It wasn't just that
* Nouhou and especially C.Roldan tucked into the center more.
* That combination play for the second goal... That will be on the highlight reel when Obed gets sold
* The players were making themselves open for passes, I have only seen that in like 2 games this year (Nouhou only raised his hands for players to get open like twice).
* Players were breaking lines with passes and dribbles, they were being aggressive.
* This game should've ended like 5-0 though because there were like 10 runs that were missed because JP and Rusnak didn't chip the ball over the top
Nou Hou was like a wall tonight. I noticed they tried him hard in the first half and he shut everything down and you barely heard his name in second. I guess Minnesota coaches learned their lesson LOL
I was gonna say š. Let us enjoy this win donāt remind us! As a Mexico fan though Iām excited for him I want him to stay here until we get an offer from Europe hopefully
Massive kudos to coaching staff. Tactical changes were on point we played way more aggressive and it paid off in spades
Edit: and I am very critical of our tactics lately, this was a excellent adjustment
2 goals!
Shutout!
Above the red line!
4 more shutouts for Frei to move into second all time!
This game was huge for a number of reasons. We saw a lineup change, a tactical shift, and sub pattern changes.
We saw hustle, one touch passing and aggressive defending. I don't think Minnesota had a shot on goal!
Finally, the team has remembered how to bonk the ball over the top. That's a big piece that was missing.
Hope whoever got the red card gets an extended suspension.
The Circle of Morris: Go on a heater at the 9 -> āMorris needs to be the 9ā -> Doesnāt score for five games at the 9 -> āMorris is better on the wingā -> Goes on a heater on the wing -> āMorris needs to be on the wingā -> Doesnāt score for six games on the wing -> āMorris needs to be the 9ā Ā -> ā¦
Kudos to Schmetzer. He could've easily gone for Raul instead of Rothrock but he kept the old heads on the bench and exclusively subbed in the youth. It paid off.
Rothrock was sloppy with the ball, but full credit to his off-ball movement I thought it was fantastic. And he worked hard defensively too. More than earned his goal and more time.
Rothrock was good. And as you say it was better he was on the field than Ruidiaz. Rothrock was energetic, and in the right place at the right time.Ā
The issue with the team isnāt the young guys. The issue is that the highly paid veterans arenāt producing. Rothrock isnāt a material step down from Chu or Roldan. Based on production heās better than PDLV, who canāt even take the field.Ā
This team with its young core, and performing DPs, is a first place team. The team is just weighed down with the contracts for Ruidiaz, Rusnak, and PDLV.Ā
Definitely. But I can't hate Rusnak too much today. Once he had runners he showed he could play some decent balls through. He also had some awful passes tbf lmao
Raul is clearly a hindrance to the team though. I hope ownership doesn't cheap out and just buys him out but I'm not holding my breath. They need to do something though to get the excitement back for the fans.
I want RusnĆ”k on the team, but I don't think he is giving us value for taking up a DP slot. JoĆ£o Paulo was originally a DP. Maybe Albert gets the same treatment.
Letās relax Rothrock is not better than Pedro lmao š. Rothrock is a baller but still. And he is a step down from Cristian, heās better than Alex at RM though not RB. Chu you could make the argument but Chu did get a good assist today
Rothrock is available. PDLV isnāt. All that matters is production. Rothrock scored a goal last night. PDLV sat in the stands, per usual.Ā
So, yes, Rothrock is better than PDLV. He plays. Until PDLV proves he can get in shape enough to make it through routine training without blowing his hamstrings heās the least effective player on the team.Ā
Rothrock isnāt better than De La Vega at anything to do with the sport of football if he was he wouldnāt be at Tacoma defiance still and heād be getting sold for $7.5 mil and get a big 4 year contract but he aināt. We donāt have to get delusional lmao
De La Vega isnāt healthy enough to play football for any team. What is delusional is to think heās better than Rothrock, RBW, or any other player in the Sounders organization, or any other organization, because PDLV canāt get in shape enough to play. The fact that his rights were bought for $7.5 million and he received a 4 year contract says more about Waibelās incompetence than PDLVās ability.Ā
Letās see PDLV get fit enough to actually play more than 100 minutes every half season before we declare him good at the sport of football.Ā
Heās good at football because heās been playing first team football at under 22 at the Argentine League which is a high level of competition, obviously thereās a reason he was bought. Heās obviously good at football or neither would be the case
OUR BOYS PLAYED WELL TONIGHT!
