What You’ll Watch

The Seattle Sounders finish a brief two-game home stand when they host Orlando City SC on Wednesday night. This is the lone meeting between the two squads this season and Seattle will look to stay unbeaten against Orlando.

Orlando currently sits 10th in the Eastern Conference with a record of 3-5-3 (12 points in 11 games played; 1.09 ppg) while the Sounders sit third in the Western Conference with a record of 6-1-4 (22 points in 11 games played, 2 ppg). Last time out, Seattle defeated Houston 1-0 on a Cristian Roldan goal in the 5th minute and Orlando lost 1-0 on the road against Atlanta United.

This will be the fifth all-time regular-season meeting between the two clubs. The Sounders have scored ten goals and conceded just two. Seattle hold a 3-0-1 advantage overall. At home, Seattle is 1-0-1 with five goals scored and one conceded.

Tale of the Tape

Seattle

Last Five: L-T-T-T-W

Leading Goal Scorer: Jordan Morris, four goals

Assist Leader: Nicolas Lodeiro, six assists

Orlando

Last Five: L-W-T-L-L

Leading Goal Scorer: Nani, five goals

Assist Leader: Nani, four assists

Injury Report, Suspensions and International Duty

Orlando

Questionable: Carlos Ascues (quad) and Nani (calf)

Seattle

Out: Victor Rodríguez (left hamstring strain) and Gustav Svensson (left hamstring strain)

Questionable: Chad Marshall (right knee inflammation)

Match Officials

REFEREE: David Gantar

AR1: Jeff Hosking

AR2: Jeremy Kieso

4th: Farhad Dadkho

VAR: Daniel Radford

AVAR: Cameron Blanchard

What to Watch

• James O’Connor’s MLS coaching career got off to about as bad of a start as possible. Orlando City went 2-13-3 in his first half season in charge. He somehow managed to keep his job and Orlando have already won more games in their first 11 than they did over their final 25 last year.
• To call them “good” would be a bit of a stretch, though. Orlando City is currently tied for the fifth fewest goals in MLS and scored multiple goals in a game just twice. In their last five games, they have just three goals. All of those were scored by Nani, who didn’t play on the weekend and may not play against the Sounders either. Orlando’s defense is slightly more respectable, but only is still only middling.
• O’Connor has been switching between a 3-4-1-2 and 4-3-3 formation with neither producing anything like consistent results.
• Dom Dwyer has had a particularly rough go of things recently. He’s now gone six games without a goal and was pulled after just 64 minutes on Sunday. Among his more notable moments was somehow failing to convert a chance on a wide-open net by shooting directly at goalkeeper Brad Guzan.
• Orlando has historically been pretty bad when traveling to the West Coast. In 11 all-time visits to the Pacific time zone, they are just 1-6-4. That includes two trips to Seattle, a 4-0 loss in 2015 and a 1-1 tie in 2017. You may remember that as the game Orlando equalized on the game’s final play after being roundly outplayed for most of the evening.
• To make matters worse, they’re actually playing on one less day of rest — while also making a cross-country trip — than the Sounders. They played on Sunday against their biggest rivals and most of their regular starters played 90 minutes.
• In short, this is team the Sounders should absolutely beat, especially at home. They seem to be particularly vulnerable on the right side of their defense where Ruan has struggled to contain attacks.

How to Watch

Date/Time: Wednesday, May 15 @ 7:30 PM

Location: CenturyLink Field — Seattle, WA

TV: JOEtv

Streaming: YouTube TV

Radio: 950 KJR AM (English), El Rey 1360AM (Spanish)