Brian Schmetzer’s best work

Brian Schmetzer has been putting on one of his best coaching performances since taking charge of the Seattle Sounders back in 2016. Given the way the season started and some seeming friction with some high-profile players, that might seem like a surprising statement if you haven’t paid close attention to the team.

It would be easy to attribute the Sounders’ recent run of form to players getting healthy and a string of games against bad teams. Those are obviously factors - and the veracity of the only playing bad teams charges were admittedly strengthened after the 3-0 loss to LAFC - but to reduce the team’s rebound to such simple circumstances completely discounts the work that Schmetzer and his staff have done to get those players healthy, keep them that way, and get everyone pulling together in order to take advantage of the circumstances in which they found themselves.