The Seattle Sounders are off to the best start to an MLS season in club history, taking 17 points from their opening seven matches and leading the Supportersâ Shield standings.
Seattle will feel hard done after its 1-1 home draw with Atlanta United on Sunday, in which it conceded an 86
th-minute penalty for the equalizer, but how itâs had its early success has been nothing short of incredible.
The Sounders have gotten just 24 minutes of game time from 2020 MLS Best XI selection Nicolás Lodeiro, who missed the early part of the season with a quad strain and has been recently shut down until mid-June while he recovers from knee inflammation. Theyâve also been without fellow 2020 MLS Best XI selection Jordan Morris, who was scheduled to still be on loan at Swansea City, but returned to Seattle with an ACL injury several months ago. Throw in the fact that starting goalkeeper Stefan Frei is out 4-6 weeks with a sprained knee, and this unbeaten start to 2021 becomes a
Jennifer Buchanan-USA TODAY Sports
Whenever the Seattle Sounders and Atlanta United meet, it’s a chance for arguably the two biggest clubs in MLS to measure up one another. Right now, the Sounders are on the ascent while Atlanta is trying to recover from a disastrous 2020 in which they fired their coach after just five games and finished outside the playoffs for the first time in their history
.
Atlanta United is off to a somewhat promising, if still uneven, start. They’re 2-1-2 and in the thick of the playoff race, coming off an emotional win last week in which they found the game winner in the dying moments to send a crowd of 40,000 into delirium. That may be covering for what has otherwise been an inauspicious start to the Gabriel Heinze era, in which they’ve dominated possession but struggled to score.
Seventeen-year-old forward Cade Cowell has made an electric start to the new MLS season for San Jose Earthquakes after an off-season in which he made a huge effort to improve his overall game amid links to Barcelona