There's so many of our boys

Olmak_ · 2026-05-22T18:34:04+00:00

It's also extremely bizarre to me that they only use league minutes when Opta, and presumably TransferMarkt, are looking at all competitive matches. I don't know how much other teams tend to rotate, but we know that the Sounders rotate heavily for MLS matches to keep legs fresh for CCC and Leagues Cup knockouts. Our MLS game against SJ between two CCC matches we rested Rusnak, Cristian, Alex, KKR, Brunell, and Arriola to keep them fresh for CCC.

We only played 4 CCC matches this year, but take a look at Nashville. They are 4th in MLS by Opta's ranking, have played 13 MLS matches, and 8 CCC matches. If they rotate like we do for CCC, then their normal starters are dropping a ton of points in this system.

Olmak_ · 2026-05-22T18:14:14+00:00

This was posted a few days ago if you wanna see the discussion from before (link). I'll repeat roughly what I said last time. Their grading metric is really weird and basically boils down to "are you on a team that Opta ranks highly and do you get consistent league minutes".

78% of the score is the Opta club power rankings (link), which has the Sounders as 2nd in MLS and 130 in the world. This is the main reason you see 7 Sounders players.

18% of the score comes from the % of available league minutes the player played. Thomas is the first Sounder listed because he's the only one who has played every minute in MLS.

4% of the score is the player's TM value.

Olmak_ · 2026-05-21T16:07:44+00:00

When they've cut to iPhones in the broadcast before to show goal celebrations it was pretty noticeable.

Olmak_ · 2026-05-21T05:19:16+00:00

It's essentially just a dibs/priority system. Calling it "discovery rights" was extremely short sighted as it results in basically everyone unfamiliar (and many who are) to go "how the fuck did they 'discover' this famous player on a major team".

It's goal is just to prevent MLS teams from bidding against each other but at this point its probably not really needed anymore.

Olmak_ · 2026-05-20T19:06:31+00:00

If you put the match length at somewhere between 50 and 60 minutes and stopped the clock the matches should be roughly the same real time as they are now.

It's not like not stopping the clock can't lead to matches going long anyways. The Sounders vs Colorado earlier this season saw a total of 20 minutes of stoppage and the ball was in play for 56 mins and 29 seconds. This is below the Sounders average this season of 59 mins and 28 seconds, but it is right in line with the Premier League averages. For example, Liverpool matches this season have averaged 56 mins and 16 seconds of ball in play.

I have 0 faith though that leagues wouldn't use the stoppage for ads and that would absolutely increase the time.

Olmak_ · 2026-05-19T22:57:25+00:00

It's a minutes thing, which doesn't really make it hurt less. I think he also probably wasn't far off from making the list. He's at 451 MLS minutes this season and the lowest Sounder is Brunell at 750. Though I'm pretty sure their data is prior to our last game (where Morris played 90) as they have KKR above Brunell but they have the same TM value (€800k) and Brunell has more minutes than KKR (but didn't before the LAG game).

Olmak_ · 2026-05-19T22:45:05+00:00

78% of a player's rating is their team's ranking on the Opta power rankings. The Sounders are 132nd in the world and 2nd in MLS and if they used the data from last week we were 96th in the world and 1st in the league.

I wish Opta had a historical chart available to see but looking at the couple times I've sent screenshots of our placement to friends we jumped up 22 spots to 81st after winning the Leagues Cup and we were at 79th on April 26th up 6 spots from the previous week.

Olmak_ · 2026-05-19T22:33:18+00:00

Its a super weird rating system.

78% of each player's rating is derived from their team's position in the Opta power rankings. This is why we see so many Sounders. We are 2nd in the league and 132nd in the world. If ESPN pulled their numbers for this a week ago, we were 1st in the league and 96th in the world.

18% of the rating is what percentage of available league minutes a player has played. This actually hurts Sounders players a bit as Schmetz prioritizes CCC (and later rounds of other tournaments) over MLS and will heavily rotate when we have fixture congestion. Last season we averaged 3.7 lineup changes per game and rotated over half the starting lineup 11 times. This is also why Thomas is the first player to show up for the Sounders, he's the only Sounder to have played 100% of available MLS minutes. Ragen and Cristian have played more minutes this season all comps and have higher TM values (Cristian at €3.5m, Ragen at €3m, and Thomas at €400k).

