If there’s ever been a stranger, harder match to dissect in the long and storied history of the Seattle Sounders - Portland Timbers rivalry, good luck finding it.
Unfortunately for the Sounders, they were undone by perhaps the worst 45 minutes in Seattle’s MLS era.
The Sounders have largely been impervious to letdowns in the Nicolas Lodeiro era. Wherever a problem arose, they met it with force and found a way through. That was frankly not the case on Sunday, when Portland, whipped into a frenzy by a recent poor string of results, scored four goals in the opening 40 minutes en route to a four-goal advantage by half.