Mark Kastner and Aaron Campeau discuss the latest in a growing string of frustrating results against LAFC, who have now knocked out the Sounders from the last three tournaments in which they've competed. 

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A lot has happened over the last week and it wasn't all fun. To get to everything, we decided to do our monthly mailbag episode and sort of clear the notebook, so to speak. We talk about the loss to LAFC, the inactive summer transfer window as well as look ahead to what the Sounders need to do to remain an elite MLS team.

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"Diversions", "Observed without knowing" audio provided by Sounder at Heart subscriber Lars; find more of their music: https://despatchesfromseattle.com/

In our constant effort to right-size our offerings, we’ve decided to start doing monthly mailbag episodes. This is the first of those episodes. Among the topics we tackle are expectations for the summer transfer window, explore the usefulness of G+ and try to explain why there were so few MLS-era players at the 50th Anniversary celebration.

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"Diversions" audio provided by Sounder at Heart subscriber Lars; find more of their music: https://despatchesfromseattle.com/

To help us preview this weekend's Sounders-Orlando City match we enlisted the help of Michael Citro, who runs The Mane Land.

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LAFC is near the tail end of a brutal stretch in which they'll play 16 matches in about two months and 22 matches in about three months. To get a better sense of how that has taken its toll we talked to LAFC podcaster Travis Helwig.

In addition to hosting Happy Foot Sad Foot, he's also a member of the currently striking Writer's Guild. We talked to him about that and how to support them. He suggested donating to the Entertainment Community Fund which supports other parts of the industry.

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Should Albert Rusnak replace Nico Lodeiro? What about Cody Bake for Nouhou? How much off-season change should we expect?

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Give the Sounders this: At least they made it entertaining. The Sounders finally broke out of their scoring doldrums by putting three past Charlotte FC, including a brace from Raul Ruidiaz and another from Cristian Roldan in both of their first starts in about two months. The only problem? The Sounders also gave up three goals, albeit all pretty well taken.

Each of Charlotte’s goals erased a Sounders lead, meaning the Sounders blew more leads in this game than they had in their previous 17 combined (it had only happened once).

In the second half of the show, we discussed Cristian Roldan and Jordan Morris' USMNT call-up, suggest holding the Leagues Cup concurrently with the Gold Cup in future seasons and give our outlook for the second half of the season. 

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Obed Vargas is back from the U20 World Cup and to get a better idea of how he did and what kind of impression he made, we asked Adam Belz the Scuffed podcast to give us some insight. Scuffed, for those of you don't know, is one of the top US Soccer podcasts and they are fully listener supported. 

There's also a second-half to this interview where we talk about Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan's place in the national team and some of the broader issues surrounding the program. To listen to the full episode, you'll need to become a paid subscriber to our Substack. 

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Jorge Gonzalez of Top Bin 90 joined us to give some insight on Charlotte's injury situation and a lowdown on soccer culture in the South.

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This is a pretty short one but we do touch on Albert Rusnák's potential move to the No. 10, Obed Vargas' performance at the U20s and how happy we were to see LAFC lose in the CCL final.

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That was not much fun. While the Sounders managed to stop their losing streak against the Timbers and picked up their ninth shutout of the season, the match itself was a pretty massive letdown. Not only did it end in this rivalries first scorless tie of the MLS era, but there simply wasn’t much action. The Sounders only took five shots and the two teams combined for just .6 expected goals. It was ugly.

As someone who has suggested the Sounders’ performances have mostly been better than the scoreline suggests, I have no such defense in this one.

We discussed all that while making some time to talk about the ramifications for Messi coming to MLS.

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Believe it or not, we've made it to Episode 400. It's been quite a journey and taken us about 12 years to get here. Mostly coincidentally, we're marking the occasion with a joint podcast with our friends at Coffee and Valkyries to preview the Seattle-Portland doubleheader. Thanks for listening!

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Jamon Moore of Quakes Epicenter joined us to preview Wednesday's match against the San Jose Earthquakes and explain how Luchi Gonzalez has managed to improve the woebegone franchise.

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We finally having a bonafide winning streak to talk about.

Fresh off their seven-point week, the Sounders followed that up with another come-from-behind win, this time beating the Chicago Fire 2-1.

Like their previous two results, the Sounders needed to come from behind in this one. But after playing some of their least inspiring soccer of the season during the first 30 minutes, they recovered to have one of their best halves of the season.

Both goals came from the penalty spot, but they were the product of continuous pressure with Albert Rusnák converting the game-winner in the 92nd minute. It marked the first time in Sounders history that they won consecutive games in stoppage time.

They’re still barely in the playoffs in the No. 9 spot, but after going 6-2-4 in league play over the last two months, they’re just three points out of the No. 4 spot.

