Nos Audietis

At one point in this week’s show we were asked “what one word would you use to describe this season?” Our best answer: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

It has been a wild season, and it’s going to continue for at least one more game. The Seattle Sounders have gone to depths they’ve never before experienced and managed to come out of it in reasonably good shape as they’ll be hosting a Knockout Round game.

To help Jeremiah and Aaron make sense of this crazy season, we brought back Richard Farley onto the show. They talk about the Sounders’ chances at making it all the way to MLS Cup, what Brian Schmetzer still needs to do in order to get the fulltime gig and they answer your questions. Enjoy.

Last time we recorded we were talking about the Seattle Sounders needing a win to secure their spot in the playoffs. Two matches later, they still need the same thing.

This isn’t an ideal position for the Sounders to find themselves in, but considering the situation a couple months ago it’s definitely progress.

To help us get a handle on what kind of opponent stands in their way, we enlisted the help of Real Salt Lake fan Jason Greenwood (@neaterguyonline). That may seem like a rather random guest, but you have probably seen Jason’s work on Twitter at some point. He’s the guy notorious for masquerading as various soccer journalists and spreading false rumors.

He’s a divisive figure, to be sure, but we also find him pretty funny. It’s not just the imitations themselves, it’s how mad “real” journalists get about it. The guy has been banned from Twitter at least three times.

With the short week, we weren't able to do a full episode. We did however get a chance to talk to Seattle U men's soccer coach and Sounders broadcast analyst Pete Fewing. We figured now would be as good a time as any to share that interview.

If you don't know, Fewing is a Seattle soccer original. He's been around the game here his whole life, playing against the likes of Brian Schmetzer as a youth, then playing at the University of Washington and for Seattle FC. He began coaching at Seattle U way back in 1988 and put together one of the strongest NAIA programs in the nation, winning a national title in 1997 and eventually moving up to NCAA Division II. There, he led the Redhawks to an undefeated campaign in 2004 that culminated with another national title. He left Seattle U in 2005 and spent a few years coaching the Kitsap Pumas, notably nearly leading them to an upset of the Sounders in the U.S. Open Cup in 2011.

He eventually returned to Seattle U and helped guide them to Division I in 2012. Last year he guided them to a Western Athletic Conference title and into the NCAA's Sweet 16. Over 18 seasons, he's won 220 games, registered a winning percentage of better than 60 percent and suffered through just three losing seasons.

Every time we record, it seems like there's more good news. We could definitely get used to this. The latest bit is a string of positive results that has seen the Seattle Sounders win three times in nine days, part of a four-game winning streak and a run of seven wins in 10 matches.

Crazy as it seems, we're talking about a team that's currently one win away from clinching a playoff spot. The Sounders, once hamstrung whenever they were missing a key piece, managed to beat the Vancouver Whitecaps on the road despite effectively playing without four of their top offensive threats. Yep, we're starting to believe this team is shaping as something special.

We also talked to Sean Okoli, who you may remember as a Sounders Academy product, former Sounders player, but more relevantly the recently crowned USL Golden Boot winner. He also happened to play for FC Cincinnati, one of the more interesting stories in US Soccer this year after they broke all sorts of attendance records.

Of course, we also find time to answer your questions.

The Seattle Sounders are not out of the woods. Not yet and not by a long shot. But with six games left in the 2016 season, a path to the playoffs has become clear. The Sounders are going to need to win their final three home games and probably pick up a couple more points on the road.

That won't guarantee them a spot in the playoffs, but given that the Portland Timbers and Sporting Kansas City only have one home game apiece and that they've been nothing short of awful on the road, the Sounders' path looks reasonable enough.

Jeremiah and Aaron discuss this possibility, while also gushing over the growth Jordan Morris has shown over the course of the year, perhaps best exemplified by his game-winning header against the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday.

Of course, they also find time to answer your questions.

It was quite a week, giving us no shortage of stuff to talk about. The Seattle Sounders started out with a huge win over the Portland Timbers, followed it up with a tie in Houston and then finished off the week with a deflating loss at Portland. It's left the Sounders in basically the same position they were in before the week started, which isn't to say all is lost but it wasn't the dream scenario we had imagined.

Jeremiah and Aaron do their best to dissect it all and put it into proper perspective.

Once they're done with that, Jeremiah has part of an interview with Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer. Yes, "part." That's because the interview Jeremiah had the bright idea of taking his 5-month-old along on the interview and -- shocker -- the baby wasn't really playing along. But we tried to make lemonade out of lemons anyway, and think we may have learned a thing or two about Schmetzer in the process. Hope you enjoy.

Hopefully you've read Richard Farley's excellent article that details much of the work and effort that went into analyzing and vetting Nicolas Lodeiro's signing. If you haven't, you may as well do so now because it takes awhile and if you start now you might be finished by the time Farley joins us on the show in the second segment.

There's a lot of stuff in here that readers of this site probably have heard, but there are still some nuggets that are absolutely fascinating. The most notable is that the Sounders have apparently developed some kind of program that allows them to compare players across various leagues and gives them an idea of how they'll perform in MLS. In any case, Lodeiro was their obvious top target and GM Garth Lagerwey seems to suggest he was willing to sacrifice this year if it meant signing the guy the organization really wanted.

Jeremiah, Aaron and Richard also discuss the Sounders' recent run of good form and look forward to the massive Cascadia Cup clash on Sunday. Oh, and they name this the winner of the #shoephone meme contest.

Just when this season seemed lost, when you thought you might get your weekends back or at least were prepared to stop worrying about results, they pulled us back in. Sure, the Seattle Sounders' 3-1 win over Orlando City was just one win and the standings are pretty much unchanged, but Aaron, Jeremiah and Likkit are feeling ... hope.

It's still a long shot and it could be ripped away with a loss against Real Salt Lake, but the Nos Audietis group actually sees something positive on the horizon. And even if they don't make the playoffs, this run toward the end of the season at least promises to be interesting.

Beyond being competitive, the Sounders are just fun to watch right now. There's a joy to the team since Nicolas Lodeiro's addition and it appears to be infectious.

It has been two weeks since we last recorded and ... wow did a lot happen. The Seattle Sounders scored a seemingly massive win over first-place FC Dallas only to drop a disheartening loss to the Portland Timbers, suffer an epic collapse at the hands of the LA Galaxy in the U.S. Open Cup and turn in one of the worst performances in franchise history while losing to Sporting Kansas City.

But we barely even had time to talk about any of that after this week's twin bombshells: The presumed signing of Nicolas Lodeiro and the "mutual parting of ways" with head coach Sigi Schmid.

Among the topics covered: Whether or not Schmid deserved to be the one falling on the sword, how much blame falls at the feet of GM Garth Lagerwey, if Nicolas Lodeiro is capable of saving the season and if Brian Schmetzer has any hope of becoming the permanent head coach.

We tend to stick to soccer on this show. But sometimes, we feel like we must address issues that stretch beyond the pitch. This was one of those shows. Our interview this week was with ECS co-president Heather Satterberg. We asked her onto the show after reading this story in the New York Times magazine. We found it a wholly unfair depiction of ECS and felt it important to have Satterberg on to not so much defend the group, but to educate fans on some of the efforts being made to be as inclusive as possible.

It should also be said that while we agree that American soccer culture, MLS and, yes, even the Sounders can do more to create an inclusive environment, we also found the depiction in that story unfair and felt it important to give a different perspective.

We also found some time to talk about that utterly depressing result against the LA Galaxy, take a bunch of questions and settle who we think is the best pinball player on the Sounders.