Getting Reacquainted with the Seattle Sounders, the Kristoffersons of MLS

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

Thumbnail History
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

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

Portland Timbers 1-0 Seattle Sounders: (Complicated) Glory! + League-Wide Shit!

Oh, I'm just getting warmed up....

I was out of town for the Portland Timbers checks-all-the-boxes 1-0 win over a (punch-drunk) visiting Seattle Sounders team, but tracked the game from afar on the socials (i.e., reddit and Bluesky). People bitching about the broadcast team (Taylor Twellman and Jake Zivin, I think) popped up here and there and…I just don’t get how anyone can’t screen out the chatter, never mind get caught up in the relative amount of praise they heap on one team or the other. In my experience, color commentary follows the “broken clock” rule, with some hacks hitting the mark more often the others.

Why start there? Perhaps because some thoughts and arguments floated below may fall short of expectations for proper fandom. Let that come as it does, I’m squeezed a lot into this one post. Because it has surely been kicked around both hard and long enough, I won’t burn too many words on last Saturday’s game – which, to be 100% clear, was pretty damn awesome and nifty…it just needs an asterisk, maybe two.

The (Righteous!) Big Picture
Apart from giving up what (giving the Timbers’ history) felt like two games worth of corner kicks in the first half alone, I don’t recall a time when Seattle looked to have the upper hand last Saturday. Even if Portland’s chances weren’t all gilt-edged, the thought process behind them shone through; half the time, they failed due to some combination of a runner being half a step ahead or behind or the angle on the pass 10-degrees off. With key starters like Felipe Mora and Jonathan Rodriguez absent courtesy of varying amounts of bullshit (now half-corrected!), that shouldn’t surprise anyone. With the chance creation that little bit off, the happy deflection that transfigured Juan David Mosquera’s goal into a thing of beauty felt right at home. As for the play that led to it, what was that but vintage Timbers soccer?

The brighter notes played on the defensive side of the ball, and mostly through Timbers defenders throwing themselves in front of the best chances Seattle created. Dario Zuparic stood out there, with his block on Seattle’s not-yet budding star Pedro de la Vega as a stand-out moment (if it's not in here somewhere...crime). Kamal Miller got caught behind the ball now and again, and both fullbacks got burned 1-v-1 more often than any Timbers fan wants to see (Mosquera, in particular), but all concerned recovered well enough and generally played for one another. Now, about all that…

Seattle Sounders Scouting Report: Prepping for a Knife Fight in the Gutter

I don't know, we just seem to have so much in common...

[UPDATE/PSA: I tried to create the usual mini-post/pop quiz for this post on reddit, but shit got weird and it just kind of sat there doing nothing for four or five hours. As such, I said "fuck it" and deleted the reddit post. I may still bounce around in there, maybe even post something of my own occasionally (so long as those go live, or whatever happens in the guts of reddit), but I'm not going try to navigate whatever weird bar they have for posting links to original content. Basically, the only place you'll find links to posts to this site is Bluesky. Until that platform explodes, implodes, or whatever verb applies to social media sites when they die their righteous and probably well-justified death.] 

Well, let’s see how many things I can get wrong this week…happily, I can't fuck up the facts. Right?

The Basics
The Record: 2-5-4 (hello, sexy!), 10 pts., home 1-1-3, away 1-4-1, 13 gf, 13 ga (0)
Last 10 Games: TTLLWTLLWT
Strength of Schedule: Literally a couple loin-stirring wins – e.g., a 5-0 blowout over Club du Foot Montreal back in Week 6, place a recent road win at a puzzling Philadelphia Union team – with free points squandered all around - e.g., home draws v Austin FC and the Colorado Rapids before they found their feet, a road draw at FC Dallas (who cough up points like a busted one-armed bandit), and a road loss at perennial no-hopers, San Jose Earthquakes. Suffice to say the might have fallen - and, golly, isn't it a hoot?

