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.

Getting Reacquainted with Minnesota United FC, the Very Modern Model of a Median MLS Franchise

"It could be going better!"

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I tend to think of Minnesota as a team that always makes the playoffs, but never looks much like reaching the end of them. That’s only half right, though, if for a couple reasons. First, Minnesota missed the post-season entirely their first two seasons and again in 2023. Second, even when the Loons do qualify – which, to be clear, they’ve done more often not, and directly more often than as a wild card team – they almost always fall out before the quarterfinals. That drops them into the folds of the biggest wrinkle in the Joy Points formula* - i.e., teams only get credit for qualifying as a wild card if they clear the next two hurdles in the post-season – and that choice obscures the reality that the Loons are a solid regular season team. Solidity feels like a good descriptor for what Minnesota has done on the field through their short history, as well. Adrian Heath coached them from their ascent from the USL (in 2017) to round about the latter third of 2023, when they let him go. In my mind, “Heath-ball” has generally meant fielding teams that were constipated in every sense of the word - think stubborn and unimaginative - it took the organization getting its defensive midfield in order. It started with bringing Osvaldo Alonso over from Seattle in 2019 and Minnesota has kept that close enough to effective with additions like Jan Gregus and Hasani Dotson(?). Still, putting a shield in front of “imposing” center backs – i.e., large, slow-ish, but combative and capable center backs like Michael Boxall, Brent Kallman, (briefly) Ike Opara, and Bakaye Dibassy – went a long way toward taking care of one side of the team. On the other, Minnesota has this tic, equal parts knack and limitation, of finding one guy with enough talent to make a competent defense pay off enough times. The most famous version of that was the “mercurial” Emanuel Reynoso (he's a chronic hooky-player), but they've also pulled out a couple wild cards or two, with the too-oft injured Kevin Molino serving as a tragic figure. When all else fails, Minnesota leans into one of the best all-purpose Band-aids in MLS history, one-man multi-tool, Finnish jack-of-all-but-defensive-trades, Robin Lod to steer the ship to shore. When that certain magic player cannot be found, is unavailable, or is, say, refusing to report for duty (see: Reynoso), Minnesota winds up relying on a rotating cast of characters like Darwin Quintero (for whom they had huge dreams, honestly), Ethan Finlay, Bongokuhle Hlongwane (just re-signed!), Tani Oluwaseyi, and half-random guys like, say, Franco Fragapane. All that work and movement has yielded the returns immediately below…

Total Joy Points: 1

How They Earned Them (& *How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
MLS Playoffs Semifinals: 2020
MLS Playoffs/Quarterfinals: 2024
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 2019

Getting Reacquainted with Minnesota United FC...

Don't google "special boy." The images only get darker.

[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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If you put a gun to my head before I wrote this post and asked me when Minnesota United FC joined the league, I’d be writing this post at your mercy. 2017? Then again, maybe that’s for the best…they still don’t have a damn head coach last I heard…

One wild season aside (see below), I think of Minnesota as a team that always makes the playoffs, but never looks much like reaching the end of them. Turns out that’s only half right: the Loons fell short in both of their first two seasons – and by a fair amount. The half-remembered consistency kicked in after that: they qualified for the playoffs in each of the next four seasons - 2019-2022 - if from the middle of the table or thereabouts; 7th place overall finish in 2019 is their high-water mark. Adrian Heath coached them from their ascent from the USL (in 2017) to (something like) the latter third of 2023, when they let him go. In my mind, “Heath-ball” has generally meant trotting out teams that were sturdy in every sense of the word - i.e., stubborn and unimaginative – but that, like the other pieces above, didn’t fall into place until Heath got his defensive midfield in order. That took care of one side of the team, for as long as it did, anyway, but Minnesota has this tic, equal parts knack and limitation, of finding one guy with that special something, a game-changer…

…that’s just one game-changer, mind. Don’t want to go about putting on airs.

Best Season(s)

2020, easily, the playoff run that put the fear of God into a Seattle Sounders team that was a dead man walking without even knowing it (Columbus Crew SC beat Seattle at a stroll in MLS Cup 2020). Minnesota had found Emanuel Reynoso by then – i.e., the greatest game-changer in Loons history – which meant they’d finally found a means to make “stubborn” payoff and even dream a little. MLS journeyman/hot boy, Kevin Molino, did just as much as Reynoso to make that happen. Think of it as a combination of two kinds of wizardry, something not seen before or since in Minnesota.

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.

MLS Cup Review: Darkness and Light

Just google "shitty trophy." This masterpiece shows up surprisingly early.

[Yes, Jesus, the title is tongue and cheek.]

