Winning on the road, especially in MLS, is hard. This is an idiom Seattle Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer has shared many times, usually following a win that came in a particularly unsatisfying way. He used it again on Saturday, following the Sounders’ 3-2 win over Sporting KC.
Despite scoring three first-half goals — all of which came out of quality play — the Sounders were forced into a far more stressful second half than anyone would have liked. Although Sporting KC’s only goals came from a pair of relatively soft penalties, they put the Sounders under a ton of pressure. From the 59th minute onward, KC outshot the Sounders 14-1, including nine shots from inside the penalty area.
The cherry on top was Nouhou getting himself sent off in second-half stoppage time for throwing a ball at a fan, who had apparently flipped him off. Not only did it mark the fourth consecutive league game in which the Sounders have picked up at least one red card, but it was the second time in three league games that Nouhou has been ejected.
But Schmetzer, at least in the immediate aftermath, wasn't really interested in all that.
"It's three points," he said. "It's hard to win in MLS away from home. Three great goals, the goals we scored were very good. Everything positive."
Schmetzer has a point. The Sounders came into this game with just nine points and seven goals scored in their first 10 road games. They had been shut out in half of those games and scored only one goal in four others.
By just about any metric, the Sounders' first-half performance was the best they've looked in any road game this year. Their three goals came off nine shots and generated 2.12 xG, more than they had in all but one full road game this year. The goals themselves were, as Schmetzer said, "very good."
Jordan Morris' goal capped off a 21-pass sequence. In addition to showing some impressively patient buildup again, it also illustrated how important Morris can be to the attack. It's Morris' pass to Paul Rothrock on the wing that starts the final movement. Morris then sprints toward the goal to get himself in position to put his head on Rothrock's well-placed cross.
Paulie Primetime ➡️ JMo 💥 Two Seattle kids give us the early lead!
— Sounders FC (@soundersfc.com) 2025-07-13T01:01:55.100Z
The second goal also came as the result of a 20-pass sequence after Albert Rusnák picked up a deflected ball at the edge of the penalty area and floated a cross to the back post, where two Sounders were waiting if not for Daniel Salloi's elbow getting in the way.
The final goal, which seemed to put a nail in the game, was a perfectly executed counter-attack with Cristian Roldan getting it started after winning the ball in the Sounders penalty box and sending a 45-yard pass to Jesús Ferreira. The Sounders showed some wonderful tactical and technical ability on the break, with Ferreira waiting until the defense committed to him before feeding Rusnák, who had the patience to let two defenders shift toward him before tapping it back to Ferreira, who took one clean touch to settle before depositing it in the net.
Goals Galore 🥳 Jesús caps off a beautiful counterattack to make it 3-0!
— Sounders FC (@soundersfc.com) 2025-07-13T01:41:38.799Z
At that point, it really did look like the Sounders were going to cruise to victory. The Sounders were breaking the first wave of KC's press with remarkable ease and then found almost no resistance once they got into midfield as the defense seemed to be totally focused on trying to keep Morris from making runs in behind.
But after Morris came off at the half – due to a minutes restriction – KC were able to tighten up their lines considerably and at least slow the Sounders' attack. But once KC got on the scoreboard through a Dejan Joveljic penalty, momentum really switched. If not for an almost unbelievable goal-line clearance by Alex Roldan in the 72nd minute, this match could have taken a wholly different tone.
The players were a bit more inclined to be reflective.
"The one negative thing in the second half was we weren’t able to connect and get out of pressure," Rusnák said. "We were just too deep. We’ll learn from that. We’re happy we still won the game, but it was a grind at the end. The second half is something we need to improve on."
At the same time, Rusnák was not entertaining any thoughts that the Sounders got any more than they "deserved."
"We fully deserved three points," he said. "If you look at the last 10-15 minutes and five more minutes to play, it took a lot of effort and concentration."
That was especially true after Nouhou got sent off in one of the harder-to-understand meltdowns I've ever seen. Best I can tell from the footage, during the review that led to KC's second penalty, Nouhou was just hanging out around the goal while most of his teammates were getting instructions near the sideline. Nouhou seemed to be exchanging some banter with fans when he suddenly grabbed the ball next to the goal and chucked it into the crowd.
I'm sure something was said, but what ultimately triggered Nouhou's reaction appears to have been a fan flipping him off. That seems to be what he's telling the referee happened after being shown the red and it's what Schmetzer said precipitated it in the postgame. Assuming that's all there is, it's an inexcusable lapse in judgement that could prove to have even bigger implications than whatever suspension MLS hands down.
To the Sounders' credit, though, after the penalty and Nouhou's ejection, they settled things down enough to not allow a single shot over the final five minutes of the match.
It was by no means a perfect performance. The Sounders are not getting many of those these days. But they are starting to get results anyway, and have quietly accumulated the fifth most points in MLS over the last four months. That they are consistently able to overcome their mistakes is an undeniable positive.
