Welcome to the first edition of The Scouting Report, a new weekly newsletter from Lobbing Scorchers.
Every week, I’ll use this space to take a wider look at where things stand with the Sounders and MLS: the biggest takeaway from the weekend, a few things that caught my eye, whose stock is rising or falling and whatever else is happening around the league that feels worth talking about.
Think of it as a weekly notebook more than anything else — a place to zoom out from the immediate postgame reaction, take stock of what we just saw and look ahead to what’s coming next.
So, with that out of the way, let’s get into it.
The Big Thing
For the first time in a while, it feels defensible to be optimistic about the Seattle Sounders.
That comes with the obvious qualifiers: Two wins don't erase what happened this summer. Seattle went 13 straight league matches without a victory, a tailspin that took them from what looked like a comfortable playoff position into the Western Conference play-in spots. Even after back-to-back home wins over Real Salt Lake and Minnesota United, they're still ninth in the West on 35 points.
So no, they're not out of the woods. But there's a difference between saying the problems are solved and acknowledging that things finally appear to be moving in the right direction.
The biggest reason for the improved state of affairs is the attack. Seattle have scored multiple goals in three straight matches, starting with the wild 3-3 draw at Colorado and continuing with a 2-0 win over RSL and Saturday's 3-1 win over Minnesota. After spending so much of the summer looking like a team that needed everything to go right just to manufacture a goal, they're starting to create and finish chances with some regularity.
And, maybe more importantly, they're getting production from players they badly need down the stretch.
Albert Rusnák has caught fire, with a 1g/4a over the last three matches and seven assists in his last eight. Jordan Morris scored a fantastic goal against Minnesota and is starting to look increasingly like himself after his lengthy injury absence. Paul Arriola followed up a two-assist performance against RSL with an excellent finish off the bench Saturday, giving him four goal contributions over Seattle's two-game winning streak.
Then there's Caden Clark. It's obviously early, but his first couple of appearances have offered a glimpse of why Seattle brought him in. He's direct, aggressive on the ball and willing to attack defenders in a way this team has sometimes lacked. Even when he isn't producing the final action himself, he's already adding a different dynamic to the attack.
None of that means Seattle have suddenly transformed back into a contender. There are still defensive issues, an injury list that has dramatically altered the roster and very little margin for another extended stumble. Minnesota created enough Saturday that the 3-1 scoreline probably flattered Seattle a little, even if the Sounders also generated plenty going the other direction.
But after everything that happened this summer, this team doesn't need to look perfect. They needed to start winning games and give themselves something to build on.
For now, cautious optimism feels about right.
Three Things I Noticed
1. Rusnák and Morris are starting to look like a DP duo
There's an obvious danger in getting carried away here.
Albert Rusnák had his share of struggles during Seattle's summer swoon, while Jordan Morris has spent much of the last two seasons dealing with injuries, making it hard to draw conclusions about what this version of him actually looks like. But if we're judging strictly on what's happening right now, the duo is starting to look like the players we've come to know.
Rusnák's production, in particular, has been building for a while. Before his two-assist performance in Colorado, he picked up helpers against Portland, Chicago, and Cincinnati, meaning the uptick predates Seattle finally snapping their winless run. Since then, he's added two assists in Colorado, a goal against Real Salt Lake, and two more assists against Minnesota. For all the talk about his production and contract status, the Slovakian now has 12 assists in MLS play, with the rest of the season left to add to that total.
Morris' numbers aren't quite as eye-popping, but his performances have been encouraging since returning to the starting lineup earlier this month. He assisted Paul Arriola's equalizer against the LA Galaxy, had a goal called back for offside in the same match and looked dangerous again at Colorado before scoring an excellent first-time finish against Minnesota.
Perhaps most encouragingly, the two are starting to look dangerous in combination. Rusnák picked Morris out for that opening goal against Minnesota, with Morris timing his run behind the backline before dispatching Rusnák's pass with a first-time finish. It was the type of direct No. 10-to-No. 9 connection Seattle haven't gotten to see nearly enough of this season, given Morris' repeated injury absences.
More than anything, Morris looks explosive again. He's getting behind backlines, creating separation, and providing the vertical threat Seattle badly missed while he was out. And all of this is happening with Dejan Joveljić away on international duty for the last two matches.
Seattle's ceiling changes considerably if Rusnák is producing like a DP No. 10 and Morris is healthy enough to consistently threaten defenses alongside him.
2. It might be time to start Paul Arriola
Paul Arriola is making it increasingly difficult to keep him out of the starting lineup.
After an injury-plagued season that made it hard for Arriola to establish himself in Seattle, the veteran is suddenly producing exactly when the Sounders need it. He scored the equalizer off the bench in LA, assisted both goals in the 2-0 win over Real Salt Lake and came off the bench again against Minnesota to score Seattle's third. That's 2g/2a over his last four appearances, despite starting just one of those matches.
The question now is whether he's done enough to earn a regular place in the XI.
