The Kakisteia

SEATTLE - When the Sounders dropped a winnable game to the Portland Timbers on April 15, 2023, head coach Brian Schmetzer responded with barely-concealed volcanic apoplexy.

If that 4-1 loss was "an emotional punch to the jaw", as Schmetzer called it, Thursday's 5-1 disaster - 1,162 days later - was a stab to the lungs. There was anger in his voice, but it was partially subdued, overcome instead with shellshock at the surreality of the loss.

"Not good enough. Not near, not even close to the standard that we set at the club. A night where you're gonna celebrate three legends, three big people that are vital parts of this story, the franchise. The 50-year celebration, the grass is perfect," Schmetzer said. "Zero excuses for that performance, just not good enough. And I'll add, me too. 'Cause I gotta own that, it's the worst loss to the Timbers ever, and I'm the head coach. So it wears on me, too."

There's not really much to say to us. I hope the relative dearth of anger in his voice was because he had already ripped his team - especially leaders like Albert Rusnák, Nouhou, and Jordan Morris, who were practically invisible on the pitch on Thursday - a new one.

I asked Paul Rothrock after the game what Schmetz said, and it's clear that there was a team address, though its exact content or tone isn't clear.

"Everyone's spot is open now" are perhaps the most poignant words that Rothrock said there, but the expression on his face said so much more.

I'll put it this way: if you had told me Paul had just come back from the Somme, I would have believed you. His sunken eyes, his gaunt face, a thousand-yard stare as if still seeing craters and barbed wire and German machine gun nests in the far-off muck. In soccer terms, that's basically what it was.

This was the worst game in MLS-era Sounders history. Given the weight of the MLS as compared to earlier American soccer leagues, it's possible to hold this as the worst loss in the entire 51-year existence of the Seattle Sounders.

It's not just the score. They've suffered worse scores in league play. Their second-leg CCC loss to Cruz Azul last year was definitely bad, if we're counting all comps. But Cruz Azul doesn't mean as much as the Portland Timbers, and losing a game in the most notoriously difficult city for visitors to play in doesn't sting as much as getting utterly belt-to-assed in your home stadium, a place you've often termed a fortress.

And this is the biggest rival. It's the most natural city for a Seattle team to hold a rivalry with. It doesn't hold in baseball, pro football, NHL, or rugby: all those for lack of a team in Portland. It doesn't hold in college football because of a certain group of green-and-yellow clowns in Eugene, and the fact the Beavers A) don't play in Stumptown and B) are completely irrelevant. It doesn't hold in the NBA because a parade of hucksters, greedsters, and their useful morons led to OKC stealing the Sonics and putting them in a state best known for tornadoes, domestic terrorism, and losing to the Longhorns.

Speaking of OKC, the traveling Timbers Army brought with them a banner that said "relocate SSFC to OKC". They then displayed a TIFO stating "no Caps, no Cascadia" to protest (correctly) any potential Whitecaps relocation to Sin City ... about 15 feet from the one calling for the Oklahoma City Sounders. Yes, I know the OKC relocation one is probably ironic meant to rile up Sounders fans. It still made the sting sharper.

All that could be heard in Lumen by the end of it was the Timbers Army chanting for six.

It would have been bad enough had this been a prime 2010s Timbers side going this ham on Seattle. But what makes this such an utter catastrophe is that the 2026 Timbers might be one of the worst sides Providence Park has ever assembled. Aside from James Pantemis - who of course played like prime Manuel Neuer on Thursday, though he's usually a good keeper regardless - there's a bunch of nobodies, a bunch of good players well past their prime, and I guess there's also Finn Surman. Diego Chará is older than sin for crying out loud.

Granted, they didn't have the 300-pound millstone of Phil Neville hanging around their necks. But the mid-1917 Hapsburg Empire was still the mid-1917 Hapsburg Empire, whether its field armies were led by Conrad von Hotzendorf or not; ditto for their soccer equivalents. I guess that makes the Sounders our Italy equivalent. They certainly played according to the immortal spirit of Luigi Cadorna; that is to say, in a manner of disastrous incompetence.

Other losses to the Timbers have meant more in terms of official competition. The 2013 Western Conference semis, the 2018 Western Conference Semis, and of course, the Red Card Wedding. Thursday was a midseason rout that officially lays to rest any lingering Shield delusions and makes a Cascadia Cup a whole lot harder.