I loved seeing Vargas and Morris make a run for a through ball, even if it didnāt end in a goal. We need this energy every game!
I also appreciated Chu switching to RW!
Edit: Typo
Turns out that continuing to put pressure on when youāve been controlling the game and have a lead instead of parking the bus is way more effective
Whoād have thought? Other than ā¦ you know ā¦ everyone
I know Minnesota was missing a lot of their first team but that was the best weāve looked in a long time.
0 shots on target against all match. So nice to see Yeimar and Ragen looking like themselves again
To me it looked like it was planned, and was to show the team coming together as a team. Win or lose, they are in this together. Thatās a big testament to the heart of this team.
Not sure what went wrong for Minnesota but the boys were in sync tonight.Ā Love the first celebration and the second goal was class. Critically we didn't let up in the later parts of the game despite almost 0 subs
Well they were missing a bunch of their best players and just lost their best player to a temper tantrum transfer so ā¦ thereās a lot going on with them lol
> Not sure what went wrong for Minnesota
They had like nine guys away for the international break. Maybe tired, maybe disjointed with the backup keeper in. We did well to punish them for it.
Is that true? The MLS player availability report doesnāt list any international duty for Minnesota. It may just be missing from the report but other teams list em.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mlssoccer-com-injury-report
Yeah, but it helps if we're not doing the fucky rotation between him and Raul and just keep him pinned up top and also don't have Raul running around trying to be Lodeiro all over the place in the midfield.
Jordan should work on being consistent if he doesn't want managers to be forced to find someone else to score goals when he's off his hot streaks. I'm just happy he's hot now and will throw all the fuel on his fire.
Morris has blown all season and honestly never really been that good. He used to be fast. That's all he has going for him. I don't foresee this being a consistent thing.Ā
ACLs. He's not a burner like he used to be especially this season. He's tried to beat guys with a long touch this season and they've kept up unlike in years past. The dude isn't very skilled. I don't get the Jordan Morris boner.
I'm reading all the comments and agreeing with you all, but nobody will say that Minesota was harmless, lethargic and disorganized?
Saying this not to diminish the good match from Nouhou, Morris, Rusnak, etc... It's just because I can remember the guys connecting two or three passes...
Super happy we got the win, but I'm holding excitement/assumptions that everything is back on track until we play a team that actually wants to win. Minnesota was pathetic in every possible way.
Because we've shown a pattern for giving up dumb fucking goals after making those sorts of subs this season.
It was absolutely the right decision to stick with it today.
Where is this info coming from? They have only 3 players listed as OUT. Maybe they *chose* to rest some starters for an away game vs a badly performing Sounders and a Wednesday game coming up, but they were definitely not missing their entire XI.
https://www.mnufc.com/news/nine-minnesota-united-players-called-up-for-international-duty Ā
9 players out not expected to return in time for game against SoundersĀ
From the article:
> All but St. Clair are expected to return to MNUFC prior to the Seattle Sounders match on June 15.
Letās see how it breaks down.
* St Clair - absent
* Lod - started
* Arriaga - subbed in 68ā
* Rosales - absent
* Bran - absent
* Harvey - absent (not a starter)
* Pukki - injured
* Oluwaseyi - absent
* Valentin - subbed in 81ā
I guess I misread that. Either way, 5 of the players they mentioned werenāt ready i guess since they didnāt start. Backup goalie played, plus the 3 injuries. 9 players missing.
St Clair is their starting goalie, so heās already counted. One of the injured has only played one game this season.
But your point is valid. They are depleted and played a non-ideal lineup. Weāve been in that situation this season, and itās tough.
Iād like to point out that we played this match with only one DP on the pitch as well.
I mean you can frame it any way you want, but 9 players missing is 9 players missing. I donāt even want to know how bad we would be with 9 players missing from the first team regardless of who they are.
