Here we go again.

View Poll

Stock Up

Kalani Kossa-Rienzi - I dunno, maybe this is a stretch, but he’s had a number of runouts at RB now and it feels like he’s finding his footing at the MLS level. Reminds me a bit of Alex Roldan’s development - a little rough for a few seasons and then became a solid fixture. Is it a coincidence that VAN scored their goals after he subbed out? Yeah, probably, but this is something to keep an eye on.

Stock Down

Sebastian Gomez - I don’t want to pick on him, but he’s one of the few who had a stock up recently and therefore room to go back down. He did great in the Queretaro game, and poorly in this one. Asking the kid to come in vs the top team in the West is perhaps a bit much when there’s no quality around to support him.

Jesus Ferreira - While he hasn’t shown much in the way of leadership or driving the team to be better, at least he’d been out there and sometimes generating a chance or two. Now with this injury, he can’t even do that much.

Back to the regular season. We still have an active regular season losing streak. But can we just score a goal?

View Poll

Buncha boo-hoos voted No one last match, and they were wrong x3. Seba Gomez, Danny Musovski, and Albert Rusnak all put one in the back of the net.

It’s possible the Sounders will be mathematically eliminated from the tournament before kickoff, so maybe we’ll see extra rotation. Let’s play the prediction game anyway.

View Poll

First of all, Queretaro looked quite terrible. I’m not sure how much weight we can put on this match, but they got the job done at home, and that means something. So let’s get to it.

Stock Up

Paul Rothrock - Finally, he’s back to doing what we hope he does every game. Drawing fouls and creating chances. This time he served up two absolute dimes off one-touch crosses. It’s a very welcome change from him slowing it down in the corner and trying to beat someone 1v1.

Seba Gomez - I mean, you can’t not. The 20-year-old buried the first goal early, which set the tone for the entire match. A nice handoff to Rusnak on the third goal meant he got himself into that dangerous position, and had the awareness to make the right play.

Lumen Field turf - The grass curse has been lifted! The turf gods have blessed us with their return!

Stock Down

Pedro de la Vega - I would want a healthy Pedro on this roster without question. He has a passion and love for the game that is infectious. You know everyone on the team and the coaching staff is pulling for him. It’s just heartbreaking to see another stupid injury. Hopefully it’s super minor and he comes back soon. For now, he’s a meme.

Nouhou - There’s no need to lose your mind and start a brawl. Those players aren’t worth our time or energy. Don’t let them get to you like that. He really showed lack of maturity there, especially for someone who is supposed to be a leader on the team.

Stock Up, part 2

Andrew Thomas and Max Anchor - Speaking of, good on Max Anchor for standing up and taking a yellow to protect his teammates. And double good on Andrew for physically restraining Nouhou so he doesn’t do something even more dumb. (Frei was clearly not interested in getting into it.)

Last poll, over 70% correctly picked No one to score. Times are grim.

View Poll

Stock Up

Stefan Frei - Holy smokes, this man put on a show. Clearly the best player in the game for the Sounders, his heroic effort set a franchise record for saves in a single game. Reports differ on the actual number of saves credited. Sounders and Leagues Cup say 15. Fotmob says 16. If not for Frei, this game could easily have been 5-0 at half time.

Stock Down

Obviously a lot was bad. A lot. I’m just going to call out one glaring area, because it is one that wasn’t already at rock bottom.

The Snyder Brunell + Peter Kingston double pivot - It looked like this combo was working okay in the first half of last game vs Portland. But Kingston picked up a yellow and subbed out at half. And Portland is a much worse team than Toluca anyway. The midfield here was a disaster, with absolutely no ball control or ability to cut out passing lanes or create turnovers. It was shot after shot given up, frequently from range where the dmids should be making their presence known. We are sorely missing a bruiser like JP to knock them around and get them off their game. We instead have these more finesse-type players that don’t actually have a high enough skill level to generate chances. Beating one guy and dribbling the ball up field doesn’t help if you immediately turn it over anyway.

Follow up question. Will the losing streak record be extended to 7 games?

View Poll

This series of posts is far less interesting when there’s so little positive happening right now. But I’ll continue the bit and see how it all shakes out.

