The Sound and the Glory: How the Seattle Sounders Showed Major League Soccer How to Win Over America

by Matt Pentz

Overview

A unique and comprehensive look at the Seattle Sounders franchise and its storied run for the Cup

The Seattle Sounders were a sensation from the start, attracting crowds of sizes unlike any MLS team had ever seen. By the 2016 season, Seattle was averaging more than 42,000 fans per home game, the most of any soccer team in the Western Hemisphere, and more than behemoths like Chelsea F.C. and A.C. Milan overseas. But, for all of its early consistent success, Seattle had yet to actually win the league.

In order to reach the ambitious goals the club set for itself, the Sounders needed the jolt of a championship. To get there would require tumult previously unknown to a club built on stability, a clash of egos, and a title run so unlikely it could hardly have been scripted. This is a Cinderella story for all MLS fans and every Sounder at heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781773053233
Publisher:	ECW Press
Publication date:	03/05/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Matt Pentz is a Seattle-based writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and ESPN, among other publications. As an award-winning beat reporter at the Seattle Times, he covered the Sounders’ historic run to their first MLS Cup championship. This is his first book.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Sigi Schmid sat in silence in his cluttered office, staring blankly out the window when not looking down at hands creased with age.

The walls of the room were covered with photos of sweaty, jubilant soccer players, most of them lifting one silver trophy or another. To look up would mean coming to grips with all he'd accomplished here and, by extension, what he had just lost. To look up would be an admission that it was over.

The old coach had been fired once before, by his hometown L.A. Galaxy. This felt more personal, somehow. The hollow ache in his chest was more repressive than he remembered.

Seattle was supposed to be his legacy, the exclamation point on a long and storied career. In seven previous campaigns, starting with the Major League Soccer expansion season of 2009, Schmid's Sounders never once missed the playoffs. They won four U.S. Open Cups, not the league championships they craved but trophies nevertheless.

Seattle's off-field gains started with the consistent success the winningest coach in MLS history built from scratch. Yet the ultimate triumph proved elusive. To fans weaned on steady victories, the shortcomings grew more unacceptable with each passing year.

Festering frustration came to a head in the summer of 2016, midway through a season during which everything that could have gone wrong had.

After a decision that felt simultaneously abrupt and a long time coming, Schmid found himself on the wrong end of an early-morning phone call informing him of his termination. Sitting in what was now his former office, he peered out the window as the team that was no longer his walked out to practice without him.

Schmid pulled his phone out of his pocket, checked its blank face for what he hoped was an update on his ride and sighed. A gentle knock disturbed his brooding. Nicolas Lodeiro walked in with his hand outstretched before pulling Schmid in close for a hug.

"I'll do everything I can to help make the playoffs, take on any role," Lodeiro promised, prescient if a few days late to save the coach's job. "I've come here to win titles."

His boldness drew a resigned smile from Schmid: "You've come to the right place."

Schmid had personally helped recruit Seattle's new star. He'd coached the player's previous coach in Columbus back in the day, and in this business, personal touches like that could make all the difference. Lodeiro, he was sure, would turn the season around. He was the missing piece. The timing of Lodeiro's addition as an impact midseason signing was an unfortunate coincidence. That Schmid was somehow still in the building upon his arrival was considerably more awkward.

Out in the hallway, visibly uncomfortable with this exchange of pleasantries, stood general manager Garth Lagerwey. This was supposed to be a cleaner break. Lagerwey hadn't spared a thought to how it would look if the coach's ride was running late.

For a franchise often regarded as MLS's model of stability, the overlap was illustrative. Seattle's past and future eras collided often that summer, but rarely as clumsily as they did that morning. Lagerwey finally had the control he had long desired, but the transition was never going to be as straightforward as he'd hoped.

* * *

For once in his life, Lagerwey's timing was off. As such, the collision course between him and Schmid was inevitable from the outset.

When Lagerwey was hired as GM, in the winter of 2015 and away from Salt Lake, the Sounders were coming off the most successful year in their history. A few bounces the other way, and Seattle could've become the first team in league history to sweep all three major trophies in a single season. Coming in as an interloper from the outside, Lagerwey did not find an especially eager audience at staff meetings. And why would he?

Schmid was open to collaboration, more so than most of his detractors knew. Longevity like his demanded adaptability. Building trust and gaining his ear, though, took time. The coach still set the tone during meetings, and his voice carried the weight of the last word.

So far, the system had worked. Seattle's brain trust experienced only sustained success from year one. Even if they hadn't yet summited the loftiest peak, in the winter and spring of 2015 the breakthrough felt inevitable.

"It was stupid," Lagerwey said, "to take the job when I did."

Of all the adjectives used to describe the general manager, not even his biggest critics often reach for stupid. Even they would allow that despite his faults, Lagerwey possessed one of the sharpest minds in North American soccer. One does not jump directly from the Miami Fusion's bench into Georgetown law school without a seriously keen intellect. From Georgetown came a spell as an attorney at Latham & Watkins, the world's highest-billing law firm. The work was as punishing — up to 100 hours a week — as it was lucrative. Lagerwey would later regard his time in corporate law as the formative experience of his life.

