Sounders Trapped in Frustrating Draw to Galaxy

The once-great rivalry has a little bit of recent history, though it's far from the tense years of the early 2010s.

November 30, 2024: The Seattle Sounders fell 1-0 to the Los Angeles Galaxy in the Western Conference Final. Had the Rave Green won, they would have hosted the MLS cup at Lumen Field with a chance at their third iteration of that trophy—but it was not to be.

August 10, 2025: With a Galaxy team that had declined precipitously over less than a year, the clean sheet was reversed, all while Moosiah got a brace and Seattle got a strong 4-0 win.

August 27, 2025. It was another Sounders clean sheet against the Galaxy, but this one came in the Leagues Cup semifinal, the last stop before one of the biggest events of the year and the Sounders’ first major trophy in three years.

September 13, 2025 was an unremarkable draw compared to these previous matchups, but it still had playoff seeding implications as all MLS regular season matches do. A win would keep Seattle in the mix to try and bust into the third spot in the Western Conference; anything else would make a finish of more than fourth quite difficult.

Although Jordan and Albert were available on Saturday, they were on limited minutes, and so Moose and JF started in the nine and 10 spots. Reed began the game as the left back while Kalani was up on the right wing.

The Sounders wasted no time drawing first blood against the Galaxy on Saturday, with Alex Roldan getting a hold of a fifth minute takeaway on the outer touchline, servicing the ball up to Moose at the edge of the box. The Moosiah tapped it over to Jesus, who torched a screamer into the left side of the net.

Interestingly, LA—despite being composed of mostly backups—spent a good amount of time high up the field. When the Sounder defense was at its usual self, the Galaxy couldn’t effectively challenge them (well, the Galaxy not named Joseph Paintsil). But every so often, a lapse in focus would result in a good opportunity for the visitors, and Stef Frei had to work overtime to keep the sheet clean.

Maya Yoshida had a point-blank shot saved in the 19th, while a 28th minute 25-meter free kick by Diego Fagundez bounced off the top of the net. Edwin Cerrillo sent a ball towards the top slot of the goal in the 30th, but Frei punched it over the crossbar. Yet another opportunity for LA came on a 34th minute set piece, and Frei again smothered it up. 

Seattle nearly doubled their lead in the 37th as Musovski received a through ball from Rothrock and turned on the jets for the breakaway. He rocketed up the pitch to the 18 box and tried to punch it past Novak Micovic, but his shot was a low tap that went right into Micovic’s chest.

Moose and Paulie redeemed themselves soon after, with Primetime working it up the right side and tapping it to a perfectly-placed Musovski in the 41st. The Macedonian Miracle knocked it into the goal to give Seattle a 2-0 lead.

Unfortunately, LA won the goal right back, winning a free kick a couple minutes later and simply weaving it clockwise in the box, Paintsil to Fagundez to Yoshida. It was 2-1 going into the sheds.

It wasn’t long into the back half that the Rave Green produced some more heart palpitations for the Lumen faithful, as LA got another point-blank free kick in the 49th. Seattle formed an iron palisade in front, though, and the deflection eased the pressure for several minutes.

A 58th minute breakaway from the Galaxy once again gave the visitors a great chance to equalize, but as had happened many times before, Frei got in front of the shot and kept Seattle’s lead intact. The very next minute saw Schmetzer go for his first round of substitutions, bringing on Albert and Nouhou for Kalani and Reed. 

Seattle had a chance in the 73rd as Obed Vargas tried to strike from beyond the box, but it was deflected just a few feet outside the right post. Alex Roldan created another incredible opportunity in the 78th, as he cut inside his defender to head a long ball down in front of him before bolting to the mouth of the net. Even more incredible than Alex’ effort was that of Micovic, who barely got a touch on the ball to prevent a third Sounder goal.

The second wave of subs came on around the 80th minute for Seattle, as Schmetzer brought on Georgi Minoungou and Jordan Morris for Paul Rothrock and Danny Musovski. Georgi immediately bedazzled the stadium with an attempted bicycle kick goal that would have made it to decade-level highlight reels had it gone in, but after that, the team made one too many key slip-ups.

