Sounders break MLS no-win streak, regain lease on life (for now)

SEATTLE - The message the Sounders players gave the media for months has been that the team just needs a win any way they can get it.

"We just have to get a win," Albert Rusnák said after their July 22 loss, then their fourth in a row. "And if we play ugly for 100 minutes, none of us care at this moment in time ... we need the result."

To that point, the Sounders hadn't won since their Heritage Cup victory on May 13. It had been 70 days since Seattle's last win when Rusnák made his frustrated comments; 63 days, four more losses, and five draws later, the Rave Green got three points in one night. And as Rusnák prophesied all those months ago, it wasn't the prettiest of victories.

For starters, it came against Real Salt Lake, who in addition to having one of the Euro-LARPiest of Euro-LARP soccer team names, have been the only other winless post-World Cup team in MLS. Even their MLS no-win streak only stretched back to May 16, three days shorter than Seattle's had been.

Seattle also only accrued 0.91 expected goals (xG) and had a problem with giving RSL big beautiful giveaways, with Spanish striker Sergi Solans only staying off the scoresheet thanks to some bad final touches on his part and some incredible work from Andrew Thomas in the back of the Sounders net. Jackson Ragen interrupted a mostly solid day with an absolute Tim Ream Moment™ that nearly put the visitors up in the 47th minute.

But two quality shots from distance in the second half were enough to end the streak, once and for all. Three points moved them into a tie with Portland for ninth place, though the Timbers have the tiebreaker due to more wins.

It's a start, as the goal-scoring Danny Musovski said.

No Deki, No Rothrock, No Problem?

The selection for Wednesday's game was affected by a couple of things, first being the fact that Dejan Jovelić was out playing for Serbia for the fall international window.

The other big factor was Paul Rothrock, who has been out since the second half of the Sounders' 1-1 draw against the LA Galaxy on Sept. 12.

With those two absences in mind, Schmetzer started Danny Musovski at nine and Paul Arriola (slated for a minutes restriction) on the left wing. Seba Gomez was Arriola's counterpart on the right, while the defensive midfield was a pair of Snyder Brunell and Cristian Roldan. The back line of Nouhou on the left, Stu Hawkins and Jackson Ragen as the center backs, and Alex Roldan at right back.

Wednesday marked the first time since before the World Cup break that both Ragen and Cristian started a game. Schmetzer was asked about that after the game, and he made note of the generally (but slowly) improving injury situation on the Sounders.

"It's not just those two guys, I mean, we're getting healthier, Yeimar was on the bench today, he brought some positivity to the locker room," Schmetzer said. "We're missing Deki, but Moose steps up. You got subs that are coming on, you got Seba Gomez that's playing good, you get Paul (Arriola), a veteran guy that steps up. The whole squad is stepping up to help us win games."

Pochettino - perhaps unwisely - didn't select Andrew Thomas for the USMNT fall rosters, so Andrew Thomas was still in net for Seattle. This turned out to be important.

Seattle had a "meh" first half, though there was a bit of aggression.

Neither team really got going in the first half. The Sounders had most of the possession and the beginnings of a few looks, but had trouble distributing the ball further up into the box, while RSL relied mostly on counterattacks for their intermittent threats.

The first notable spell of play occurred in the third minute as Nouhou bounced it off Luca Moisa for an early corner, but the initial set piece became a footnote as Cristian's header soared over the north end.

There was a fair bit more of note that went into the Sounders' second corner. Albert Rusnák made a creative dummy-plus-pass to Snyder Brunell, beginning a stretch of passes where the clear aim was to consistently cut inside a group of RSL players who plainly expected their pressure to force Seattle out to the touchlines (as such pressure typically does). Though the actual fifth-minute corner itself wasn't much to write home about, the propensity to cut inwards and take quick one- or two-touch passes did not soon dissipate.

This attitude was exactly what the Sounders needed, but the early momentum began to slide as the touches lost their initial quality and they couldn't find their way into dangerous spaces. RSL simply stayed back and waited for Seattle's edge to dull, a strategy that was not without its flaws but also not without its merits.

Seba and KKR showed some persistent connection on the right side - and Seba's energy was noticeably higher than most on the pitch - but a 12th minute one-touch tap towards the blindside by Snyder Brunell chilled what could have been an openside overload created by those two right-side players.