Caden Clark has looked promising since arriving and gives Seattle a different type of one-v-one threat, though other considerations depend on how Brian Schmetzer wants to configure the attack. But with Paul Rothrock and Jesus Ferreira sidelined and Arriola finally healthy and producing, there's a pretty straightforward case for giving him a run.
Arriola was brought to Seattle to be an experienced, two-way winger who could contribute goals and assists while doing all the less glamorous work Schmetzer asks of his wide players. Injuries have prevented the Sounders from seeing much of that player since he arrived.
Over the last few weeks, they're finally starting to.
3. Now let's see what this looks like with Joveljić
Here's the part I'm genuinely excited about: Seattle's attack has started clicking without Dejan Joveljić.
That's obviously not an argument that they're better without him. Quite the opposite. The Sounders have scored five goals over the two matches Joveljić has missed while away with Serbia, with Rusnák and Morris heating up, Arriola producing and Seattle suddenly looking like a team with multiple ways to hurt you.
Soon, they'll add their No. 9 back into the mix.
We haven't seen much of Joveljić and Morris together yet, but there were some intriguing flashes when we did. The potential fit makes sense: Joveljić operating as the more traditional center forward, with Morris functioning as something closer to a winger/second striker who can drift into dangerous areas, run beyond the backline and play off him.
Put Rusnák underneath them in his current form, with Arriola, Clark, Sebastian Gomez or whoever else Schmetzer deploys providing another threat from wide areas, and suddenly there are some legitimately interesting possibilities.
How Schmetzer puts all those pieces together remains to be seen. Maybe it doesn't click immediately. Maybe the lineup that looks best on paper isn't actually the one that works best on the field. But I'm excited to find out, and that's a pretty welcome change in itself. There were stretches this summer when these matches started to feel like a chore, with the same problems resurfacing week after week and little indication that anything was about to change.
For the first time in a while, I'm looking at the next game thinking: Hell yeah, let's see what this group can do.
Around MLS
I was wrong about Marc Dos Santos
I'll own this one: I defended LAFC's decision to promote Marc Dos Santos when they made it.
Maybe I'm biased because I watched the Sounders' internal promotion of Brian Schmetzer work out about as well as humanly possible in 2016, but I've always thought teams can overthink managerial searches. If you have someone already in the building who knows the club, understands the league, has the trust of the players and is genuinely invested in the organization, there's something to be said for just giving that person the job. We're seeing another version of that argument in Philadelphia right now with Ryan Richter. Sometimes the obvious candidate is obvious for a reason.
In LAFC's case, though, that logic didn't work. The club fired Dos Santos on Sunday with six regular-season matches remaining, sitting sixth in the Western Conference after winning just one of their last 10 matches. And while plenty of factors go into any disappointing season, the bottom line for me is simple: If you're coaching an LAFC roster headlined by Son Heung-min and Denis Bouanga, the attack has to be terrifying.
Too often this year, it just hasn't been.
In hindsight, Dos Santos may have been an awkward stylistic fit for the job. His Vancouver teams were generally asked to punch above their weight, maximize limited resources and make life difficult on opponents. That's a very different assignment from managing superstars at a club where the expectation isn't merely to win, but to play the aggressive, high-octane attacking soccer that's become part of LAFC's identity.
That doesn't make Dos Santos a bad coach. It might simply mean this wasn't the right job for what he does best.
Now I'm interested to see what happens with Andy Rose. The former Sounder joined Dos Santos' staff this season after beginning his coaching career in Seattle and Vancouver, and he's an increasingly interesting young name in MLS coaching circles.
LAFC says it will announce their interim plans soon, and after promoting from within last time, I wouldn't be surprised if they ultimately conduct a much broader search for the permanent job.
But if Rose gets an opportunity to take the reins, even on an interim basis, I'll be watching closely.
On Deck: Seattle vs. Sporting KC
Thursday, Oct. 1 · 6:30 p.m. PT · Lumen Field · MLS regular season · Apple TV
The Sounders finish their three-match homestand Thursday against Sporting Kansas City aka the Club of Professional Wrestling Enthusiasts, looking for a third straight victory.
Seattle enter the match eighth in the Western Conference on 35 points and unbeaten in seven straight, but with plenty of work still to do in the playoff race. Sporting arrive in Seattle coming off a 2-0 road victory over Houston.
One thing I’m watching: Can Seattle contain André Luiz and punish Sporting's defense?
Sporting KC might be sitting at the bottom of the Western Conference, but André Luiz looks like a demon spawned from the gates of hell.
The club-record summer signing has 4g/1a, including a brace against Philadelphia and a goal and an assist in Saturday's 2-0 win at Houston. He's direct, powerful and dangerous enough that Seattle's backline can't treat this like a routine matchup against a last-place team.
At the other end, though, Seattle's suddenly hot attack has no excuse not to create chances. Sporting have conceded a staggering 63 goals in 26 matches — 2.42 per game — and have already allowed four goals in a match seven times this season.
For a Sounders attack that's scored multiple goals in three straight, this looks like an opportunity to keep the momentum going. The trick will be doing that without letting André Luiz turn the game into the type of track meet Sporting might actually enjoy.
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