Level Set 20, Seattle Sounders: The Kristoffersons of MLS

Good at everything, etc., but mostly defense.

What follows is a brief history of the Seattle Sounders, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

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The Seattle Sounders have missed the playoffs just three times since joining MLS in 2009 – and, here, “missing the playoffs” includes falling out at any point before the conference quarterfinals (though they did whiff entirely in 2022) – and their haul of trophies makes them the second-best team of the past decade on the Joy Points Scale*. Only Los Angeles FC tops them over that period (though not all time…wait for it…). That hits closer to home for Timbers fan, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Smart first-season signings laid the foundation for that success: think everything from Jhon Kennedy Hurtado from Colombia, Sebastian Le Toux from the USL, and most important for me (because I obsess over the No. 6/No. 8 area), midfield wrecker Osvaldo Alonso (from one of the many in-tournament defections from a visiting Cuban team). Throw in a smart reclamation or two from the Expansion Draft – all-time utility-player great Brad Evans stood out – add a good first DP (Colombian forward Fredy Montero), put it all under a road-tested, road-approved MLS head coach like Sigi Schmid, and the Sounders had themselves a team. They made the playoffs both from the jump, then season after season, including percolating into the semifinals by their third season (2012; not easy, even even in the multi-DP era) and returning again in 2014. Those “blurps” into the big time followed from more smart signings – e.g., DP winger/midfielder Mauro Rosales and then-USMNT-regular Eddie Johnson in 2012, then USMNT fixture Clint Dempsey and the bustling Nigerian, Obafemi Martins in 2014 – and letting them cook without a care in the world in front of one of the Sounders’ many (insanely) reliable defenses. It was raining trophies from there (hallelujah): the Supporters’ Shield in 2014 (amen), then an MLS Cup in 2016 (amen) and another, better one in 2019 (amen; also, MLS Cup 2016 almost put me off soccer). Whether one starts that run in 2014 or 2016, that makes Seattle MLS’s fourth Shadynasty, after late 1990s DC United, early-to-mid-2000s San Jose/Houston, and the LA Galaxy teams from the first half of 2010s. Beyond the names listed above, Seattle owes that success to having smart succession plans plan for game-winning talent – e.g., just one season separates Morales’ departure from the arrival Nicolas Lodeiro (a better DP, frankly); they only burned one season of riding Dempsey’s aging knees and a mish-mash of attacking half-solutions before calling in Raul Ruidiaz (2018) to boost the next generation of attacking players (e.g., Jordan Morris) and the next round of journeyman (e.g., Will Bruin); Kim Kee-Hee took over the defense after MLS legend/monster Chad Marshall retired (2018?) and Roman Torres couldn’t step onto the field often enough, and Yeimar cane in after him. It even applies at the coaching level - Brian Schmetzer replaced Schmid after 2016 and he’s been there ever since and with very little cause to leave. The Sounders have never really fallen behind, on or off the field. After eight trophies over 16 seasons, one more thing sets them apart: they won MLS’s first, and only, “real” CONCACAF Champions’ title in 2022. (With all the respect in the world to the 1998 DC team and the 2000 LA Galaxy team, I think it took those teams winning for Liga MX to take that tourney seriously again). And, finally, maybe even fittingly, Seattle is just one of three teams to win three straight U.S. Open Cups (the other three: Fall River F.C. 1929-1931; Stix, Baer and Fuller 1933-1934 (does it even count if it’s over two legs? New Bedford Whalers second the "yes" motion); Greek American AA (1967-69). That’s one hell of a tradition to hold up and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’d like to see them drop it for five, six seasons. Time in the wilderness builds character for both a team and a fanbase.

Level Set 18, Columbus Crew: The Hottest Ticket in Flyover Country

It is hard to explain what this meant at the time. Seriously.

