SEATTLE – For the first time in almost exactly three months, the Seattle Sounders are back on the winning side of the ledger. The Sounders snapped their seven-game losing streak with a convincing 3–0 win over Liga MX's Querétaro in Leagues Cup on Sunday.
In addition to snapping their losing skid, the Sounders also broke several other ignominious streaks. Among them were getting their first goal from a starting No. 9 this year, leading at halftime for the first time in 15 games, and registering their first shutout since April 25, 2025.
Helping them get off on the right foot was a goal by Sebastian Gomez in the 5th minute. The Homegrown Player was making his first career Sounders start and had come into the match with just three first-team appearances. Gomez was able to run onto a Paul Rothrock cross and finish at the back post.
Although the Sounders’ lead felt a bit tenuous through most of the half, they were able to get into halftime with an insurance goal when Rothrock found Danny Musovski in front of goal. With the goalkeeper out of position, Musovski was able to volley his shot into an empty net. Although it was Musovski's fourth goal of the season, it was the first time he scored in a game he started.
Albert Rusnák added the final tally on a vintage strike in the 68th minute, taking a pass from Gomez and finishing inside the far post on a shot from the top of the penalty area.
The one negative came in the 86th minute. After looking sharp in his first 10 minutes of the season – and nearly scoring – Pedro de la Vega pulled up after going into a challenge. He briefly tried to play through the pain, but quickly signaled that the needed to come out. Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said they will still need to assess the injury but confirmed it appears to be a quad injury. The midfielder had been out since Oct. 25, 2025 when he broke his knee cap.
Lineups
The Sounders make four changes to the starting lineup from midweek. Among the notable changes are Alex Roldan sliding into the double-pivot and Sebastian Gomez at right midfield. For Roldan, it’s his first start of any kind since May 13 and his first start in the double-pivot since 2019. Gomez, meanwhile, gets his first first-team start of his career. The other changes were Antino Lopez for Stuart Hawkins at centerback and Danny Musovski for Osaze De Rosario at forward.
Key moments
4′ – GOAL! Sebastian Gomez scores in his first first-team start. The play starts innocuously enough with Stefan Frei playing out of the back and the Sounders breaking Querétaro's press. The attacking element gets going when Danny Musovski plays a pass back to Albert Rusnák, who then finds Paul Rothrock on the wing. Rothrock’s cross is just about perfect, hitting Gomez's late-arriving run in stride at the back post. 1–0, Sounders.
11′ – Save. Peter Kingston's stray pass is picked off by Querétaro allowing a counter-attack deep in the Sounders’ end. The ball is eventually played to Jesus Arellano, who has an open look at the back post, but he scuffs his shot and Frei saves it easily.
15′ – Save. Querétaro again break into the open field with Waldo Madrid getting an open look from the top of the box. His shot takes a deflection, but Frei is able to make a somewhat awkward kick save.
21′ – Chance! Albert Rusnák floats a free kick into the box that goalkeeper Jose Hernandez misses, but no one is able to get onto the end of it.
31′ – Chance! Gomez sends a looping cross to the backpost where Rothrock meets it with a firm header, but it goes wide.
41′ – GOAL!! Danny Musovski volleys it past the goalkeeper off a nice pass from Rothrock, who had been played down the wing by Peter Kingston. It’s the first goal a Sounders’ starting No. 9 has scored this year, ending a streak of 22 games. 2–0, Sounders.
44′ – Fracas! A Querétaro player goes flying into the Sounders bench chasing a loose ball, and gets a slight shove from Andrew Thomas. He then starts jawing with Thomas, prompting Max Anchor to shove him forcefully. At that point, Querétaro players swarm the Sounders’ bench, including many of the players from their own bench.
Halftime – Sounders lead 2–0, the first time they’ve led at halftime since they were up 2–0 on FC Dallas on April 25, a span of 11 games.
68′ – GOAL!!! Albert Rusnák snaps his goal-less drought when he rifles a shot from the top of the box inside the far post. The play started when Jesús Ferreira played in Musovski, who cut it back across the box to Gomez. Gomez then played it back to Rusnák. 3–0, Sounders.
78′ – Subs. Pedro de la Vega makes his first appearance since Oct. 25, 2025 when he broke his knee cap in the regular-season finale. He replaces Albert Rusnák. Also entering the game is Mark O'Neill, a Tacoma Defiance player on a short-term loan. It’s his Sounders debut. He replaces Gomez.
81′ – Chance! Pedro de la Vega nearly gets on the scoreboard when Ferreira's pass finds him at the back post, but the shot is saved.
86′ – Injury. Just about 10 minutes after entering the match, de la Vega pulls up after a challenge and asks to be subbed out. It appears to be his left quad.
90+3′ – Another fracas. After the final whistle, Ferreira is jawing with a Querétaro player, prompting De Rosario to step in between. Nouhou, who had previously gotten into a shouting match with a Querétaro player, immediately starts motioning to meet him in the tunnel before eventually being stopped by Andrew Thomas.
Quick thoughts
Relief!: It wasn’t just that the Sounders had lost seven straight games over the past three months, it’s that they’ve rarely even looked particularly good in those matches. The nadir may have come in their previous game against Toluca when they were out-shot 39–4. But Gomez's strike seemed to change the whole mood around the team, marking just the second time in the past 10 games where they scored first. From that point forward, the Sounders just seemed to be playing with a looseness and confidence that has been lacking for months.
Dream debut: There hasn’t been a ton of talk about Gomez ever since he signed as a Homegrown earlier this year. Gomez has never put up eye-popping numbers at Tacoma Defiance, but he has shown a solid growth curve both in terms of his technical ability and his physicality. Against Querétaro, he never looked remotely out of his depth. Deployed as the right midfielder, Gomez made strong runs, stood up to tackles and generally looked to provide a spark. He is probably at least another year away from being a meaningful contributor at the first-team level, but this should provide him a nice boost.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves: As good as it is to finally have a win to talk about, the Sounders’ problems are still quite apparent. A starting striker finally scoring a goal doesn't make the Sounders’ need for someone who can consistently put the ball in the net any less apparent. Rothrock generating a couple of chances from the wing doesn't mean they don’t still need more playmakers. One win in Leagues Cup against a mediocre opponent who rotated heavily also doesn't do anything to stop the slide they’ve been experiencing in league play. But it’s a start and that's really all we can ask right now.
Notable quote
"Scoring the first goal gave us a lot of confidence… the focus was just believing they could win." — Schmetzer
Player spotlight
The Sounders have needed someone to step up in a bad, bad way over the past few months. Perhaps more than anyone else, that turned out to be Paul Rothrock. Too often he’s been trying to do too much, but in this game he delivered a couple of great crosses that set his teammates up for relatively easy finishes. The Sounders need as much of that kind of play as they can get.
