Danny Musovski enjoying quite the moment
SEATTLE — It has been a couple of very good weeks for Danny Musovski, and quite a turnaround from a season that seemed to be spiraling in the wrong direction.
After going more than a calendar year without a league goal, Musovski now has scored in consecutive games sandwiched around the public announcement of his engagement.
“It always weighs you down a little bit but I’ve always had the confidence that if I get the minutes I’ll score,” Musovski told reporters following the Sounders’ 3-0 win on Saturday. “The message is just keep it going, keep it rolling.”
To appreciate the context of these performances, it’s good to recount how things had gone over the past year. Musovski was signed late last offseason to be the backup to Raúl Ruidíaz. Things started well enough when he scored a header in his fourth appearance off the bench. But that turned out to be the only goal he scored all year in MLS play. He had one other goal in the U.S. Open Cup, but even counting that he was scoreless in his last 17 appearances across all competitions.
Once again expected to be the primary No. 9 backup this year, Musovski basically picked up where he left off when he failed to score in his first six appearances across all competitions this year.
But there were signs of positivity in at least a couple of those appearances. Against Antigua, he was repeatedly in dangerous positions and he was even better against the San Jose Earthquakes, even if he didn’t have any goals to show for it. In between, he even scored the Sounders’ only goal in a 4-1 loss to Cruz Azul.
As his luck would have it, though, Musovski also suffered a back injury against the Earthquakes when he collided with goalkeeper Daniel. Musovski said the pain was so bad at one point that he could barely walk. That forced Musovski to miss most of training the following week and although he was able to recover enough to come off the bench against San Diego FC, it was basically garbage time in a match that was already way out of hand.
The following week, Musovski got the break he was long looking for, even if it didn’t come exactly in the way he wanted. With Jordan Morris slated to return from a month-long absence, the striker felt a twinge in his adductor that prompted Sounders coaches to give him a break.
In stepped Musovski, who responded with the exact type of opportunistic performance for which he had once built a reputation. Musovski scored the game’s only goal, putting away a rebound off a Pedro de la Vega shot that caromed off the woodwork. Musovski appeared to add a second goal, again off a rebound, only to be flagged offside by the thinnest margin.
The next day, he announced his engagement to longtime girlfriend Nikki Klassen.
Given another start — the first time he’d started consecutive games since July 2023 — Musovski responded with another solid performance. Once again, it included an opportunistic goal born mostly out of putting himself in a dangerous position only this time featuring a slick backheeled finish with his weaker left foot.
Amazing build-up and a cheeky finish 🫡 Danny Musovski puts us on the board!
— Sounders FC (@soundersfc.com) 2025-04-20T00:07:38.941Z
The goal was the first of three first-half tallies for the Sounders and set them on the way to arguably their most complete performance of the season, a 3-0 win over a Nashville SC side that had been among the most consistent performers in 2025.
In another sign of how Musovski’s luck may be turning, the goal was originally flagged offside only for replays to show that he was a solid 2-3 yards behind right back Andy Najar. After a couple minutes of delay for the review to be completed, Musovski ran about 40 yards from the sideline to the top of the penalty area for a full-throated celebration.
“I’ve always wanted to do that, wait for the VAR to make the decision and then do the celebration properly,” Musovski said with a big grin.
Suddenly, Musovski’s numbers look a lot different. He leads all of MLS with 1.14 xG per 90 minutes and he’s now on .61 actual goals per 90, which puts him in the Top 25. For his Sounders career, he’s now on about .56 goal-contributions per 90 across all competition, very much in line with his career average before joining the Sounders.
With competition for minutes among attackers only promising to get tougher with the addition of Ryan Kent, Musovski knows these performances are coming at just the right time for both him and his teammates, who had scored just one goal in the four games preceding the win over FC Dallas last week.
“The goal of this club is to win every game that we play,” Musovski said. “When you’re going through a spell of things that aren’t going your way, there’s definitely tension. But it’s a good tension that kind of wakes you up and makes sure that you get back on the right track.”