What follows is a brief history of the Columbus Crew, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

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Don’t let the(/the greatest) flyover state thing fool you: the Columbus Crew (which I type as “Columbus Screw” 75% of the time), have long had a knack for signing exotic players. They’ve signed their share of guys who fit the working-class image of their original crest (faceless, but the crossed arms suggest the cat-calls) – e.g., Brian McBride stands out there, but they also got great mileage out of Josh Williams, Chad Marshall, Jonathan Mensah and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Artur and, briefly, Aidan Morris – but they put their stamp on league history through guys like Guillermo Barros-Schelotto, Lucas Zelarayan and, most recently, Cucho Hernandez. Toiling under the shadow of the early greats, DC United, the Los Angeles Galaxy and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago Fire and Sporting Kansas City, the Crew spent most of their first decade bumping against other teams’ achievements. They yanked a Supporters’ Shield out of their asses in 2004, but they also missed the playoffs five times between 2000 and 2007 and felt the sting of the Wooden Spoon in 2006. A mere two seasons later, though, Columbus became the smoothest, smartest team in MLS. Coached by Sigi Schmid, guided by Schelotto and back-stopped by a (hey!) working-class defense and midfield built around Marshall, Brian Carroll, and Brad Evans – incidentally, all players who would go on to anchor the all-time great expansion team (Seattle; it’s Seattle) – the Crew picked up the double in 2008, plus another Supporters’ Shield in 2009. They’d cracked a unique approach to the designated player code: finding great talents that few people States-side had heard of. And it paid off smartly until it abruptly did not – or at least until they re-learned the old trick. Between 2012 and 2022, Columbus missed the playoffs as many times as they made them and, despite being the home to the first (and, fair point, super-basic) soccer-specific stadium in MLS history, Columbus barely survived a bid to relocate the team after the 2018 season. The fans pulled together to fight that off in a way that still inspires and, a couple seasons later, Columbus reclaimed their crown as the best team between the coasts in Major League Soccer. They won two more MLS Cups – one in 2020 (aka, The Weird Season; look at the freakin' attendance) and again in 2023, both games at a saucy stroll – and they might have had one more trophy had they not screwed themselves over in MLS Cup 2015 (see: Clark, Steve and Valeri, Diego). For all their failures, and they’ve had a few, Columbus does have a bless’d eye for spotting talent. Checking their all-time roster and scrolling down is a genuinely worthwhile exercise, if just to see all the names that (arguably, in some cases) became more famous on other teams around the league. Per the Joy Points Scale*, Columbus remains one of the most successful teams in MLS history and all of the various powers-that-be that have guided them through damn near three decades’ worth of history deserve credit for accomplishing everything that they did in a…let’s go with unexpected market.

Getting Reacquainted with the Seattle Sounders, the Kristoffersons of MLS

It's the way they make it look easy, honestly.

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The Seattle Sounders have missed the playoffs just twice since joining MLS in 2009  – and, here, “missing the playoffs” includes falling out at any point before the last eight teams wild card slot to qualify. Their haul of trophies makes them the second-best team of the past decade on the Joy Points Scale* – only Los Angeles FC tops them over that period (though not all time…wait for it…) – and, sure, that hits closer to him as a Timbers fan, but it doesn’t make it any less true. The question is how they pulled that off. It started with smart first-season signings – think everyone from Jhon Kennedy Hurtado from Colombia, Sebastian Le Toux from the USL, and most important for me, midfield wrecker Osvaldo Alonso, from one of the many in-tournament defections from a visiting Cuban team. After throwing in a smart reclamation or two from the Expansion Draft – all-time utility-player great Brad Evans stood out – adding their first DP (Swedish midfielder Freddie Ljungberg) and putting it all under a road-tested, road-approved MLS head coach like Sigi Schmid, the Sounders had themselves a team. They made the playoffs both from the jump, then season after season. They percolated into the semifinals by their third (2012) – still not an easy thing, even in the multi-DP era – and returned again in 2014. Those first two little “blurps” into the big time followed from signing league-leading attacking pieces – e.g., DP winger/midfielder Mauro Rosales and then-USMNT-regular Eddie Johnson in 2012, then USMNT fixture Clint Dempsey and the bustling Nigerian, Obafemi Martins in 2014 – and letting them cook without a care in the world in front of one of the Sounders’ many (insanely) reliable defenses. And then came the trophies: the Supporters’ Shield in 2014, then an MLS Cup in 2016 and another, better one in 2019 (MLS Cup 2016 almost put me off soccer). The Sounders had already won three U.S. Open Cups before 2016 and they’d compete in two more MLS Cups before 2020. Whether one starts that run in 2014 or 2016, it made Seattle the fourth Shadynasty in MLS history – i.e., late 1990s DC United first, then the San Jose/Houston teams of the early-to-mid 2000s, followed by the LA Galaxy from the first half of 2010s, then Seattle – and, again, they never really came down. Mapping out the succession of talent does a good job of explaining how all this worked: for instance, only one season separates the departure of DP midfielder Mauro Morales and the arrival of (improved) DP midfielder Nicloas Lodeiro (in 2016); they only burned one season of riding Dempsey’s aging knees and a mish-mash of attacking half-solutions before calling in Raul Ruidiaz (2018) to boost the next generation of attacking players (e.g., Jordan Morris) and the next round of journeyman (e.g., Will Bruin); Kim Kee-Hee took over the defense after MLS legend/monster Chad Marshall retired (2018?) and Roman Torres couldn’t step onto the field often enough, and Yeimar cane in after him. It even applies at the coaching level - Brian Schmetzer replaced Schmid after 2016 and he’s been there every since, with very little cause to leave – and that’s what separates the Sounders from the most MLS teams: they simply have yet to fall behind, on or off the field. That’s how a team wins eight trophies in 16 seasons in MLS, including the league’s first‑ever CONCACAF Champions’ League trophy in 2022. I’ve been waiting for the collapse, believe me, but I haven’t seen it either.

