Editor's note: This is something that was first written a few years ago and has taken something of mythical status. We realize publishing it here is preaching to the choir a bit, but we asked MCB to update it and publish it here.
The negativity surrounding Cristian Roldan’s participation with the USMNT inspired me to write this. I’m a listener and member of the Scuffed Podcast Discord and this was mostly written for that community because the way it discussed Roldan was wildly out of step with my own observations.
Is Cristian Roldan a good player?
In 2022, I wasn’t a Sounders fan and I didn’t have much of an opinion about Cristian Roldan. I watch almost every USMNT game, but I don’t schedule around January friendlies so I hadn’t seen much of him playing for the US or for a West Coast MLS team. I figured he must be pretty good because when I turned on MLS Cups he was on my TV a lot and I would occasionally see Matt Doyle or other MLS observers say something like:
I first noted the overwhelmingly negative commentary from the USMNT internet leading into Gold Cup 2021. If you want to talk about soccer in this country, you end up in various internet discussion forums/boards. I visited Big Soccer, Reddit, various Discord servers and Twitter (back when that was a viable option) and you hardly heard a kind word about Cristian outside of Sounder at Heart. Even the Sounders reddit was weirdly dismissive of his U.S. performances.
I’ve been an avid USMNT watcher since 2001 and was a long-time sports talk radio fan before that. In my experience, once fans decide a guy stinks, they tend to just let confirmation bias drive the train. Some of them are so wrong that they must be “watching imaginary football” as Dan Bernstein used to tell the most deluded callers to his show on WSCR Chicago.
Roldan had always looked fine to me, so I decided to educate myself and started with the stats, figuring if the stats say he sucks, then he probably sucks, and I could stop there. Well…the stats don’t think he sucks. Below are his Fotmob ratings since 2017 when he first started getting called up to the national team.
Next, I took a look at the ASA G+, which is their more sophisticated attempt to capture a player’s on-ball value compared to other players at the same position. For context, ASA’s members are well respected in the sports analytics community and G+ gets regularly mentioned by professional soccer people. Below are Roldan’s scores. For real context you should go to their website and get the detailed explanations but the TL;DR is that 0.0 is a good score. In 2017 he had the 10th highest score in the whole league playing as a DM in a double pivot and then in 2021 he had the 13th highest score while playing as a 10 and then in 2025, he was in the ASA best XI in the double pivot.
Since the original writing, ASA has released a couple of different manifestations of G+ and he’s scored really well on all of those too. Net G+ tries to capture defensive value in different ways and has G+ boost which tries to measure how much a player’s passing improves a teammate’s position. I really like the new G+ subcategories app that lets you see what a player is specifically doing well to earn G+ value. Roldan is great at a lot of things but really jumps out for progressive passing, long passing, pressing and breaking up transitions on defense.
G+ Above Average
Net G+
He was also in Opta’s MLS Best XI in 2017 and 2019. Cristian Roldan is a long time stat sheet darling.
But “game’s not played on a spreadsheet m8.” Just because all of the event-data based computer models think he’s doing a great job doesn't tell me enough. Opta data and the stats based on it are dependent on doing things on the ball, and a lot of what’s important in soccer isn’t captured by the dropdown menus at Opta.
One example of this is the "recovery” stat, another thing Cristian is great at. A lot of times, a thing that’s graded as a loose ball recovery is the result of Cristian bullying another player off a 50/50 ball and “recovering” the loose ball. The 88th minute of the Germany friendly was a vintage example, the German beat his defender and thought he was on his way, only to have 15 blow by him from behind and calmly claim the ball and pass it safely to the keeper. Stats are good and should be used as a guide to tell you who to watch more closely, they aren’t the end all.
What about the Ol’ eye test?
My next step was to check in with the people actually watching all of his games. The short summary is that every person who works for the Sounders or who regularly writes about the Sounders for money or passion LOVES Cristian Roldan. His fellow players and former players respect and praise him. Coaches and executives rave about him. Broadcasters can’t help but gush about him.
The only people who don’t respect him widely are fans. I don’t want to introduce the logical fallacy of appealing to authority but at a certain point, you have to ask why all the professionals think differently than the Twitter tacticos and podcasters. Sure, the pros have access to data and film and a better idea of what’s more important to winning games but aren’t we all tired of experts flying the plane anyway?
