Are The Sounders "Proving It"?

The last time the Sounders won a league game by three, the World Cup still stood ahead of them and the team had a real chance at being one of the top finishers in MLS. No hint of an eight-game losing streak then reached the nostrils of anyone in Lumen Field even when postgame seagulls had been perched along its pews for hours.

Since that point, the Sounders won 2-1 versus FC Dallas, drew SKC and San Diego, won the Heritage Cup - and then the bottom fell out. Five points in four months. Losing 5-1 to the Timbers at home and 2-1 to the Timbers on the road. A season that began with legitimate multi-trophy aspirations was quickly whittled down to the vain hope of slipping into the MLS playoffs and maybe going on some kind of run.

That hope is a little less vain after Saturday's game in New England. Even though the Sounders had won their previous three games, those nine points had all come at home against Real Salt Lake, Minnesota United, and Sporting KC. The New England Revolution were second place in the Eastern Conference going into Saturday's suite of matches and were one of three teams in MLS with 14 or more wins.

"This was a statement win," said head coach Brian Schmetzer between postgame swigs of Sam Adams. "I mean, New England's a really good team, they're second in the East ... we came into their building, and it wasn't just a smash and grab. It wasn't like, 'oh, we got fortunate and blah-blah-blah.' I mean, we outplayed them. So there you go."

Many a Sounder had well-earned flowers in Saturday's 3-0 win. Andrew Thomas kept a clean sheet in spite of a couple dangerous moments from the hosts, Dejan Joveljić knocked the game open with a second half strike, and Jesús Ferreira produced a goal-scoring opportunity within a minute of entering the game in its waning minutes. And Hassani Dotson posted his best showing in the Rave Green jersey, catapulting his star far above (for now) his summer lows.

Where their three-game win streak against lackluster opponents came with a need to prove their mettle against a good team, their takedown of the Revs was that proof. Now the assignment is to continue proving it until the final whistle of the year.

Just three injuries?

The Sounders' injury bug has been nothing short of disastrous in 2026, but the report going into Saturday's game was remarkably light. Only Pedro de la Vega, Paul Rothrock, and Nikola Petković were unavailable (all with long-term injuries) as Ferreira was available as a substitute and Deki was back from international break.

Yeimar got his first start at center back since March 7, though he still had a minutes limitation, and Jackson Ragen started alongside him as his fellow center back. Nouhou was at left back and Alex Roldan at right, while Cristian Roldan and Hassani Dotson were the starting pivots and Albert Rusnák was, as usual, at the 10. Seba Gomez started on the left wing, Jordan Morris on the right, and Deki was up top at nine.

Seattle got the edge in the first half, though some shaky stoppage time play gave the Revs a window.

The Sounders avoided playing the ball in the air during the early game, with the only two high balls off Sounders boots in the first five minutes going to a fairly active Jordan Morris. After the second one, Boston turned it around and managed to get a set piece in front of Seattle's net (though Thomas grabbed it on the fly).

Nouhou drew a foul in Revs territory in the eighth minute, and although Albert's free kick went too far and into Revs keeper Matt Turner's hands, Seattle kept the ball up top and managed to get a corner after Nouhou and Seba put a vise on New England's right. But even though it began a decent spell of attacking possession for Seattle, they couldn't take advantage of the opportunities New England gave them. There was a moment where Albert tried to start a give-and-go through the center but Cristian just sent it backwards, another moment where Dotson had an opening Morris ahead of him but sent it too strongly up the middle, and another sequence where both Rusnák and Alex Roldan had chances to shoot from medium distance but hesitated.

Still, when the Revs got the ball back, the Sounders held them in their own end and kept a beat on the game. Seba and Dotson pressured Luca Langoni and then Brooklyn Raines into losing the ball about a third of the way from the Revs net in the 15th. Dotson found the ball with his right boot and roared it along a low line to the right post, catching Turner off-guard and finding the back of the net to put the Sounders up 1-0 early.

Joveljić' first potentially big contribution wasn't a touch; rather, it was a motion he made in the 24th minute as Jordan sent a cross into the box, deking forward to draw Revs defenders towards him but letting it float to Rusnák with a wide-open lane to the goal. Rusnák took the one-touch shot, but it flew high over the net and a golden opportunity for Seattle to go out to a 2-0 lead fell by the wayside.

Even through the 30th minute, the majority of possession went to the visitors in Foxborough. The Revs had some interesting ideas brewing at times, but some good pressing from the likes of Gomez and Dotson kept tilting the pitch the other way.

That didn't mean mistakes weren't going to make things scary, at the very least. A cross in from the right up top for Langoni could have easily been intercepted and/or cleared by both Ragen and Yeimar and still made its way to the open Langoni inside the box. Were it not for a lucky bounce off Yeimar, it would have been a 33rd minute equalizer for New England.

