How Sounders’ stagnant roster has created a mini-crisis

The lack of movement in the Seattle Sounders’ roster over the last several years has been a frequent talking point recently. While there have been players coming in and going out, it’s almost exclusively happened around the edges of the roster.

The result is a roster that pundits believe is no longer capable of competing with the elite teams in MLS.

Compare the players who saw the field in Seattle’s most recent do-or-die game, the U.S. Open Cup semifinal loss to LAFC, with those who appeared when the Sounders lifted the Concacaf Champions League trophy in 2022. Of the 16 players involved in the CCL final at Lumen Field, only five of them are no longer with the Sounders: Xavier Arreaga and Nico Lodeiro both started, and Will Bruin, Fredy Montero and Kelyn Rowe all came off the bench. Will Bruin was the only one of that group to leave the club prior to this last offseason.

Only one starter from the Open Cup game wasn’t at least on the roster in 2022 (Paul Rothrock), and substitutes Georgi Minoungou and Pedro de la Vega have both joined the Sounders this season; that means that of the 14 Sounders to step onto the Starfire pitch against LAFC 11 of them were rostered by the Sounders when the club won CCL.

That paints a bit of the picture of how little change there’s been, but it doesn’t touch why there’s been so little change. For better and for worse the Sounders have been especially proactive when it comes to maintaining a stable core of players within the squad, and locking down key players within that group to provide that stability. Roster continuity and stability are generally seen as having a positive correlation to success, at least when compared to high-turnover within a squad. Look at the team that won CCL as an example of that: in the offseasons on either side of lifting the trophy Arreaga, João Paulo, Raúl Ruidíaz, Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan all signed contract extensions that were at least three years long.