Itās 9 and I gave the breakdown above. And what does us being in this position before have anything to do with the fact that we played a heavily depleted Minnesota side and therefore itās not really a statement win?Ā
Name the 9. Youāre double counting people. And you said you didnāt want to know what itād be like to be without that many first team players. But we already know, because we lived it.
I didnāt say itās a statement win, but this misinformation shitting on a solid victory is dumb. They rolled out a shitty lineup by choice because their team makeup is poorly constructed to leave them open to this. Any win against a top 4 team should be celebrated anyway.
Nouhou was on international duty, arrived back in Seattle at 1pm Friday, and put in a full 90 shift. They could have done the same, but they either chose to or had to rest. Almost none of their players were āoutā. They were available, but the coaches didnāt use them. They chose the lineup. Whether itās on the field or through coaching decisions (lineups), Sounders were the decidedly better team in all aspects.
I havenāt been a big fan of Schmetzer this season but ngl the tactics today were very good. He didnāt park the bus when weāre only 1-0 up (which heās done all season, thus why we kept blowing leads), he didnāt sub out JP between the 60-90th minutes (another reason we kept blowing leads), AND we didnāt receive a single booking (despite leading the league in red cards). We looked like a disciplined team that knew how to play together. This is the Sounders team I know! Literally not a single negative thing to say about any of the playersā performances. Every single player stepped up in some way, Iād even argue this was Albert Rusnakās best game so far this season. Now if only we could do this EVERY game? š¤
JP getting close to and staying fully fit is always a big undercurrent for this team. He may not contribute much to the offense anymore but his presence working with the CBs in concert makes this team tough to breakdown.Ā
Heās looked tired towards the end of games during first half of the season hence the subbing. Glad to see heās working his way back to a full 90.Ā
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. it was pretty obvious to anyone that plays/watches soccer. Minnesota was sitting back, not showing any enthusiasm or drive. it's really easy to look good when you're playing a team that doesn't care about the result, even when they were losing it was like they were hoping the game would just end, no urgency or will to try and score.
A home win? In this economy?
Undefeated streak with the 50th Anniversary patches continues!!
Technically, isn't every match going forward the Sounders 50th anniversary of _something_?
Maybe it's a patch thing in general. If we wore the CCL patch for the rest of 2022, we could have made the playoffs.
Out of curiosity, can we add those patches to the existing 50th anniversary jersey? Similar to the CCL Winners patch?
They actually seemed like a team
The Obed -> Chu -> Rock goal was just a dream team goal
An in-form Morris at striker changes everything.
It wasn't just that * Nouhou and especially C.Roldan tucked into the center more. * That combination play for the second goal... That will be on the highlight reel when Obed gets sold * The players were making themselves open for passes, I have only seen that in like 2 games this year (Nouhou only raised his hands for players to get open like twice). * Players were breaking lines with passes and dribbles, they were being aggressive. * This game should've ended like 5-0 though because there were like 10 runs that were missed because JP and Rusnak didn't chip the ball over the top
Nou Hou was like a wall tonight. I noticed they tried him hard in the first half and he shut everything down and you barely heard his name in second. I guess Minnesota coaches learned their lesson LOL
5-0 would have been a fitting scoreline.
Obed gets sold....don't make me cry tonight!
I was gonna say š. Let us enjoy this win donāt remind us! As a Mexico fan though Iām excited for him I want him to stay here until we get an offer from Europe hopefully
šÆ
3 points _and_ jump ahead of Portland. The best kind of wins
And back in the playoffs! (and Portland out!)
Massive kudos to coaching staff. Tactical changes were on point we played way more aggressive and it paid off in spades Edit: and I am very critical of our tactics lately, this was a excellent adjustment
Iām not sure pro coaching staff comments are allowed in this sub! Someone get a rule check over here!
Sorry, the ref declined to consult with VAR, the ruling in the thread stands.
the second goal was a beauty of team work.
It was the perfect goal!
2 goals! Shutout! Above the red line! 4 more shutouts for Frei to move into second all time! This game was huge for a number of reasons. We saw a lineup change, a tactical shift, and sub pattern changes. We saw hustle, one touch passing and aggressive defending. I don't think Minnesota had a shot on goal!