Sounders people on Cristian
Gonzalo Pineda, a former El Tri player with 45 Mexico caps and three World Cup starts, appeared on an official Sounders podcast with host Steve Zakuani while he was a Seattle assistant. During their chat, Zakuani claimed that Pineda had been the best MF partner with Ozzy Alonso. At about minute 21. Pineda, said the following:
“Thanks for the comment about me and Ozzy but I disagree. Honestly I think Cristian is a much better player than me… he's fantastic, the way he can change the pace, the way he closes people down in midfield, he's very aggressive,also he's smarter every time.”
Brian Schmetzer, the Sounders head coach who has played Roldan just about every minute possible for his entire tenure, raves about Cristian and in detail. A YouTube search for their names together will show him beaming as he announces Cristian as All-Star Captain in 2021 or discussing his selection to Best XI in 2025 or see him openly advocating for a call up to the USMNT as far back as 2017. When asked if he thought 2025 was Cristian’s best year, Schmetzer isn’t willing to commit to that, noting that he’s been good for a long time.
Schmetzer on another occasion: “As far as Cristian is concerned, I know that he got good results on some of the data sites out there in the data-verse, metaverse, whatever you guys want to call it,” noted the coach, who called his team’s display a “determined” one. “But Cristian’s emotional ties to our success is what I prefer to look at. You can go on Sofascore, Fotmob, you guys can do all that. You guys can do all the data you want.“But his emotional leadership on the field – when he presses, how he presses, the energy and the desire, the commitment to his team, to himself, to the game, is what makes him a special player,” Schmetzer added. “Never gives up, whether it's the 1st minute, the 95th minute, 4th minute – that's his emotional contribution to the team. It’s far and away greater than any statistic that you guys can come up with.”
Cristian really slammed this point home when he won a PK in the first leg of the CCL final in Mexico city in the 94th minute. A guy who lives at sea level outhustled a home town player at 7000 feet, deep into stoppage time to secure a series changing PK.
Sounder at Heart has a weekly player ratings column with detailed explanations for the grades by the pseudonymous analyst, Realio. He also writes a year end roundup, here's a sample of those. If you want to understand Roldan’s game, you should read these weekly ratings.
This is astronomical growth. He has passed Alonso as the must-start defensive midfielder on the Sounders roster. If it weren’t for sample size, he’d likely be No. 1 on the 2017 ratings list. Cristian had a massive eight MOTM awards this last season, most on the team. He led the team in appearances (38), only missing one for a USMNT call up. He is resilient, effective, and a darn nice kid to boot. He showed toughness, playing through knocks and even broken bones. He dominated, whether he was paired with Goose, Ozzie, or Delem, on offense or defense. Even with a clunker in the final, he almost reached his regular-season grade in the playoffs, showing veteran poise in the postseason. He can play D-mid. He can play right back. He can be the 10 in the center. He can be a winger. He’s a damn good player and he’s ours.
MOTM = 4 High = 8 Low = 5
With 33 appearances, near-7 average throughout, and only a SINGLE below average match all season – Cristian Roldan was a bit under the radar in 2019 but had a phenomenal season. He continues to be a highly rated, resilient player who plays in 30-plus matches and ranks in the top five on the team ratings every year. Whether he plays his usual defensive midfielder position or switches out wide to support on a wing or in the defense, Cristian
succeeds anywhere on the field.
MOTM = 6 Reg Season, 1 Playoffs High = 8 Low =5
Cristian Roldan moved forward a line for most of 2021 and showed dynamic creation from the 10 and as a wide attacking player. Tactically brilliant, Roldan showed that his understanding of the game allows him to excel at pretty much any position. With Seattle needing a scoring threat, he often slotted into the attacking band, making diagonal wide runs into the corners and attacking from very advanced positions. Cristian ended the year with a stellar 6g/6a, adding 35 key passes, and having the second-best creation rate on the team. He also added considerable defensive bite from the front, consistently disrupting opponents with his pressure: over 350 pressures in the mid and attacking thirds this season.
Perhaps the most valuable player on the entire team clocks in at #2. A top-five rated Sounder in each of the last five seasons, Cristian Roldan earned his second straight #2 ranking in 2023.
