When the Seattle Sounders 2025 MLS schedule was released back in December, there was one game that stood out among all the others as likely the lowest probability of success.
The Sounders weren’t literally destined to lose Tuesday’s game against Inter Miami, but the deck was always pretty significantly stacked against them from the very start.
The game required the Sounders to take their longest flight of the regular season, play on their shortest rest (about 70 hours between the end of the game on Saturday and kickoff on Tuesday) and face a team many expected to be a Supporters’ Shield contender. To make matters worse, Inter Miami had the added motivation of seeking revenge for a rather humiliating loss to the Sounders a couple weeks prior in the Leagues Cup final.
Given all that, the temptation had to be strong for head coach Brian Schmetzer to rotate heavily and put the focus on the intra-conference matchups that bracketed the Miami game.
From the sound of it, that was actually the original plan. But that changed after Saturday’s result.
“Because we dropped points to the Galaxy we needed to take a calculated risk and mix the group differently than I would have,” Schmetzer said in the postgame press conference.
It did not work as hoped, and the Sounders ended up with a what was effectively a worst-of-both-worlds result. Not only did they lose 3-1 to Miami, they did it while failing to rest several key players who ended up playing significant minutes against the Galaxy and will likely end up being needed against Austin FC on Sunday.
The easiest to decision to second-guess was starting Cristian Roldan, who had one of his worst performances of the season. Unlike most of his teammates, Roldan did not get a full five days off between the Leagues Cup final and the next training session after he was a late addition to the United States national team. Roldan ended up playing 118 minutes for the USMNT in a pair of friendlies and then played 90 minutes for the Sounders last Saturday. He’s now logged nearly 3,500 minutes for club and country in 2025.
Roldan seemed a prime candidate to get the day off against Miami, but ended up logging 59 minutes. Seven of those came after Miami had taken a 3-0 lead. Interestingly, the Sounders’ play started to improve after Roldan was replaced by Snyder Brunell. That coincided with a roughly 10- or 15-minute stretch when it looked like the Sounders might actually get themselves back into the game, culminating with Obed Vargas’ goal in the 69th minute.
While noting there were several players who didn’t quite look up for it, Schmetzer admitted this was a particularly tough performance for Roldan. Normally one of the Sounders’ most ball-secure players, Roldan had several sloppy turnovers, including one that led directly to Miami’s first goal.
“In the first half we were a little too rushed,” Schmetzer said. “We needed to be calmer with the ball.
“When we were able to get ahold of the game … that’s the type of game you have play against Miami and we weren’t able to accomplish that in the first half.”
This was always going to be a somewhat tricky portion of the schedule. The Sounders’ final six games— including this one — are evenly split between home and away, but all against teams currently in playoff position. There are no gimmes from here on out.
It would have made things a lot more manageable if they had taken care of business against the Galaxy, the team currently leading the Wooden Spoon race who they led 2-0 at home. But after dropping points on the late equalizer, the Sounders lost the ability to control their own destiny for home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs and will now likely need to claim at least 11 points from their final five matches while hoping LAFC drop at least 10 points from their final seven.
Essentially, the Sounders’ margin for error is gone, at least as far as home-field advantage goes.
If there was a silver lining to the Miami game, it’s that Jordan Morris and Albert Rusnák both played significant minutes. They also helped combine on the Sounders’ only goal, while Rusnák also had the incisive pass that helped set up an earlier chance by Osaze De Rosario. Getting both players fully back should boost the Sounders’ chances, not just for the stretch run but for the playoffs.
Morris, at least, tried to put a positive spin on this sudden stretch of challenges. Maybe things had been almost too easy during the Sounders’ run of 10-1-5 since the Club World Cup.
“The team has been doing so well since the Club World Cup,” Morris said. “We gave the game away against LA.
“We have to learn from it. Going into playoffs, it’s good to have moments like this where you need to reset your focus. We have really important games coming up to try to secure top 4.”
