Hope that the Sounders can beat Atlético de Madrid in the CWC

On January 18th a massive upset took place in La Liga. When Atlético de Madrid who's in the middle of a fierce title fight. When Leganés beat the 2nd best team in Madrid in a 1-0 shock. Snapping their historic 15-game winning streak, no less. Helping Atlético de Madrid to fall 4 points behind Real Madrid. Now I now some of you are wondering what the hell this has to do with the Sounders? Well if we look at a few facts about the Spanish club from the Leganés, Community of Madrid, shocker I know. We can see that by comparing ourselves to the small Spanish side we can see reasons even we can beat the mighty red and white club in the upcoming Club World Club.

To start we're barely behind them in terms of Opta rating. A opta rating being something that measures all the clubs in the world from best to worst. And the Sounders are ranked in #142 while Leganés and ranked #129. Which makes sense as this is the return of CD Leganés return to La Liga after they won the Segunda Division in the 2023-24 season. Even then according to TransferMarkt we have the more valuable squad. We have a €52.90 million squad while CD Leganés has a €45.30 million squad. Plus Atlético de Madrid will have to travel 5,000 miles play us in our home turf, Seattle, Washington in front of the 12th man. If CD Leganés can beat them then so can we. That does lead to a couple of questions though. How did they beat them and can the Sounders do the same?

You could dismiss the win as pure luck with Atlético de Madrid having way more possession. 68% to CD Leganés 32%. as well as way more shots with Atlético de Madrid having 19 shots to CD Leganés 9 shots only. Though the shots of target show a different story, with CD Leganés having 3 but
Atlético de Madrid beating them out by barely with 4 of their own despite having way more shots. One key moment was the yellow card Pablo Barrios picked up in the 1st half. Atléti love their midfield duo of Roridgo de Paul and Pablo Barrios with de Paul doing all the creative stuff and Barrios doing all the dirty work. So Barrios getting a yellow early but them in a vulnerable spot for most of the game. Another careless yellow by 1 of Atlético de Madrid's key defenders Galán only made things worse.
Leganés also forced the 2nd place team in La Liga to cross a lot throughout the second half after they made very calculated and well thought out adjustments. Those 2 key points are something the Sounders could recreate by drawing out fouls from key defenders and making a plan to force them to cross a ton. It's not a for sure thing if Antoine Griezmann doesn't miss the pen near the end or
Atléti finishes better in general CD Leganés doesn't win. It makes it possible however which is most important.

Not to mention that as discussed before it's also pretty likely that Atlético will bring backups to play us in the Club World Cup since all the UFEA clubs all pretty mad at the competition and rightfully so. Due to the clubs also having worries of players too many games and political shit flinging between UFEA and FIFA. Thanks a bunch for reading!