The hosts finally began to string together some momentum around the 35-minute mark, with a couple of set pieces due to fouls from Ragen and Rusnák deep in Seattle territory and an ensuing corner, though Thomas again leapt up and absorbed the momentum with a high claim.

It looked like Seattle might go into the sheds with unbroken momentum at that point, but a 43rd minute break-in by Peyton Miller on a loose aerial turned into a run into the box and a shot in motion - high and outside.

Seattle's passing accuracy deteriorated at points in stoppage, but a big block from Ragen at the edge of the 18 nixed New England's first chance at equalizing in the make-up minutes. A giveaway up top rapidly became a breakout up New England's left, the hosts switched to the right, and a cross went in for Miller by the post. Even though it somehow didn't get intercepted by the three Sounders in range, Thomas managed to block the point-black strike and keep the clean sheet going.

That clean sheet lasted into the halftime whistle, but with the way the Sounders let off the gas once stoppage began, there were still plenty of questions going into the final 45 minutes of play.

The Sounders shut the door in the second half.

A 50th minute snafu on the Revs' defense somehow left Cristian Roldan onside as he took a long ball from Thomas, allowing Cristian to charge to the net and get a corner. But just like all the set pieces to that point, Seattle's continuing issues in the air meant that the best they could do was keep possession of the ball for a bit as it went into their half. They didn't even keep it for that long, losing the ball as they tried to work forward and create another attack, but they mostly managed to plug backfield holes as the hosts tried to break into the final third.

New England spent a minute and a half with attacking possession before finding a hole in the center and driving towards the net in the 59th, though Nouhou cleared it over the endline and the Revs had a corner. Even with the set piece (and another corner later in the minute), the Sounders found themselves calmly repelling repeated attempts to open windows in front of Seattle's net.

The Sounders had an excellent chance in the 64th as Jordan got a long ball with just one defender able to get between him and net, but as he cut inside with a window on goal, he passed to a moving Brunell under pressure. Only in since the 60th, Brunell couldn't find his footing in front of net, and a follow-up attempt from Dotson flew over the beam.

Defensive rigidity from both sides began to crack. Seattle finally left a window open for Miller in the 67th as he wriggled away from Dotson and fired on net, but Thomas swiftly lunged at the ball and kept his clean sheet with the diving save. Three minutes later, Paul Arriola, in for Morris after the latter limped off (more on that later), sent a long ball for Joveljić up top. But although Deki had the ball with only Turner between the ball and the netting, he sent it right to the home keeper and Seattle didn't get the near-open second goal.

Joveljić wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. And unlike Phil Neville, he wasn't going to make it five or six times to make sure he got it right. Seattle brought another attack forth in the 74th minute, with Brunell deftly chipping it over Joshua Wynder for Albert, who was joined by Arriola and Joveljić in the box. Rusnák probably could have taken it himself and Arriola might have been able to do so, too, but once Albert sent it for Arriola, the latter wheeled it over to the striker. Joveljić whacked a smooth shot to the far post to put Seattle up 2-0.

"You want to talk about quality," Schmetzer said, "you want to talk about what really made the game open - that second goal, I mean, there's not a lot of players in this league that can score that kind of goal."

That moment of quality made things quite difficult on the Revs, but it was seven minutes later when Seattle delivered the kill shot.

Ferreira entered the pitch in the 80th, going on for Deki, and it scarcely took 30 seconds for him to put the game away. With the ball in Seattle territory following a Revs free kick, Ferreira helped pressure the ball out of Raines' feet and darted forward as soon as Cristian sent the ball up for Rusnák, who sent it outwards for Ferreira in space. Seattle had their opponents utterly out of position by this point, and when Ferreira curled a pinpoint pass in for Arriola on the openside, there was little Turner could do to prevent his team from going down 3-0.

The Revs managed to get a few more chances after that point, but even if one of their stoppage time shots had managed to find the back of the net, the game was all but over at that point.

Hassani "Pacific Northwest Grit" Dotson, but actually?

When the Sounders brought Dotson in during the offseason, this was the kind of performance they were looking for.

Going up against a Revs team that depends on buildup to produce threats - with midfielder Carles Gil a dual menace in dribbling into space and distributing to his attacking teammates up top - the Sounders needed to prevent the Revs from being able to connect between the back and front thirds of the pitch.

This was where Dotson's physicality shined. Having been unavailable their previous game due to accumulation of yellows, Dotson got himself another booking in the 56th minute. But the trade-off was clearly in the Sounders' favor here: Dotson's 11 defensive contributions were second-most of anyone on the pitch and his pressures plugged most chances the Revs had of operating through the middle. Even when he lost duels, he still pushed his opponents around into favorable ground for the Sounders, and his presence on the pitch was a big reason why New England wasn't able to bully them around physically like SKC had.

