Sounders return to winning with their new streak at 1

Stefan Frei’s remarkable career with the Sounders, often overlooked by the way of personal recognition, is drawing to a close. He never won an award for being the top keeper in the league, even when his numbers made the case for him. What he did do was make saves that were so spectacular, and in clutch moments, that he has earned himself a top spot on the all-time best Sounders list.

His save against Jose Altidore, when the ball was headed by him and he reached back and swiped the ball away, earned the Sounders the MLS title that year. What he has proven over the past couple of games is that he still has some magic left in his bag of tricks. Yesterday’s save after a deflected shot required him to make a sprawling attempt to kick the ball away was nothing short of spectacular. Andrew Thomas is a fine keeper, but he has yet to show those moments of magic.

During the losing streak, people were questioning if it was time to part ways with Brian Schmetzer, but perhaps it was too soon to depart from Frei. His head injury last year was scary, but he can still flat out play. Unlike position players, keepers generally get better with experience, and Frei has that in spades.

There were 4 noticeable differences in the Sounders attack that they will want to duplicate moving forward

Sebastian Gomez provided a spark with a goal and an assist. The contributions of the younger players on the attacking end have been minimal.

The Sounders, more specifically Danny Musovski, scored for the first time this year as a starter. It was the first goal for a starter playing in the number 9 position this season. This was from a lack of attempts and a failure to convert when having the opportunity.

The third missing element was getting the ball to players in a position to shoot. Gomez’s assist did just that, he fed Albert Rusnák at the top of the box, Rusnák proceeded to nutmeg his defender, screening the keeper and drive the ball in the corner.

The other missing piece for the Sounders was closing out halves. Even playing down a man at the end of the game, the Sounders were able to keep the ball out of the back of their own net and earned another clean sheet for Stefan Frei and the Seattle defense.

For about 10 minutes, Sounders fans were elated over the return of Pedro de la Vega when he entered the game as a substitute in the second half. He looked good, making several runs up the flank and was close to getting a couple of looks at scoring before tragedy struck once again. This time it was a quad strain, which was a tough pill to swallow after all of his injury woes. It is unclear when he will be back from the quad issue.

In all, the Sounders' last couple of games have been encouraging as they attempt to get their team off the injured list and onto the pitch, where they go back to scoring goals and accumulating clean sheets. Paul Rothrock continues to push the offense, his assist on the first goal by Gomez was a perfectly weighted one-time pass across the goal to the back post, where Gomez slammed it home. Brian Schmetzer proposed that playing with a lead was a huge lift for the recently struggling team.

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