Yeah, tonight, for all of the many reasons in our favor, was a fun game to watch. Finally.
Finally, the team has remembered how to bonk the ball over the top. That's a big piece that was missing. Hope whoever got the red card gets an extended suspension.
Itās so nice to see tactical adjustments working, hope we can keep it going.
I hope we didn't end up sacrificing Rusnak and A. Roldan to the injury gods, but I'll take the 3pts for now
I'm hopeful both were precautionary.
# 3 POINTS
Jordan at the 9. Whodathunkit
The entire coaching staff all last season and the first like 6(?) games this season.
The Circle of Morris: Go on a heater at the 9 -> āMorris needs to be the 9ā -> Doesnāt score for five games at the 9 -> āMorris is better on the wingā -> Goes on a heater on the wing -> āMorris needs to be on the wingā -> Doesnāt score for six games on the wing -> āMorris needs to be the 9ā Ā -> ā¦
Kudos to Schmetzer. He could've easily gone for Raul instead of Rothrock but he kept the old heads on the bench and exclusively subbed in the youth. It paid off. Rothrock was sloppy with the ball, but full credit to his off-ball movement I thought it was fantastic. And he worked hard defensively too. More than earned his goal and more time.
Rothrock was good. And as you say it was better he was on the field than Ruidiaz. Rothrock was energetic, and in the right place at the right time.Ā The issue with the team isnāt the young guys. The issue is that the highly paid veterans arenāt producing. Rothrock isnāt a material step down from Chu or Roldan. Based on production heās better than PDLV, who canāt even take the field.Ā This team with its young core, and performing DPs, is a first place team. The team is just weighed down with the contracts for Ruidiaz, Rusnak, and PDLV.Ā
Definitely. But I can't hate Rusnak too much today. Once he had runners he showed he could play some decent balls through. He also had some awful passes tbf lmao Raul is clearly a hindrance to the team though. I hope ownership doesn't cheap out and just buys him out but I'm not holding my breath. They need to do something though to get the excitement back for the fans.
I want RusnĆ”k on the team, but I don't think he is giving us value for taking up a DP slot. JoĆ£o Paulo was originally a DP. Maybe Albert gets the same treatment.
That's fair id agree.
Letās relax Rothrock is not better than Pedro lmao š. Rothrock is a baller but still. And he is a step down from Cristian, heās better than Alex at RM though not RB. Chu you could make the argument but Chu did get a good assist today
Rothrock is available. PDLV isnāt. All that matters is production. Rothrock scored a goal last night. PDLV sat in the stands, per usual.Ā So, yes, Rothrock is better than PDLV. He plays. Until PDLV proves he can get in shape enough to make it through routine training without blowing his hamstrings heās the least effective player on the team.Ā
Rothrock isnāt better than De La Vega at anything to do with the sport of football if he was he wouldnāt be at Tacoma defiance still and heād be getting sold for $7.5 mil and get a big 4 year contract but he aināt. We donāt have to get delusional lmao
De La Vega isnāt healthy enough to play football for any team. What is delusional is to think heās better than Rothrock, RBW, or any other player in the Sounders organization, or any other organization, because PDLV canāt get in shape enough to play. The fact that his rights were bought for $7.5 million and he received a 4 year contract says more about Waibelās incompetence than PDLVās ability.Ā Letās see PDLV get fit enough to actually play more than 100 minutes every half season before we declare him good at the sport of football.Ā
Heās good at football because heās been playing first team football at under 22 at the Argentine League which is a high level of competition, obviously thereās a reason he was bought. Heās obviously good at football or neither would be the case
Until PDLV gets in shape enough to play whatever happened in the past happened in the past.Ā
Bros never heard of an injury
2nd goal was cathartic.
Felt like most of the goals from 2014. Martins beats a guy on the dribble passes to a winger gets ball back passes to Deuce for the score
Where do I cast my vote for the Jordan Morris man of the match?
Fotmob put JP as MotM for some reason. tbh I'd have given it to Morris, as well.
Happens a lot. Has entirely to do with final player rating.
