As the 2024 Major League Soccer season heads into its home stretch, the Seattle Sounders will take as much momentum as they can get.
Coming off tough defeats to LAFC in MLS, Leagues Cup and U.S. Open Cup, as well as a difficult loss at the rival Portland Timbers last weekend, the Sounders were in search of a positive spark. Going to play Columbus Crew SC at Lower.com Field, a venue where they had lost just twice since the start of 2023, was hardly the optimal scenario, but Seattle capitalized on a fortuitous break to earn a comprehensive 4-0 win on Saturday evening.
“You play who’s in front of you,” said Sounders Head Coach Brian Schmetzer. “Our team was playing to win. There was an incident that happened that certainly affected the outcome of the game, but I thought our players were very professional, did their jobs, kept a clean sheet, took hold of the game in the second half and didn’t overdo it.”
Due to an injury and two international call-ups, the Crew did not dress a backup goalkeeper on their matchday roster. Abraham Romero, who was making his first club start, was the only available option.
After a collision with Jordan Morris in the 45th minute, in which Romero raced out of his box and denied a goalscoring opportunity, Romero was sent off, forcing midfielder Sean Zawadski to finish the match in goal while Columbus played with 10 men.
“I’m sure that there were a lot of people who expected this game to be a loss [for us],” said Schmetzer. “For us to persevere, for us to do our jobs and get three points is massive. It’s massive.”
The Sounders were led by Albert Rusnák, who recorded the first hat trick of his professional career, starting with a goal on the ensuing free kick after Romero was ejected. Rusnák then added two more in the 67th and 70th minutes to complete his hat trick and more importantly bring three valuable points back to Seattle.
“We all share the same mentality,” said Rusnák. “Everybody is on the same page. Everybody is smart enough to look at the remaining games and look at the table and figure out how many more points we need to secure a playoff spot.
“We’re not going to be satisfied even if we win the next one or the next two,” he continued.“There are still six games left, and it will be a mentality of one game at a time.”
The final six games of the Sounders’ regular season are all against Western Conference opponents, including four against teams that are all within four points of each other. Seattle’s playoff hopes and eventual postseason seeding will all but be determined in head-to-head clashes over the next month.
“Every game is like a playoff game for us at this point,” said Sounders forward Jordan Morris, who extended his team-lead in goals with his 11th of the year on Saturday. “We have three games in a row at home now. Those three games are massive. You take them one at a time, but they’re all like playoff games because everyone at this point of the season is fighting to get three points.
“Those ones against the teams that are right around us, those are six-point swings.”
Whether the Sounders were the beneficiaries of a favorable scenario in Columbus on Saturday won’t matter to them either. They’re only interested in building on that performance, starting when they welcome Sporting Kansas City to Lumen Field next Sunday (4:15 p.m. PT; FS1, Watch free on Apple TV | TICKETS) before two more home contests against the San Jose Earthquakes and Houston Dynamo.
“When it was 11-on-11, I thought we were still playing well,” said Morris. “That’s a really good team. I thought we came out with the right mentality, the right intensity. When they went down to 10 men, the game was different, but we had a really good game.”
Added Rusnák: “We have three home games coming up, and we’ll be looking to take nine points.”