Stock Up

Kim Kee-Hee - Just the fact that he’s available and can play as long as he did is a big upside. Originally cleared to play 45 minutes, he didn’t sub out until 73’.

Alex Roldan - Well, he’s playing again. We’ve been sorely lacking a Roldan. He only played for 17’ and was under nonstop pressure the whole time.

Kalani Kossa-Rienzi - He came in cold, not expecting to play this many minutes, and he put in a great shift. I’m not sure why he got subbed out at 84’ for Tino Lopez.

Stock Down

Paul Arriola - Obviously an injury requiring a sub only 7 minutes into a game makes your stock plummet back to zero. I hope he recovers quickly but honestly I’m not even sure what he brings to the team when he is healthy.

Paul Rothrock - One of the few players (or maybe the only one) whose stock had been up during this losing streak, this was a disappointing game from him. He wasn’t nearly as scrappy as he could be. I expect him to be getting into their heads with his shithousery, but none of that happened. And then on Bye’s goal, he was playing too deep in the box and didn’t close down the attacker. I think this Paul is tired. The man runs all game long and I think he could use a break. Unfortunately we don’t have subs available to back him up.

Andrew Thomas - He’s at the mercy of a depleted back line, but let’s step back and look at the big picture for a moment. The last time Thomas earned a clean sheet was March 22nd. He was in the discussion for GKOTY, national team callups, etc. He’s basically fallen off a cliff lately. The last 7 games he has a -0.85 Goals Prevented. He committed 1 error that led to a game-losing goal. His distribution is horrible, consisting mainly of booting it way upfield where the other team usually regains possession, and not using a skill we’ve seen him do so accurately in the past - long throws. I dunno, something isn’t clicking with him and the defense. Hopefully Ragen and Alex and Kim being veteran players can help him settle back into his potential.

Want to know what a rivalry should be? Read this Timbers blog. Most of it is well deserved. Sounder at Heart never wrote such a scathing piece and the Sounders players never felt such intense hatred. The whole culture doesn’t seem to even care about the Timbers.

View Poll

Not much to say. Most player stocks are already bottom of the barrel. Stuart Hawkins and Paul Rothrock got a bump after last game, but nothing in this one warrants raising them any higher.

Stock Up

Gallatin Sandnes - Welcome to MLS, kid. He put in a pretty decent 30 minute shift.

Stock Down

Craig Waibel - There is something fundamentally broken with the current roster, and this is on Craig. We are decimated with 6 starters injured, but the roster is set up with this vulnerability because too many players are past their prime. The owners are cheap, I get it. But it’s on Craig to push and fight for a budget. It’s on Craig to go out and find bargains and make deals, even if it’s still within MLS. It makes no sense to have sold, traded, loaned, and released so many players without bringing in a single new signing in any position. It’s an obvious failure thus far.

Despite the awful end result, last match did see Paul Rothrock score a goal after Brunell’s banger of a shot hit the crossbar. Will we see anyone hit the back of the net against another bad team? Philly has only won one game out of their last 9 played.

View Poll

Stock Up

Paul Rothrock - One of the few who consistently seems to care. He’s always hustling. And for some reason the team always sends him out to do the press after a loss. He deserves a lot of respect.

Stuart Hawkins - He didn’t light up the stat sheet or anything, but it’s good to see the teenager get a start and play the full 90. He will need to step up and contribute again with Ragen out. He should be ahead of Tino Lopez in the depth chart.

Stock Down

Jackson Ragen - Wholly unnecessary red card. One crazy shot taken from deep. And now he’s out one or two games at a time when we badly need our best players to be available.

Hassani Dotson - Can a stock go negative? When will Schmetzer get this liability off the field?

Danny Musovski - 62 minutes. One (blocked) shot taken.

Honestly a lot of players could have stock down, but so many are already at disappointing levels it’s hard to go any lower.

“Lobbing Scorchers apologizes to Yu and the viewers for the error and has updated our previous report. This can happen sometime when reporting on non-public transfers but we strive to make sure we have the best info available and were not able to do that yesterday.”

Could it be a “get right” game? The turnaround we desperately need? Or will it be another uninspired, do-nothing disappointment?

Let’s make the poll easier for this match.

View Poll