The Seattle Sounders host the Colorado Rapids on Sunday night in a meeting of teams who fell well short of their 2022 regular season goals.
The 2022 Sounders had to manage the regular season with the 2022 CONCACAF Champions League, a competition which they became the first MLS team to win last May.
But that came at a cost, mostly a rash of injuries as the season went on, and Seattle failed to qualify for the postseason for the first time since joining the league in 2009.
No injury was bigger than when 2021 MVP candidate Joao Paulo tore his ACL in the second leg of Seattle’s CCL finals victory over Pumas UNAM to end his season.
However, the benefit of that CCL run is that Seattle received a head start to the 2023 campaign by competing in the FIFA Club World Cup earlier this month.
The Sounders lost their only match 1-0 to Egypt’s Al Ahly, but Paulo returned to the field as a late sub and the whole squad got a jump on regaining fitness.
“It’s been a bit of a long preseason, interrupted with the shortened trip to Morocco,” Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer said. “We’d have liked to stay there longer, but it’s here. Crunch time. Money time.”
Schmetzer also said Raul Ruidiaz, the team’s leading scorer in that 2021 campaign, is day-to-day for Sunday’s game with a fitness issue. He also battled availability issues in 2022, finishing with only 18 league appearances as Seattle finished 12-17-5.
Meanwhile, coach Robin Fraser’s Rapids also struggled last year to back up their 2021 Western Conference regular season title. Colorado went 11-13-10.
A stretch of three wins in 16 games and a trade for forward Gyasi Zardes that appeared to upset team momentum doomed Colorado’s chance at repeat postseason appearances.
But much like the Sounders, the Rapids took a gentle approach to reshaping their roster this offseason.
They acquired winger Kevin Cabral from the Los Angeles Galaxy and added several defenders. But they’ll continue to rely on a combination of Diego Rubio, Jonathan Lewis and Michael Barrios to create chances.
Rubio scored a career-best 16 goals, and Barrios led the team with eight assists.
“I feel like we’re really close to where we want to be,” Fraser insisted this week, “and that the preseason has gone pretty much exactly as we would like it to have gone.”
–Field Level Media