In this week’s episode, Jeremiah and Aaron discuss the Sounders’ improved fortunes and try to determine how sustainable it is.

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"Diversions" audio provided by Sounder at Heart subscriber Lars; find more of their music: https://despatchesfromseattle.com/

Ben Cork of View From 202 (and formerly Once a Metro) joined us to share insight on Saturday's opponent, the New York Red Bulls.

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This isn't the most uplifting mailbag episode but we do give our thoughts on a possible formation change, the seeming inability to find late goals and how much a problem the lack of lineup consistency is.

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After a few weeks of disappointing results but some play that was at least decent at times, the bottom kinda fell out in Vancouver. The Sounders started slow and never really got on track in losing to the Whitecaps 2-0, their fourth straight loss against Cascadia Cup opponents.

This one was among the most depressing, not necessarily because of the scoreline but because of how bad the Sounders looked throughout. The fight that has at least always been there was nowhere to be found, there were sloppy passes throughout, a lack of creativity on offense and just some generally uninspiring play.

The guys try to diagnose the problem and see if they can't figure out a way this gets better.

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The Sounders seem to have a really annoying knack for losing to teams in really bad form. They actually played reasonably well in this one and created a ton of chances, but is there reason to be worried?

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A chat with OL Reign defender Sam Hiatt on the team's strong start, her growth as a player, and her representation as a Filipina-American athlete.

With the Sounders hosting Austin FC on Wednesday, we convinced friend of the show Will Bruin to join us for a special episode of Bear With Us.

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Dustyn Richardson of BayouCitySoccer.net (formerly Dynamo Theory) joined us to share insight on Saturday's opponent, the Houston Dynamo.

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These questions were taken before the Open Cup loss to the Galaxy on Wednesday but are still relevant as they're mostly about the larger MLS campaign. We talk about the Sounders' penchant for "playing down" to opponents; what we think of the Léo Chú-Jordan Morris partnership; and how much patience we should have with Raúl Ruidíaz among other things.

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The Sounders came into Sunday’s game facing an opponent that looked all but dead in the water. Sporting KC had gone winless in 10, had only even managed three goals scored and looked fragile enough that an early goal could have completely knocked them out.

Instead, the Sounders conceded a goal in the 4th minute -- the first they allowed at home since last season -- and then another in the 31st minute. That was more goals than KC had scored in any game this season and more than they’d scored in their previous 535 minutes coming into this game.

It was, to put it simply, a really ugly performance.

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We caught up with Jimmy Mack of No Other Pod a Sporting Kansas City Podcast to get a better understanding of what's going on with this weekend's opponent.

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The Chicago Fire are mired in last place of the Eastern Conference, but don’t let that fool you. Ever since Xherdan Shaqiri left for the Euros, the Fire have been playing pretty decent soccer. In five games without their “captain”, the Fire are 2-1-2, which includes a home win over the LA Galaxy and a road win over Toronto FC.

To get a better idea of what kind of opponent we should expect, we talked to Alex Calabrese of Men in Red.

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"Diversions" audio provided by Sounder at Heart subscriber Lars; find more of their music: https://despatchesfromseattle.com/

This is the mailbag episode for Week 11 of the MLS season. We mostly focus on how the Sounders will handle the situation at left back, but also get into potential plans for the summer transfer window and discuss the possible return of YachtCon.

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It wasn’t exactly the result the Sounders were looking for, but considering they had only even claimed a point at RSL once in the past 12 trips to Utah a 0-0 shutout might not be such a bad thing. Utah has been a rather horrific place for the sounders to play and anything that can go wrong usually does. This time, however, it was more of a mundane road draw. That the Sounders also managed to keep a shutout should probably be seen as a bit of a bonus as well.

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Matt Montgomery of Wasatch Soccer Sentinel joined us to share his thoughts on Real Salt Lake, to explain why they call pop 'soda' and to talk badly about Pablo Mastroeni's tactics.

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Coming out of a week that was pretty darn depressing and only seem to get worse as it wore on, the Sounders put together a workmanlike win that should calm any lingering concerns that this season was poised to go off the rails.

A quick recap: First they lost 4-1 to the Timbers, collapsing in a way we’ve never really seen. Then on Wednesday, Raul Ruidiaz goes down with yet another hamstring injury, that night Jordan Morris plays 88 minutes for the USMNT in an ultimately meaningless friendly that ultimately kept him out of startering consideration and then on Saturday we find out that Nouhou was a last-minute scratch due to some migraines. Through about 75 minutes, the Loons made life pretty difficult, setting up shop in a midblock and refusing the Sounders any sort of transition opportunities. 

But rather than get over-anxious or settle for a tie, the Sounders found a bit of magic through Fredy Montero and a perfectly hit shot from Albert Rusnak to secure three points.

