Road to good intentions (trophies)

Winning home games is fun. It's nice to see a victory in comfort around your soccer friends. But it's expected. MLS teams win nearly 60% of their home games. That's higher than most leagues (EPL is in the upper 40%s).

Winning home games isn't the path to winning trophies, though. The exceptional teams win their road games. Every team ahead of the Sounders in the 2025 Western Conference earned 1.47 points per match or more on the road. Seattle was at 1.11. In 2024 and 2023 the Sounders' strong road performance earned them a top-4 seed.

Shield winners are road winners – last year's Philly team was a poor road-performing Shield winner with only 1.5 ppm – often in the 2.00 ppm space.

And, as Sounder at Heart readers know, no one wins MLS Cup on the road. Since the shift to higher seed hosting only one away team took the Cup with an outright win (Portland in 2015) and only two have won via kicks from the spot (Seattle and NYCFC).

A club with ambitions for an MLS trophy must, must win on the road in order to host the playoffs at home.

This reminder comes because the Sounders start a five-match road swing at their absolute worst road stadium. Facing Real Salt Lake in Sandy, Utah to start that swing probably starts the Sounders on the wrong foot.

RSL won five of their last six hosting Seattle, keeping clean sheets in each match. In fact their unbeaten run when hosting is at 16 matches in all competitions.

This early season test is as massive as the Wasatch Range.

The quality of the two teams hasn't mattered. For much of this run the Sounders have been the better side in the full standings, in trophies. Some of it is justified by the higher elevation (not quite a mile up, but the Sounders don't struggle as much at Colorado or even in Mexico's highlands!), but much of it can come down to mythology at this point.

The best way to rewrite a myth is to take its foundation, rip it apart and rebuild it. The Sounders once thought they'd done that – Lamar Neagle and Mario Martinez should have broken the legend.

It didn't happen.

For Seattle to be in the running to win the West or even more magically win the Shield, seeing 9 or more points from the road run would be a great sign.

That has to start tonight.