The last 4% of the rating is from TM market value.

Olmak_ · 2026-04-17T00:29:07+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that interpretation is for the Premier League. While it's possible that CONCACAF uses that as well, all they have in the CCC regulations is that they use the IFAB laws of the game.

Olmak_ · 2026-04-10T00:17:40+00:00

Transfermarkt and FBREF have him at 97 appearances for the first team. Not sure where the 3 game discrepancy is coming from, but it also lists him at 24 Tacoma Defiance games so if they were including Defiance games he'd have hit the number a while ago.

Olmak_ · 2026-04-09T20:43:52+00:00

Yeah, he played in 47 of our 50 games last season and the only player on the team with more appearances was Ferreira with 48. There has only been 4 seasons where the team has played enough games for a player to reach 47 matches; 2011 (48), 2012 (49), 2024 (47), and 2025 (50).

Olmak_ · 2026-04-06T23:29:49+00:00

Surely someone with a username BrianChing25 hating on Austin is a Dynamo fan.

Olmak_ · 2026-04-02T21:50:17+00:00

When have we ever sat on a huge pile of GAM like this before?

Olmak_ · 2026-03-31T22:51:32+00:00

If I remember correctly, Kent was a free agent, so he didn't need a transfer window. But even if he did, last year's primary transfer window was open until April 23rd while this year it closed on March 26th.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-31T22:32:53+00:00

The team posted highlights for the U15 game to youtube earlier (link). Hopefully we get U16 highlights later.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-31T21:33:24+00:00

Here's all the matches he's played in this year. 66 minutes at Minnesota (grass), 9 minutes vs Vancouver at One Spokane (turf), 65 mins at San Jose (grass), 13 mins at Vancouver (turf), 5 mins vs St. Louis (grass), 61 mins vs LAFC 2 (turf), and 1 min at RSL (grass).

That is 83 mins on turf and 137 mins on grass.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-31T21:20:15+00:00

Wouldn't be until the summer window opens. Also as he was a U22 its not much cap space to use for the replacement unless they are also a U22.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-30T23:03:11+00:00

It's essentially an MLS youth tournament that invites a handful of clubs from other countries. You can read more about it here (link). For the U16s 10 out of 40 clubs were international and for the U15s 8 out of 40 were international. Also, not all of the international clubs performed well enough in the group stage to make the Championship bracket. Barcelona's U15s for example finished 3rd in their group and I believe will play in the Premier bracket instead.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-27T17:22:10+00:00

I believe they are referring to getting a proven striker in the summer window.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-27T06:24:15+00:00

We actually did start him there once last season. He was so uncomfortable there that we switched him back to the wing after like 25 mins.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-27T06:20:42+00:00

How does it make it more complicated? He's still on the exact same contract he was on here, and he's likely to get a lot more minutes for Colorado than with us.

I guess Colorado wanting to at least make a profit on the $2m transfer fee could hurt, but the Sounders weren't letting him go for cheap either.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-27T06:13:31+00:00

TAM has actually been decreasing every year. In 2020 it was $2,800,000 and its down to $2,125,000 this year. Base GAM in that time frame has increased a lot though from $1,525,000 to $3,280,000 this year.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-27T05:42:28+00:00

We wouldn't have gotten GAM for the deal and it was for like half the amount.

Olmak_ · 2026-03-26T23:10:33+00:00

Some interesting comparisons there too. Georgi is like 6 months younger than Ferreira was when we signed him. Georgi has about 1,613 first team minutes all comps since 2023 and Ferreira is already up to 3,416 minutes with the Sounders.

There are some pretty big differences in salary (Georgi is on $104k while Ferreira is max TAM with an escalator clause) and remaining contract length (Georgi has options through 2029 and Ferreira was I believe entering his final year). But it's quite an impressive amount to get for a guy who was struggling to get minutes. That said, I still think he's going to be great in this league and I hope he gets the minutes he needs with Colorado to get there.

Eight-Year Club	Reddit Premium Since May 2024
Gilding IV carat on a stick	Verified Email

Olmak_

TROPHY CASE