In what feels like a total-eclipse-like rarity, Seattle and the Portland Timbers share the same shitty overall record, but Seattle holds a thin edge in the standings thanks to neutral goal differential. They built that shaky foundation by allowing ten fewer goals on one side, while scoring eight less on the other. And, holy shit, are the natives restless up there…

The Lineup
Brian Schmetzer has ride or die committed to the 4-2-3-1 regardless of who he has on hand – though, honestly, he seems deeply committed to the same starters despite the poor returns. The first-choice back four typically features (left to right) Nouhou, Yeimar, Jackson Regan, and Alex Roldan – but Roldan the Younger has missed the last few games and, from what I understand, Yeimar will miss Sunday’s game (and there was great rejoicing). The deeper midfield two has generally involved Josh Atencio and, anytime he can walk, Joao Paulo, with Obed Vargas filling in when he can't, while the preferred, higher midfield three features (left to right) Jordan Morris, Albert Rusnak, and Cristian Roldan. And, topping it all off, like the star on your Christmas tree, Raul Ruidiaz.

If many of those names seem familiar to the point of where you’re sick of seeing them, Sounders fans have your back. If you turn your ear north and listen carefully, you may hear clamoring for a youth movement…

Portland Timbers 4-1 Seattle Sounders: A Buffet of Satisfaction

Seriously, you can put these anywhere....

When I was a knock-kneed whisp of a lad, I knocked in an own-goal off some part of my body or the other. I don’t remember which one, honestly, but what I do remember is how hard I strived to make up for that mistake. Played like the future in professional soccer I never even sort of had depended on it, and it went about as well...

It takes work for me to summon sympathy for the Seattle Sounders – and, honestly, I’m not even trying to tonight – but I do think some form of the professional version of the same thing happened to them tonight. To walk through the two crucial moments...

The Portland Timbers attack had stalled somewhere around the top Seattle defensive third somewhere around the 70th minute and the wholly familiar lack of ideas seemed to have reasserted itself in the collective psyche; a promising play that started wide pinched inside and looked doomed for finding a path forward. The Timbers had six or so players clustered between the channels, so I didn’t think anything of it when the ball drifted wide to Santiago Moreno [corrected, ty @ShellWitty!]. When he clipped in a ball that looked like a Hail Mary wrapped inside an Our Father, I thought even less of it....only to see Dairon Asprilla bellow “fuck it!” to the heavens and lash in a collapsible bike for a Timbers equalizer for the literal ages. My God, the legend Asprilla has written into the history books. Maybe he doesn’t get a statue, but maybe build a grotto in his honor with a little fountain that splashes into a reflective pond...

Hold on, I’m not done with this bit yet. That put the game at 1-1 – wait, have I mentioned the game ended 4-1 to the Timbers yet? – but there was more delight and pain to come. Five minutes later, Santiago Moreno got the ball on the right inside Portland’s half and played a looping diagonal into the heart of Seattle’s defensive third. I’d direct any sadists watching that clip to drink in the spread between Seattle two center backs (not usually an issue for them) and the way Moreno’s cross fell into the gap behind the two defensive players further up-field. To be totally fucking clear, that whole goddamn thing does not come off without Fogaca taking a perfect touch; moreover, how many times have you seen him finish that clinically literally ever? Sometimes things happend that are beyond your control...and I've finally forgiven that little whisp of a lad...hold on...off for a good cry...

MLS Weakly, 01 23 2021: I Will Care When They Make Me Care, aka, Notes on the MLS SuperDraft

The MLS SuperDraft, 1996-2019

Saw a random tweet earlier this week that said the Major League Soccer 2021 season not starting until mid-May or some shit. Not that that doesn’t make sense (COVID), but because these weekly posts can’t be sustained on CBA negotiations and the MLS SuperDraft alone. Observe…

Portland Timbers Update
The Timbers finalized the deal to sign an endearingly happy Felipe Mora to a permanent contract…but doesn’t that seem like that already happened, like, two weeks ago? Elsewhere, Portland picked Dawson McCartney and Diego Gutierrez in last…Wednesday’s(?) MLS SuperDraft, at No. 43 and No. 70, respectively. In other words, nothing of consequence happened. More later…

