Seattle Sounders vs. Columbus Crew: Keys to Sunday Night Soccer | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

Back to the Pacific Northwest rolls the Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire bus, where we have a clash between two of the best teams in the league when Seattle Sounders FC host the Columbus Crew (5 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+).

These are two clubs I’ve slotted into the “true contenders” tier since before Matchday 1, and I’ve kept them there all year despite some ups and downs. In each case, those ups and downs have had a lot more to do with injuries and absences than any structural issues, but in each case, I think it’s fair to say both teams have somewhat underperformed expectations.

My guess is that’s now a thing of the past. The Sounders rolled out of an encouraging FIFA Club World Cup showing into a pretty dominant 2-0 win over Austin FC last weekend – no hangover there. The Crew, meanwhile, just finished a perfect, three-wins-in-three-games June with a 1-0 victory over the Supporters’ Shield-leading Philadelphia Union, which ended the visitors' 11-game unbeaten run.

In short, this game should rule.

Players in focus

Seattle Sounders

Columbus Crew

What's at stake for Seattle Sounders?

The Sounders were very good in the second half of last year, making it to the semifinals of the US Open Cup and the Western Conference Final. And they’ve shown their depth throughout this year – it isn't just Morris who’s missed time; the backline has been decimated by injury. Then they showed their quality against Botafogo, Atlético Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.

That’s great, but… this team came into the league 16 years ago and instantly won a trophy. And then they kept winning something, basically every other year, for 13 seasons, culminating in that landmark 2022 Concacaf Champions Cup (neé League) title.

Not a single trophy since then, though. Sure, they’ve come close a few times, but the fans have grown tired of “close.”

Every game of 2025, from here on out, is a chance for the Sounders to remind everyone who’s actually got the most silverware over the past 15 seasons, and to put themselves in a position to add to the trophy case – be it by closing the Supporters’ Shield gap (which, if they win this game, becomes a very manageable eight points), or at least securing home field for the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.

What’s at stake for Columbus Crew?

When the season was two months old, the Crew were still unbeaten. Then the games and injuries started to pile up, the schedule became unkind, and they suddenly found themselves in a month-long, six-game tailspin unlike anything they’d faced during Wilfried Nancy’s tenure as head coach.

With this three-game winning streak they've returned to the ranks of the favorites to win the Shield, even if they're still nothing close to full health (goalkeeper Patrick Schulte and center backs Rudy Camacho and Malte Amundsen are all still on the shelf, while left wingback Max Arfsten is on Concacaf Gold Cup duty with the USMNT). There are currently only two teams in MLS at 2 ppg: Philly and Vancouver. Columbus beat the ‘Caps at the start of the month and beat the Union at the end of the month.

We’ve entered “every point matters – a lot!” days, and the Crew are taking it very, very seriously. This team, even after selling MVP finalist Cucho Hernández and trading goalscorer Christian Ramírez this past winter, is always in the hunt for trophies. This year’s no different.

On Andrew Wiebe's radar

Seattle Sounders: How does Jesús Ferreira best fit into this Sounders group?

Open question, that. Head coach Brian Schmetzer is still figuring it out, and so is Ferreira.

Ferreira’s FC Dallas history tells us he’s most comfortable and productive as a sort of second forward/No. 10, with the freedom to find the ball and the game with runners oriented around him. In Dallas, the team was built around him and the game flowed through him. In Seattle, Ferreira is integrating into an established, successful group.

Albert Rusnák is the No. 10. Full stop. Schmetzer prefers to play with one striker. So where does that leave Ferreira, whose goal-scoring numbers (G, xG, npxG) are all at or close to per-90 career lows?

Mostly on the wing and still trying to fit in. Ferreira's goal against Austin – arriving at the perfect time to slam home Paul Rothrock’s service at the far post – was a positive sign. The 24-year-old told me back when SNS rolled through vs. Minnesota United that he was still getting to know his teammates and developing an understanding of their tendencies on the field.

Fitting in takes time, and the second half of seasons always seems to be Sounders time. Perhaps it will be Ferreira’s as well.

Columbus Crew: Can Jacen Russell-Rowe harness his full potential?

It’s July 3, and the 22-year-old forward has already set a career high with seven goals. And yet, each time we’ve had the Crew on Sunday Night Soccer, Wilfried Nancy has taken time to both praise Russell-Rowe for his immense talent but also challenge the Canadian international to raise his level.

Be more ruthless in the box. Be more aggressive against the ball. Be stronger in hold-up play. In sum, be a… well, a word I can’t put in print… a player opposing defenders HATE playing against.

In fact, Nancy challenged Russell-Rowe in front of the whole team before Columbus’ recent 3-1 win against Atlanta United. Russell-Rowe, who Nancy says is the best finisher on the team and was even when Cucho was around, responded by scoring twice… then didn’t start against the Union. Nobody said it was gonna be easy.

General manager Issa Tall is looking for a DP attacker in the upcoming Secondary Transfer Window. That player would, you would think, eat into Russell-Rowe’s future minutes. The time is now for the still-young No. 9 to truly maximize the return on his talent and make the decisions about who gets into the front three difficult down the line.

Tactical breakdown

Seattle Sounders

This time last year, the Sounders were in hell. Then, head coach Brian Schmetzer made two big moves by putting Jordan Morris up top and moving Roldan back from his spot on the wing into central midfield.

