After an odd preseason that featured the FIFA Club World basically in the middle of it, the Seattle Sounders are finally just days away from their MLS regular season opener. To help preview the season, Aaron and Jeremiah welcomed Sounder at Heart colleagues Susie Rantz and Mark Kastner to the show to help us. We discussed our outlook for the season and explained some of the tactical tweaks the Sounders are implementing that they hope can help get them back to their rightful place atop MLS.

In the second segment, we discussed some of the developments in the Apple deal and the rule changes that were implemented just a few days before the start of the season.

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 Seattle Sounders will be playing Louisville City in their final preseason game on Saturday. To help give us a sense of what kind of opponent the Sounders are facing, we reached out to Vince Irvin. Vince is better known as a contributor to the Scuffed Podcast where he opines on the United States national team, but he's also a Louisville season-ticket holder.

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) Sponsor read: James Woollard

The Club World Cup came at a particularly inopportune time for the Seattle Sounders. Despite being about midway through their preseason, however, the Sounders acquitted themselves well and actually looked like the better team for much of their loss to Al Ahly. We discussed this game, expressed some frustration with Brian Schmetzer's substitution patterns and looked ahead to the regular season while also taking a wide range of questions from listeners.

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) Sponsor read: James Woollard