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...

Thumbnail History
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...

Thumbnail History
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 Columbus Crew SC, MLS's Kings of the Inside Straight

An inside straight, in human form.

Thumbnail History
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

On the Sounders. Just for the Record.

This wasn't intended as an addendum to my tribute to the present Greatness of the New York rivalry, but it sort of played out as one. It also won't go on for long, because it's not a complicated thing to parse, no image needed, etc.

The Seattle Sounders are bad. I understand that I'm probably the 20th person to tell you the same thing this weekend, but, holy shit, they're like really, really bad. How bad? I have more on this later, when I talk about teams who are so bad that you almost have to throw out wins against them.

It gets weirder, actually, because when I saw the Sounders starting line-up going into what would become a 3-0 loss/suctioning of the spirit, it struck me as decent, maybe even decent enough to get a result. Having Dempsey under Morris seemed smart given their skill-sets, and putting Herculez Gomez opposite Andreas Ivanschitz made some kind of sense; Osvaldo Alonso didn't play (don't know why, don't care; not relevant), but Cristian Roldan and Erik Friberg felt competent, the defense, which has been good, was still there, and so on.

You can line up Argentina's starters and you'll never get a win if your team plays the way Seattle did on Sunday. Sporting Kansas City (oh yeah, that was the opponent, btw!) almost always outworks the opposition, but Seattle looked an awful, uncoordinated mess defensively: their players trailed their marks and the movement on the field generally, which translated to almost no pressure on the ball. Small wonder SKC could pick out players on their crosses. By the second half, everyone on the team was tuned out enough to reduce the game to skills drill for SKC – a shooting drill in particular.

It was either last week or the week before that Stumptown Footy's Chris Rifer tweeted the question of whether or not Seattle's coach Sigi Schmid would last through August. I replied that I thought he would, but, after that entirely dispirited shit-show, I'm not sure. When a team can't even muster the desire to defend its pride - and that translates to defending a beleaguered coach's job, that says something. Sigi could very well be done...

Clint Dempsey & Hero Theory

Clint Dempsey's self-visualization.

This post has an Alpha, an Omega, and shit-ton of Greek letters in between, at least conceptually. Still, I hope to keep it brief…

When I watched the Seattle Sounder’s midnight-of-the-soul-loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy (because close enough), a couple things stood out – among them, LA’s sometimes impressive efficiency, and on both sides of the ball. There was something about the Sounders, though, the way Clint Dempsey appears to operate on the assumption that his teammates are second-best to him in all ways, a reality that, obviously, obliges him to handle everything from getting the ball out of the back, to approach play, to finally scoring the sweet, sweet goal that sends the fans home singing!

I picked up the phrase “hero-ball” somewhere – again, probably from Matt Doyle (because that’s all I read) - but that’s all the attribution that I have time for. I’m condensing it to “hero” here because it fits better. Now, to my point…

After recording the Dangerous Balls Podcast, I thought harder about what the “hero” concept means to me. Some players – and, here, yes, absolutely, I would include Dempsey, but also the Colorado Rapids’ Jermaine Jones and Toronto FC’s Sebastian Giovinco – want to put the game on their shoulders and carry it to victory. It’s just in their nature. Sometimes, this pans out – see, Giovinco through all of 2015 and up until…is it six games ago? See Jones’ (pre-meltdown) time in New England (e.g. before his messiah complex caught up with him?), and see Dempsey in the good games in the Copa America Centenario and through the Oba-Deuce year(s).

There’s an aside in all of this: coaches love “hero” players, at least so long as they can pull it off and probably for a few years after. It simplifies a coach’s job when a player can, say, both start and finish a play the way Dempsey sometimes can, or when Jones provides enough presence in midfield to make it effectively a vast no-go zone for the other team. Sounders’ coach Sigi Schmid enjoyed two years of looking like a genius for no better reason than writing “Dempsey” and “Martins” into the starting line-up. Really good players are short-cuts, basically, players with enough talent and sense/belief in what they can do to sort of dictate a new game-plan for their coach; it saves him from thinking, wins them more money, adulation and random hate for five lifetimes, etc. I'm not saying it's win, win, win. I am, however, saying that Klinsmann defaulted to this this past June…the lazy fuck.

What happened against LA, though, highlighted the increasingly real limits to the Dempsey’s “hero” time. The way he showed to receive the ball in the middle third limited his useful availability in the final third where the Sounders needed someone to link play, or, if nothing else, another runner in the box. Here, it’s less that he’s no longer capable of doing something he once did (think it’s true, though, just sayin’), than he’s undercutting some important work that his current and future teammates need to learn – e.g. how to get the ball to either him, or literally any other attacking player/fullback going forward. And, yes, it goes without saying that covering all that ground will get harder for Dempsey with each passing year.

Sometimes, the best way to help another player is to let him learn his job. So, yeah, back off, Clint.

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.

Seattle Sounders 2015 Season Preview: The Kids Who Get Everything for Christmas

Never enough tree. Nice problem.

What Happened Last Year

"It is easy to forget just how close the Sounders came to winning three major trophies in 2014..."
- Ives Galarcep, Goal.com

That sums it up neatly as anything. For Portland Timbers fans, "three major trophies" is the loop tape for your shittiest nightmares. The Seattle Sounders did come very close in the end – and not without earning it. As much as it hurts to say it, Seattle has a rock-solid team. Even if they acquired by spending more than (some anonymous) "you," that's still their team and we all have to fucking deal with it. Even in Portland. Everyone knows about Obafemi Martins and Clint Dempsey playing two-man tiki-taka through a rotating cast of MLS defenses, but a clutch of rarely-sung role-players carried the real secret to Seattle’s (near-) success (HA!) on their backs. If it wasn't Lamar Neagle knocking in nine goals (along with nine assists; most under-rated attacking player in MLS, anyone?), it's Marco Pappa coming in late to turn a game, or Chad Barrett chasing down everything like some crazed dog, or Stefan Frei pulling the ball right out of his ass before it went in the goal, or Zac Scott just...holding his shit together with retirement nipping at his heels. That supporting cast is the secret to Seattle's success. And, yes, I hate them for it. But, their nearly-glorious (HA!) 2014 was highly impressive. And the motherfuckers look all set to do it again.
Final Stats: 20-10-4, 64 points, 1st in the West, Supporters' Shield, 65 gf, 60 ga (wow.)