The obvious effect, both last year and this, has been to tilt the field in productive ways. Roldan has become a master at getting on the ball, whether via a build-out sequence or simply winning a 50/50, and creating instant verticality:

This has worked against all comers, including the trio of giants the Sounders faced in the Club World Cup. Alongside Vargas, plus with guys like João Paulo and Danny Leyva in reserve, the Sounders have a lot of talent in deep-central midfield. They don’t lose games there.

They arguably have more depth in the attack, but the struggle has been finding the right fit for all the pieces. Schmetzer has toyed with a 3-4-2-1 with flying wingbacks, reverted to the 4-2-3-1 with overlapping fullbacks, and has even used a 4-4-2 for a brief minute. It’s been a process.

The non-negotiable is that they’ve needed a true No. 9 to lead the line. If they have that guy out there, be it Morris or Danny Musovski, who’s done a lot of heavy lifting, it works. If it’s a false 9 – i.e., if it’s Ferreira, who was acquired this offseason and is still settling in – it’s been… less good. It’s been bad.

I don’t think this is fundamentally a Ferreira issue, but rather one of how the wingers in Schmetzer’s system have been used. Sounder at Heart did good work diving into this last week, and the tl;dr is that almost all the non-9s who’ve come to the Sounders the past few years have seen their per-90 boxscore and underlying numbers drop. That includes DP Pedro de la Vega, who is probably no longer a starter (but who I sure would like to see start at least once at left wing, which I suspect is his best position).

The other issue Seattle have battled is in their previously indestructible central defense, where both Jackson Ragen and Yeimar Gómez Andrade have 1) performed below their standards from the past couple of years, and 2) been hamstrung, as have most of their backups. That’s left Schmetzer juggling reserves, and actually deploying starting right back Alex Roldan at right center back last weekend, alongside Ragen (who, to be clear, was back to his best during the CWC and last weekend).

Throughout it all the Sounders are still the Sounders: they usually want 55% or more of the ball, they want their right back to overlap, they want their left winger will stay wide to try to beat dudes 1v1 (THIS IS WHY DE LA VEGA SHOULD GET A GAME OR TWO OUT THERE!!!), and their No. 10 (whether it’s Rusnák or Ferreira) will be more of a pass-before-the-pass guy than a true, primary playmaker.

It’s all aimed towards getting possession on the sides of the box – the primary assist zones – for low crosses across the six-yard box (to the No. 9) or pullbacks to the spot (for the on-rushing 10, or sometimes even the No. 8).

This is modern, fundamental soccer.

Columbus Crew

Of course, it might not be applicable against the Crew, because they're more devoted to having 60% of the ball than any team in the league. Maybe more than any team in the history of the league.

Nancy pretty famously doesn’t gameplan specifically for each opponent because “opponents change the way they play when they play us.” That’ll likely include Seattle, whose approach will probably look more like what we saw from them against Atleti and PSG than what they were against Austin last weekend.

And if you’re Nancy, why not focus on your own plan, given the preponderance of data that they crack open virtually any opponent no matter what their defensive shape or where they draw their line of confrontation, and given the preponderance of data that Columbus are also at their best defensively when they have the ball. It is very much a two birds, one stone solution.

That gives the team confidence, and athletes thrive on confidence. I can’t imagine a message more galvanizing than “we’re going to go out there, we’re going to own the ball, we’re going to control the game with it, and we’re going to win because of that.” Crew players hear that every week and are just absolutely fearless because of it, and while that does make for the occasional WPIOOTBGW boo-boo, they almost never look shook (the 5-1 defeat they took at Inter Miami at the end of May is why I added the “almost”).

They get on the ball and do it all over again. And again. And again.

The specifics are that they build from a 3-4-2-1 that becomes either a 2-3-5 or a 3-2-5 in the attacking third, and please watch the video below from Ben Wright. It is such a great explainer that you will be, like, 30% smarter about modern soccer once you’ve consumed it. Watch it all with the sound up! I command you!!

That’s almost everything that makes the Crew the Crew – the courage on the ball, the build-out structure, the freedom to swap positions within that structure, the counter-press, the refusal to settle for low-percentage crosses and the determination to craft chances via possession. It looks perfectly free-flowing and improvisational, and in some ways it is. Counter-intuitively, though, that’s because it’s so ruthlessly and relentlessly drilled. Talk to anyone who’s played under Nancy and they will rave about how involved and detail-oriented he is both in training and in film sessions.

This type of soccer doesn’t just happen. It has to be downloaded and installed by every single player on the field.

To drill down a little bit: each of the Crew’s three dedicated attackers has to be ready to toggle from playmaker to winger to goalscorer, and that’s how you end up with touch maps showing Russell-Rowe (the only actual No. 9 on the roster) getting on the ball more in the right half-space than in the box, while Diego Rossi (the star attacker who’s been fighting the injury bug but playing at a Best XI clip when healthy and man, it’s an oversight that I haven’t mentioned him in this column until now!) attacking space behind the opposing backline like a modern-day Pippo Inzaghi.

They are the best team in the league to watch. Man, I can't wait for this game.

Projected lineups

I think it’ll be the standard 4-2-3-1, with few surprises. But I’m trying to put "Pedro de la Vega at left wing" into the world, and so I’m including him in the XI at that spot even though I think it’s unlikely. Also, Nouhou will be back in the lineup following Reed Baker-Whiting's red card last week, but I suspect it’s now an open competition for that job.

I think it’ll be the usual 3-4-2-1, though with some attack-minded changes from last weekend’s win over the Union. Also, I’ve kept my Lassi Lappalainen Fan Club card for a long time; glad I’m getting a chance to use it again.