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We caught up with Andy Greder, the Minnesota United beat writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press to get a better understanding of what's going on with this weekend's opponent. Greder tells us the latest news surrounding Emanuel Reynoso's absence, gives us the lowdown on Kemar Lawrence's potential availability and gives us some insight on how Minnesota has managed to go claim 9 of 12 points on the road so far.

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It's our weekly mailbag episode. We try to figure out if the Sounders have completely lost any edge in the rivalry, try to determine which players were most missed, explain what's going on with Xavier Arreaga, and try to help a St. Louis City fan figure out how to avoid becoming an asshole.

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If you'd like to become a subscriber to our Substack, that can be found here. All background music used is royalty-free content licensed via pixabay.

So, uh, that happened. For the better part of 70 minutes, the Sounders basically controlled the match against the Portland Timbers and looked likely to end their three-game losing streak. But then Dairon Asprilla scored an admittedly impressive bicycle kick, revived the crowd and sent a bolt of energy into the Timbers. 20 minutes later, they were 4-1 winners.

It was the fourth straight time the Sounders had lost to the Timbers, the first time that’s ever happened in the rivalry’s history; the Timbers beat the Sounders by three goals for the second time in three meetings, a losing margin the Sounders have only suffered two other times since the start of 2019; they’ve now outscored the Sounders 11-2 in those four games; and the Sounders gave up more goals in that 20-minute span than they had in their previous 700 minutes this year. 

It was not surprising that Brian Schmetzer was about as mad as I’ve ever seen him in the postgame, saying he’s not even sure if the Sounders can consider this a rivalry anymore. 

We unpacked the collapse and how the Sounders move forward.

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If you'd like to become a subscriber to our Substack, that can be found here. All background music used is royalty-free content licensed via pixabay.

Stumptown Footy is dead, long live Stumptown Footy. As you probably know by now, Vox decided to stop funding most of their MLS sites a couple months ago. Most of them are moving forward in new formats. Stumptown Footy is one such site.

We caught up with Sam Svilar to get the lowdown on their new life as a newsletter (currently parked at StumptownFooty.Substack.com until the URL license switches over) but more relevantly about the state of the Timbers. 

Things are not so good in the Rose City, where they come into this match riding a six-game winless run. It's not just the top line numbers that look bad, either. The Timbers' season high for xG is 1.1, a mark the Sounders have topped in 5 of 7 games

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Get to know OL Reign assistant coach Scott Parkinson in our first "Coffee & Valkyries" of the 2023 season. Scott talks about how he met OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey, their first stint working together at Utah Royals, his time as head coach of Gotham FC, and reuniting with Harvey for 2023 and more.

This is the mailbag episode ahead of Week 7 of the MLS season. If you'd like to get your questions answered in future episodes, please shoot us an email at nosaudietis@gmail.com.

In this episode, we answer questions about who has been a bigger surprise so far in 2023, what do we do with so many hot players and so little starting spots, and we wax poetic about our next matchup against those dudes to our South.

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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)

Say what you will about the consistency the Seattle Sounders have shown over the past few months, but we can probably all agree that they’ve never been quite as entertaining as they were during the last week.

The Sounders registered their first seven-point week and did it in particularly interesting style, twice coming back from two goals down to earn points. The last of those was obviously the most exciting, with Jordan Morris bagging a 90+4’ winner on Saturday.

As if that wasn’t enough, though, the Sounders also have some drama to deal with after Raúl Ruidíaz and Nouhou both got themselves suspended.

Jeremiah and Aaron talk about it all.

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"Diversions" audio provided by Sounder at Heart subscriber Lars; find more of their music: https://despatchesfromseattle.com/

St. Louis City SC came at the kings and they missed - big time. The latest to game the throne were flying high coming into the matchup with the Rave Green sporting a 5-1 record, 1st place in the West and sitting above the Sounders. Seattle pulled STL back to earth behind Josh Atencio's first MLS goal (a golazo/a banger/a wonderstrike/rightfully Goal of the Week) and left the visitors wondering what happened after that 3-0 rinsing. Raul Ruidiaz came off the bench and quickly doubled the lead leaving Brian Schmetzer some more sleepless night ahead of the Portland matchup. At least Coach has some things that might help him combat that - the team is perfect at home still and they are back at the top of the West.

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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)

St. Louis City surprised not only the pundits but even their own fans by starting the season 5-0-0, eclipsing the Seattle Sounders' record for best-ever start by an expansion team. Even after losing last week to Minnesota United, Saturday's match still offers plenty of intrigue.

To get a better sense of the team the Sounders will be facing, we reached out to Matt Baker of the podcast Flyover Footy. He gave some real insight into what makes City tick.

