You need to see Raúl Ruidíaz’s sublime goal in slow-motion

SEATTLE — Raúl Ruidíaz has 20 goals in about 2,000 all-competition minutes with the Seattle Sounders. That’s nearly twice as good as anyone else in franchise history.

But for all of Ruidíaz’s scoring prowess, we’ve yet to see him unleash anything quite like what he did on Saturday. Ruidíaz’s 58th minute goal immediately goes down as one of the best goals anyone has scored in rave green and will likely get consideration from MLS Goal of the Year.

There’s just so much to absolutely love about this goal. It starts with a pretty simple ball from Cristian Roldan. Ruidíaz’s first touch isn’t great, as he almost seems to whiff on chesting it down. But he makes up for it by cleverly heading the ball down to evade Franco Escobar’s outstretched boot. Miles Robinson likely think he has Escobar covered though and slides over to cut off Ruidíaz. But Ruidíaz has different ideas, as he sombreros Robinson, who just misses heading it clear.

At that point the hard work is done, but Ruidíaz still has a goal to score. He does that with equal aplomb, blasting a shot from about 8 yards out past a helpless Brad Guzan.

“It was an incredible goal absolutely,” Ruidíaz said through a translator. “Very similar to the first goal that I scored in the MLS against San Jose. I received the ball and then I just did what I did.”