Total Joy Points: 50

Getting Reacquainted with Columbus Crew SC, MLS's Kings of the Inside Straight

An inside straight, in human form.

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They may come from a(/the greatest) flyover state, but the Columbus Crew, now Columbus Crew SC (a name that launched a thousand typos, e.g., “Columbus Screw”), have long had a knack for signing exotic players. Like any MLS side, they’ve signed plenty of guys who fit the working-class image of their original crest (faceless, yet somehow still leering construction workers) – e.g., Brian McBride stands out there, but they also got good seasons/mileage out of Josh Williams, Chad Marshall, Jonathan Mensah and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Artur and, briefly, Aidan Morris – but they put their stamp on league history through guys like Guillermo Barros-Schelotto, Lucas Zelarayan and, most recently, Cucho Hernandez. That little sprinkling of fairy dust came later. Toiling under the shadow of the early greats, DC United, the Los Angeles Galaxy and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago Fire and Sporting Kansas City, the Crew spent most of their first decade bumping against their achievements. They yanked a Supporters’ Shield out of their asses in 2004, but they also missed the playoffs five times between 2000 and 2007 and felt the sting of the Wooden Spoon in 2006. A mere two seasons later, though, Columbus became the smoothest, smartest team in MLS. Coached by Sigi Schmid, guided by Schelotto and back-stopped by a (hey!) working-class defense and midfield built around Marshall, Brian Carroll, and Brad Evans – incidentally, all players who went on to anchor expansion teams – the Crew picked up a double in 2008, plus another Supporters’ Shield in 2009. They’d cracked a unique approach to the designated player code: finding great talents that few people States-side had heard of. And it paid off smartly until it abruptly did not – or at least until they re-learned the old trick. Between 2012 and 2022, Columbus missed the playoffs as many times as they made them and, despite being the home to the first (and, fair point, super-basic) soccer-specific stadium in MLS history, Columbus barely survived a bid to relocate the team after the 2018 season. The fans pulled together to fight that off and, a couple seasons later, Columbus reclaimed their crown as the best team between the coasts in Major League Soccer. They won two more MLS Cups – one in 2020 (aka, The Weird Season) and again in 2023, both games at a saucy stroll – and they might have had one more trophy had they not screwed themselves over in MLS Cup 2015 (see: Clark, Steve and Valeri, Diego). For all their failures, and they’ve had a few, Columbus does have a bless’d eye for spotting talent. Checking Columbus' all-time roster and scrolling down is a genuinely worthwhile exercise, if just to see all the names that (arguably, in some cases) became more famous on other teams around the league. Per the Joy Points Scale, this is the third most-successful team in MLS history and all of the various powers-that-be that have guided them through damn near three decades’ worth of history deserve credit for accomplishing everything that they did in a…let’s go with unexpected market.