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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)

This is the mailbag episode ahead of Week 7 of the MLS season. If you'd like to get your questions answered in future episodes, please shoot us an email at nosaudietis@gmail.com.

In this episode, we answer questions about the quality of the Sounders opposition, the Sounders' midfield, what we should expect lineup-wise, the concern over MLS Season Pass subscriber numbers and decide who's the biggest complainer among MLS head coaches.

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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)

The Sounders won their second straight game, again going on the road to beat the LA Galaxy. Again it was Leo Chu and Jordan Morris providing the offense and staking them to a 2-0 lead. This time, however, the Sounders had to hold on for dear life in the second half, narrowly escaping with a 2-1 win.

Still, a win is a win, especially on the road and the Sounders will now be playing for first place this weekend when they host St. Louis City.

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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)

We caught up with Ryan Rosenblatt, our resident LA Galaxy expert and the author of ESPN's MLS Power Rankings, to find out what's going on with the once-proud franchise. We discussed the supporter boycott, Chris Klein's rocky tenure and who the Galaxy expect to have back this week.

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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)

We're trying out something new and making the question-and-answer segment its own episode. Let us know what you think.

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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)

The Sounders finally ended their 10-game road winless run in rather emphatic fashion, over-running Sporting KC 4-1 behind four, yes four goals from Jordan Morris. Leo Chu was also credited with four assists, tying a league record, including three primary assists. This was all despite the Sounders giving up an early goal, but the Sounders pretty much dominated the match from the 5th minute forward and now head into this week’s match with the LA Galaxy feeling pretty good about themselves.

Programming note: We've decided to try out breaking out the QA episode into its own thing. Look for that tomorrow.

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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)

It's a podcast miracle! Our tech provider was able to recover the lost QA audio! Here it is just in time for Saturday's game.

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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)

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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)

The Sounders had a chance to score a statement win against arguably the league’s top team who was playing their fourth game in 10 days and 5th in 15, but ultimately had to settle for a 0-0 tie against lAFC. Watching the game back, though, I was kinda struck by just how good the sounders looked, especially in the first half.

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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)

When last we talked, the Sounders had just lost to Sporting KC and we were openly wondering if it was time to admit that they might just be a bad team.

You’ll have to pardon the whiplash, but two games later we think that was probably an unfair conclusion and are now wondering the opposite. 

No, a 2-0 win over Minnesota United and a 2-2 draw with the Houston Dynamo doesn’t suddenly make us think the Sounders are MLS Cup contenders, but it is some evidence that this team might be a bit better than they had been looking.

The draw with the Dynamo was weirdly even more encouraging, not because the Sounders played better but because they looked so awful in the first half and still managed to come back. That’s what good teams do!

It's probably too early to say the Sounders are a contender, but they sure do look a lot better than they did two weeks ago and we're OK calling that progress.

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"Diversions" audio provided by Sounder at Heart subscriber Lars; find more of their music: https://despatchesfromseattle.com/

We caught up with friend of the show Alicia Rodriguez (aka @soccermusings) to give us the lowdown on LAFC. While they won't be particularly well rested, Alicia thinks LAFC will continue with their mild rotation they've been doing through their first four matches of the season and will be looking at this game as a significant test.

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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)

Coming off two resounding wins, the Sounders were dealt a “humbling” loss -- in the words of Cristian Roldan -- when they went on the road for the first time, falling 1-0 to FC Cincinnati. I wouldn’t say it was bad loss, per se, FCC is expected to be one of the best teams in the league this year but it was a bit of a reality check that the Sounders aren’t just going to prance through the league schedule. 

They showed a bit of fight and even appeared to get the equalizer until VAR disallowed it, but will head into this week’s match against LAFC looking to rebound.

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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)

Whether you loved or hated Kasey Keller as a Sounders broadcaster, it would be impossible to deny his place in club history. Not only was his signing ahead of the 2009 season a signal of intent from the new MLS franchise, but he was an inarguably massive part of how they came out of the gates and won U.S. Open Cups in each of his first three seasons. He also won a MLS Goalkeeper of the Year in his final season.

But Keller made an even longer-lasting mark by serving as the team’s color announcer on TV broadcasts from 2012-2022. During those 11 seasons, Keller barely a missed a game despite also working fulltime for ESPN and his commentary accompanies many of the greatest moments in club history.

Keller’s penchant for criticizing defenders more than praising offensive brilliance and insistence on remaining objective sometimes rubbed fans the wrong way, but his honesty was never questioned.

Although Keller is no longer on the Sounders broadcast — a casualty of the move to AppleTV — he was still more than happy to spend well over an hour with us where we talked about his current position with ESPN, his time with the Sounders as player and broadcaster, his journey from the South Sound to Europe, and many other things.

The full hourlong version of this interview is available to paid subscribers to our Substack.

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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)