The Seattle Sounders have almost done it. Done what you might ask. Well, they are one win away from clinching a spot in the playoffs for the seventh consecutive year. Not many teams are able to claim such a feat.
If you would have read that opening paragraph at the beginning of August, you would have laughed in the authors face if given the chance. It would have been rightfully deserved as well and the author could have been laughed right out of town. From June 20th until August 9th, the Sounders went 1-8-0 (win-loss-tie) during a nine game stretched that watched them go from the top of the Supporters’ Shield table to almost the bottom of the Western Conference Standings.
The Sounders got a lot of their missing pieces back from injury or suspensions and that has helped greatly. They also use the summer transfer window to their advantage in bringing in Erik Friberg, Roman Torres, Nelson Valdez and Andreas Ivanschitz. The Sounders lost Torres to an ACL injury back on September 12th during their 1-1 draw with the San Jose Earthquakes.
Since the team got Obafemi Martins back from injury in their game against Orlando City SC on August 16th, Seattle has gone 4-1-3 in their last eight games and finds themselves sitting in fifth place of the Western Conference and only four points out of first and the Supporters’ Shield race.
Any hope of the Sounders repeating as shield winners has gone out the window. It would take a miracle for that to even happen with so many teams ahead of them. They would all basically have to lose out and the Sounders would obviously need to win out. FC Dallas still has four games to go in the season and two of them are against the Vancouver Whitecaps. Dallas will not win both of those games so that right there would knock Seattle out of the shield race.
They have two manageable games left between the Houston Dynamo and Real Salt Lake. The problem is you don’t know which team will show up for Houston or even Seattle. Houston has a very slim chance of making the postseason, but a win would help their cause while a loss would make the final Sunday of the year interesting for Seattle. Houston is 9-4-3 at home while Seattle is 4-9-3 on the road.
Their final home game of the season will be against Salt Lake and could actually mean a lot in the race to the postseason depending on what happens these next few weeks. Seattle is 10-4-2 at home while Salt Lake is a paltry 4-10-2 on the road. These two teams always play tough against each other and the final game of the season should be a great one to watch, regardless of what is on the line.
Whatever Head Coach Sigi Schmid and his training staff did to right the ship has worked and this team seems more confident now than any other time during the season. It’s now just time to see if they can carry that momentum and confidence into the postseason and bring home the one trophy in MLS that has eluded them since 2009, MLS Cup.
First things first, take the bye week off and get rested and go get three points in Houston to punch your ticket to the playoffs for the seventh straight year.