Total Joy Points: 46

Getting Reacquainted with the Seattle Sounders, the Kristofferson of MLS

Different one, no Streisand.

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

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Hurts to admit this, but the Seattle Sounders managed to reach second place in terms of all-time success in Major League Soccer (based on the Joy Point Scale; methodology below*) and that’s with nine other teams having a 13-season head-start. They joined in 2009, just the fourth expansion team in the post-contraction era, but took only one season to fall in step with the first two (and their direct rivals), Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake; moreover, Seattle hoisted their first Supporters’ Shield (2014) the season before MLS’s third expansion team, Toronto FC, made the playoffs for the first time. And, in a flourish that feels unintentional in the way Kristofferson just could not stop outdoing Ash (Fantastic Mr. Fox), Seattle snatched its first MLS Cup on Toronto’s home field in 2016 (if in one of the shittiest finals in league history, btw). The Sounders had something gratingly close to a standing invitation to MLS Cup over the next four seasons - and they won two of them (2016 and 2019). Hell, they won U.S. Open Cup in each of their first three season in MLS, and then won it again in 2014, aka, the same season they won the Shield. Bottom line, Sounders fans have never experienced pain, only mild discomfort…the spoiled assholes. Seattle missed the playoffs for the first time (the first!) in 2022.

Best Season(s)

Tough call, but I’m guessing Seattle fans feel more pride about the 2019 team that beat Toronto 3-1 than they do about the one that beat a better version of the same team by the tips of Stefan Frei’s finger-nails in Toronto. Looking at the rosters for 2014 (Shield), 2016 (Cup) and 2019 (Cup) doesn’t give you a lot to work with in terms of tie-breakers. I have answers to all of these questions, but: who do you choose between Kasey Keller and Stefan Frei? Was Chad Marshall really a better defender than Roman Torres, or Xavier Arreaga or Yeimar? Did Obafemi Martins have more upside than Raul Ruidiaz? Then again, what’s the point in arguing about which player is better when all of them worked? Seattle has won eight trophies in its 15 years in MLS, including the league’s first‑ever CONCACAF Champions’ League trophy. So, yeah, hard to say.

Los Angeles Galaxy 2-2 Seattle Sounders: My First Scouting Report...on a Travesty!

You fucking wish, John Champion.

If you’ve heard anything about the Seattle Sounders in this game, believe every word. First, yes, they really did only draw this game by the mercy of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s 71^st minute miss and the David Bingham-Jorgen Skjelvic tag-team-super-fuck-up-own-goal 10 minutes or so later.

Heightened moments aside, and ignore the box score, because that shit absolutely did not happen, Seattle sucked on both sides of the ball. On the defensive side, players bunched, blocked each other out of the game, and generally couldn’t decide who should do what. The lying box score says they posted 21 shots, but I remember only one or two of the six they put on goal. What really stood out was the general, universal disconnect among Seattle’s players. At some point, Jane Campion mentioned something about Gustav Svensson and Cristian Roldan getting into a tiff about who should do something (their theory: push into the offense). The bigger issues came on offense: way too many of Seattle’s players simply did not see simple, useful, available options – whether a long, cross-field diagonal to a fullback open as all outdoors, or even the next obvious one. When that’d gone on long enough, players stopped making the runs – because why would they? – and, when they did, they just got burned all over again, like Lucy yanking away the goddamn football on loop.

I will not let myself believe the Sounders will be so magnificently incompetent when they come to visit Portland. There lies folly. (How does one use “folly” fancy? Asking for a friend.) And, to start a little gossip, they might be missing Gustav Svensson, who had his leg wrapped in ice after limping off for reasons I missed through random fast-forwarding. (I put in the time; if this was porn, I would have caught, like, 3/4 of the actual plot.) Still, the team Portland will face looked decidedly average, both on Saturday and of late.

For context, here’s a table that should look familiar to people:

SEATTLE SOUNDERS, 11-8-7, 40 points, 40 gf, 39 ga, (8-2-3 home, 3-6-4 away)

Last 10 games: WLWWLWLDLD (4-4-2)

Last 10 at home: WWLLD

Last 10 away: LWWLD

W	L	W	W	L	W	L	D	L	D
v VAN	a NYC	a CLB	v ATL	v POR	a HOU	v SKC	v NE	a RSL	a LAG
1-0	0-3	2-1	2-1	1-2	1-0	2-3	3-3	0-3	2-2

Who They Are in One Sentence: I count one win to be proud of in those last 10 games – Atlanta, way back – plus a stray or two. The key thing to remember: Seattle used to shut down teams. They’ve given up 11 goals over their last four and, as nearly everyone’s pointing out, they’re usually surging right now.