But it says much more about the Sounders than any of those other losses. Those were close-run affairs against Timbers greatness, not a total beatdown from a rotting, termite-ridden logheap that went into the game seemingly destined for the Western Conference basement.

The first half wasn't terrible, comparatively, but it wasn't the best of efforts.

Seattle had about five minutes of good play. Hassani Dotson delivered a quality high ball that created some danger in the early minutes, and a fifth-minute flurry appeared to the less hawkish observers like a goal (Rothrock was a mile offside), but it still appeared like they had something going.

Portland's early counters created quite a few chances once Seattle's early spell of possession dissipated post-Rothrock offside. At this point, it was a little disheartening - "defense" and "the 2026 Portland Timbers" generally get along as well as waiters and OJ Simpson - but an adjustment or two from being a quiet footnote.

Yet the attacks kept coming, and in the 19th minute, everyone who was supposed to track Kevin Kelsy forgot about his existence. Jimer Fory delivered a long ball into space behind the Sounders lines, but it seemed the whole hosting team thought it was an easy turnover. Dotson didn't see Kelsy running. Snyder Brunell didn't see Kelsy running. Jackson Ragen didn't see Kelsy running. Tino Lopez didn't see Kelsy running. Kelsy got to the ball before any of those guys could, and he placed himself perfectly to head it from outside the box over Andrew Thomas' head (to Thomas' credit, he did begin to see the danger gather at the last second, which is more than can be said of the guys in front of him) and it went in for Portland's first goal.

Okay, "Timber who is barely enough to drink scores an absolute banger in Lumen Field" isn't a new story. Seattle could still have easily recuperated and returned fire. Were it not for Pantemis and Kamal Miller in the 29th minute, the Sounders would have equalized on a ball that Paul Rothrock delivered into the crowd and Kalani rocketed in - off Pantemis. Brunell's follow-up went off the foot of Kamal Miller, and it was still a goose egg on the board for Seattle.

But by this point, it was clear something had to change with how the Sounders were approaching the game. Jordan Morris had a golden breakaway handed to him and, instead of roaring up the pitch with abandon, he wasted time looking for someone to dump it off to and got his pocket picked. Sadly, this is a common occurrence when he plays striker in 2026. What was worse was that Albert and Jesus Ferreira were essentially a non-factors while Rothrock was addicted to booting crosses into Bellevue.

A bit of a mini-ballad of Jackson Ragen occurred in the 38th, as he lost the ball in Seattle territory - leading to a Timbers breakaway - but he recovered in time to take the ball back and prevent disaster. That was somewhat emblematic of the way the defenders were playing: moments of good play and moments of bad play.

Disaster nearly came anyway in the 43rd minute, with Ragen shown a yellow for contact deep about a quarter of the way from Seattle's goal. Ariel Lassiter hit a screamer curling to Thomas' left, and the Sounders keeper dove - potentially getting a hand on the ball - and it caromed off the post.

The sides went into the sheds with one goal between them. Once Portland found the net again, however, everything collapsed.

Seven Minutes of Hell.

Danny Musovski subbed on for Jordan Morris at the halfway mark, with Morris coming off due to injury. It's unclear whether that injury was affecting his play during the first half, but the point is moot.

Portland got a free kick in the 56th minute and Lassiter floated it up towards his right for a double-guarded Brandon Bye. Even with Rothrock and Musovski both on him, however, Bye headed it inwards towards Miller, who had open space in front of him to tap the ball into the net.

Seattle got the ball into Timbers territory soon after, but that only made the hammer ever crueler. Who else but Diego Chará - who has a seven-letter middle name in the Emerald City, the same one the other side of I-90 gave to Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone - would snare the ball from Sounders possession to begin a goal-scoring drive? He started a line of Cole Bassett to Kelsy to David da Costa, who played Ragen and Nouhou like a fiddle before giving it over to Bassett on his right. Bassett finished it off with a left-footer that deflected off Nouhou and past Thomas into the net.

Stunned silence echoed throughout Seattle, but the flurry of horror wasn't over. Da Costa and Antony caught Kalani completely napping and turned 63rd minute midfield possession into a run on the goal. Thomas barely managed to get in front of Antony's first shot, but with the whole back line racing back to get to the threat, Kelsy was easily able to find the wide-open net on the second ball.

