It is not uncommon for a team’s goals to shift throughout the season. Everyone, for instance, will at least pay lip service to the idea that they want to win MLS Cup at the beginning of the season. Once results start coming in, maybe just making the playoffs is enough. So it goes.
For the Seattle Sounders, the season started out with open talk of trying to win the Supporters’ Shield. After a 6–1–1 start that left them just two points off the pace, Shield talk became almost normalized.
Following the Sounders’ 3–1 loss to 14th-place Austin FC on Wednesday, which left them with their first four-game losing streak since 2014, that talk feels like it may as well come from a different season entirely. Seattle's record now stands at 7–5–3, just five points above the playoff line and 14 behind Shield-leading Nashville SC.
The talk now is far less grandiose. The Sounders are just figuring out how to stop their slide.
“With four losses in a row we may need to shift the focus to more result than performance,” Sounders midfielder Albert Rusnák said. “I don’t think any of us really give a shit how it happens, we just need to get a win. If we play ugly for 100 minutes, none of us care. At this moment, we need a result. That’s the only way to get out of this hole.”
After the humiliating 5–1 loss to the Portland Timbers last Thursday, Paul Rothrock asked fans and media to judge he and his teammates on their reaction to the loss rather than the loss itself. He admitted that there was a lack of fight, competitiveness and energy in the Timbers loss.
Rothrock didn’t guarantee a win, but he felt those basics would be improved.
By that admittedly low bar, Rothrock was pleased with the Austin performance. It obviously wasn’t enough to change the result.
“Through a large part of the game I thought we responded well,” he said, bristling at the idea that the two games were comparable beyond the lack of points. “Collectively, the mentality was a lot better. I thought we were more aggressive, backed each other up, were more of a collective.
“This is a tough stretch for us. Albert and I have been in stretches like this before, been in holes like this as a team and we’ve found a way out year after year. I still have the confidence we’ll find our way out of this one.”
Perhaps feeding Rothrock's mentality, the conditions in Austin were downright brutal. Temperatures at kickoff were close to 100 degrees and it was well into the 90s even when the game ended around 10:30 PM local time. Players were dripping in sweat almost as soon as they took the field.
If the Sounders’ spirit had really been broken, they likely would have folded after Austin FC took an early lead off a set piece. Instead, the Sounders came back and tied it on a goal from Rothrock.
During that sequence, the early-season play of the Sounders seemed to be on display. Stuart Hawkins, making his first-ever MLS start, played a line-splitting ball to Peter Kingston, who found Snyder Brunell on a cutback pass. Brunell struck his shot well, but it caromed off the post and into the path of Rothrock, who went to his knees to guide the ball in at the goal line.
Over the next 60 minutes or so – even as the conditions were visibly exacting their toll — the Sounders looked at least as likely to get a winner as Austin. Frustratingly, it was a mistake by one of the veterans who had only been on the field for less than 20 minutes that proved to be the gamebreaker.
After controlling a clearance from Hawkins and pushing the ball to the sideline, Paul Arriola appeared to try to hit it off the defender. But Myrto Uzuni jumped over the ball, allowing it to go straight to Owen Wolff near the top of the penalty area. A couple of passes later Uzuni scored the goal.
Just to add insult to injury, Jackson Ragen picked up a wholly unnecessary second yellow card and will miss at least the next game. With the score already 3–1, there was virtually no upside to committing the foul. Instead, another presumed veteran leader put his team in a deeper hole.
Giving up a late game-winner in a match they’d already suffered through was bad enough. That it came on such an avoidable mistake only made it worse, but was also indicative of the kind of plays the Sounders need to make to turn things around.
“I need everyone to do a little bit more,” Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said. “I’m not putting any pressure on the senior guys that isn’t unreasonable to their status on the group. I’m trying to make sure I don’t come on too hard to the younger guys who need a little more seasoning and coaching and arm around their shoulder.
“The team has too many senior players on it. I’m not Pollyanic. I’m reality-based. We’ll look for solutions and continue to work. We can’t shy away from the position we’re in. We’re going to address it, but we’ll address it in a fashion where we give them some ideas and some confidence.”
The goal of winning the Supporters’ Shield is all but over. That does not make the season lost. In MLS, there’s always a chance to redeem a season. More than half of the regular season is still left to play and Leagues Cup is right around the corner.
The Sounders will eventually get back some of the injured players who could have surely helped in a game like this. But significant reinforcements beyond that are far from a sure thing and this season feels like it’s in danger of truly spiraling out of control. The math and schedule say there’s lots of season left to play, but there will be real costs if results don’t improve.
Rothrock, ever the optimist, refuses to think like that.
“I don’t agree with that narrative; that’s a fearful narrative,” he said. “Yes, we’ve lost four games in a row but it doesn’t mean we’re going to keep losing. We’ve struggled with these games, but the way we talk about the future is important, too. That’s not going to be our narrative.
“Different guys have to step up. I’ve talked to some of the younger guys, this is a time for them to step up it’s an opportunity for them to start making some plays. We’re going to need those guys. I encourage you to be surprised and open to some of the guys who step up.”