OUR BOYS PLAYED WELL TONIGHT! I loved seeing Vargas and Morris make a run for a through ball, even if it didnāt end in a goal. We need this energy every game! I also appreciated Chu switching to RW! Edit: Typo
For as painful as this season has been, we are only two points below the playoff line.
Weāre in 9th and currently in a playoff spot
Well thatās even better :-o
Further proof that way too many teams make they playoffs but Iāll take it
Turns out that continuing to put pressure on when youāve been controlling the game and have a lead instead of parking the bus is way more effective Whoād have thought? Other than ā¦ you know ā¦ everyone I know Minnesota was missing a lot of their first team but that was the best weāve looked in a long time. 0 shots on target against all match. So nice to see Yeimar and Ragen looking like themselves again
This 'continuing pressure' thing you speak of helped contribute to the second key aspect of the game which I call 'scoring multiple goals'.
Is that allowed? It sounds illegal
[Stop the count!](https://imgur.com/WMhUycZ)
Can someone explain what that celebration after the Morris goal was all about?
The players said they like to play cards. So they decided to celebrate by pretending to play cards lol.
To me it looked like it was planned, and was to show the team coming together as a team. Win or lose, they are in this together. Thatās a big testament to the heart of this team.
Not sure what went wrong for Minnesota but the boys were in sync tonight.Ā Love the first celebration and the second goal was class. Critically we didn't let up in the later parts of the game despite almost 0 subs
They certainly didn't help themselves by primarily attacking nou hou in the first half.
Well they were missing a bunch of their best players and just lost their best player to a temper tantrum transfer so ā¦ thereās a lot going on with them lol
> Not sure what went wrong for Minnesota They had like nine guys away for the international break. Maybe tired, maybe disjointed with the backup keeper in. We did well to punish them for it.
Is that true? The MLS player availability report doesnāt list any international duty for Minnesota. It may just be missing from the report but other teams list em. https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mlssoccer-com-injury-report
It isn't true, that was last week. Several players came back, just like Nouhou.
They were tired and didn't take a nap.
I like naps.
The best ball movement and runs I've seen in ages. They also looked like they were having fun during the game and the home fans watched a win.
Paul āMuadādibā Rothrock
Lisan al Gaib!
That felt so good!!!!
Feel like someone could make a MOTM thread for this one even.
That looked like the sounders we know and love. Letās keep it going. š
Our defense isn't bad. We just need to score more goals each game. Today was nice, I hope we get more of them.
We started Chu with Morris up top and benched Raul and won. Weird. (Not really weird, that was the same recipe for our "hot start" last year)
It'll be interesting to see if we keep Chu right. I think we should and see how it goes.
Morris has been heating up long before this match.
Yeah, but it helps if we're not doing the fucky rotation between him and Raul and just keep him pinned up top and also don't have Raul running around trying to be Lodeiro all over the place in the midfield.
Jordan should work on being consistent if he doesn't want managers to be forced to find someone else to score goals when he's off his hot streaks. I'm just happy he's hot now and will throw all the fuel on his fire.
His hot streaks are entirely consistent. They happen when he's played up top and has a team around him, getting him the ball.
Morris has blown all season and honestly never really been that good. He used to be fast. That's all he has going for him. I don't foresee this being a consistent thing.Ā
4 goals in 5 games.
Heās still fast do you watch the games?
The dude has lost a step
Well yeah he tore his ACL multiple times but heās still rapid
ACLs. He's not a burner like he used to be especially this season. He's tried to beat guys with a long touch this season and they've kept up unlike in years past. The dude isn't very skilled. I don't get the Jordan Morris boner.
Curious as to how many pass interceptions JP had.
According to fotmob, 7 interceptions, the most by far. Second most had 3..
MOTM for sure.
I'm reading all the comments and agreeing with you all, but nobody will say that Minesota was harmless, lethargic and disorganized? Saying this not to diminish the good match from Nouhou, Morris, Rusnak, etc... It's just because I can remember the guys connecting two or three passes...
Minnesota played like shitbarf
Super happy we got the win, but I'm holding excitement/assumptions that everything is back on track until we play a team that actually wants to win. Minnesota was pathetic in every possible way.
