Seattle Sounders Scouting Report: In Which I Channel D.A.R.E.

D.A.R.E., still 1,000% on brand.

Yeah, yeah, up goes another post. What can I say? I get nostalgic about every regular season one or two games before it ends…

…and then I forgot every last thing about it one day after MLS Cup. I am a simple man overwhelmed by the passing of the seasons. Enough about me. Preview time.

Does it get better than two teams playing their nemesis (both on and off the field) with all kinds of things on the line? This Saturday (aturday, aturday, aturday) won’t just establish who leads and whom follows in the post-season dance, it will decide which team takes home the Cascadia Cup (still wide-open) among? the Seattle Sounders, the Vancouver Whitecaps and…your…Portland Tim-BERS! [CROWD GOING WILD! REGGAETON HORNS!!] If I’m tracking the information posted on Sounder at Heart right, fun fact, Vancouver actually has the weakest grip on the Cascadia trophy.

The math is simple for the Timbers: if Portland wins and Vancouver loses or draws at Real Salt Lake, the Timbers host the play-in game versus Vancouver and lift the Cascadia Cup to the heavens! [SOUND OF CROWD GOING WILD, REGGAETON HORNS!!] The math gets a little more complicated around Seattle, but that has more to do with the mad scramble/crash-up derby among the teams that currently sit between 5th and 7th in the West. I pulled Vancouver out of that grouping because they can’t finish any higher than 7th, but, unless my math is wrong (as always, check it) Houston Dynamo FC, the Colorado Rapids, and Minnesota United FC can finish in any order – that’s up to and including Minnesota falling to 8th place (which would happen if and only if Vancouver beats RSL and they lose at home versus St. Louis CITY FC). Bottom line, Seattle will sit in third or fourth by the end of the night regardless and,

Even if I just wrote The Great Gatsby of playoff maths, all the above counts as a massive digression from the task at hand – i.e., tallying the things to worry about against the Sounders this Saturday and/or finding the best path to prolonging the Agony of Brian Schmetzer. Let’s turn to that now…

Seattle Sounders, The Basics
Record/Top Stats: 3rd in West, 5th overall; 16-9-8, 56 pts., 50 gf, 34 ga (+16); home record: 8-2-6
Last 10 Results: WLWLWWTWWW
Home or Away: HHAAAHHHAA
I can’t say that trends or the numbers favor the Timbers: Portland took the wrong fork over their past six league games (1-2-3) while the Sounders took the good one (5-0-1), hence the 10-point gap between them; the Timbers have a crap road record (3-8-5) – one of those, a loss in Seattle back in May 2024 (that didn’t not go well) - and even on Portland’s best metric - scoring goals - Seattle has scored 14 goals over their past six games to Portland’s nine…

OMIGOD, DON'T SEARCH ULCERS!

…and yet, the ulcer Schmetzer wears on his sleeve suggests that Seattle doesn’t fully trust themselves against the Timbers. That lone May loss aside, Portland has held the upper hand in the series since the August 2021. I don’t want to oversell that, not with the Timbers coming off too many scoreless minutes and about to run headlong into the West’s second-best defense, but one can one do but grab the reed that’s closest – especially when that’s the only reed at hand? That’s the framing, let’s get on to brass tacks…

Seattle’s Lineup
Because it has recurred over three of the past four games, I feel okay calling the lineup Seattle played in their 0-1 win at Colorado last weekend their preferred starting XI. It has served them well (obviously), despite, or even because, some unfamiliar names (see below), but it thrives on a couple basic things (based on some familiarity): a consistent, generally solid defense (caveat being they gave up crap goals (one and two) versus San Jose) and an uncanny ability to find the first pass out of pressure. The latter will take some adjustment – seriously, it’s something a team can only manage, not stop - the former some overcoming, but let’s dig a little deeper with…

Talking Points
1) Aggressive Defending/Associated Risks
Whether home or away, Seattle chooses periods of the game to defend high and generally get after the ball. It’s an interesting set up, particularly with how quickly it retreats and regroups after each successive wave of pressure gets broken, and it’s particularly good at smothering a pass and exploiting balls passed into midfield. As happens, they leave vertical space any time they defend high, but their backline – anchored by Jackson Ragen and Yeimar – recovered well in every game I watched. They’ll be tough to break down, but Portland can play fast enough and should look to pull either Ragen or Yeimar wide early and often as they can. Scoring from the open-field may be the best possible approach because…