Brunell made up for it with an excellent pass in the 15th, however, finding Rusnák a line ahead with a bullet. The Slovak 10 in turn found Paul Arriola, who challenged DeAndre Yedlin in front of the net and fired a left-foot curler intended for the upper left corner - but the ball didn't spin enough and it skimmed the outside of the net.

The Sounders recovered quickly and brought the ball up once more into the box two minutes later. This time was even more promising as the ball went loose in the box with Danny Musovski in range to get a foot on it, but he reacted late and Seattle didn't get that would-be assured goal.

If Deki were the nine, the Sounders would have been up 1-0 right then and there. Alas, he is currently playing for country.

(There's perhaps some jingoistic commentary to be made about Serbia's historical control of what is now North Macedonia. I bring this up only for the engagement I hope to create by goading various Balkan nationalists into what is sure to be a reasoned and thoughtful debate - to be conducted, of course, entirely within the same apartment block in Düsseldorf.)

A Nouhou cross in the 23rd that flew in the sky off Musovski's header was another moment when a Jovelićian touch could have put Seattle up, but the game was still scoreless as the halfway mark of the first half came and went.

That midpoint was around the time that the visitors first turned the momentum. Whereas final third entries for RSL were basically nonexistent as they weathered Seattle's drives for the first 25 minutes of the game, they turned on the transitional jets quite a bit more as halftime began approaching. Seattle, at least, had the benefit of Jackson Ragen and his ability to win aerials (what is this magic?), but there were quite a few moments where the clearances only came at the last possible moment.

The Sounders regained some momentum of their own in the 36th, pressing into the final third with special attention to the right side. Gomez took a shot from that direction (blocked) and Seattle forced Kobi Henry to concede a corner. Granted, the Rave Green were still muffing every set piece they had, and despite Albert's ball going right to Cristian on the fly, the header roared over the crossbar. But it's not Gaelic football, so the game was still scoreless.

The table-turn was quicker in the 42nd as the visitors had an open ball in the box; had Solans made a good touch, RSL could have gone up with a goal at that point. Seattle was lucky they were playing one of the only teams that has been as bad as them since the World Cup.

Solans had another opportunity in the 45th off another breakaway, but although he managed to work a window off Ragen, his shot went wide of the net, and the half ended just as it had started: with a 0-0 score.

With Kalani on a yellow and Alex Roldan having had a bit of a shaky game, Schmetzer brought in Peter Kingston and Stuart Hawkins at the half.

One sequence defined the game in the early second half.

In the 47th minute, what looked initially to be an open-and-shut high ball towards Ragen nearly became a tailor-made goal for Solans, as the RSL striker caught Ragen completely lacking and charged forward towards the net with nobody but Andrew Thomas between him and goal. Solans tried to chip it to Thomas' left and work around the Sounders keeper, but this allowed Thomas just enough of an opportunity to dive and deflect the ball towards the touchline.

Scarcely a minute later, a brief RSL takeaway at midfield became a Sounders counterattack as Paul Arriola found an open central space with Musovski and Rusnák waiting. Arriola sent it to Musovski and moved up a line while Rusnák stayed central, then Musovski passed back to Arriola in flow, and Arriola found Musovski again as Henry began to drift centrally and open a line for the Macedonian.

Musovski drilled it from the right edge of the box directly into the near corner. Henry's palms met his face and he fiercely yelled at himself as he realized his folly. The Sounders led 1-0.

The visitors quickly regained their composure and began to move forward into the final third. Now clearly on the back foot, they could no longer wait for Seattle to make a mistake (and had indeed missed their opportunity to capitalize); they now had to create their own luck.

Their next threat on net materialized quickly, as a breakaway allowed Noel Çalışkan to find Solans with a fairly good, close line in the box in the 50th minute. As Solans fired with his left foot, however, Thomas dove and batted it out over the endline for a visiting corner that became a Peter Kingston block and another corner before a foul ended that spell of play for the visitors.

Another flurry began in the 59th as Çalışkan, Sam Junqua, and Morgan Guilavogui on the visitors' left attacked inwards towards the box, with three shots between them in three minutes all either being blocked or going over the target.

A couple more subs came on in the 63rd, with Hassani Dotson replacing Brunell and Jordan Morris replacing Moose. Brunell had been on a yellow since the 55th, which was a reason for his replacement, though Schmetzer also praised his two entrants after the game.

"Whenever you as a coach have the ability to bring Jordan Morris and a talented, experienced guy like Hassani Dotson, I think that was exactly what the game needed," Schmetzer said. "I think Hassani brings some toughness into the midfield."

