With three goals — including two by Nicolas Lodeiro — in eight minutes, the Sounders emphatically sent FC Dallas back home with a 3-0 loss in the two-game aggregate Western Conference semifinals.
The match began in a literal haze, as the residue of pregame pyrotechnics hung over CenturyLink Field like a shroud, making the players appear almost ghost-like as they scurried about the pitch
But by the end of the night – as good a night, as fun a night, as dominant a night as this franchise has ever had – the Sounders’ players stood out not just with vivid clarity, but seemed almost larger-than-life.