Alex and Yeimar had been on point all night up to the last 10 minutes of the game, but as time was winding down and the two Sounders began playing more centrally to plug other gaps, an opening developed for Mauricio Cuevas on the right. LA couldn’t take advantage the first time, but off an 87th minute Galaxy throw-in, they had no such luck. Cuevas broke through the open window and the ball subsequently caromed between several Galaxy before ending up in the back of the net off the boot of Miki Yamane.

Schmetzer made one more substitution, bringing on Osaze de Rosario for Jesus Ferreira in the 89th minute. Seattle nearly got back up in the second minute of stoppage, as the guys up top connected for some clinical touches—until the one that mattered most. Cristian got it to Minoungou on the far side and then Minoungou cut it back to Albert, who immediately took his shot—but it was offline. Rusnák held his head in his hands, time slipping away. The game ended with a 2-2 tie.

Set Piece Defense Proves Key Issue

The right side hole may have been in Alex and Yeimar’s zone of the field by the time Cuevas punched through it, but it had been cascading down the field like a zipper from the moment LA resumed the play. A badly set up structure had far too many points of failure, and it wasn’t the first time play had stopped and Seattle had promptly lost their edge.

The Galaxy’s first goal had come on a true set piece back in the first half, with a free kick only a few yards from the edge of the box becoming a graveyard for the Sounders’ clean sheet. Diego Fagundez’ cross to Yoshida on the opposite edge of the box was hardly contested in the air by three Sounders who could have feasibly blocked it: Ragen, Alex, and Obed. Schmetzer addressed both these problems in reverse order during the postgame presser.

Obviously, the team wasn’t prepared, and that’s on me … our setup on that throw-in, anybody could see it was all wrong. We had Obed on the wrong side of the ball, Albert on the wrong side of the ball, center forward on the wrong side of the ball, Jesus Ferreira on the wrong side of the ball. Cristian goes up and challenges, there’s a gaping hole on top of the box, Yeimar’s got to step out, now he’s out of position. Nobody wins the duels in there. 

And then the sequence of the ball bouncing around the box, then you can start to pick that apart—but the mistake happened way up here, out by the touchline. And I don’t know if Nouhou could have kept the ball in or not or whatever. I don’t know, I didn’t see that far in advance. That is a terrible, terrible, terrible goal to give up.

…

Since we’re on the goals, we’ll just go to the first one. Was it a foul, was it not a foul? Some of the fans were upset about the refereeing. Referees don’t lose games. They had a trick play, it was obviously a trick play, and our guys’ ability to understand and have vision in their defending and understand where the dangerous spaces are, where their [the opponents’] players are—how about this? Just simple body language cues! When Paul Rothrock sprints to the ball, the guy wasn’t ready to shoot. He doesn’t need to do that, and they pass it right back to Paintsil. Now, Kalani’s tucked inside, somebody comes out there, Kalani has no idea the guy’s on the left. And then Stef’s gotta cover the near post, but there’s nobody out in the goal, and it’s life or death in the penalty box. Somebody’s gotta win that header.

—Brian Schmetzer

Starting XI Assessments

Stef Frei: Seattle’s last line of defense proved extremely critical on Saturday, covering for the intermittent mistakes made by the usually stalwart back line. He made five saves out of seven opportunities, while both goals that did get through were basically unsavable. As for the Galaxy, it was Frei’s counterpart in Novak Micovic that prevented the Seattle win, but Frei did his part to set the 10 men in front of him up for three points.

Alex Roldan: Aside from two plays, Roldan the Younger was one of the strongest men in Seattle’s starting XI. He beat back Paintsil’s budding drives into the box many times, all while connecting some strong passes with Kalani on the right side. Alex nearly scored on an incredible 69th minute curler that only missed the goal by about ten inches. But along with Yeimar, he left that right side spot open for Cuevas to punch through. Again, as with Yeimar, it had been a whole-team failure in many ways, but he was still missing from the glaring hole—though he made a valiant and nearly-successful effort to snatch the ball from a charging Cuevas. On the other side of halftime, a quicker reaction from Alex on that first Galaxy goal would have kept the clean sheet alive.

