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)

The Sounders are off to one of their most exciting starts ever, improving to 2-0 after dispatching Real Salt Lake on Saturday. Jeremiah and Aaron are understandably pretty excited and love what they're seeing both in attack and on defense.

Aside from discussing some of the finer points of what makes "Highlife Soccer" they also weigh the possibility that this is the best midfield trio in MLS.

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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)

Craig Waibel took over as the Seattle Sounders' third-ever general manager during the MLS era about three months ago. Although he had previously served as the team's sporting director and as such played a significant role in the current roster build, he has put his fingerprints on the team in ways that fans don't usually see. 

Most of Waibel's work has been done behind the scenes, attempting to rebuild an office culture that took a hit during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic that led to the Sounders going 100% remote. 

One of the biggest aspects of Waibel's directive has been encouraging more in-person interaction that isn't necessarily a meeting. He keeps his office at Starfire Sports Complex rather spartan, with just a stick-figure picture that he drew himself as one of the only decorations. He says that's because he doesn't want it to feel like "his" office, as much as a place where he happens to work and anyone else is welcome to use it. 

We sat down last week for an hourlong conversation, the first half of which can be found here. The other half of the interview is being made available only to paid-subscribers to our Substack and can be found at NosAudietis.Substack.com. 

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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 Seattle Sounders and Real Salt Lake have a lot of shared history. Right now, RSL seems to be getting the better of things, having won the last four meetings (including the penalty shootout in 2021). 

Once again, we caught up with friend of the show Matt Montgomery who has recently started a new project called Wasatch Soccer Sentinel (effectively what used to be RSL Soapbox), who gives us the inside scoop.

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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 got off to a pretty awesome start to their 2023 MLS regular season. The 4-0 win over the Colorado Rapids was every bit as convincing as the score suggested and we had a ton of impressive performances, highlighted for me by Jordan Morris brace and general involvement in just about every dangerous chance the sounders had.

It's obviously just one game and the Rapids might be bad -- and were at least missing a couple starters -- but this was a very positive performance either way. Suffice it to say, we were pretty excited to talk abou this one.

Of course, we also made time to take your questions.

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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)

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

Don't worry, we understand that almost no one really wants to be talking about things like sponsorships right now. But the Seattle Sounders' decision to join forces with Providence on a wide-ranging "partnership" that also happens to include the Catholic healthcare provider's name being prominently displayed on their jerseys has made completely moving on rather difficult. Fans remain upset and the Sounders are still seeking to calm those tensions.

In the last week, the Sounders have met with ECS, the Alliance Council and other supporters' groups to at least begin the process of coming to an understanding. Similarly, they asked to talk to us and, more importantly, our audience.

Jeremiah met with Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer Taylor Graham as well as COO Maya Mendoza-Exstrom at Longacres on Monday to sort of replicate some of those conversations. 

This much was clear: the individuals who run the Sounders remain as committed as ever to championing these causes. In fact, they gave the impression that they want to put those issues even more front and center. 

For some fans, we imagine this will come as comfort. For others, it's entirely fair to question the sincerity of that commitment given Providence's positions on those causes.

We hope this interview at least gives you some of the information you need to decide for yourself.

Note: This is the first of what will become a regular series of interviews. This is available to all subscribers, but we'll likely start releasing extended cuts for paid subscribers through Substack in the next few months. 

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.