RENTON — Since the end of the Club World Cup, the Seattle Sounders have been on quite a run. They are 4-0-3 in MLS play, were the only team to win all three of their Leagues Cup games and are currently on an eight-game run in which they’ve scored 26 goals.
After beating the LA Galaxy 4-0 on Sunday, they’ve now accomplished the rare double of beating the reigning MLS Cup winners and Concacaf Champions Cup winners in the same season. That they did it inside the span of two weeks and by a collective score of 11-0 only serves to put an exclamation point on things.
They’ve managed to do this while missing a handful of would-be starters and rotating the lineup every game, sometimes with as many as seven changes.
“Confident, I think, is the word that I would use,” Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldan said when asked to describe the mood of the team right now. “Part of the success of the team — and I think that’s what’s beautiful about this run after the Club World Cup — is we’ve really used everybody, and we’ve gotten the results.”
For all the Sounders’ success over the past couple of months, though, they’ve only been able to make incremental movement up the Western Conference table.
The Sounders currently sit in fourth — up from a tie for fifth when they came out of the Club World Cup — but can move into a tie for third with a game in hand if they beat Minnesota United on Saturday.
Minnesota United play a unique style in MLS. No team in MLS history has possessed the ball less — they average just 40.1% possession — and they are more reliant on set-piece goals than all but one team, which includes a league-leading five goals off throw-ins.
They pair this was a strong defense that has allowed just 1.08 goals per game.
“This feels like a playoff game,” Roldan said about facing Minnesota, the only North American team to beat the Sounders at home this year. “It will be a tight game. It’s going to be a battle defending and then also getting that one chance and putting the game away.”
It’s game like this one that Roldan thinks will help the Sounders focus. Even since the Club World Cup, the Sounders have struggled to close out some of their opponents.
But starting with the Cruz Azul match — where they scored seven second-half goals — that hasn’t been as much of an issue. The Sounders have scored at least two unanswered goals in each of their last four games.
“I think it it comes from playing meaningful games,” Roldan said. “I think our team is so interesting because we get up for these big games. When there’s a big game, it seems like we elevate our game and we’ve been able to sustain that.
“I’m excited for more meaningful games because I think our team can can live up to those expectations.”
No need for rest?
For all the Sounders’ rotation over the past 10 games, the double-pivot of Roldan and Obed Vargas has been pretty much a constant. Vargas has started each of those games and only been off the field for a total of 32 minutes, while Roldan has started nine games and played all but 89 minutes. Each of them have played more than 2,700 minutes this year and are on pace to set career-highs for playing time.
Neither is itching for rest, though.
“I know I have a lot of minutes under my belt,” Roldan said. “There’s times where maybe I get tired in the game and that comes with fatigue and the highs and lows of the season.
“But I feel great, and I’m going to continue saying that. I continue telling Schmetz that because I want to keep playing.”
Vargas had a similar perspective.
“I feel good,” he said. “Whenever the coaching staff ask me, I always try to be honest with them. As a professional athlete, you have to do all the things off the field to be ready for the games. I think that’s something I’ve been growing in my career.
“Obviously, when you first started, you’re so young, you feel like you don’t need to do anything, and your body.s going to recover. But I’ve learned that my sleep and hydration are the two most important things. I’ve been trying to keep up with those things, so I can be ready for all the games that the team needs me for.”