FC Cincinnati Update
Rumors that FC Cincy had made a move for the New York Red Bulls’ Tim Parker evaporated in hours or even minutes one day last week, so that’s one rumor down. I thought the whole Papu Gomez saga had ended with him going to Sevilla, but I opened a link that said otherwise…before promptly closing it because the page it opened fucking attacked my computer, so let’s call that rumor unverified for now and wait till official channels make the relevant announcement.

Elsewhere, FC Cincinnati selected Calvin Harris (at No. 2), Avionne Flanagan (No. 29), Jonas Fjeldberg (No. 54) and Matthew Vowinkel (No. 56, and dynamite name, kid) in the 2021 MLS SuperDraft. In other words, nothing of consequence to report in FC Cincy circles either….well, maybe Harris will come good - hope springs eternal, etc. - but I’ll get into why it’s more likely he won’t below.

CBA Negotiations Update
Word got out that the Major League Soccer Players’ Association made a counter-offer to the league’s post-force majeure offer yesterday…to which the MLS owners responded publicly by restating what they’ve offered the players (e.g., “committed to paying the players 100% of their salaries this year, in return for a two-year extension of the MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement,” aka, something definite and tangible for something suspiciously vague), which signals a response to the players' offer - and probbaly not a great one. In other words, nothing of consequence happened.

Is that sensing a theme, or announcing one?

Seattle Sounders 1-2 Portland Timbers: Mysteries of the Moon

It's coming for you...

To get one major talking point out of the way, of course, you can’t excuse the…fuck me, what? 11 goals given up by the Portland Timbers over the past four games - and that includes tonight’s 2-1 win over the Seattle Sounders in Seattle.Going the other way, if there was ever a better occasion for pitching a stoutly shaky, yet ultimately winning performance, it doesn’t get better than stealing three points out of CenturyLink Field…

The game states went wild tonight, like they got boosted by the lunar cycle or something. When Seattle got the upper hand, they spun Portland’s defense dizzy, too often leaving it to the last man or two to keep the next three goals going in. That was the end of the first half, but the same thing played out through a strenuous 20-minute period in the second half, say, minutes 50-70, only with Portland having the upper hand. I won't dwell on it overly, but you don’t see teams swap periods of dominance like that often and it was…just really fun.

In an odd twist, the first two goals in this game came before all that happened - or at least that’s what happened where I lived, having missed the first 15 minutes and/or Eryk Williamson’s first-ever MLS goal…to think I would have embroidered that had I seen it live. ‘Twas a beauty, though, the way he fielded Seattle’s clearance and turned it into a slicing run, followed by a (fucking srsly?) wall-pass that everyone should have seen coming, but Diego Valeri’s touch…goddamn, I mean, that only looks easy till you watch 50 other dudes fuck up that same touch in 147 different ways. Everything came together in the end, and it was 1-0 Portland, despite Blanco limping off eight minutes earlier.

Because I missed it, I cannot say whether Portland’s goal followed from a spell of pressure; I can only say, and with certainty, that Seattle’s lone goal (also, not bad) came at the front end of their best spell and I’d hold that up as why surviving that became the one and only reason the Portland Timbers survived the night. Seattle players beat every Timbers player to every ball, loose or otherwise, for at least 15 minutes, but Portland, by the grace of Steve Clark, held on.

That said, any comments Seattle fans might have about cosmic injustice can take a long walk into I Don’t Give a Shit Lake, because the Timbers put Stefan Frei and the Sounders through the same blender during the earlier portions of the second half. That held until, piece-by-piece, what was Portland’s one-way traffic toward Seattle’s goal became receding lines of resistance toward Portland’s, which pointed toward an ugly reprise of the end of the first half, but that was only until the simplest of goals by Felipe Mora, which didn’t so much come against the run of play as violate it. And, with that, the Timbers won the game, the Sounders lost it, and who can’t be happy with that?

