The Flounders B-Team Flounders B-Team Productions

We’re joined this week by Niko Moreno (@ELROLONW on Twitter) editor at Pulso Sports Network and Sounder at Heart contributor. Niko’s connections to the scouting side of the soccer landscape as well as his relationships with players from all over the league lend an interesting perspective to the current off season of Major League Soccer. 

We start off by talking about the move of Sporting Director and VP of Soccer Chris Henderson to Inter Miami where he will take over a similar role for the second year expansion side. The Sounders will have a big hole to fill in their scouting department and we discuss the successes that Henderson had with player acquisitions over the years and who will be filling the void left by Henderson’s departure for the Sounders. Will there be a gap in talent coming to the Sounders as players divert to Miami? We speculate a bit on what the future holds.

But will we even have a MLS season this year? Thursday night saw the 30 day negotiating window set by the league expire after invoking the force majeure clause that was put into the CBA last summer before play returned last July. MLSPA sent their own offer to league that was rejected despite the concessions that players presented. The league has since extended the bargaining window by another week and has threatened a lock out of players if no agreement is reached. Despite the uncertainty, the Sounders have re-signed a couple of familiar faces from last season in Jimmy Medranda and Stef Cleveland. Federal Way native Kelyn Rowe was also announced as a new signing by the team, joining the Sounders as a free agent from the New England Revolution. How will these players affect the formations that the Sounders roll out in 2021? Are we going to see a return to a 4-4-2 or even a 3-5-2? 

Niko Moreno was able to get a candid interview with Nico Lodeiro, current captain and midfielder for the Sounders. The two discussed Lodeiro’s concerns about the state of the Sounders, Chris Henderson’s department, Jordin Morris’ move to the English Championship where he joined Swansea, and what 2021 looks like for the Sounders without the young winger. The conversation can be found on Sounder At Heart here: https://www.sounderatheart.com/2021/2/1/22259777/nicolas-lodeiro-reflects-on-jordan-morris-departure. We mix in a little roster speculation and where there might be some untapped areas for some prospective talent.

We finish the show with some listener questions collected from the Channel 253 member Slack and Twitter.

Pool Presser with Garth Lagerwey here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upANxZMkn7Y

Regular featured cast:

@muffintopmodel Tim Hamilton

@podfish Steve Ketelsen

@jm_murf John Murphy

@nate_bowling Nathan Bowling (emeritus & occasional)

@cm_peterson Cat Peterson (hiatus)

Please tell your friends and SUBSCRIBE! on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or touch the RSS feed link below to add us to your favorite podcast app.

This production of the Flounders B-Team is released under the Creative Commons 3.0 International Share-Alike Attribution License. Please use our stuff! Just tell folks where you got it!
Channel 253 read background music: Sro — Self Driving, provided by a CC-BY-SA license.

Opening/closing theme is a parody of the opening theme from the A-Team (c)1984 Silva America.

Check out Channel 253’s other amazing podcasts at https://channel253.com and BECOME A MEMBER for only $4/month to get access to special member benefits & events! (Support local new media.)

Thanks for listening, and see you in the terraces! (Wash your hands and wear a mask!)

We keep rolling along with our 2020 roundup and focus in on OL Reign and the NWSL. Joining us this week are Susie Rantz (@susierants), Sounder at Heart contributor and co-host of the Coffee & Valkyries Podcast, and Andrew Harvey (@soccervox), communications manager for OL Reign and broadcast voice for the Tacoma Defiance, Tacoma Stars, Seattle Pacific University Men’s Team, Seattle University Men’s Soccer, and University of Washington’s Men’s and Women’s Soccer Teams.