Sounders fans started streaming out of the building in droves. The 35,383-strong crowd dwindled over the remaining 38 minutes - yes, 38, there was 11 minutes of stoppage - with the constant stream near-emptying the building of Seattleites by the end.

"We're sorry to the fans who were coming out tonight," said Rothrock. "It's really hard watching people walk up the stairs way before the game is over. But I don't blame them either, given how we played tonight."

The ones that remained made their displeasure loud and clear. On an Albert attempted through ball that soared over the endline, the boos roared. When Dotson skied an attempted pass five rows into the seats, the boos became even louder. When a potential penalty kick was denied to the Sounders due to the contact being outside the box, the fans roared in anger at the referee (despite that being a VAR decision).

There would be one moment of cheering amongst the turpid muck, but it scarcely even mattered.

Hassani Dotson wasn't the worst player on the pitch, but Peter Kingston looked better.

If one thing in the world is surer than death and taxes, it's that Hassani Dotson can't keep letting Federal Way down. The Sounders' offseason midfield acquisition, formerly on Minnesota United, hasn't panned out the way the Sounders had hoped, though the duo of Cristian Roldan and Snyder Brunell have held down the midfield fortuitously over much of the 2026 season.

But Cristian wasn't available for Thursday's game, having re-aggravated a quad injury. Dotson, as mentioned earlier, made one excellent long ball in the opening minutes of the match. But after that, he had a very average game.

It wasn't average because of too many overt mistakes, however. He had 99 touches and made 67 passes, both highest of anyone on the pitch. But these weren't very threatening plays most of the time, often unconnected from a greater plan of attack and lacking creativity.

Peter Kingston definitely had creativity. Along with Osaze, he was one of two players who really had life in that second half, and both of them were subs (Osaze was in for Brunell). Even thought it was Dotson who scored in this game, the match helped Kingston's case for being the third option at number six.

I already spoiled things in that last paragraph. The Sounders didn't get shut out! James Pantemis didn't keep a clean sheet!

Yeah, there are garbage time goals, and then there's the 87th minute corner the Sounders had. Rusnák's service found a perfect header from Dotson that bounced off the post and into the goal. It was 4-1.

Had that goal come during the team's occasional chances around the 70th minute, it may have meant something. I wouldn't discount the possibility of a 20-minute four-goal comeback in this rivalry; after all, it would be a beautiful successor to Clint Dempsey's 2014 hat trick to ruin a Chará brace and turn a late two-goal lead into a 4-4 tie. I have it on good authority that the Dempsey hat trick game caused at least one actual fight, by the way. But no such drama awaited the Cascadia rivals on Thursday.

It was just a no-holds-barred beatdown, and Portland's night through-and-through. Beyond Kingston, Osaze, a late-added Stu Hawkins, and some moments for Dotson and Rothrock, the Sounders team had clearly thrown in the towel long before the final whistle.

The mold-covered cherry on top was an Alexander Aravena goal in the eighth minute of stoppage to officially make it the worst Sounders loss in MLS-era Cascadia Cup history. Woof.

Hydrogen Bomb vs. Coughing Baby.

From tactics to operations to strategy, the Timbers ran the table. The high-level game plan of taking balls away from the Sounders and playing off counterattacks worked like a charm. The exploitation of individual weaknesses became truly silly at times, with Kalani getting left in the dust time and time again (that was, of course, a feature of the structure that was getting exposed, with a solar system's worth of space behind the right back for half the Timbers team to run into). And good Lord, did the Sounders lose basically every duel they had.

Schmetzer decided not to move his guys further back at the half. This was understandable; after all, the team's issues in entering the final third weren't going to fix themselves with less guys available in those areas.

"Tactically, would I come to a home match against our rival and try and take our foot off the gas, or not press high up the field? No, I probably wouldn't do that. Ever," Schmetzer said. "So I don't know if that tactic is right or wrong, maybe the application of those tactics is where I need to dig into, to figure out, to make sure that the players all understood their roles and responsibilities in those moments, that's something I can work on. But overall, I wasn't gonna sit back and let the Timbers have the ball."

But it did mean those spaces kept appearing, again and again during the Seven Minutes of Hell. Once Kingston relieved Kalani, those spaces became less of an issue, but the structure also changed at that point.