Maybe Schmetzer is playing to the "Federal Way guy" hype a little bit, but he did indicate, in a roundabout way, that Cristian and Dotson are his top pivot pair at this point.

"He and Cristian are kind of figuring out how they want to play in combination and as a pair. I thought that was exceptionally strong performance by both pivots, and both of them had yellows," Schmetzer said. "And there was talk on the bench about, 'well let's at least take one of them off because you're cutting the odds in half that the referee was going to call a second yellow on one of those two,' but we decided to say those are two experienced players and they were able to manage the game and still be really effective."

Where does that leave Snyder Brunell? That was a question Schmetzer openly pondered on Saturday.

"If Hassani and Cristian keep playing like that, where do you put the kid? Because the kid deserves to be on the field."

Of course, just as the team needs to keep proving it in these final six games of the regular season and into the playoffs, so too does Dotson. He spent a lot of time not doing a whole lot on the pitch for Seattle, and so the question still lingers: is this real improvement or is it just luck? Is it chemistry or is it chance?

Seattle took some casualties from the game's physicality, too.

Alex Roldan, Jordan Morris, and Yeimar all left the pitch before the final whistle. This was a minutes restriction thing for Yeimar given how recently he has returned to consistent minutes for Seattle, but J-Mo and Alex both left hobbling.

"Jordan got dinged up pretty bad on a couple of occasions in the first half and his hip was bugging him, but he's fine," Schmetzer said. "Alex Roldan was the same, his hip, he got beat up pretty good, too. No significant injuries to report."

It remains to be seen how ready these players will be for Wednesday's fixture against FC Dallas, given the quick turnaround and the fact that immediate postgame prognostications can be askew. And Seattle cannot afford either player going down for any extended period of time with the regular season wrapping up fast.

Deki scored another striker's goal as soon as he came back from Serbian international play.

I wrote after Seattle's win against SKC - where Morris had some good play at nine - that such flurries from Morris aren't common enough to justify him being the top option at nine but are common enough to become very useful additions at wing.

Morris did quite well on the wing, providing his teammates with one of their few outlets for aerial connections as they gave him long balls to track down behind enemy lines. Seattle quickly found a balance of buildup versus in-behind play as the game progressed into the first half with this option available to them, though Morris didn't end up with any direct shots on net.

Once Morris went off, however, it was Joveljić who took over that role as the deep ball tracker. He had an opportunity, had he properly directed the shot, to send the Sounders up 2-0 in the 70th minute on such a play, but the fact that he sent it right to Turner made the victory at least a little bittersweet on a personal level.

"Paul played a great ball to me, and I had in my mind - because I spent watching hours of that situation when I played for the national team, I had the same chance, I made a great run against Poland, and I got a similar ball - it was a little bit harder, and I had to shoot in the opposite side ... the ball was coming from the left, I wanted to shoot to the right instead of just shooting to the first post and scoring an easy goal," Joveljić said. "And that's what I need to improve, those are my goals that I need to score and that's why I'm here. So yeah, I'm happy because I scored, but I'm very angry at myself because I missed a chance."

The second goal was no cheap strike, it must be said. It wasn't the kind of goal the Sounders could expect from anyone on the pre-Deki side, even though it would of course sometimes be scored. With Joveljić, however, Seattle has someone to make those kinds of shots with regularity.

Seattle must keep proving it as the playoffs approach.

Saturday was a statement, but there are still six games left in the regular season. One is on the road against FC Dallas, a team that is currently third in the West with 47 points. After that is an alternation of home and road fixtures: home against Montreal, away at San Diego, home against Houston, away at Vancouver, home against LAFC.

Plenty of those games will be challenging ones for Seattle, but if they play the way they did against the Revs on Saturday, they'll have a chance to make some waves. With 41 points in the table, Seattle sits seventh in the West, but already four points separate them from the eighth-place Rapids while they are just a point back of LAFC for sixth.

The Dynamo have 45 points and sit in fifth, while the fourth playoff spot currently belongs to the Quakes with 46. That's a five-point difference between Seattle and a home playoff series; at this point in the season, that's a 0.18 points per game difference.

San Jose is pacing 53 points after 28 games, meaning that Seattle would have to win four of their remaining six to reach that figure and go 4-1-1 or better to exceed it. That isn't probable or even likely, but it's possible, and Schmetzer is no stranger to helming late-surging Sounders sides.

But if they fail to meet the moment in these next six games, the 2026 season could very well remain defined by the losing streak.

'You can feel when the team is going in a good direction," Schmetzer said, "but the job's not done."