We’re back! After a long delay due to COVID-19, nationwide protests for racial justice, and the attempted overthrow of one of our branches of government, we start off strong with Dave Clark, broadcast voice for the Tacoma Defiance and Sounder at Heart contributor, recapping the challenges faced by both the Defiance and the Sounders in 2020 during their respective seasons. Dave also writes about Dungeons & Dragons on his blog, Full Moon Storytelling, including a very interesting write-up on how to incorporate sports play into your D&D game.
The MLS is Back Tournament (or the COVID Cup as we so lovingly dubbed it) was conducted in Orlando from July 8 – August 11 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. While overall the tournament can be viewed as a successful employment of the “bubble” format we saw throughout professional sports including the NWSL (first successful league to “bubble” in Herriman, UT) and the NBA (also in Orlando at the WWofS). MLS would also return to play post MLS is Back tournament in a regional format that was intended to minimize travel for teams due to the soaring COVID-19 infection rates nationwide. We discuss the challenges of the return to play, the things we missed the most, and how young player development was affected due to the difference in safety protocols between MLS and the USL Championship.
What are the teams’ needs as we head into 2021? The Sounders did not activate options on a lot of players that have been key components for the team over the past few seasons leaving some obvious, and maybe not so obvious, holes in the roster. We also discuss the success of the Sounders as an org in the following of COVID-19 procedures in comparison to other leagues and other teams in Washington. Also, Schmetz is staying put in Seattle and it appears Gonzo Pineda is as well after being on the short list to take over for DC United. We discuss the merits of Brian Schmetzer and his importance to the Sounders organization and their success since he took over as head coach.
We close it out with our best/worst case scenarios in regard to the upcoming 2021 season.
Regular featured cast:
@muffintopmodel Tim Hamilton
@podfish Steve Ketelsen
@jm_murf John Murphy
@nate_bowling Nathan Bowling (emeritus & occasional)
@cm_peterson Cat Peterson (hiatus)
Please tell your friends and SUBSCRIBE! on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or touch the RSS feed link below to add us to your favorite podcast app.
This production of the Flounders B-Team is released under the Creative Commons 3.0 International Share-Alike Attribution License. Please use our stuff! Just tell folks where you got it!
Opening/closing theme is a parody of the opening theme from the A-Team (c)1984 Silva America.
Check out Channel 253’s other amazing podcasts at https://channel253.com and BECOME A MEMBER for only $4/month to get access to special member benefits & events! (Support local new media.)
Thanks for listening, and see you in the terraces (hopefully!)!

For our first really-real show of the year, we have two of our favorite people. Erik Hanberg, Podcast Uncle/Executive Producer for Channel 253 and 10-year Member of the Board of Directors for Metro Parks Tacoma joins us to talk about the Tacoma Soccer-Specific Stadium that Soccer Club of Tacoma hopes to build to provide a permanent home for Tacoma Defiance and Reign FC.

To many this sounds like a no-brainer — in either direction. Why is this stadium important for Tacoma? What are the challenges? Why does public funding make sense? Beyond the public process, what are the obstacles to getting this deal done? And, ultimately, why is it a good idea for Tacoma, and who gets to decide?

Then we have some fun with Niko Moreno from Pulso Sports Network! We talk about changes to the first team over the off-season, how they will impact the Sounders’ CONCACAF Champions League run, and what we should expect to see from our boys in Tacoma this year. We also talk about what’s happening on a new joint project!

To celebrate the kickoff of @FloundersBTeam’s fourth season(!) we invited Dave Clark from the Tacoma Defiance (and Sounder at Heart fame). We talk a little bit about his history, how he got his dream job here in Tacoma, what it took to build the premier media outlet @SounderAtHeart on SB Nation.

What’s in store for the Defiance this year? Will we get all the hardware? Why is everyone worried about CCL? What is the proper order of beer taps at your local sports bar?

Then we close out with a rundown of our favorite Tacoma cultural spots… All this and more on the Flounders B-Team!

Stay tuned this year, we’ve got a lot coming—including a new partnership with an up and coming new media outlet…

Special thanks to our friends at TAPCO, Tacoma’s first credit union!

We had some big news today in Tacoma! Andrew and Steve were pleased to join with the Nerd Farmer Podcast at the official press conference held at #EstadioCheney. Olympique Lyonnais (uh-lim-PEEK lee-yuh-NAY), arguably the best football organization on the planet for equity and quality, have acquired majority ownership in Reign FC. Bill & Theresa Predmore maintain a minor share as well as day-to-day executive operation of the club and the Reign Academy, respectively.

What did the B-Team and the Nerd Farmer think of the festivities today? As Aerosmith used to say (sorry millenials) Just Press Play…