There are two main narratives coming out of the Seattle Sounders’ earlier-than-desired exit from the U.S. Open Cup, the third straight year they’ve failed to advance to the semifinals after doing so in 7 of 8 years.
The positive narrative goes something like this (and one I’ll admit to subscribing to): The Sounders made a collective choice to rest a bunch of starters who had been playing a ton of minutes, not risk injury and see how their younger players could hold up in a tough game on the road. This narrative gladly points out that in this group -- none of the starters were older than 25 and four of them were 21 or younger — played about even with what amounted to the San Jose Earthquakes’ normal starters, on the road and down a man.