You already know who the #1 rated player is for 2025 if you’ve read these recaps. If you haven’t, but you watched any Sounders games at all, you could still guess who took the top spot. Perennial high performer Cristian Roldan put in his best season in this, his 11th year with the Sounders. In addition to his best rating, he had his highest number of appearances, with 46 across all competitions. This incredible player was the top-rated Sounder in Club World Cup, MLS regular season, and MLS playoffs, showing up against the strongest opponents in the biggest matches, and earning a team-leading seven MOTM awards in 2025.
Out-of-town 0pinions
Ok, those guys are possible homers, even if they don't praise other Sounders to the same degree,what about non-Seattle MLS watchers?
The Athletic did a 2022 anonymous survey of 21 MLS “Chief Soccer Officers” and it was basically Roldan propaganda. He was tied for most underrated, second for guy to start a franchise with, got votes for guy on best contract, for most underrated and for best midfielder. This quote is apparently representative of what multiple CSOs said according to the authors on their Allocation Disorder podcast:
“(Roldan) has an incredible competitive nature,” said one CSO. “He’s a team guy, he controls the emotion of the team and he has great instincts in the game to do what the game needs when the game needs it.”
The 2024 edition anonymous CSO survey came right back to praising Cristian, He once again won for most underrated and this time it was after he’d captained the All-Star team and been selected to the 2022 World Cup team.
For a second consecutive year, Cristian Roldan finishes top of this category. Still getting loved for not getting enough love or appreciation.
“Everyone likes Roldan and realizes how important he is, but I don’t think people really realize just how good he is,” one executive said.
The 2026 edition is more of the same. He once again gets votes for best midfielder and most underrated. I suspect the CSOs are prowling the same USMNT message boards as the rest of us if they still think a guy who was best XI last year is still underrated.
“Cristian is super smart as a player and he competes for everything,” a CSO said. “If they take him out of that team, I don’t know what happens to them.”
ETR (RIP) hosts had him as second XI AM in 2021 when he filled in for the injured DP 10.
I could fill pages with praise from the people who regularly watch the guy play. He’s been dynamic in the center of the park, dynamic as an attacker, he’s fit, tactically sound and a top soccer athlete. His peers in an MLSPA blind survey gave him the second most votes for fittest man in MLS and again in 2025.
The 2025 Club World Cup released detailed match reports that have only confirmed that Cristian is a top tier soccer athlete, he covered ground and hit speeds like the top defensive midfielders in the tournament. The picture of PSG coach Luis Enrique staring into Cristian’s eyes post-match speaks volumes about how well he played in the “group of death.”
So what's he bad at, you ask? He's not particularly bad at anything besides PKs. I love the guy but I don’t trust him in a PK shootout.
I’ve watched every Sounders game since 2021, every USMNT game I can find back to 2019 and the video compilations available. Cristian’s biggest weakness, is his dribbling ability. He completes a good amount of dribbles for a DM and often weaponizes that in the final third by beating a guy to get off a shot or a telling pass. He’s a very competent ball carrier and wins a lot of fouls on the dribble as well. The “weakness” is that he isn't a natural press breaking dribbler like his old sidekick Obed Vargas or Luca De la Torre for example. Those guys are smoother on the turn and dribble. They’re also not as good at soccer.
This is his Sounders tribute video after he was voted team 2017 MVP. Deuce Is featured offering praise.
In conclusion, yes, he’s very good at football, very good at the running and fighting that's the heart of the modern game, while also having the vision and skill to pull off the sublime fairly often.
Roldan gets the sort of praise that you expect for a player who’s contributions don’t show up on the stat sheet. He's constantly praised for dogged effort, covering for teammates, correctly triggering the press and tactical awareness. He gets all the “try hard, hustle guy” praise while filling the stat sheet and stocking his highlight reel.
Here’s a video of Cristian doing cool, sometimes spectacular stuff, it features some passing, his target work, his shooting and even some of his emergency defending. The video was mostly downvoted on Reddit because people don’t like to see their biases challenged. That was where it really hit home for me that people weren’t actually judging him on what was happening on the field, the average USMNT fan was just repeating something someone else told them.
Roldanifesto Part 2: Is Roldan good enough to play for the USMNT?