Their Last Game: See above. And weep.

Next Games. @ POR (8/23), v LAG (9/1), @ COL (9/7), v RBNY (9/15), v FCD (9/18), @ DC (9/22), @ SJ (9/29), v MIN (10/6)

Allowing for, let’s face it, fairly consistent error, the above shows the results and opponents from Seattle’s last 10, along with the teams they played. I threw in the rest of the Sounders’ 2019 regular season schedule to add value, while omitting the strength of schedule stuff I tried to include in the Form Guide ULTRA. Enough about me, here are some more big picture thoughts on Seattle:

The New Guard Nods Off (a Bit)

There are some “stats are lies” static in the thin collection of numbers (e.g., Seattle rocked a 44 gf, 43 ga in its 2016 championship season), but Seattle had its most success by keeping the goal allowed down and running up the goal differential as far as their latest trick-pony could raise it. Last year was their best, with a +15 goal differential on 52 goals for, and 37 goals against. They’d stay tight, keep out the goals, and find some special player or another – e.g., Clint Dempsey, Raul Ruidiaz, Nico Lodeiro; someone always seemed to show up – to either score or create enough goals to cover it. While the scoring side has…mostly held up – with eight games left, they’re on 40 goals scored, so they probably won’t be far off their actual (four-year) average. It’s the defense that thwarts ‘em. I’m aware that Zlatan does it to most defenders (i.e., 20 goals – X penalty kicks), but Kim Kee-hee died out there tonight. That’s the real story with Seattle, they’ve got 39 goals against already – just four goals shy of their worst defensive season, goddamn 2016, when they allowed…oh, see the beginning of the paragraph...

“Star”-“Power”

I went hunting to find the players who might be letting Seattle down this season, only to find that most their key players – barring Joevin Jones due to absence/injury – are pretty much on pace for their “Sounders-version” of normal numbers. Both Lodeiro and Ruidiaz should match their output from 2018 – more fodder for the “blame the defense” theory – while, with Morris, it’s tricky. He put up crazy numbers for a rookie, only to have a pair of lost/semi-lost seasons between 2016 and today. Like the rest, Morris is on pace for 2016 numbers in 2019, but…

What Does “Elite” Even Mean Anymore?

The fascist-adjacent hacks at MLS (I’ll only do that once, promise) didn’t include it in the highlights, but Morris spurned a “just-touch-it” header early in the game, and that was before throttling two to three promising plays in the crib by bumbling offside.

Morris also played a hand in Seattle’s only coherent and reliable attacking move of the night – e.g., a ball over the top of a high line to a fast guy (gave 'em their first goal) – so he’s a weapon – one, coincidentally, likely to aim at the heart of one of the Portland Timbers’ most famous weaknesses.

Overall, though, he mattered about as much as the rest of the Sounders tonight, which is to say neither much nor often. And that’s where I want to close this out, the question of Seattle’s collection of actual talent. With Chad Marshall retired to save that magnificent cabeza and Roman Torres taking time off to get huger(!!), Seattle has relied on Kim Kee-hee and 24-year-old new kid, Xavier Arreaga, at centerback. Arreaga had at least a half dozen punishable mistakes, and I’ve already noted Kim’s game. They look exploitable...for the right collection of players...

Roldan, Harry Shipp, and even a guy like Svensson are the “stars” of this team, the players tasked to hold together the newer parts on either side of them. With respect to all of them – precisely because they’re the guys that make any star player better – these are reliable parts, not a nitrous boost. When you think about it that way, it’s less surprising that Seattle’s not entirely holding together. They’re vulnerable. And they should be doubly-vulnerable playing in Portland…against that, there’s the meth-esque rush of the rivalry to consider…

That’s it. I’ll fill in Portland’s side in a twitter thread.

