The Seattle Sounders made some significant history by becoming the first MLS team to play in the Club World Cup. Despite losing to Al Ahly SC, there are still plenty of positive takeaways from the performance. Here are the five things I saw on Saturday:
Changes in the attack are positive
Throughout preseason, Brian Schmetzer has alluded to it being too easy to figure out how to stop the Sounders. He mentioned formation tweaks, different patterns, and maybe different personnel as things to look for in 2023 to address that.
It’s hard to draw sweeping conclusions about anything from one match in a knockout tournament, especially if it’s the first competitive fixture a team has played in four months.