2) A Set-Piece Brick-Wall
I can’t say whether this is a season-long trend or just Seattle getting lucky...or just playing against San Jose, SKC, and Vancouver, but their collective defense did really well with clearing the space in front of the goal and staying goal-side of their runners. Just haven’t seen that for a while, possibly because…well, you know. That said, Seattle’s defense has a couple quirks….

3) About the Bookends, i.e., Seattle’s (Regular) Fullbacks
Nouhou on the left, Alex Roldan on the right: neither gets forward beyond a supporting role – Roldan, maybe by design, but Nouhou’s rarely good for stretching the field, then recycling the attack (or flailing wide) – but Nouhou ranks high among the best left back in MLS in pure defensive terms. Roldan, on the other hand, strikes me as a vulnerability, one that fits Jonathan Rodriguez particular set of skills. On the one hand, yes, I’m as bored of that approach as you are; on the other…I’d put good money on Rodriguez beating Roldan three times at a minimum ("goal two" v San Jose, linked to above, was not an isolated phenomenon). Now, for the other side of the ball…

 

There's four in every container.

4) Youth Movement
Don’t know about you, but I get a little boost every time I think about all the money and hype Seattle (has) burned (so far) on Pedro de la Vega. You can take your own trip down memory lane on that one, but he has posted literal Alex Roldan (call-back!) numbers and isn't likely to top 750 minutes total this season. That’s enough to make one wonder why Seattle didn’t just keep beating around the bushes closer to home because they have found one finger shy of a handful of useful starters that way, including Obed Vargas (19), Josh Atencio (22), Paul Rothrock (…25), and, while he’s not a homegrown player, another guy they called up from the Tacoma Defiance, Georgi Minoungou. None of those players are world-beaters by any means, but Rothrock is a smart, workhorse (running against Juan David Mosquera), who has chipped in decent numbers (5g, 2a) and half-season’s worth of minutes, Minoungou has shown real 1-v-1 ability in the few minutes he’s played, but Vargas is a damned talented No. 8 at age 19, and the barely-older Atencio steps up almost every time he steps in. Portland fans may or may not recognize those names, but don’t sigh in relief if you see them in the XI, because they’re all reliable and I've seen all of them be good.

5) The Finishing Touches
Seattle hardly lit up the scoreboard in 2024 – notably, it took those 14 goals over their past six games just to pull them level with SKC for goals scored and/or tied for 9th overall in the West – but there’s no real argument about who makes them tick: Jordan Morris (13g, 5a) and Albert Rusnak (10g, 15a). I see both players get short-shrift from Timbers fans (and even from one Sounders employee), but Rusnak’s numbers aren’t far off Riqui Puig’s, and he’s better scoring goals than Ryan Gauld and Robin Lod. As for Morris, yeah, he seems containable, but, per a smart comment from the broadcast booth during one of the games I watched for this, he’s aware of what he can and can’t do, so he does things quickly and smartly, i.e., he knows what to do when he gets a glimpsing advantage over a defender – which pairs poorly with the Timbers’ status as one of the league’s top exporters of glimpsing advantages.

There’s no getting around it: this is a big one for the Timbers – bigger than usual, even, precisely because it’s against the Sounders. If you hear too much praise for Seattle ringing in your ears, that’s just me applying D.A.R.E. methodology to the preview form: Portland needs to play like every Seattle player stands six inches taller, runs 50% faster and has magical unicorn powers in both feet. One slip is all it takes…so, what do you say you put down that joint, Johnny, before you get into methfentanyl-S.Dangel-Dust. Every mistake is a gateway, Johnny, so never make any mistakes ever again, you hear me? [Note to Phil Neville: you can totally borrow and spice up this last paragraph. If you don’t know what D.A.R.E. is, slide into my DMs…or whatever the fuck they’re called on Bluesky,.]

On to Saturday night.