Sure, the Sounders lost last week, but that was with a roster that was missing 13 players due to international call-up, injury or suspension. Both the left back and defensive midfield positions featured starters who had yet to start at those positions this year, Luis Silva was playing as a No. 10 for the first time since 2017 and the centerback duo had played together just once before. The resulting 2-0 loss was hard to watch, but also a rather pointless exercise in terms of trying to learn much from.
With that in mind, we took more of a big-picture approach to this week’s episode.