Reed Baker-Whiting: Coming into the Leagues Cup final, I thought Reed the relative weak point of the back line. Well, he has since proved me wrong. Not only did he have an outstanding performance in that trophy-winning contest, he continued that form for nearly 60 minutes on Saturday, marking well and doing the work he needed to do. His only knock was an early yellow card, and the risk of going shorthanded was the deciding factor in Schmetzer’s move to bring Nouhou on for the last 30 minutes.

Yeimar: Sometimes, all it takes is one mistake to muddy up an amazing performance. For 80 minutes, the Sounders center back played an incredible game, outpacing his marks with relative ease. But in the last 10 minutes, he began to slip, falling too far into the middle to cover openings on the right. This, as previously mentioned, was something also repeated by Alex—and a result of the zippering effect from the subpar defensive set up on set pieces—but he was also unable to get back in to clear as the ball caromed in the coming chaos. 

Jackson Ragen: Ragen had a generally shakier game than Yeimar (though without any massive mistakes), but he still played solidly. He had a good moment in the 82nd, slowing LA’s momentum down with a minor clearance on a breakaway. He was one of the three Sounders who could have blocked Fagundez’ cross, but with it still rising beyond him and two men backing him up, he does get a little less of the blame.

Obed Vargas: The Sounders’ young anchor had something of a quiet game on Saturday, with two major exceptions. The first was his secondary assist of Moose’s goal on a perfect touch to Rothrock, while his second was the attempted golazo in the 73rd minute. While he was quiet, he still did a lot of what the Rave Green needed him too, but that extra moxie could have provided the key difference—as Obed was one of the many Sounders who failed to get a deflection on Fagundez’ assisting cross to Yoshida at the end of the first half.

Cristian Roldan: Coming off a strong and well-deserved start for the USMNT, Roldan the Elder had a strong, albeit relatively quiet, performance on Saturday. He got 100 touches on the ball and made 95% of his passes, doing what he needed to do as a pivot, but in that final chaotic mess that resulted in the visitors’ equalizer, he was one of many Sounders who got drawn away from the path of the ball. Still, Cristian put up a solid performance, and the loss of two points is hardly on him.

Kalani Kossa-Rienzi: Kalani showed good connection with Alex on the right side, but he struggled to continue the line along once he got the ball, with many of his passes going errantly back to Galaxy feet. Because of this, he ended up becoming a little bit of a non-factor as the game wore on, and so Schmetzer subbed him out in his first wave of replacements.

Danny Musovski: Man, dropping points at home really put a damper in what should have been a celebratory moment for Musovski. The Macedonian Miracle punched one goal in and nearly had another, but the one score was enough to outdo Jordan Morris’ top total of goals in MLS play during a season. Moose now has 14, while Jordan’s high of 13 came in 2024. Morris still has the edge when it comes to goals in all competitions (17 in 2024 compared to 15 for Moose in 2025), but the Moosiah’s accomplishment was without doubt the brightest spot of the game for Seattle.

Jesus Ferreira: JF played two positions on Saturday, starting off as a number 10 and then shifting over to the right wing once Albert got into the game. Obviously, his highlight was the game-opening goal, but the Seattle attacker mostly kept up the good play for the rest of the match. His long balls were on point the entire game, and he had good reactions to the direction of play. However, he did miss a few too many passes in high Sounders possession.

Paul Rothrock: Any time a player notches an assist, they’ve had an above average match. Rothrock’s service to Musovski in the box was truly tremendous, and it helped give the Sounders their early two-goal cushion. Despite the good moments, though, it was a little bit of a mixed bag for Paulie Primetime. He had some notable missed passes throughout and fell offside at a quite inopportune moment in the early second half, preventing Seattle from growing to a 3-1 lead.

The Table Read

The Sounders are in fourth place in the MLS table with 45 points, but a Saturday win would have put some distance between them and their chasers in LAFC and the Timbers—and more importantly, gave them more of a fighting chance for a third place spot currently held by the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Speaking of the neighbor to the north, the ‘Caps come to town on Sept. 27 for a big Cascadia game in Lumen Field. But first, Seattle takes a two-game road trip, starting with a Leagues Cup Final rematch on Tuesday against Inter Miami.