There's that old joke: If you and a buddy are being chased by a bear, you don't have to outrun the bear…
The answer to the question is self-evidently yes. He’s played well and been one of the best players on the field multiple times in his USMNT career.. He was very good in the 2021 Gold Cup according to Gregg Berhalter, was excellent by any measure in his start against Martinique. He got the game-winning assist in the Gold Cup quarterfinal and then helped hold Mexico scoreless for 60 minutes in the final. For anyone tempted to hand-wave the Martinique game,it was the best the USMNT has looked in rolling a bum in the Gold Cup in who knows when? The 2019 Gold Cup team had to grind out a 3–2 win against Martinique, this same 2021 team barely beat Haiti 1–0 with Roldan not featuring, despite getting an 8th minute goal. He was the best player on the field in the Bosnia January camp friendly despite many people going blind and claiming the opposite. Carlon Carpenter, a professional video and performance analyst posted a very useful video analysis (that has since died in the ruins of twitter) of what the USMNT was trying to do against Bosnia and it was clear that Roldan was the guy actually doing what he was supposed to be doing, in contrast to Johnny Fútbol AND Kellyn Acosta.
As an aside, it’s funny that Twitter praise or even non-condemnation of Roldan tends to be wrapped in an “I don’t really rate him” defense to try to stave off the club badge boys. Noted non-fan of Roldan and one of the Scuffed Discord’s top posters in 2021/2022 made a Roldan all-touches comp of that game. It was good but has died like most things on twitter.
People pushed back against strawmen very hard after being confronted with the video evidence that their “lol Roldan stinks” tweets may have been more about the sender than the subject. The main argument seemed to be that he had a bad touch at the center circle which killed an attack 70 yards from goal, thus balancing out any positives. The “Roldán Standard” would basically fail any player in any game. I’ve seen this repeatedly over the years where unfavored players in USMNT discussions are paradoxically graded more harshly than the supposedly better players. It’s borderline comical how biased the average fan’s ratings are. I’ve made this my joking tagline, “I’m biased by watching the games.”
Is CR7 (still welcome in Nevada edition) one of the USMNT best XI with injuries and fatigue toggled off on your FIFA save? No, he isn’t, but that’s not how the game actually works. In real life, the only guys to play in the first 11 games of the Ocho were Brenden Aaronson and Tyler Adams and Aaronson got hurt to miss games 12-14. We need a lot of players to man the positions where Roldan has excelled in MLS, in CCL, in Leagues Cup and in the Club World Cup and for the USMNT.
Two and a half games into 2022 World Cup qualifying,when people were talking about Gregg’s seat getting hot in Honduras, after 2 draws and sitting on a third draw in the second half. He turned to Roldan when Pulisic limped off. The US then reeled off three goals unanswered and with Roldan having an obvious role in at least one of the goals, not that that’s the way to define a guy best known for all of the work he does off the ball.
Some people claim that Roldan has been bad or even terrible for the USMNT over the years. As I said in Part 1, I don’t watch every January friendly or Nations League group stage game. I don’t remember all these bad games people keep referencing so I went through player rating stories over the years, focusing on his starts. I only see one start where everyone agrees that Roldan was bad, the Canada NL game where everyone was rated poorly and Pulisic got pulled for cause.
More than once, I’ve gone back and watched every touch of a game, with remote in hand and a Google doc open, taking notes. When people are confronted with the timestamps and asked to justify their negative comments, it’s rare to get a satisfactory response. The best you’ll normally get is a “he was better than I remembered.”
As I’ve said, what this deep dive has done more than anything is make me realize that people are forming strong opinions that they share loudly on very little evidence. Further, it’s made it clear that most of them don’t want more evidence and often get mad when it’s offered
Gregg Berhalter was fine with calling and playing MLS players but absolutely refused to give Roldan a chance in the Ocho. The one MLS midfielder regularly on the roster to not get a single WCQ start was by far the best rated by stats and MLS professionals. He’s also the one who played the most prominent role on the most successful team.
So what gives?
I’ve asked people for their reasoning and the best they come up with generally is pretty wishy washy talk about not being up to the “international level.” or not playing on “the half-turn” or that he plays a different position for Seattle.
He's not “International Level”
I hate the term because it's meaningless by itself. If you want to say good enough to play for top 25 international teams or one of the top 10-15 American players, just say that.
