RENTON — Leading the Seattle Sounders to their first Western Conference final since 2020, it would be understandable if General Manager Craig Waibel took the opportunity to gloat a little. When the summer transfer window closed and the Sounders had been inactive for a third straight summer, Waibel was the one who received much of the criticism.
Three months later, his decision to effectively stand pat seems to have worked out pretty well. If he feels vindicated, though, he’s not ready to express it in public.
“I work in the world of entertainment and entertainment evokes opinion,” Waibel told reporters on Friday, shortly before the Sounders left town ahead of Saturday’s match against the LA Galaxy. “That’s the whole point of it. I don’t begrudge anyone for their feelings on what they’re interpreting they see.”
One reason Waibel isn’t crowing is he’s not trying to take credit for the turnaround.
At the close of the transfer window, Waibel admitted he had been trying to sign players. Specifically, he was trying to sign attacking players.
It was only after the Sounders couldn’t land their preferred targets that Waibel decided to turn his focus internally. To the degree Waibel deserves credit, it’s that he didn’t make a panic buy that could have disrupted a locker room that had gone through some strife and found common ground.
“I warn against stealing success from the people that deserve it, which are the players and the staff that have that have kind of led this,” he said. “We were struggling earlier this year, and frustration in sports usually gets guided at one of two people. It’s either the coach or the GM. It was probably evenly distributed with both of us at one point this year.”
Those struggles had mostly been on the offensive side and even though the Sounders improved, they still rank in the bottom half of the league in scoring and they haven’t exactly torn holes in the net in the first three playoff games either.
“Over the course of the last two seasons, hands down we’re best defensive team in the league,” Waibel said. “We’re fifth in points. But frustration in sports usually comes from lack of scoring and those are fair frustrations. I’ve said that all year, too.
“We’ve ultimately tied three playoff games. We’ve gotten the result, but we’ve tied three and we’ve got to go out and win two in order to take care of this. So I don’t think anyone’s frustration with how the season went or their interpretation is unjust.”
Given all this, it should come as little surprise that almost no matter how the Sounders season ends that Waibel knows what his main directive is this offseason.
“Just pick up attacking players,” Waibel said. “There’s no there’s no mystery in that. We have find a way to do it and fit it in the cap and make sure they’re effective.”
