Hello Sunshine and welcome to a special edition of the

State of the Union Podcast, an interview, I talk, a chat with a wonderful man, a

wonderful man and a great coach. Brian Schmetzer are the coach of the Seattle Sounders.

Brian thank you so much for joining us today.

All right let's get right into it.

I was talking to Bob Bradley last week and the interesting thing is with all the

talk of 2020 in the pandemic, one of the few constants or the normal part of that year, the little normal part of the year, was preseason.

So how is preseason in the age of COVID relative to previous pre-season, obviously this year when you guys are in

pre-season right now?

Well, the biggest thing was our decision not to travel as much as we would have in years past.

And, you know, Alexi, you got to, you know, the players, they, they, some of them have families and kids and some of them like the concentration and you know how

you plan your pre-season those bonding moments when you have your team together for the first time

and you're doing you're doing silly little things to get them all together on the same

page it's been a challenge and you know part of the part of the conversation I've

had is I say,

okay, yeah, maybe we're not going somewhere

and playing these games and having training sessions

and then you put your feet up in your hotel room,

then you go for a second session or

waits or whatever it's not normal for them but I tell them I say but the

benefit is you guys can go home and you know sleep in your own bed at night and you know you can get up

with your kids in the morning and stuff like that so we've tried to balance you know what

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