Nobody, I hope, but gods know I won’t try.

Portland Timbers 1-2 Seattle Sounders: Fuller Than Your Average Evening

That flag only hurts fascists and snowflakes.

Last night was a weird one, no question. The Iron Front protest happened, of course, and few things surprised me more than seeing not just an Iron Front flag waving, but a big, gigantic motherfucker of an Iron Front flag, and a with a backing chorale of little DIY-homemade versions swaying around it. And, for those who don’t watch the local nightly news, KGW gave so much of its opening segment to the protest, that they gave just a barebones reading of the final result – a frustrating 1-2 home loss for the Portland Timbers to the hideously-attired Seattle Sounders – at the end.

I saw boasts of victory scattered here and there on twitter last night, but honestly have no idea how this (profoundly silly) ban plays out. God knows what would have happened had Providence Park security waded into the Timbers Army to seize that flag, so thank God they didn’t, but there will be a next time and less attention, so there’s that…and, no, I don’t get it. It’s not like the Iron Front flag slips off the stick, floats into the night to stalk your children and Trump-loving grandparents, but willful misunderstanding of what antifa is and how it functions is all the rage in your more self-interested political circles (who brought the bag of dicks to the potluck, dammit?).

Reports of a meltdown at the Timbers Army by Timbers owner Merritt Paulson for “costing us the game” spiced the post-game lather as well, and it’s worth contrasting a rich man whining about a group of people interfering with his vanity project against the same people displaying their anxiety about white supremacist douches popping up all over the country like poison mushrooms (and with President of the country winking encouragement its way). Call me crazy, but one of those feels bigger than the other. That feels like this political moment in microcosm, as well my expectation that our corporate masters would roll over for fascism-lite so long as the trains ran on time and people showed up for the games and smiled and sang and forgot all the trouble visited on other people, etc. Moving on....

Obviously, a game happened as well. It didn’t end well, and even that was a rich experience of more lows than highs. After going down two goals – more on that later - the Timbers pulled one back with a mildly cheap deflected goal by Diego Valeri; from that point forward, a barely competent siege ensued. A couple things stood out, both after Valeri’s goal and before it. When Portland tried to force the ball up the middle, Seattle littered the path with athletic bodies; as several teams before them, the Sounders seemed fine with letting the Timbers play wide and cross – something that did with a maddening mix of frequency and incompetence (fwiw, forty-five (45?!) crosses is high). To direct your attention to a more relevant part of the boxscore, the Sounders swept the defensive stats - tackles and duels, in particular - and that matches what I watched out there.

Seattle Sounders 4-1 FC Cincinnati: 14 Glorious Minutes

Wait for it....

For starters, it was a complicated night, lots of distractions, condensed perspectives, etc. Still, Alvas Powell’s no-hope, screamer at 24th minute had a portentous vibe to it, a sense of, if we’re gonna pad this score, it has to be now. It was a one hell of a death rattle.

FC Cincinnati’s first-ever game in Major League Soccer ended…not ideally, with a 1-4 loss to the Seattle Sounders in Seattle (just the second time I’ve seen FC Cincy loose, btw). I had the good fortune to watch the game live, to see people walking around Seattle’s CenturyLink field in shiny, new FC Cincinnati gear, blue, orange, and giddy smiles all around. It was a fine night for the game too, brisk and clear, so I can recommend everything about the experience that wasn’t the curry lamb meat pie. To get caveats out of the way, I watched from the end-line, one of the more complicated viewing perspectives. I supplemented the live experience last night via the condensed game on a tiny screen (after the plan for a slightly less tiny screen fell through), these are my notes, submitted this 3rd day, March, 2019, showered less than I should be, but also extraordinarily comfortable…

