ST. PAUL, Minn. — It’s perfectly reasonable to feel a little uncertain about the Seattle Sounders following their latest trip here. It was, after all, their first trip back to the place their 2025 season ended in frustrating fashion and the 0-0 draw brought back all sorts of uncomfortable memories. I was sitting in the stands just to the side of the goal opposite the Wonder Wall, and even in person it didn’t feel like there was a ton to get excited about. For all that this particular game didn’t give a ton to mull over or dive into on its own, it seems like a good opportunity to take a step back and look at what we’ve seen so far this season.
Neither side is really likely to feel good about a scoreless draw, but both sides will still take a bit of relief from that result. For Minnesota United it’s a definite bounce back performance after the Vancouver Whitecaps hung six on them at B.C. Place last weekend, particularly as that match was sandwiched between the Sounders beating the Whitecaps by an aggregate score of 5-1 across the two legs of their Concacaf Champions Cup tie. For the Sounders, as Brian Schmetzer noted in his postgame comments, a clean sheet on the road is always a positive. Even more so when you look at this season compared to last season, when the team’s defensive struggles were a major talking point.
This marked Seattle’s fourth league shutout in just their fifth game, their third straight on the road, and their fifth shutout in all competitions through seven games. It’s a serious improvement over last season, when it took until match week 15 on May 24 for the Sounders to notch their fourth league shutout in a 1-0 win at home against FC Dallas. The team only even kept two clean sheets on the road during league play all of last season, a mark the team has already surpassed. In fact, as we stand now on March 23 having played seven games across all competitions, the Sounders have already kept a third of the total number of clean sheets that they recorded in all of 2025 when they played 50 games.
Those shutouts have stacked up leading to a goals allowed average of just 0.4 goals conceded per match, the third best mark in the league behind only the San Jose Earthquakes (0.2) and LAFC (0). The expected goals aren't quite as favorable, as the Sounders have conceded 1.2 xG per match compared to a marginally worse 1.25 xG conceded in 2025. It’s fair to worry that there’s potential for a defensive regression, and similarly there’s concern that this improved defensive performance has come while the attack has seemingly stagnated a bit. The team’s averaged 1.0 goals per game while averaging 0.96 xG per game in league play. For comparison, during the 2025 MLS season they averaged 1.76 goals per game (including the playoffs) and 1.77 xG per game.
This is where the context of this game and this season so far becomes important, though. The attack has certainly struggled to really get going, but there are valid reasons for that. For one, only the opening game of the season has been played at Lumen Field while the Sounders have started the season with a five-game road stretch in the league — which still has another game to go before the team gets to play in front of a home crowd in Seattle — to allow for grass to be installed ahead of the World Cup. It’s also easy to forget that in 2025 the Sounders were able to start the season with all their Designated Players available. Pedro De la Vega took awhile to get rolling, but he had three goals in CCC play, Jordan Morris had three league goals, and Albert Rusnák had two goals and two assists across all competitions at this point in the season. Meanwhile, this match marked Morris’ return to the field when he subbed in for the final 25 minutes after being forced out of the season opener against the Colorado Rapids in the 8th minute. De la Vega is likely out until after the World Cup and Rusnák has only got a goal and an assist 555 minutes between MLS and CCC.
The team has gotten really good contributions from Pauls Arriola and Rothrock and Jesus Ferreira, but between the rotation among the squad for a variety of reasons and the absence of some of the team’s top attacking talents, it’s been a struggle to get things rolling on that end.
That rotation was a factor again in this game. Schmetzer and his staff made several changes to the starting lineup including resting Jackson Ragen with Antino Lopez starting alongside Alex Roldan at CB; Nikola Petković getting his second MLS start beside Cristian Roldan; and Georgi Minoungou making his second start of the season on the left wing. They had to make another injury sub in the 22nd minute when Alex Roldan had to come off with what’s been described as a “hip pointer” issue, and was replaced by Ragen. The shuffling on the back line hasn’t necessarily hurt Seattle’s ability to keep the ball out of their own net, but it’s hard to imagine it hasn’t had knock-on effects going forward.
Kalani Kossa-Rienzi has been given the run of the right wing with Alex Roldan being played largely as a CB due to the mass of injuries to the rest of that position group, and while KKR has a fantastic goal already this season and is a fun player to watch with a knack for making things happen, it’s important to remember how key Roldan has been previously to Seattle’s build-up and possession from that same spot.
All told, the team’s done well considering their circumstances. Regardless of how they’ve done it, they’ve already gotten three road wins in the league — their seven road points are from four fixtures that only netted them one a year ago — and put away one of the league’s consensus best teams in the Vancouver Whitecaps to advance to the CCC quarterfinals. A week off for the international break ahead of their next match against the Houston Dynamo should provide an opportunity to get at least a little healthier and to iron some things out on the training ground. After that they’ll get to play 6 of the next 8 league games at home before the World Cup and we’ll have a much better idea of where the team really stands.
For now, the scoreless road draw against Minnesota is a bit of a mixed bag and also a single data point in a long season.
