"We're Starting to Run Out of Games": Endless Doldrums Continue for Sounders

SEATTLE - 37 in-box touches, 21 shots, and 2.1 expected goals meant nothing in the face of Ethan Horvath. Andrew Thomas got his first clean sheet since April and the team had more than two xG in a league game for the first time since May, but the MLS winless streak continued to 11.

This one came against the New York Red Bulls, also known as Energy Drink FC. I'd call the them Max Verstappen FC, but with their lackluster place in the Eastern Conference table, the Red Bulls are more like one of the random drivers Max gets paired up with every half season.

Still, the Sounders couldn't find a way to beat Yuki Tsunoda FC. The team is now at 27 points, third-to-last in the Western Conference and three points out from the play-in. With 12 matches to go, the team can't afford to wait any more to wake up and start logging meaningful points.

The urgency is good to see, but they need to transfer that feeling into legitimate success. Assuming everyone else keeps pace, here are the point totals the Sounders would have to accrue to get to some playoff milestones:

Nine seed: 18 more points (1.5 points per game), would need to go at least 4-2-6 or 6-6-0.
Eight or seven seed: 19 more points (1.58 points per game), would need to go at least 4-1-7 or 6-5-1.
Home playoff series: 28 more points (2.33 points per game), would need to go at least 8-0-4 or 9-2-1.
Two seed: 33 more points (2.75 points per game), would need to go at least 11-1-0.
One seed: 40 more points (not possible).

The good news is that making the playoffs is still a realistic aspiration. The Sounders would need to win at least two-thirds of their remaining fixtures (assuming no losses) to avoid becoming road warriors, but they can't worry about seeding at this point: they just need to get in.

"The team believes that they can push to the playoffs," Schmetzer said postgame. "We're still three, four, I didn't look exactly (points back), with a game in hand. The team believes we can make the playoffs, I believe we can make the playoffs."

But it probably means five wins at least over the course of the rest of the season. Games like Saturday's cannot be the best the Sounders have to offer over the rest of the year.

Still, the fact that it is doable - and that, if they take it one step at a time, it can be just a few instances of winning in the here and now in order to put themselves in a good spot - is something that engenders confidence. Even Albert Rusnák, who otherwise noted the decline in confidence up top as the team has embarked on a long winless streak, expressed that belief that playoffs were still on the docket.

"It's not pretty when you look at the table, but I feel like I've been here long enough to know that if you put together two, three wins, you can jump a lot of places up," Rusnák said. "It's still pretty tight in the West ... we're gonna gave to win games, but at the same time, I agree that we are confident that we will make playoffs, and that's the goal for the rest of the season. We can talk about winning trophies and all that, but right now, the goal is to make playoffs."

Cristian got his first start since the World Cup break.

The injured list finally began to look manageable on Saturday (not that it didn't extend later in the game) and Brian Schmetzer was able to put together something that approached his top selection, at least aside from the still-absent duo of Jackson Ragen and Yeimar in the center backs.

Stuart Hawkins got another start in that role while Alex Roldan filled in as his partner. Despite Alex being out of position as a center back, Schmetzer brought him in as a tactical antidote to the way the Red Bulls play the game.

"We felt that with the pressure that the New York Red Bulls put on teams - and you certainly saw that the first 15 minutes - we thought Alex was a better fit," Schmetzer said. "He's used to getting the ball under pressure, and I thought it was a good tactic."

Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan both made their first starts in a while; Saturday was Cristian's first since the World Cup break and Jordan's first since the Kakisteia. Morris was on a 45-minute limit, and so came out for Seba Gomez at the beginning of halftime, while Cristian played 77 minutes.

Alongside Cristian in the pivots was Peter Kingston, who was set to give Snyder Brunell some rest.

Another note from the selection was that Caden Clark, the team's late summer acquisition who Schmetzer had noted was more of a "project", wasn't available even as a substitute. According to the head coach, he still has some work to do to ready himself for Sounders play.

Seattle began the game uneasily, but they still produced some chances early.

The first half was the less threatening of the two for both teams on Saturday. Both sides exercised a high press, but with New York's overconfidence off the ball and Seattle's shaky passing to start the game, there was a certain dearth of dangerous moments.

