We can forgive even recent Sounders fans having a rocky relationship with their team when it comes to corner kicks. The disconnect between the volume of corner kicks taken and the actual return on those set-piece opportunities was a point of contention well into the 2024 season. Sounders were leading the league in corners earned but took 20 games and something like 200 attempts before securing a goal. The previous season had a similar slow start with a 19-game drought after scoring from a corner on Matchday 1. Though 2025 was a more normal year on offense the set-piece defense was a problem. These are the marginal differences that have helped to define the gap between 3rd place with home field advantage in the Best of 3 round and say 5th place, or not making it at all.
Arsenal riding set-piece superiority and basically nothing else to the top spot in the 2025-2026 edition of the Premier League shows the power that emphasizing this area of the game can have. It also has the columnists up in arms. We've now reached the "backlash" stage of coping where it's the Gunners' fault that Open Play goals are declining more generally in the Prem alongside their rise of their being good at set plays. "Arsenal must stop set-piece obsession and give players license to thrill" headlined one column from a long tenured talking head in late February. I find hullabaloo absurd. It's simply not a zero-sum equation as the pundits frame it.
Major League Soccer can often feel somewhat distant from the narrative of the global game but that is not the case with this situation. The distinguished football writers are bloviating as if they were the ones being subjected to Eric Ramsay's version of Minnesota United slowing the pace to a crawl, intentionally sucking the rhythm from the proceedings and the enjoyment from the beautiful game. Rave Green supporters are simply queueing up the James Franco "First Time?" meme.
After spending years coaching in the Premier League's developmental ranks Matt Wells joined Colorado Rapids as their new gaffer to cut his teeth in America a la Ramsay, and literally brought the Premier League playbook along with him. As a long-time watcher of the EPL it jumped off the screen in their first time out against Sounders that he'd drilled his new team on Arsenal's corner kick routines from day one. And where the Rapids didn't get results against Sounders in Gameday 1, in their Gameday 2 clash with Timbers they could have had four (and bagged two).
If you've spent any time at all watching Arsenal you'll recognize that they have a routine every time on corners. A clump of four to six players will loiter behind the back post, the kicker will drop his hand to initiate the movement, and the clump of runners will crash toward the front post through traffic to cause confusion amongst the markers in front of goal. There will often be a defender tasked exclusively with screening the goalie to prevent him from coming out to punch the ball.
Much of the effectiveness of Arsenal's implementation of these particulars depends on their world class personnel. In Declan Rice they have a world-class foot to deliver an inswinger accurately into either the front post, top of the box, or back post. The latest affront of Arsenal's approach is that Gabriel and his compatriots are throwing their bodies around in the box to dominate the area in ways rarely seen. When you are bigger and can rely on an effective screen of the goalkeeper, suddenly you can be braver about throwing your body in the mixer so long as you are top of the pile.
Though the Sounders lost last season's set-piece coach to a promotion at LAFC they've not lost the will to keep on experimenting themselves with set pieces. The running MO has been the tall trees clumping at the top of the 18-yard box and pushing into the defensive line. This year we've also seen Arsenal's back-post-to-front-post version trotted out at times. More than anything Sounders seem intent on mixing it up on corners to keep the defense on their toes.
Cristian Roldan's headed goal versus Real Salt Lake in particular was a case in point on keeping it fresh. Roldan as the only streaker from back to front was a very sneaky modification to the classic Arsenal routine they ran earlier in the game. His ghosting run behind the goalie inside the goal to get loose from a possible following defender shook out as the platonic ideal of a Sounders corner routine at the near post when no-one followed him. Sharp eyes will spot Hassani Dotson as a decoy at the the front post and Paul Rothrock's screen of the goalkeeper as a key aspects of the plan for protecting Roldan's space to operate. Bravo.
Outside of corner kicks, Seattle does look to be explicitly referencing the Gunners on indirect free kicks. With Albert on the ball, they'll stack up in an offside position at the back post and push up into back line to arrive onside right as the ball is kicked. It is a gamble to stay onside but they've mostly been making it work and it puts them ahead of their defender if they do it right.
One of these planned moves resulted in chaos leading to Dotson collecting a rebound and shepherding it into the net (a suspect VAR intervention then clawed that goal back). Jackson Ragen finding himself wide open at the back post in the 8th minute of RSL was everything they could have hoped for, if Yeimar's subsequent headed shot could have been better. Set pieces are generating consistent danger for Sounders' offense in 2026.
These are very positive developments on one side of the ball but on the other side of the ball we still have some concerns to work through. Sounders were near worst in 2025 at defending set-pieces with only a historically bad Kansas City team taking the cake on that.
I hadn't fully absorbed how bad Sounders Set Piece Defense was last year. In the WGCF "Set Piece" Build Up Categories only SKC were worse than Sounders in non-Penalty goals and xG/shot allowed. So I guess that's my main concern going into the 2026 MLS Season. Can't do that again!
— Josh (@joshonthesound.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T05:20:40.858Z
Brian Schmetzer acknowledged in preseason the need to work on this area and they seem to be making progress, as they’ve now gone four straight without allowing a set-piece goal.
Seattle did well against Colorado's organized front but the immediate road ahead for Sounders in CCC and MLS has them up against many of MLS's best established set-piece offenses. Minnesota United and Vancouver Whitecaps are first and second respectively in set piece xG in 2026 per American Soccer Analysis. San Jose is sixth in set piece xG and third in xG from corners. From the first three regular season games all three teams have at least one goal from a corner and one from a set piece. Whitecaps have two corner goals already in 2026 following last year being tops in goals scored from corners with 13. A veritable murderers row in this regard you might say.
Sunday's gritty win at St. Louis was an ugly but sublime milestone in showing Sounders could shake off last year's inconsistency in closing out tough games with a depleted lineup. Thursday's statement win in Vancouver for Concacaf Champions Cup with a depleted lineup was massive and heartening: from 11 corners the Whitecaps generated just .29 xG. But there is more work to do 3 games in 8 days to go.
Brian Schmetzer praised Nouhou's "90 minutes of concentration" in earning the result in St. Louis. Vancouver showed the depth of the entire team in doing just that. But consistency is what earns the Michelin star.