First, let us pause to appreciate…no, contemplate the beauty of Leanardo Bertone’s goal, the first scored by FC Cincinnati in their Major League Soccer history. It teed up like an over-ripe melon that your kinder pitching machines give you on the “Slow/Improve My Mood” setting. Bertone launched one of those barely-rotating cannonballs into the lower (Stefan Frei’s) right of the goal and, obviously, holy shit, yes, good start. That’s a goal any player fantasizes about hitting and, guys(!!), that’s FC Cincinnati’s first-ever goal. (I once caught a 12-inch bass, which means I have some sense of what Bertone feels right now…if not, he should call me to download.) Notably, however, that bright, shining moment came after a spell of Seattle pressure. More Seattle pressure followed on the other side of Cincinnati’s one (real) moment of glory (no offense) too…surely, you can see where this is going. Still, it was possible to dream for 14 glorious minutes....

Sure, FC Cincy scored first, but it took two goals over a rough space of five minutes to end this game as a contest. I’ll go deeper on the first goal later, but when Morris rushed into the vertical gap on the (Cincy’s) left of the defense and behind the midfield, and pinged the game-winner off the foot (I think) of a Cincinnati defender, the game looked…well, over. 60+ minutes of one-way traffic more confirmed that, yes, FC Cincinnati’s first game in MLS would go into the history books, but there would be no happy ending. (Bob Kraft. Sorry! That’s all I’m gonna say!).

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.

The Late Tackle, 12 09 2016: All MLS Cup Preview, and Nothing But

Sweet Jesus. That is Chatty Cathy and she is terrifying!

So, the 2016 Major League Soccer season reaches its long-delayed climax (srsly, entire month of November was pure whiskey-dick) tomorrow afternoon when the Seattle Sounders visit Toronto FC to vie for MLS Cup. My plans for the day include pulling on some loose fitting clothing and burying myself in blankets on a couch and challenging my body to stay awake despite all the depressants I no doubt will dump into my system in order to cope with what has potential to be, the final insult of 2016. By that I mean Seattle might win the damn game, which would be awful, while also putting an end to my dream of buying a Sounders jersey (nah, I’ll steal one; no money for them) just so I can put [___] over the crest – e.g. where the star goes after your team wins.

It’s not like it’s hard to find write-ups and predictions for tomorrow’s game – the official preview post on MLSSoccer.com has about 20 of the things – because it’s the event of the annual soccer calendar. I’d still like to offer up some final thoughts, for am I a Chatty Cathy Doll, one that talks even without someone pulling the string. Hope I can touch on something novel.

I touched on this thought a couple times over the past week, but when it comes to framing the Cup, I think it’s important to understand it as something other than just the next game for either Seattle or Toronto. “Form” matters, of course, but, in a rough and real way, Seattle is a different team from the Montreal Impact (for Toronto) and Toronto is a different team than the Colorado Rapids (for Seattle). And it goes even deeper than that. Basically, Toronto confronts Seattle with entirely new problems to solve and situations to exploit and vice versa. Here, an honest man acknowledges that there’s not much hard data to work with here, because the teams met only once in 2016 (and under pretty different circumstances). With that, let’s start with what we do know…says, the guy who just gave “form” the side-eye not 100 words before. And, in another nice touch irony/self-flagellation, wherever did I leave that “how they got here” post that I gently mocked yesterday? Ah, there it is. So, fuck me from two days ago, that’s worth reading. Now, let’s take a step further back…

The Late Tackle, 12 08 2016: Still More MLS Cup Crap, Players Moving, Players Departing, and an Understudy Rising?

Looks like he's been crying. Or he's just drunk.

You know the drill: MLS Cup dominates, while the 18 (or 20) other Major League Soccer teams quietly start figuring out how they’ll knock the eventual champion off its pedestal. Circle of life, etc.