Still, the missed chances that would come to define the game began early for the Sounders. Dejan "Deki" Joveljić found a light touch to send it to Jordan Morris in the fourth minute, giving the Seattle-born winger a one-on-one chance with Red Bulls goalie Ethan Horvath, but Morris' second touch was too strong and it went into Horvath's hands.

Aside from one very dangerous breakaway on net in the seventh minute for New York, Seattle held an incomplete control over the game in the first 15 minutes: the Red Bulls didn't work very deep into Sounders territory thanks to some close pressing from Seattle, but the hosts also had issues holding on to the ball for longer runs of play when they had the ball. Sometimes that was due to the efforts of the visitors, but more often than not, it stemmed from simple misses between Rave Green players.

NYRB got another breakout chance in the 16th and, after some tugging between Paul Rothrock and Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty just outside New York's right side of the box, the visitors got a free kick.

Once Matthew Dos Santos' kick went flying over the crossbar, however, Seattle began applying the heat. Sounders became calmer under the Red Bulls' high press and were thus able to draw their opponents well out of position again and again for five minutes, during which they accrued a couple of shots on net and several more big chances. And yet, with subpar aerial ability in the box and crosses just barely missing their targets, the game remained scoreless.

Perhaps the most frustrating was a secondary cross in the 23rd minute from Alex Roldan that just barely missed both Stu Hawkins and Deki. New York plugged that run of attack soon after and brought it dangerously close to the Seattle net multiple times in the ensuing minutes, only stopped by end-of-the-line takeaways each time before Seattle finally regained the edge.

Yet just as had been the case 10 minutes before, the opportunities kept ending in heads held in hands and deflections off cream-colored boots. Here was a Paul Rothrock tap to Deki on a breakaway that wound up far too strong and into visiting hands, there was a corner service to Nouhou that the left back shanked into traffic (though of course the vision was exquisite).

An unexpected injury to Kalani Kossa-Rienzi - later determined to be a right ankle sprain - forced Schmetzer to go to his bench in the 38th minute. Snyder Brunell came on for the injured right wing back but filled in as one of the pivots, moving Kingston to Kalani's former spot.

The Red Bulls got a bit more of the game under their control in the final 10 minutes of the half, but their touches in the final third weren't good enough to best a bend-but-don't-break Sounders defense (to be fair, the Sounders were bending a lot). But the Rave Green kept producing chances; J-Mo completely wasted Marshall-Rutty on Seattle's left touchline and zoomed forward nearly unopposed, but with pressure beginning to show up on Jordan's right, he cut left and tried for a near-post left foot shot. Had he gone rightwards and quickly fired to the far post, it may have become the Sounders' first goal, but it was one of many missed chances for Seattle in the first half.

The Sounders were many a close miss away from taking three points, but the winless streak continued.

The second half began with some sustained NYRB momentum, as the Sounders gave up some breakaways - one that extended frighteningly as Hawkins tried to slide kick it out of danger but only sent it to a running Cade Cowell, who gave Julian Hall a good chance to score - and, over the ensuing minutes, Seattle left visiting midfielders with plenty of space to put together runs of attacking play. Yet just like the Sounders before them, the Red Bulls were unable to finish anything off, and play soon caromed back the other way.

The ensuing minutes, at least until a great save from Horvath or a bad touch at the end, showcased the work that the team had been putting into their attacking movements over the past weeks.

Seattle's chances began gathering quickly. Albert found Peter Kingston on a throw-in to the left touchline and Kingston sent a cross to Snyder near the back post, but it was a bit strong and Brunell wasn't able to send it on target even with a stretch to kick it in the air.

Confident passes for the hosts kept coalescing and giving Seattle solid looks on net. Even after some bad decisions that let off the pressure immediately following a 56th minute corner, the team was able to connect quickly up the right side and Cristian spun around a defender in the right corner and sent a ball to Rothrock in the right third of the box. Rothrock took the shot - a good sign for his confidence - but it wound up in Horvath's waiting arms.

In the 63rd minute, Nouhou sent a ball in to a fairly open Rothrock deep in Red Bulls territory, and though the visitors coalesced around Rothrock, he dropped it off to a Deki with a fairly open lane to take a shot. But Julian Bazan took Deki down just outside the box (getting a yellow in the process) and, instead of a strike from their new signing, they had a free kick from a hair outside the 18.