That's a perhaps rosy assessment of those two, but had Seba Gomez kept himself in a more versatile box position in the 64th, it would have been a dual Musovski-Morris goal-creation extravaganza. Truth quasar?

Unfortunately for everyone involved, even though Rusnák delivered a beautiful 64th minute ball up for J-Mo, who darted forward and broke the line from the right side before delivering it to a perfectly open spot back behind him in the middle of the box, Seba had already charged fully to the far posts and was unable to work back to get the ball.

A couple more chances gathered for Seattle in the ensuing minutes - one perhaps-could-have-been-but-uncalled penalty and another an unfulfilled Arriola chance in front of net - but the theretofore regularly scheduled programming of constant final third entries for RSL picked back up for nearly 10 minutes.

One breakaway changed all that. Pressure from Dotson forced a turnover around midfield while Arriola brought the ball up and passed over to a Rusnák positioned between RSL lines about two-thirds of the way up the pitch. Rusnák drifted left as he approached the penalty area, but once he got Philip Quinton to commit in that direction, he cut back centrally and uncorked a long shot of his own.

It was just as accurate as Musovski's had been. The Sounders led 2-0. RSL's energy dried up quickly. In the span of minutes, it became clear that the streak was finally over.

Nouhou nearly made it three.

Alas, it wasn't a perfect night. The silver lining is that Nouhou's one allotted Certified Banger per season is still yet to grace the confines of MLS stadiums. But with a right side free kick just outside the box in the 89th minute, the left back had a chance to turn a good-if-shaky palette cleanser into a truly glorious occasion.

Rusnák and Kingston both paced around the ball, but in truth, it was a ruse to lull the visiting wall into a false sense of security. Nouhou charged forward and booted a curler through the center and towards the lower right corner.

And yet Rafael Cabral barely got his paws on it, knocking it away and preventing a third goal.

The free kicks that Nouhou has been taking in training nearly paid off. Although there was no goal on the play, Schmetzer praised his left back for taking the shot, a decision he said had to do with Nouhou's left-footedness.

"He actually trains that in practice. But nobody believes that Nouhou can score - except Nouhou," Schmetzer said, with some evidently comedic timing on the last two words. "And so you have to give credit where credit is due. He stepped forward and he took the free kick, and he was this close from scoring. Maybe he caught the goalkeeper by surprise, maybe they thought Peter Kingston was taking it, who knows? But you know, knew who was there, and he made the most of that opportunity."

As things stood, however, the game ended 2-0 in the Sounders' favor.

The 13-game no-win streak is finally over.

The Sounders can finally bury the streak. It wasn't the three-goal performance they might have been looking for (in fairness, they got that on Saturday, it was just a draw), but three points is three points.

There are still nine games left in the 2026 regular season, and with the Wednesday win, the Sounders are tied with the Timbers with 32 points in the table. Portland has the edge with more wins as things currently stand, but Seattle has a game in hand over their Cascadia rivals.

Perhaps the fact that it was a win can help the team learn from their mistakes more clearly. Or perhaps not: I asked Paul Arriola about this, and he said it's more of an individual thing whether a player learns better from a shaky win or from a worse result.

The urgency, as Arriola noted, is still there. In order to beat Portland's 42-point pace and make it into the eighth spot (LA Galaxy have played one more match than the Timbers and are pacing 41 points), Seattle will have to get at least 10 points over these nine games, which will require at least one win.

Clinching a home playoff series is likely out of the cards, as beating FC Dallas' pace would entail the Sounders taking 25 points from nine games, something that would require at least an 8-0-1 finish. But the playoffs are still viable - they just have to clear teams like the Timbers, Galaxy, and Rapids.

That, to be clear, requires wins.

Paul Arriola provided much of the offense despite being on a minutes restriction.

When the game began, Arriola wasn't supposed to play the 82 minutes he wound up with. He just came off a knee injury early this month, and with a game to go on Saturday, there was a need to keep their guys fresh.

Schmetzer was evidently impressed with Arriola's play, and given that he filled more of that playmaker role that Seattle has been needing at times, it's not hard to see why. The Sounders' first goal came off some solid connection between Moose and Arriola, with clear give-and-go ideas at play before Moose wound up finding the long shot hole. On the Rusnák goal during the middle of the second half, Arriola played the distributor, getting the ball into dangerous space mere moments after Seattle had wrested it away from the visitors.