Still, seven years after his goalkeeping career ended with the indignity of a roster cut, Lagerwey wasn't entirely content. He wanted back into the world of professional sports. His big break came over Christmas 2006, wrapped in the unlikely present of a request to work through the holidays. The case involved working closely with Dave Checketts, the owner of both the NHL's St. Louis Blues and MLS's Real Salt Lake. The latter connection especially piqued Lagerwey's interest — particularly once RSL hired Jason Kreis, his best friend and former Duke teammate, as its head coach early the next year.

"Life, to some degree, is about luck and timing," Lagerwey said.

That September, Lagerwey signed on as RSL's general manager. He could have hardly scripted a better situation within which to hone his new craft. He and Kreis inherited a club just a few years into its existence and perennially among the dregs of the league. Expectations were low, allowing them to experiment freely and churn through players with abandon. By the time both men left Salt Lake, the small-market club had won the MLS Cup, played in another title game and reached the final of the CONCACAF Champions League.

So for all Lagerwey was willing to sit back and observe early on in his Sounders tenure, eventually his confidence in his ideas and willingness to share them won out over decorum.

A heavyset man with a booming voice, Lagerwey filled every room he entered. He had a knack for remembering personal details from even the briefest encounters with strangers; he also had a tendency to dominate conversation. He's the type of sports executive you would like to grab a beer with: a native of the Chicago suburbs, Lagerwey once proudly traded his typical business casual for a Cubs jersey on the sidelines of a training session that overlapped with the World Series.

The contrast with his predecessor was jarring to those accustomed to the front office's status quo. Hanauer was the general manager from the club's inception until late 2014, when the majority owner stepped aside to concentrate on the business side of the organization. Soft-spoken and bookish in his wire-rimmed glasses, Hanauer could hardly be more different in personality from the boisterous Lagerwey.

"Adrian is a really good listener," Schmid said, the subtext nodding toward Lagerwey obvious. "He'll listen. He'll take it in and contemplate it. I think Adrian and I knew what lane to stay in. That didn't mean you didn't comment on the other guy's greater area of expertise, and you offered your opinion. But at the end, you knew that that was his decision-making lane."

With Lagerwey in the fold, responsibilities were less delineated. The 2015 season fell apart in the span of a few hours midway through June, and tension ratcheted up behind the scenes. Star forward Obafemi Martins left a fateful Open Cup match against rival Portland on a stretcher with a groin injury that cost him two months. Later in that same game, Clint Dempsey ripped up the referee's notebook in protest and picked up a suspension. Without its two best players, Seattle cratered, losing eight of 10 matches. Every defeat increased the strain.

There wasn't an obvious flashpoint in the struggle for power between Schmid and Lagerwey, narratively convenient as that would have been. It played out more as a cold war, distrust creeping between two successful men tasked with leading the franchise.

In his corner, Lagerwey retreated to the places he often sought when confronted with a complex problem.

When he first went back to school, Lagerwey would doze off between the wood-paneled bookshelves of Georgetown's law library after just a few hours of studying. As a professional athlete, his body had grown accustomed to stimuli in short, intense bursts. He was forced to retrain his brain. Later, at Latham & Watkins, he pushed himself to levels he never would have imagined.

"I learned certain things," Lagerwey said. "After 45 straight hours, my cognitive abilities would decline. You stop being able to do simple things easily. You never thought you would discover that point. Maybe at a bar."

He marveled at the style of management that would drive subordinates to their respective breaking points. Sure, the fat checks paid out every other week served as plenty of motivation, but Lagerwey also grew to deeply respect the executives in their corner offices for their ability to inspire.

"It wasn't fun," Lagerwey said. "Like, it might be intellectually interesting to explore. I can no longer read this note in front of me. My brain is shutting down. But from that, I learned so much and actually had so many good experiences."

As such, Lagerwey didn't always have a lot of patience for players and colleagues either unwilling or unable to push themselves toward those outer limits. The former attorney spoke often about applying the lessons he learned in corporate law to professional sports. That could involve an increased reliance on analytics produced by Seattle's well-regarded sports science staff. It manifested itself in buzzwords like empowerment and accountability.

There was a detached lack of sentimentality to it as well. Lagerwey purposefully kept himself at a slight remove from his players to avoid emotion clouding his judgment. Having been blooded in such a cutthroat environment, he did not shy away from making the tough calls, even when — or perhaps especially when — they involved veterans beloved both by teammates and fans.

"That's the job. You have to be able to do that," Lagerwey said. "Some of those decisions are even going to be unpopular internally."

Internally might have referred to the delicate chemistry of the locker room. It could also have meant the cramped coaches' meeting space a few doors down.

The Sounders dragged themselves into the playoffs once more in 2015, but they didn't stay long. A younger, ascendant FC Dallas team ran rings around them for the better part of their two-game Western Conference semifinal. Seattle was eliminated on penalty kicks. Familiar grumbling increased in volume. And within the club hierarchy, divisions deepened.

* * *

As rewarding as professional sport could be, financially and otherwise, it was also a brutal workplace. Even when the ax was about to drop, the athlete didn't always sense it swinging down.