Albert Rusnák took a near-perfect strike through the gap in New York's front line that went right for the upper right corner of the net. But Horvath sprung out from his spot in the center of the goal and engulfed the ball with his white-clad claws.

Those gloved hands were quite active as Peter Kingston sent a somewhat overcooked cross towards the box in the 70th and Deki, seemingly impossibly, found a way to flick it towards the net. As quick as that touch was, however, Horvath's reaction was quicker, and the visiting keeper kept it out of the net before doing so again on Brunell's follow-up.

Over on the other side of the pitch, Thomas had to make an emergency side at the near post in the 74th minute after the Red Bulls ruptured the line, and although the save did prevent the Red Bulls from going ahead in that minute, the visitors were able to start accruing decent half-looks and the like as they drew more fouls in the Sounders' half.

Meanwhile, Seattle's woes up top went from good shots nixed by Horvath to shanked shots in better positions. First was Nouhou roaring up an open space by himself and sending it well over the crossbar, then came Rothrock and (a fair bit later) Seba both missing point-blank shots far above any known part of the goal.

Gabriel Magalhães syndrome? Those in Hotspur Stadium-shaped glass houses can't throw stones, so I'll shut up about that.

Rothrock's attempt, at least, bounced badly off his outstretched foot as he slid towards the net, but Seba's moonshot was resultant of the classic mistake of leaning backwards on one's back foot to try get enough power and skying it to kingdom come.

Hassani Dotson, who subbed in for Cristian in the 77th, pounded the ground in frustration as his 84th minute set piece header cleared the crossbar.

The final missed opportunity, however, was saved for the last sub. Paul Arriola, finally available off the bench after being sidelined with a knee injury since early August, came on for the other Paul in the 84th minute; 10 minutes later in the final run of stoppage, the Sounders had their last breakaway. Brunell dropped it off in transition for Arriola, who rattled off a screamer from distance. The ball went over Horvath's head and looked like a potential game-winner, perhaps possessing a level of magic unseen in a long time for Seattle - but it doinked off the bar. The final whistle blew mere seconds later.

The Good: Andrew Thomas got his first shutout since April 4.

Many might forget that Deki's first game with Seattle would have ended in a loss had Andrew Thomas not delivered a springboard save on the very last play of that game to keep it 2-2.

Thomas finally got the flowers of a clean sheet on Saturday, filling in Seattle's half of a battle of keepers that turned a game with 3.3 combined expected goals on target (xGOT, or after-shot xG) and turned it into a scoreless draw.

"Their goalkeeper kept them in the game, and Andrew did the same," Schmetzer said. "That was late in the game, when the game got a little stretched, I thought Andrew handled the crosses well. He came out and picked some clean, he was very brave in that regard."

The Sounders keeper accrued four saves and made two high claims on Saturday; although the Red Bulls didn't threaten quite as much as the Sounders did, good work was still required of Thomas in order to scratch at least a point against Horvath's excellence on the other end. Thomas attributed his success during the game to a general confidence that doing the right things over a long period of time will lead to success.

"It's just, positioning, 'am I doing the right things more often than not?', that's all I'm really caring about. If the ball goes in the net, it happens sometimes, it's part of being a goalkeeper, and you try and be level-headed," Thomas said. "It sometimes can be easier said than done, but I think I've said it before, but it's about trying to put myself in the best spot to make as many saves and I can, and if I do that, then it's, just trust that across the season, things go the right way more than they go the wrong way."

Of course, there is a balancing act to be had. If the process continually leads to bad results over a significant length of time, then there's something wrong with the process. Thomas had given up 27 goals over his previous 15 matches, an average of 1.8 goals per game, and had only accrued a 68% save percentage.

But plenty was going wrong in front of Thomas, however. The team had fallen into a habit of giving up bad breakaways late in halves, and with Jackson Ragen, Yeimar, Cristian, and Alex all missing significant time, there have been plenty of breakdowns in other parts of the field.

According to American Soccer Analysis' goals added (g+) metric, Thomas has been the fourth most valuable keeper in MLS with 7.08 g+ above average, behind only Matt Turner (9.85), Brian Schwake (9.21), and JT Marcinkowski (7.41). This metric takes into account each team's chances of scoring from a given position, sort of like expected points in American football.