And in the 67th, Arriola nearly scored with a heads-up charge after Quinton had a bad reception in front of net and Arriola was in position to pounce. Cabral barely managed to prevent disaster for his team, but it was another moment where Arriola shined in his first 80-minute performance since his 2024 season with FC Dallas.

This better decisionmaking appeared to coincide with a shift in Arriola's position towards more of a playmaking role. This is a role the Sounders have sorely lacked whenever they don't have Pedro de la Vega (which, to be sure, is most of the time), so perhaps this is an angle that Schmetzer's team can explore during the rest of the season.

And I have to bring this up, Arriola had the most xG of anyone on the Sounders on Wednesday (0.56). Granted, most of it was from two shots, but it showed that he could get himself into dangerous spaces. He actually only had 0.07 expected assists (xA), so maybe the playmaker idea is a bit more flawed than I've made it seem. The Sounders need to try things at this point, however.

"We have messaged trying to score goals from all different angles, possibilities, tactics," Schmetzer said. "In Colorado, that was one of the points of emphasis because the ball flies there a little bit more at altitude. Today, it just so happens that we got two more from top of the box. We're not going to shy away from any situation that can generate goal-scoring chances or goals."

"I think we've already been starting to build": the Sounders' Saturday match will test their momentum-creating abilities.

A series of losses, then a series of draws. For a baker's dozen games, the Rave Green couldn't scrounge together a victory. For four months, they had a total of five points; for much of that time, it wasn't a matter of points per month but months per point.

Again, Wednesday is a start.

"Overall, the night's more about us finally being able to get a win, put us in a better position to continue to fight for the playoffs," Arriola said about the meaning of Wednesday's win. "We're there, but it's just about finding ways to get results."

Schmetzer noted that the urgency is something all the players are keenly aware of, given the all-too-present fact that Father Time will come for us all. Even as the situation grew direr by the fixture, he says, the team put in their all.

He's certainly right that those games weren't up to standard. When Dejan Jovelić first joined the club, the Sounders drew upwards of 38,000 fans as supporters around the city began to believe that their old standards could be returning.

But as the results kept going wrong, those regained fans were re-lost: Wednesday's fixture (admittedly a weeknight game against Real Salt Lake) only drew 28,649 spectators, a drop of nearly 10,000 in the span of two home fixtures.

The good news for Seattle is that there are some ostensibly winnable games coming up. They host Minnesota United on Saturday and Sporting KC (second-to-last and last in the West, respectively) next Thursday; their next home game after that will be against Montreal (second-to-last in the East).

On the other hand, they will be playing some games on the road against New England Revolution (46 points, second in the East) and FC Dallas (44 points, fourth in the West) as well as hosting Houston Dynamo (44 points, second in the East) as the season closes out. And let's not forget that the final two games are against the Whitecaps and LAFC.

They really have to win their layup games if they want to have a fighting chance.

In response to a question from Sounder at Heart's Jeremiah Oshan, Schmetzer expressed confidence in his players' belief and his team's momentum.

I think we've already been starting to build. I think, look, the five draws have been something. It's been a long time, May 13, for the guys that are publishing the facts, I think all the people in this room are good reporters, no fake news in here.

It's been a long time, Jeremiah. I told those guys in there to enjoy the moment. On a personal note, there were some fans right behind the bench, and they were saying, "Congratulations, Brian! Enjoy this moment, enjoy this moment." So even the fans, I mean, were telling me to enjoy the moment, and so I listened to the fans and I told the same thing to the guys in there, along with, of course, Jackson [being] a little sloppy and Andrew coming up with that big save to keep us in the game, and you know, then Moose coming in, hasn't played a lot, and he scores that first goal, gets everybody fired up. Albert, the senior guy, kind of taking care of the rest. All the subs that came on were excellent.

So yeah, I think we've been building some momentum, Jeremiah, but this really gives them a lot of belief, and that's what we discussed before the game about believing we could win.

-Brian Schmetzer, Sept. 23, 2026

But that momentum will be put to the test on Saturday as the Sounders face the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last year. Whatever has befallen the Eric Ramsay-less Loons, the first-round loss that said team wrought upon Seattle is a reminder that the regular season matters, and that anything can happen in the playoffs - especially if you're on the road.

All their games are must-win, but some are more must-win than others. MNUFC at home is an absolute must-win.