Yes, even Sounders players had to deal with that traffic nightmare

Seattle traffic on a Tuesday evening is never much fun. But after a downed semi forced the closure of SR-99, an already frustrating trip to CenturyLink Field became nightmarish. There were anecdotal reports of four-hour trips from just a few miles away and judging from the pre-game crowd to the one that had arrived after halftime, plenty of fans have hellish stories to tell.

Of course, soccer players aren't immune to these things and, perhaps unsurprisingly, were forced to deal with traffic too. Chad Barrett apparently decided to walk from Seattle Center and a couple other players arrived later than the 5:30 p.m. check-in date.

Stefan Frei was one of them and was even spotted by a few fans madly running into the stadium, an embarrassing fact he confirmed on Wednesday.

"I got from my house to the Westin hotel, five blocks took about 45 minutes of driving," Frei told the media. "I thought, ‘I've got to park the car.' It took me about 20 minutes to run.

"I got a couple of tweets. They were like, ‘Oh, we just saw Frei run past us.' It was a bit embarrassing. I'm actually lucky they let me into the stadium, because I came in through the north side and I had to go through security and they were like, ‘Whoa, slow down;' and I'm like, ‘I'm a player, please let me in.' It worked out, so that's good."

Luckily Frei didn't have to run back as teammate Brad Evans gave him a ride to his car.

The one positive, Frei noted, was that at least he got a lighter day of training out of it.

"That was about as much running as a goalkeeper should be doing," he said. "That's why I chose that position, right?"