Most of this for a keeper is in the form of saves (hence why ASA keeps goalies and field players in two separate tables; Lionel Messi, the best field player, has 9.83 g+, but the second-best field player according to the metric, Petar Musa, has 3.79), but there are other ways that Thomas has been helping the Sounders out from the back; his buildup in particular has been an area of focus - though he made sure to emphasize that saving goals is his most important job.

"It's something that I've obviously been working on. It's about trying to get someone to bite in order to break a line and make it easier for our center backs to progress the ball, but without being callous, without trying to do too much," Thomas said. "At the end of the day, I think, more important than anything, I'm supposed to try and keep the ball out of the net. And we try and have rotations and movements that make it easier to progress the ball and give it to our attacking players, but if things go wrong, we're not afraid to try and pop it up the field and let guys fight for it and look at it on Tuesday."

Everyone on the team, Thomas included, was cognizant of the fact that, though the draw felt like a loss, there were plenty of things to look towards as reasons for optimism going into the final dozen regular season contests.

The words Thomas chose to describe the game showed that, as the one with the clean sheet, he held his thoughts closer to the optimistic half of that equation.

And unlike some of the other players on the team, it was clear from the way Thomas carried himself in the postgame presser that he was imbued with confidence in his and the team's performance. Everyone on the team was going to outwardly espouse their chances of making the postseason when talking to us, but some harbored greater internal doubts and others didn't. Schmetzer's words to the team after the game were the same to everyone, but Thomas clearly took them in a more positive light.

"Of course, there were a lot of frustrated guys in the locker room, some heads down because it felt like we dropped a couple points," Thomas said of Schmetzer's postgame message. "But he did reiterate that it felt like a step forward, we produced a lot of chances, that we should take a lot of positives from this performance. We were one goal away from feeling fantastic, you know? If Paul (Arriola) scores that at the end, everyone's over the moon with how the day went. So as much as every game is critical at this point, I think it's still important to kind of use this as a springboard."

The Bad: The team couldn't catch a break up top.

I could almost include Deki and J-Mo in the above section, because they created a lot for Seattle. Paul Rothrock, aside from his finishing, also looked better, and Peter Kingston and Seba Gomez were solid pieces of the attack while the midfield of Snyder and Cristian actually had the juice to extend Seattle's threats out for long periods of time. The machine perhaps finally had some WD-40 in it across much of the field, and it's hard to ignore the positive sign that the game provided.

Schmetzer was even asked whether it was the most complete MLS game the Sounders had put together since the World Cup break, and it may indeed have been.

"Maybe. Maybe," Schmetzer said, clearly contemplating the match in his eyes. "Look, it was a complete game in the sense, we got a shutout. It was a complete game, because apparently, again, it was 2.31 (xG). It was a complete game from the eye test; I felt we created enough to score at least one. But was it our most complete game? I don't know, it's too early to tell with Deki's insertion and Jordan coming back and Cristian finally coming back ... I think when we get everybody together: Jackson, Yeimar, Jesús, some of the other guys, then I'll give you whether this is a complete performance and a complete team."

Jordan Morris' decision-making was better (and he's better as a winger where any striker-like runs are a bonus rather than an expectation), and though he fell victim to Seattle's general tendency on breakaways to cut towards the near post rather than try to strike something centrally through pressure, he was one of Seattle's big creators on Saturday. Schmetz even apparently considered allowing him another 10 minutes on the pitch, though he went with the cautious approach in the end.

Morris' best moment, undoubtedly, was his 42nd thunder run up the left side, where he deked out Marshall-Rutty one way and then passed it to himself upfield to begin one of Seattle's best goal-scoring chances. Such play was one of many times when the Sounders took advantage of New York's overzealous off-ball play - an attitude Thomas referred to as "cocky" - to draw them out of position and create plenty of danger on net.

"I think we had to be pretty switched on to make sure that we didn't fall into an accidental trap," Thomas said. "But I think, for the most part, we progressed with it pretty well, Alex and Stu-ey did a great job of finding a pivot and kind of switching the play through our pivots."

Joveljić also had plenty of productive moments. Aside from his nearly ridiculous 70th minute header that would have been a goal of the month contender were it not for Horvath's save, Deki also showed some defensive chops during multiple Red Bulls threats, such as when he pushed the ball across the touchline during a 68th minute turn up New York's left side.