Seattle Sounders 1-2 Portland Timbers: Good, Slightly Dirty, Feelings

The same coiled buttocks, I tell you....

If there’s a soccer equivalent of telling someone they won a good-sized raffle only to tell them you read the name wrong one minute and fifteen seconds later, this was it. After applying too little pressure to notice for…more or less the entire game, the Seattle Sounders poached a goal off a Julio Cascante bungle to even the score at 1-1. In that tiny amount of time later, Sebastian Blanco earned his paycheck by feeding Brian Fernandez the inch-perfect pass that Fernandez would slip under Stefan Frei’s elbow and win the game for the Portland Timbers. 2-1 to Portland in Seattle, and all is forgiven for at least one of those home draws. Fuck it, both. Tonight has me in a giving mood.

Fernandez got the Timbers’ other goal tonight, a put-back on the kind of Jorge Moreira overlap ‘n’ drive that he’ll surely be patenting before too long (along with that brick of hair he sports atop his head). As much as the last 15-20 minutes made me want to crawl out of my own skin and read a book in a quiet corner, Seattle got the same kinds of chances when the Timbers laid back as they did all game, and that’s more or less the tale of the tape: Portland handled everything Seattle threw at them, and mostly without panicking. Moreover, when Portland actually played – as in tried to dictate what happened on the field and where – they were the better team tonight.

I ended my preview thread for this game with one thought – e.g., the question of whether Seattle is (or was) 10 points better than Portland, as they were in the standings at the start of the day. The current answer is seven points, which is the number of points that separate the teams right now; the question is if/when Portland will overtake the Sounders in the standings. To pick up something noted in the same thread, Seattle has built their vaunted home record by stealing lunch money (big fan of that phrase suddenly) – i.e., winning games against weaker opposition in favorable circumstances. I still rate the Sounders a good bet for the playoffs, but I don’t see the current team roaring into the post-season as they have over the past three years. This isn’t the same team, not without Osvaldo Alonso and Chad Marshall. Losing a spine tends to have consequences…

Portland, on the other hand, looks like they’ve got another year with its main components intact and firing right: Diego Chara showed what he’s all about when he ran down Joevin Jones with his first touch of the ball; Brian Fernandez did the same by trading jabs with Roman Torres…pretty much all game; and, for as long as they pressed the game, the usual suspects, Blanco and Diego Valeri, found a succession of pockets from which to prod Seattle’s defenses. For as long as all that holds up – and for as long Portland can recruit and maintain a sound defense behind it – the Timbers will be competitive in MLS. And, with Larrys Mabiala anchoring that line and Steve Clark playing like his own number one fan behind him, I’m not worried about that part. Portland will always be at its best when it can get its animal spirits running free, and they pulled it off tonight and at the best possible time and place.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Seattle Sounders: Success, Wheatfields, and Andy Polo

Middle fingers, all of 'em. YEEAAHHHH!!!

I showed up late to the game, mostly because I like to skip the National Anthem. (Honestly, I’m patriotic and appreciative as the next guy, I’m just not a fan of enforced rituals.) From the moment I walked in all the way through the Seattle Sounders’ opening goal, I never saw a Timbers’ player touch the ball in anything but desperation. In so many words, the omens didn’t favor victory.

I got no better sign of how much this series matters to Portland Timbers fans than the freakin’ wheat-field’s worth of middle fingers that went up all around my section (210) after Jeremy Ebobisse knocked in a finish beyond his years. Just to note it, the more I watch this kid play the more my brain silently repeats, “buy in, buy in, buy in.” Those voices in my head have no idea how hard that is for me.

This game’s actual miracle moment came when Diego Valeri dribbled through at least two tackles and flailed in the aftermath of one more to feed Sebastian Blanco the game-winner. After Blanco shrugged off some Sounders drapery to knock his goal past Seattle goalkeeper Stefan Frei, the sea of middle fingers rose again and underlined just how big this series feels in these parts. Is that healthy? Probably not, but that’s what’s going on and, golly, was I happy to take in the game live and in person. The mob mentality must have got to me because both my middle fingers shot up after both goals; this shit is infectious. The second goal was doubly satisfying after watching Cristian Roldan limp toward the farthest possible point of the sideline before stepping off the field. I have no idea why that pissed me off as much as it did, but I’m confident that Ted Unkel’s ultra-passive calls slid a burner under that and heated it to boiling. I want to sit down with him and ask how he only raised one yellow card through the length of that match…and I’m willing to listen.