The most important international games the USMNT plays outside of the World Cup are against Concacaf teams full of guys who play in Central American leagues with a sprinkling of higher leaguers. Panama and El Salvador were captained in 2022 World Cup Qualifying by MLS players who play every minute for them. Canada, runs out MLS players for huge minutes all over the field except at striker, Jonathan Osorio started 8 ocho games, Mark Anthony Kaye started 7. I don't think many MLS GMs would rather have Kaye or Osorio over Roldan. None of the 21 CSOs who answered the Athletic survey said so.
It's also not as though Roldan has only beat up on MLS teams. Over the years I’ve been watching he and the Sounders have ran roughshod over multiple good Liga MX teams in Champions League and Leagues Cup If you think Tigres, Leon or Cruz Azul are less talented or less organized than Jamaica or El Salvador, you and I are watching different sports. Even in MLS, If you think the CCL finalist LAFC team coached by Bob Bradley, a team that pressed Liga Mx teams off the field, is worse than Honduras or Panama, I can't help you.
It’s pretty clear that good MLS or Liga Mx players are toward the high end of the “international level” for the Concacaf games the USMNT needs to win.
Generic claims that he doesn't advance the ball or can't handle a pressing team don't hold up. FB ref has (they did until late 2025 RIP) helpful MLS game logs that show that's simply not true.
If he were technically deficient to a disqualifying degree, it would have been exposed by his play in the center of the Seattle midfield. Not only does he play there but he's been a fixture in their playoff and cup games at 6/8 and always one of the highest touch players as the Sounders march on. His stats show him getting a lot of touches in the defensive third and middle third and completing a ton of passes under pressure, he's clearly a big part of how Seattle moves the ball through the midfield.
Either he's good enough to handle the job or his coaches and GM and all of his opponents are too dumb to figure it out. Over his 10 year run as the starter, he's had a series of midfield partners showing that Seattle is willing and able to make a change if they need to. His little brother got an audition and was rejected so badly as to be cut from the team before resurrecting his career as a RB.
The Half Turn
Roldan talk has made me think a lot of people are confusing the ability to dribble through players in a way that looks cool on highlights with playing “on the half turn.” Playing on the half turn is about receiving the ball in a position to advance it with a single touch, Roldan does this very well.
He tends to play quick combinations at Seattle including a lot of long balls that lead to players isolated against a scrambling defense.
As a philosophical question, what's the evidence that highlight dribbling far from goal adds much value? A lot of times the cool dribbling seems to come at the cost of a quick pass that advances the ball faster towards goal. Clearly, dribbling close to goal is very valuable but people get a little too excited about the stuff far from goal.
He's a “system player”
This idea was interesting. After watching Seattle for years, I rejected it out of hand. There’s no gimmicks or system to protect Roldan. He’s the bodyguard, the shield in front of the back line, the recovery runner, sprinting down counters, the guy on the post saving his GK.
This is his coach talking about him.
Press Conference: Brian Schmetzer post-match vs New York City FC From 12:54 to 13:30 his coach tells you what’s what.
Conclusion
In 2022, I made the argument that he was good enough to make the World Cup team and he did, he also made the Club World Cup as a bonus, by leading his team to the 2022 Concacaf Champions League title. I think he should have been the player of the tournament but he had to settle for being Best XI.
In 2023, he was inexplicably underutilized at the Gold Cup by interim manager BJ Callaghan and wasn’t called up for over two years. By 2025, People were writing obituaries on his USMNT career but he was playing some of the best ball of his career back in his old DM position full-time. The USMNT’s prestigious new Argentine manager, Mauricio Pochettino got to watch Cristian boss the midfield for a Leagues Cup championship run that culminated in beating Messi and Rodrigo DePaul’s Inter Miami and be named to the MLS Best XI.
Pochettino brought him back in the fold and gave him more chances to play significant minutes. He got extended minutes to play with the top USMNT players, something he hadn’t gotten since 2019. He played well and earned a trip to his second World Cup and produced this headline.
At this point, there’s no reasonable argument that he’s not up to the level of the USMNT. Anyone making that claim isn’t to be taken seriously. A big loss when Cristian leaves the scene as a player is that it’ll be harder to instantly spot people who don’t know ball.