The only real question from after the game was whether the team gave Deki enough opportunities.

"His play was good. He put himself in the middle of the goal on multiple occasions, he helped us in the buildup, super talented player. The header shows that he can head the ball, he's proficient in that part of the game," Schmetzer said of Deki. "Did we give him enough service? We'll look at it. But he's always in and around the goal, so I thought he had a good performance."

But with all of that said, "almost" means nothing in the real world. Some of the Sounders' issues were out of their control - i.e. were because Horvath made some phenomenal saves - but especially towards the end of the game, the team made one preventable mistake after another when they were in front of net. Every soccer player alive knows that if they pull their weight too far back on a shot, they'll airmail the thing into the second deck, but that doesn't stop the overbearing instinct to drive the ball as hard as possible when a player who is feeling mountains of internal pressure has the chance to be the ultimate hero.

"I think it's the hole that we're in. Everything's a little bit harder than it should be, and scoring goals is a lot harder than it was at the start of the season," Rusnák said. "And I think it's just like a domino effect from, it's gonna be almost four months that we haven't won an MLS game ... it's all that combining together."

And where Thomas exudes confidence in himself and faith in his team's ability to come back from their current predicament, the frustration of constantly failing in front of the net has clearly gotten to a Rusnák who is in the middle of those missed opportunities time and again.

"I mean, it's not an all-time high. I don't think it's high," Rusnák said about the team's confidence. "We're still trying to work hard, grind, which is automatic on both sides of the ball. But yeah, the confidence is not where it was at the start of the season when we were winning games."

The goal Rusnák reiterated multiple times on Saturday was that of scoring three goals. The last time Seattle did that was when they bested the Earthquakes for their most recent MLS win, and it was the last time the Sounders consistently produced the chances to overwhelm an opponent (at least before Saturday, when their 2.1 xG would have been one of the biggest takeaways had just one shot found its home).

"Just feel like we need a game where we score three goals in MLS," Rusnák pondered, "and maybe that will just kind of put everything behind us and we start moving forward."

The Ugly: Kalani Kossa-Rienzi sprained his ankle.

How many times do we have to be reminded that this team is made of glass for some reason?

Not enough, apparently. Kalani Kossa-Rienzi left the game early with an injury that we later found out was a sprained right ankle. Schmetzer was clearly frustrated as he gave the cliff notes of what happened.

"The severity of it, I'll let you know next week, but he's in a boot, he'll recover."

It's obviously unclear how long Kalani will be out for at this stage, but if he's unavailable for a long period of time, it will leave the back line with basically one set of options plus Ryan Sailor as the only backup. Nouhou on the left, Stu Hawkins and Kim Kee-hee in the center, and Alex on the right. That's a fairly solid setup, to be fair, but it's the only setup; behind it is the Tacoma Defiance back line.

At least Yeimar might be available soon-ish. The Sounders desperately need him back.

The Sounders need a win yesterday.

What Seattle really desperately needs, of course, is a win. The team has gone from Shield contender to third-to-last in the West, and with the standards the Sounders set for themselves, that is unacceptable.

"Some positives, but the pragmatic side of me says we dropped another couple of points and we need to start getting some wins," Schmetzer said of the game.

Where Thomas took the process as a positive and Rusnák reeled from the result, Schmetzer, appropriately, had both views in mind. Another statement after the game highlighted some of those positives.

"At the end of the day, I understand we need to collect three points, we need to get some wins," Schmetzer said. "But the team is playing better, and they've always had the right attitude; I don't think that has ever left the team, even when we had a lot of injuries and were losing, we still had the fight, so it will come together. We created enough chances to score at least one, and again, I was happy with the shutout."

These moral victories only mean anything if the Sounders can actually build on them, however. Playing the Red Bulls was an excellent chance to get a real jolt in the standings against an actually bad team, but if they go out on the road to LA Galaxy and lay a dud - say, a 2-1 loss where Seattle had 0.74 expected goals and only had 12 touches in the box - all the positives from Saturday's draw will be forgotten quicker than one singular cloud in a big gray sky.

Sunshine, of the regular or Seattle variety, must break that monotony soon if the Sounders are to go anywhere in 2026.