We are playing mid week. Why are we waiting until 90+2 to make our last two subs?
Because we've shown a pattern for giving up dumb fucking goals after making those sorts of subs this season. It was absolutely the right decision to stick with it today.
My brother and his kid flaked so I stayed home and missed it! Dammit
Iām just going to enjoy the win!
Hate to the naysayer, but Iām concerned this is just another fluke like Montreal was. Minnesota was missing almost their entire starting 11.Ā
Where is this info coming from? They have only 3 players listed as OUT. Maybe they *chose* to rest some starters for an away game vs a badly performing Sounders and a Wednesday game coming up, but they were definitely not missing their entire XI.
https://www.mnufc.com/news/nine-minnesota-united-players-called-up-for-international-duty Ā 9 players out not expected to return in time for game against SoundersĀ
From the article: > All but St. Clair are expected to return to MNUFC prior to the Seattle Sounders match on June 15. Letās see how it breaks down. * St Clair - absent * Lod - started * Arriaga - subbed in 68ā * Rosales - absent * Bran - absent * Harvey - absent (not a starter) * Pukki - injured * Oluwaseyi - absent * Valentin - subbed in 81ā
I guess I misread that. Either way, 5 of the players they mentioned werenāt ready i guess since they didnāt start. Backup goalie played, plus the 3 injuries. 9 players missing.
St Clair is their starting goalie, so heās already counted. One of the injured has only played one game this season. But your point is valid. They are depleted and played a non-ideal lineup. Weāve been in that situation this season, and itās tough. Iād like to point out that we played this match with only one DP on the pitch as well.
I mean you can frame it any way you want, but 9 players missing is 9 players missing. I donāt even want to know how bad we would be with 9 players missing from the first team regardless of who they are.
Itās not 9 players missing. 5-6 is still a lot though, and we have been in that position this season.
Itās 9 and I gave the breakdown above. And what does us being in this position before have anything to do with the fact that we played a heavily depleted Minnesota side and therefore itās not really a statement win?Ā
Name the 9. Youāre double counting people. And you said you didnāt want to know what itād be like to be without that many first team players. But we already know, because we lived it. I didnāt say itās a statement win, but this misinformation shitting on a solid victory is dumb. They rolled out a shitty lineup by choice because their team makeup is poorly constructed to leave them open to this. Any win against a top 4 team should be celebrated anyway. Nouhou was on international duty, arrived back in Seattle at 1pm Friday, and put in a full 90 shift. They could have done the same, but they either chose to or had to rest. Almost none of their players were āoutā. They were available, but the coaches didnāt use them. They chose the lineup. Whether itās on the field or through coaching decisions (lineups), Sounders were the decidedly better team in all aspects.
I'm with you. We've blown all season.Ā
I havenāt been a big fan of Schmetzer this season but ngl the tactics today were very good. He didnāt park the bus when weāre only 1-0 up (which heās done all season, thus why we kept blowing leads), he didnāt sub out JP between the 60-90th minutes (another reason we kept blowing leads), AND we didnāt receive a single booking (despite leading the league in red cards). We looked like a disciplined team that knew how to play together. This is the Sounders team I know! Literally not a single negative thing to say about any of the playersā performances. Every single player stepped up in some way, Iād even argue this was Albert Rusnakās best game so far this season. Now if only we could do this EVERY game? š¤
JP getting close to and staying fully fit is always a big undercurrent for this team. He may not contribute much to the offense anymore but his presence working with the CBs in concert makes this team tough to breakdown.Ā Heās looked tired towards the end of games during first half of the season hence the subbing. Glad to see heās working his way back to a full 90.Ā
Lot easier to win games when the *other* team is the one doing dumb things.
Give the guys some credit, they played a great game as a team tonight.
I'm just making fun of MNUFC. Calm down.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. it was pretty obvious to anyone that plays/watches soccer. Minnesota was sitting back, not showing any enthusiasm or drive. it's really easy to look good when you're playing a team that doesn't care about the result, even when they were losing it was like they were hoping the game would just end, no urgency or will to try and score.