Chad Barrett drove to the team's practice facility in late 2015 optimistic that his Sounders contract would be renewed for another year. The journeyman forward had been reasonably productive in spot duty during the season that'd just ended. Considering his age and experience, the $10,000 raise he was due on his $100,000 salary was paltry by MLS standards.

The leaves were falling ahead of the coming winter when he pulled into a sparsely populated lot. The cars he parked next to unnerved him. End-of-season meetings were typically called in waves. Players on their way out were often brought in earliest. So when Barrett spotted several automobiles that belonged to expensive veterans he knew were in danger of being cut, he felt a cold chill.

Barrett had known Schmid since he was a teenager. Schmid coached the U.S. under-20 team at the 2005 World Youth Championship, during which Barrett scored the goal that felled an Argentina team led by an up-and-coming prospect named Lionel Messi.

When Barrett considered signing with the Sounders prior to the 2014 season, Schmid didn't sugarcoat it: With Dempsey and Martins ahead of him on the depth chart, playing time was likely to be sparse. If he was willing to take and embrace a complementary role, though, he was more than welcome.

"He's the most honest coach I ever played for," Barrett said of Schmid. "I felt like I could trust everything that came out of his mouth."

What came out of Schmid's mouth that morning in his office was unexpected and unpleasant: "I don't want to waste your time. We've got to let you go."

Barrett slumped down the hall for an even briefer meeting with Lagerwey. The player could stay if he agreed to a significant pay cut, which he quickly declined. Sitting across the desk from the man he was convinced made the decision to let him go, Barrett seethed in his leather chair. He also privately wondered how differently it might have gone if Hanauer were still in charge.

"With Adrian, it didn't seem like he was scheming," Barrett said. "With Garth, you never really knew what he was up to. You can't really form any kind of relationship. I didn't have a relationship with Garth."

The unemotional approach Lagerwey deemed necessary grated at Schmid, driving a further wedge into their working relationship.

To some degree, head coaches and general managers are inherently, inescapably at odds. At the risk of oversimplification, coaches live in the short term, surviving from week to week. General managers must take a longer view. It's subjective versus objective, hands on versus at arm's length.

"I'm not in the locker room most days, and nor should I be, in my opinion," Lagerwey said. "My job is to be thinking strategically about how we do things for the next five to seven years. The coach and the general manager have fundamentally different jobs."

When it came to building a team, those fundamental differences clashed. Coaches tended to trust players more as they aged. In a high-stress job in which either success or failure is written in bold on the scoreboard every week, there was a tendency to lean on veterans you knew you could trust. At the other end of the spectrum, general managers valued players less as they got older. Removed from the guts and gore of the week-to-week grind, when viewed on a spreadsheet, Lagerwey would always rather his teams skew younger.

"Older players, by definition, their production is going to decline at some point," Lagerwey said. "And you tend to be paying them more. Players are assets when you talk about trades and building your team. You have to use them efficiently."

Sitting in the coaches' box at CenturyLink Field looking down over his charges in early 2017, Lagerwey asked what was at first a puzzling question: are you a Game of Thrones fan?

Lamar Neagle, a popular winger who with Barrett was part of that first wave of Sounders veterans to be culled during Lagerwey's tenure, was a hometown kid from nearby Federal Way. The winger was active in the community and often the friendly face the club sent out to photo ops with diehard fans. His wife, Natalie, was also from the area, and she survived a public health scare during the 2014 playoffs that further endeared the couple to fans. They put a positive spin on his trade to D.C. United, at least at first — at least until she found out she was pregnant shortly after they moved into their new apartment across the country from their families.

Looking back now and with the same unshakable sunniness with which he approaches just about everything, Lagerwey offered only a bemused shrug. Business was business, Neagle was getting older, and he needed the cap space.

Are you a Game of Thrones fan? You know the kill list of enemies Arya Stark read before she went to bed?

"I bet you anything I'm on the list of names Lamar Neagle reads from every night," Lagerwey said while keeping his eyes on the match playing out below. "You can't go through this job worrying about being liked, because that's not going to happen."

The kicker: a few months after that conversation in the coaches' box, Lagerwey traded with D.C. to bring Neagle back to Seattle — at the far lesser price of a fourth-round draft pick than the valuable allocation money D.C. used to acquire him.

Business was business.

* * *

Schmid's final off-season in Seattle was troubled from the start. It wasn't even certain that he would return for 2016 after that discouraging Dallas defeat until Lagerwey let the news slip during a forum with Sounders season-ticket holders.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Sound and the Glory"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Matt Pentz.
Excerpted by permission of ECW PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

Sure to be snapped up by the same enthusiastic crowds that pack the stands for Sounders games, this book will also appeal to general soccer fans, as well as anyone interested in the inner workings of a successful sports franchise.” — Publishers Weekly

“A fascinating read looking at the Sounders rise from the inside during their season of glory, on and off the field ... This is a book that anyone who cares about the future of the sport in this country can savour and learn from.” — Roger Bennett, Men in Blazers podcast

From the Publisher