and Chris Henderson.

This is the second of our three-part YachtCon series. This episode starts at the end of the Reign panel and runs through the raffle to the beginning of the Sounders panel.

YachtCon ended up being nearly three hours, so we broke it up into three episodes. This is the first of those episodes and it runs through the Seattle Reign panel.

Let it be said that Cristian Roldan is a very good sport. The Seattle Sounders midfielder certainly did not have to agree to an interview that took close to an hour. He sure as heck didn’t have to then follow that up by going to YachtCon and participating in a panel. On top of all that, he did it with a smile.

Not only a smile, but he acted like he enjoyed the whole thing. When we told him that we wanted to ask him a bunch of questions about Jordan Morris and told him to get exacerbated at some point, he made it seem totally natural (it probably helped that the emotion likely came from a real place). When we suggested that he take a bite of pizza while answering another question about eating pizza during an interview, he proclaimed that he loved the idea.

Among the issues we touched on — aside from his friendship with Morris — were his upbringing in an immigrant family, what areas of his game he most wants to improve and his overall outlook on life.

I’ve enjoyed most of the interviews I’ve done over the years, but no one acted as if they enjoyed it quite as much as Cristian. Hopefully that comes across in this fuller version of the interview we first aired at YachtCon.

Opening training camp as the defending MLS Cup champions has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? The Seattle Sounders did just that this week, and there were no shortage of storylines.

The most interesting was probably the health of Clint Dempsey. The Designated Player has been fully cleared to train and even participated in the beep test on Thursday. It’s looking very much like he’ll be ready to go for First Kick.

Among the host of trialists, was a familiar name: Steve Zakuani. While it’s not entirely clear if he’s actually on trial or just hanging around, he too did the beep test and is looking very much like a player who could potentially contend for a roster spot.

There’s also a host of rumors attaching players to the Sounders, perhaps most notably one Fredy Montero.

Jeremiah and Aaron talk all about this stuff, as well as find time to take your wonderful questions.

All things considered, waiting eight years to win a championship doesn’t seem that bad. Rather, it was the uncertain nature of when it would actually happen that made it so tough.

Now that we have the mildly elusive Philip Anschutz Trophy in our possession, though, it sure is nice, right? There’s a mild debate raging outside of the Sounders-phere as to how deserving we are. Aaron and Jeremiah essentially dismiss the discussion out of hand, pointing out that how you win the cup is an academic argument and takes nothing away from simply having won.

They also spend a fair amount of time discussing the Victory March, which was just about perfect.

In so many ways, 2016 has been the worst season in Seattle Sounders history. It started with one of the most tumultuous offseasons in their brief history as they lost several fan favorites, including Obafemi Martins. It continued with frustrating loss to Club America in CONCACAF Champions League and into the regular season with three straight losses, a 6-12-2 start and a week spent in last place. Even one of the biggest highlights — signing Nicolas Lodeiro — was preceded by nasty negotiations with Boca Juniors and followed by Clint Dempsey’s heart issues.

There were off-field issues as well, starting with the whole mobile-ticketing fiasco and several public disagreements between the front office and supporters groups.

Given all that, it’s not shocking that Adrian Hanauer still has mixed emotions heading into Saturday’s MLS Cup, as he admits that he takes each failure personally.

We talked to Hanauer in his Pioneer Square office above The Ninety on Thursday for what we feel is some interesting insight into a season that may well end on the highest high in Seattle soccer history.

We encountered several technical difficulties in attempting to get this week’s show into your earholes, but we like to think it was worth it. Richard Farley joined Jeremiah in the first segment and they basically broke down the Colorado Rapids series while looking head to the MLS Cup matchup with Toronto FC.

Both basically agreed that while TFC is scoring in bunches, their defense leaves plenty of room for question marks. Conversely, this is a Sounders defense that has allowed just three goals in five playoff games. The prospect of this being a bit of a shootout seem reasonably strong.

As usual, Jeremiah and Aaron close out the show with a question-and-answer segment. Enjoy.

Thanks to a rather long break in the MLS playoff schedule, it feels like quite a long time ago that the Seattle Sounders got past FC Dallas to qualify for the Western Conference finals. But here we are and the Sounders are actually looking like favorites against the Colorado Rapids.

Aaron and Jeremiah are actually feeling pretty good, too, especially as the Sounders are not playing the way we’re used to them playing in the postseason. This is feeling like it could be special.

We weren’t sure if we were going to record this week, especially since Aaron has a bit of a superstition about doing stuff like this in the middle of a series. But with Wednesday’s news that Brian Schmetzer was having the interim tag removed from his title, we felt we owed to all of you to focus on that especially since the next time we record that bit of news will likely be lost.

In order to relieve Aaron of his superstition, we brought on Richard Farley to discuss the hiring with Jeremiah. As usual, Richard gives us a bit more of a national perspective on the hiring.

One thing they focused on was how different the perception of the announcement was outside of Seattle. While here, it seemed to make a certain amount of sense to unveil Schmetzer in front of a massive group of fans, nationally it looked as if the Sounders buried the news by announcing on a weeknight while Game 7 of the World Series was being played.

Enjoy.