After two late misses (one for either team) and an offside goal for the Timbers, that was all she wrote (here, I assume the author is Agatha Christie). Most importantly, the Timbers recovered from getting run over and scored on early to take a sadly slim 2-1 lead in this playoff series. As amazing as that was in the moment, it’s going to take some doing to make that score hold up in the second leg. A 1-0 Seattle win in Seattle is all it will take to send the Sounders through and that score-line fits that teams profile like personally-crafted skinny jeans (even my butt would look good). All the same, this win gives Portland a chance and, deeply apprehensive as I am about the road ahead, that’s all I can ask for, really.

Seattle Sounders 1-0 Portland Timbers: That Little Bit of (Fucking) Quality

The "little red man." (At least you're as creeped out as me.)

Well, I had big plans to watch the condensed version of the Seattle Sounders FC narrow, weird win over the Portland Timbers before posting thoughts on it. Postponed writing about it a day – killed some brain cells, lost some memories in the meantime (plus, another day older; gets more relevant all the damn time) – to give MLSLive time to post the condensed version…which they have still yet to do. And, no, there’s no way in Hell I’m sitting through that whole game all over again.

With that, you’re stuck with my lousy memory, or just taking a pass on reading this. As always, no judgment…

This happens more often than soccer fans like to admit – i.e., games that feel like a lot of things happen, while, at the same time, not a whole lot actually happens. The boxscore for this one proved as revealing as I expected it to: the Timbers topped the Sounders in many of the key categories – attacking stats, most notably (fun little sidebar: Portland ended the day with 19 shots, but they’d fired 15 of those by around the 50th minute; hold that thought) – but one number should jump out, and on two levels: both teams put just three shots on goal. On the first level, sure, Portland out-shot Seattle 19 attempts to 8, but, if you’re wildly flailing shots at goal, what good are Portland’s 11 more attempts toward the plausible vicinity of goal, really?

Second level: that’s what I mean when I suggest that not a lot actually happened yesterday. From Portland’s point of view, they managed to turn in a better performance than they did in recent road games against the San Jose Earthquakes and Montreal Impact (a good thing), but those three paltry shots on goal tell a pretty clear tale: Portland didn’t have much luck penetrating Seattle’s area, the Timbers mostly played around the defense, and not through them and so on. A lot of credit for that goes to Gustav Svensson and Chad Marshall, in central defense, and gadfly Osvaldo Alonso and gadfly-in-waiting Cristian Roldan playing in front of them. Portland’s shots from range weren’t terrible on their own; they’re only bad in the sense that they were the start and end of what Portland could generate for offense.

Game Notes: Los Angeles Galaxy v. Seattle Sounders

Why I Watched It:
It was the array of stars that tempted me: Keane, Gerrard, and, now, Dos Santos. It was only 10 minutes before kickoff that I knew that all of the Seattle Sounders stars would be absent – no Dempsey, no Martins, no Alonso. Hell, Marco Pappa didn't even suit up. Eh, it is what it is.

Overall:
For a good 30 minutes, this one threatened to interest. Even after Chad Barrett epitomized the Sounders season in the space of five seconds by scoring and pulling up lame, Seattle took the game to the Los Angeles Galaxy well enough, at least for a while. They attacked through set-pieces mostly and, as the commentating team pointed out, Seattle's big men – for they are that – gave Omar Gonzalez and Leanardo all they could handle on five to a half-dozen corner and/or free kicks. LA escaped with a 3-1 win in the end, but the thing most worth noting is how much the score could have moved going in either direction: LA escaped on at least two occasions, which would have resulted in a tie, and Stefan Frei came up big enough for Seattle to keep out a couple great chances for LA, which prevented a blowout...

...and, in spite of all of that, it wasn't the most exciting of games.  LA won it comfortably with a combination of insouciant patience, star power on the field, and celebrity sightings off of it (Gordon Ramsey in David Beckham’s luxury suite!). Basically, Seattle's still in trouble...