More MLS Cup Crap

For all that it might not come through, I’m actually pretty excited about this year’s MLS Cup. I’ve got a clear, strong voter interest (which, my luck, spells a Seattle Sounders win, goddammit). Whatever happened with them all season long (e.g. Seattle sucking for 2/3 of it), both teams hit the final playing well and, on top of that, each team’s stars are shining. That goes for the attacking players as much as anybody, which could explain why Goal.com’s predictions post sees goals, goals, goals in MLS fans’ future (to be fair, one prediction only gets to “goal, goal” and, also of interest, gives both to Seattle). A related article, this one a compare/contrast between Jozy Altidore and Jordan Morris, sticks with a similar focus.

I’ll put up more thorough personal theories tomorrow (good lord willing), but part of me wonders how much faith in high scoring grows from a form of recency bias. Some articles talk about loosely about how either team attacks (great!) and defends, but without much discussion/acknowledgement of particular circumstances. For instance, how much of the “vulnerability” in Toronto FC’s defense grew from the Montreal Impact series alone? Isn’t it just as important, if not more important, to note that they shut out New York City FC in their first round series, while also allowing 19 fewer goals through the length of the regular season, as was noted in a write-up on Drew Moor’s move to/upgrading of Toronto’s “rugged” defense. (Alternately, is it rugged and vulnerable, y’know, like how Daniel Craig played James Bond in the last Bond flick?) The point could be right or wrong, but the basic assumption tracks a logic similar to writing up a “what happened to Lodeiro” piece based on Seattle’s series against the Colorado Rapids (related: Have you watched that tape, Toronto? Can you watch that? Please?).

Or, to crawl out of the other side of the rabbit hole, maybe Nick Hagglund will give away a cheap goal, as noted in a “young players to watch” post I read (Hagglund made the cut and, in fairness, he is genuinely of interest). By the same token, maybe he scores a goal and gets an assist, too. (Or maybe Montreal didn’t game-plan Hagglund fer shit?)

At any rate, yeah, looking forward to MLS Cup Saturday. Now, looking elsewhere…

MLS: Seattle Clips Colorado (and Re-Ranking MLS Shields/Trophies)

Presently going for foreign language Emmy for this site.

I’m about to stomp on an enormous vat of sour grapes, but you, you are my guest. It would be rude to talk about anything other than what we came to talk about. Come. Come inside. Sit.

So, the Seattle Sounders did it, they beat the Colorado Rapids over two games and in two venues, 1-0 in Colorado today and 2-1 in Seattle last…whenever that happened. The score-line speaks the truth: the Sounders were the better team, even if just at this point in the season (wait for it). A list of reasons unfolds below, and it’s the same list that gets at why Seattle feels like a decent horse to back for lift MLS Cup on…December 10? (Jesus fucking christ, Major League Soccer, is this the playoffs or tantric sex? Can we…you know? I mean, is there some kind of award for dragging this shit out, an Emmy for delayed gratification?)

I’m going to start with Seattle, because flow (oh, I have plans, plans for all of you!). However you feel about it, Seattle is a well-constructed team. Finally. In defense, Roman Torres and Chad Marshall make for a solid, sufficiently dynamic, yet big central defensive pairing, and they have rock-solid starting fullbacks on both sides in Tyrone Mears (who is, quietly, one of MLS’s better right backs) and Joevin Jones (a fucking fast defender, and a smart one). Cristian Roldan and Osvaldo Alonso have set up a pretty sound shop in front of that back four, a shop that, as I saw it, first contained, then pushed back against Colorado’s central pairing, one hobbled today by the absence of its brain and body – e.g., Sam Cronin (could he have mattered today? Mm….look where Nelson Valdez was when he released the ball to Morris…link below).

The above list of players provides as a good foundation as any team could want in that it absorbs all the failures that the people in front of it make on their grasping way to goal; better still, it can also absorb and channel 50 minutes of pressure from another team into other, more useless gulleys, as it did in the first half today when Colorado posted 11 shots to Seattle’s one. Did any of those shots sincerely threaten the Sounders’ goal? Nope. One or two came close, but there’s a lot of good and bad rolled up into shooting through (or over) traffic, but most of it bad. Bodies in the way are, after all, bodies in the way.