Seattle Sounders quietly have been on a Roll

By; Steven Silver

The funniest thing happened over the weekend in MLS, and it wasn’t the nil-nil draw in the Hell is Real derby. It wasn’t Leo Messi returning from injury and playing for the first time since the Copa America final, although watching Messi carve up Philly’s defense for two goals and an assist was definitely funny.  It wasn’t the latest version of El Traffico in which the LA Galaxy responded to two early LAFC goals with four unanswered goals of their own (so sweet). No, the funny thing that happened was the Seattle Sounders beat lowly Sporting Kansas City 2-0, and nobody outside of Seattle noticed.

That’s nothing new, unfortunately. The Sounders aren’t exactly MLS darlings at the moment, and even when the  Sounders were the best team in MLS, fans had a tendency to overlook the Sounders for one reason or another. It comes with the territory. Even this season as the Sounders are sitting in 5th place in the Western Conference, there’s not a ton of confidence from the home supporters the Sounders stand a reasonable chance in the MLS playoffs. That’s what happens when you lose four straight to LAFC, and you’ve spent your third straight summer transfer window doing absolutely nothing. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the club’s mission statement of winning trophy’s full stop.

Yet, through all the ups and downs of the 2024 campaign, the Seattle Sounders have been quite brilliant. Okay, maybe brilliant is too strong of a verb to describe their current form, but they’ve been good. In their last 27 matches across all competitions, dating back to April 28th, the Sounders are 19-4-4. I’ll give you three of those victories came in US Open Cup competition, and a vast majority of came against MLS sides that most likely miss the playoffs, but you can’t overlook how the Sounders have managed this season. In most cases, a season like this would sink a team.