Notes on LA
- Not unlike (what I heard about the Republican debate) the under-card talent carried the Galaxy today. Gyasi Zardes addressed every deficiency I've ever attributed to him today (e.g. heavy touch and dodgy decisions on passes), Juninho  ran the midfield like it was 2014, and Sebastian Lletget terrorized the opposition left like he's done all season.
- The (meaningful) workman-like stuff aside, the stars dazzled only in passing (as in, from time to time, not just by their passing). Keane and Giovani dos Santos combined neatly on a couple occasions, - most notably when Keane fed dos Santos for LA's third (links later) – but I detected something subtle in LA's overall approach, something that flirted with fire and/or over-confidence.
- Defensive man-of-the-match honors go to Robbie Rogers, who not only positively locked down his left side (the opener excepted), but also followed a play to clear a ball of the line.
- Bottom line, for all their stars, LA's role players tend to come up huge. Whether it's Bruce Arena's coaching or savvy scouting, this is the secret to LA's success - the fielding of solid starting elevens.

Notes on Seattle
- It's easy to forget, sometimes, just how big Seattle is as a team. Just with Chad Marshall, Zac Scott and Andy Rose, they have size on set-pieces that a lot of teams rightly envy. And I'm sure I'm missing someone...the commentators made a lot of the advantage, even if it wasn't enough today. That won't always be the case, either.
- For me, Seattle's best player today was Erik Friberg. His energy was excellent, for starters – one would think he's playing for a contract like that – but most of the purpose and pace to the Sounders attack started and continued through him. He didn't get much help, sadly.
- Where it stopped? Lamar Neagle. It's official, the kid's having a bad year. Between Leanardo picking the ball out of his spokes and him being half a step off or behind, Neagle posed little to no threat all game long. Much like he has all season. This is a big, big reason for Seattle's inability to climb out of the slump.
- To their credit, though, Seattle's "Accidental B-Team" put in as good a shift as I've caught since the big absences hit. Because someone else pointed this out to me (can't remember who), I can't take credit, but a surprising amount of Seattle's offense passes through Tyrone Mears.

The Timbers Advance: An Open Cup Victory Sprinkled with Sweet, Sweet Humiliation!

Wait! Right, left, down, A...STOP IT! What's the move?!

First of all, wow, is this going to throw a handful of ground chiles all over the next Cascadia match. The Seattle Sounders turned in a meltdown worthy of toddlers, I tell you. Clint, you've added to your legend, buddy. Congrats! Back to the regularly scheduled post...

If you've ever played Mortal Kombat, and if you're as terrible at it as I am, you know what it's like to master one even mildly effective attack. Say, it's a jab, something you can work against an opponent due to a fluke of timing, so you use it to shave off a narrow band of health at a time. This only gives you the illusion of winning. If the guy you're playing has mastered his avatar’s "killer move," you can land all the jabs you like, but your opponent has still lost only two thirds of her bar, and she'll lay your ass OUT after just two attacks. And if you're not on the floor with your entrails sprawled to the sky after that, your sad little spandexed man is swooning on his feet to set up the same humiliation.

That's the rough experience of playing against this edition of the Seattle Sounders: no matter how badly they've played all 90 long, the Sounders have the talent to score at absolutely any moment and steal the game. Turns out the tale unfolds a little differently when you push Seattle to the 120th, when, again, they melt down, get three players sent off, and just generally act entitled. And so your club wins, 3-1. Can't we game-plan this for next time?

Anyway, great, deeply satisfying win for the Portland Timbers – and I absolutely look forward to the hair-rending amongst Sounders fans (even if I'm not likely to see it), because, yes, two of those cards were harsh. One wasn't (e.g. the two yellows to Brad Evans), not that they'll either care or remember, and Sigi Schmid's game management followed roughly the same script that Caleb Porter might have followed if he was a complete idiot and left Diego Valeri in to the end of the game. But he wasn't, so Portland didn't...and now Portland is in, Seattle's is out, etc.

Then again, wins in a Cup tournament come in isolation by their very nature: they’re not part of the season overall, naturally, which means patterns from that regular season matter a lot tonight, while, at the same time, they don't matter at all. I'll attempt to draw a line between league play and Cup play below, but it won't last long. And there will be bleeding.