The players themselves, of course, share a big part of the blame. Nouhou is better than the way he played. Ragen is way, way better than the way he played, which I guess was some sort of verkakte homage to Tim Ream. Tino Lopez just looked outmatched.

Schmetzer's first three words after the game described it perfectly.

The Sounders let Kasey Keller, Jimmy Gabriel, and Sigi Schmid down in the worst way possible.

"Not good enough," Schmetzer said. He said those words after the team's 4-1 loss on April 15, 2023 as well, but he said them with a different tone back then.

The rest of the opening quote bears repeating, especially as concerns great Sounders alumni the team honored before the game.

"Not near, not even close to the standard that we set at the club. A night where you're gonna celebrate three legends, three big people that are vital parts of this story, the franchise [emphasis mine].

The 50-year celebration, the grass is perfect. Zero excuses for that performance, just not good enough. And I'll add, me too. 'Cause I gotta own that, it's the worst loss to the Timbers ever, and I'm the head coach. So it wears on me, too."

-Brian Schmetzer

Those three legends in question were Kasey Keller, Jimmy Gabriel, and Sigi Schmid, all being added to the Eternal Sounders Circle of Legends. Keller, hoarse-voiced thanks to yelling over the pregame crowd, addressed media before the game. His words about the Cascadia rivalry were memorable.

I don't have any good information on how quickly Keller left Lumen Field after the game. I don't have any good information on what Keller said during the game, though I venture it might not be suitable for print.

Even before the massive loss happened, however, Keller talked about what it meant to play in front of the die-hard fans. His words are certainly applicable to the Sounders after their disaster.

"You've all played in clubs that don't have this support. If you want to keep this support, give them something to be excited about every match," Keller said. "They're not stupid, they know you're not going to win every match, but if you show the commitment that they've shown you before we've even kicked a ball, then the support will continue."

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

The reactions were different among the Sounders after Thursday's debacle. In the aggregate, however, it seemed to range from awestruck to angry. Even among those with less perceptible rage, they likely were holding a mountain of it directed at themselves.

Rothrock was more on the shellshocked side. He spoke in low tones, seemingly unable to fully comprehend what had just happened. So was I as I stood a yard to his right, by the way. On Thursday, Rothrock had a sense of the need to clear his head after such a horrific fixture.

"All I ask is that you judge us on how we respond to this ... it's important that we take a deep, long look in the mirror on this one and, yeah, all of us have to do that," Rothrock said. "All of us have to look internally first and think about our own performances and what we could have done better, and then we gotta get together after a day or two off and figure some things out."

Schmetzer was both steaming and stunned. He was asked after the game if he had expected the Timbers to go out as hard as they did, and his response displayed the utter shock he and his team experienced.

Snyder Brunell had a far more angry demeanor, with a strained face as an internal locomotive of discontent bubbled almost perceptibly under his skin.

"I mean, I just felt like that was nowhere near the standard that we needed to play at," Brunell said. "This was a good game to start off really strong, put us on the right foot, and I felt like we just did not take advantage of the opportunity. We definitely need to reflect, look back on it, and make sure that this never happens again. Because this was embarrassing. Towards the fans, the club, Washington, just in general. Make sure it doesn't happen again."

Sometimes, after a loss, there is a way to "spin" it internally to be a learning moment. But while they can definitely learn from Thursday, there is no way on Earth they can ever analyze the game as a good thing.

"Nah, we're just gonna have to own it, this was definitely not a positive," Brunell said. "We do have a chance to, when we go over there to Portland, that we take advantage of the opportunity and we kill them over there."

Regardless of that opportunity, the Rave Green have to live with true defeat for a while. Even if they win against the Timbers on Aug. 1, such a cataclysm will never be easily forgotten or forgiven.

"This one stings, man," Rothrock said.

In honor of Nolan's Odyssey coming out, I've dubbed this disaster according to the manner of the Ancient Greeks. Kakisteia based on the term Aristeia for a hero's shining moment of glory, of which there are multiple in the Iliad and the main one in the Odyssey is that of the titular character at the end of the tale (no spoilers here, by the way. No spoilers for a 27-century old story).

That term derives from the Ancient Greek word aristos, meaning "best". Kakistos is the antonym, meaning "worst". Hence Kakisteia.