Darkness

Today, I sat through the MLS Live’s condensed replay of MLS Cup 2016…and, for the record, my minimum charge for re-watching that one-night revival of soccer-as-rugby in full starts at $50. The face-off between MLS Cup debutantes, Toronto FC and the Seattle Sounders, featured two teams desperate not to fuck up and, as such, it heavily favored labor over artistry. (NOTE to author: Overwritten narrative? One that you will never pick up again?) If teams won games by getting in each other’s way, this would have been a final for the ages. In soccer, though, teams win games by scoring goals - whenever and however they score them – and Seattle dragged the game to penalty kicks, where they scored five goals to Toronto’s four. That’s more goals.

And that’s also how Stefan Frei’s bear-paw save became the game’s biggest talking point…

I took the time to read other people’s articles this morning (busy as hell this afternoon; goddamn Christmas), and most sing the same notes – e.g. Seattle never managed a shot on goal, Frei’s save, and the broad argument that there’s not a lot to say beyond that. The “advanced course” of articles offer details that make sense only to those more finely-tuned to some sub-plots – e.g., that this was a particularly shitty final to present to a broadcast TV audience after years out of the spotlight; that Seattle’s Osvaldo Alonso would juice the holy shit out of his knee before missing this one; and that, of course, Toronto’s Jonathan Osorio would get emotional after the loss.

After reliving the final (in condensed fashion), I’ll only say I found a couple strings to pull out a little further. One thing that didn’t show in the mini-game is something only one article (by Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl) flagged. For me, this was one thought I kept coming back to, especially on Toronto’s side of the ball

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.

The MLS Conference Finals, Phase One Review

The only apt metaphor for the MLS Playoffs.

Between both Major League Soccer Conference finals, I missed at least 1/3 of the total action and exactly 3/7 of the goals. For details, see my twitter feed (@JeffBull5) where I bitched and bitched and bitched.

All the same, both final results – each of which featured away goals – set up intriguing second legs for both series. Sure, the Seattle Sounders could fuck it all up right away with an early goal, and Toronto could very well ruin every last thing by doing the same, but they might not. I won’t dwell too much on what I think will happen, not least because that’s bit me on the ass again and again throughout 2016. Think that clichéd saying about the weather and sticking around…

Montreal 3-2 Toronto FC

How Much I Missed: Came in around the 29th minute for this one.

The note above means that I only saw Montreal’s first two goals in replays, not real time. As such, I have no clear sense of context – and ESPN’s halftime notes didn’t give me context; they gave me detailed breakdowns of what went wrong, but not a sense of Montreal blitzing at Toronto again and again and again. Montreal did do that later, certainly during the time I watched, even that dried up eventually, if not totally. On Montreal’s first goal, I’d say nothing went wrong in any pure sense beyond Patrice Bernier making the absolute most of a split-second to pivot and provide an inch-perfect pass to Dominic Oduro (seriously, that was a helluva pass). The second goal, though, coming as it did only minutes later and featuring bad positioning from a fullback and a TFC defense that had clearly fallen asleep (otherwise, how does Matteo Mancosu beat two defenders to the ball?), put Toronto in a hole that they barely crawled out of.

Then Montreal scored a third, just a weird thing that saw Ambroise Oyongo dribble from the depths, then into scoring position, then to scoring. A big hole, in other words, and one that involved a lot of digging.

Portland Timbers' Win Over Seattle Sounders: The Tale of the Hydra

(In your best "Keanu," say) "What do you do? What do you do?"

Do I feel elation?

It's closer to contentment, which is better. Elation implies "surprise" on some level – as in, you're so goddamned excited, at least in part, because you didn't see the good thing coming. The cards set up pretty favorably for the Portland Timbers tonight.  They took down the Seattle Sounders 4-1 in Portland, but that was hardly a surprise with Seattle limping in with half the line-up missing (more on that later). The Timbers fielded a team (sorry!) One and a Half Men short of the best (Liam Ridgewell and, for some, uptight dickholes, (e.g., me), Maximiliano Urruti on the bench accounts for the other missing half) and that was more than OK. The Timbers first team, well...it's pretty goddamn good lately. The basic math works pretty simply: Portland(2) > Seattle (0.5). So, no, I'm not elated. Content? Yes, and all kinds of.

With the way this set up, the Timbers had to win this game. Blowing out Seattle complemented the evening elegantly (?) as a shot backs a beer, but a win, any win, was all Portland needed to back up the argument that the Timbers' own blowout loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy was an anomaly, the soccer equivalent of putting in overtime on a bad night at the office, sucking the rust off a trailer hitch, etc. etc.

All that's great (and gross), but the greatest thing slips sweetly into the talking points: