Forgotten. Absent. Inconsistently healthy. Weights of expectation.
These heroes offered glimpses and scenes of their greatness in 2025.
Paul Arriola, X Man
Paul Arriola gave us a glimpse of his former greatness before his injury. Once a DP, once the highest value transfer within MLS, once recruited to skip MLS entirely for what was at the time a much better league, Arriola’s all comps contributions per 90 would compare to wingback style players Jordi Alba and the now-gone Ali Ahmed.
Arriola slides right in that space, with his 0.57. Now, a discerning reader such as yourself will imagine small sample sizes and opponent quality. You would be correct. But Paul also put up similar numbers in MLS in 2018, 2021 and 2022. His time in MLS as a whole is .40/90 (in the realm of last season’s Christian Espinoza).
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Defining Arriola’s role is always going to be hard. He’s played as many wide roles as exist in the modern game. With Seattle, he could be a left or right winger in a four-front if they choose to run a 3-2-4-1, or a wingback in a 3-4-2-1 or a conventional winger in a 4-2-3-1. No matter his role, he’s been strong. His calls to the US National Team ran every year from age 20-27, when he put up better numbers there than he did in league play. He’s now 30.
Pedro de la Vega, the injury saga
Sounders fans know how bright Pedro can burn. So do, Lanus fans, Argentina fans, Cruz Azul fans, Santos Laguna fans, Tijuana fans, Puebla, Galaxy, Inter Messi and a smattering of other MLS teams. The Leagues Cup player of the year and wonder goal nominee is absolutely thrilling, when available.
Lanus, Argentina and Seattle also know his history of injuries. Injuries are why he’s in Seattle.
PdlV only played 41% of available minutes in all competitions. A healthy winger of his quality should be around 66% or so. His absolutely stellar all comps performance of 0.72 is on par with Hany Mukhtar, at 20th in MLS play. Pedro is ahead of Diego Rossi, Djordje Mihailovic, and Dejan Joveljić.
When you think about how the Seattle Sounders will make up ground for the inevitable decline of Danny Musovski the names Arriola and de la Vega should be bandied about.
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They weren’t merely better than the people who replaced them on the Sounders – they’re better than the majority of high-profile players in the league.
In 2025 Craig Waibel raised the floor and the peak. Injuries gave us only a few glimpses of that peak.
2026 is when the multi-competition heroic Sounders can once again show their prowess and why their presence as a top tier club is eternal.
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Catching up on Sounder at Heart
Here’s what you missed on the site this week.
Sounders
Next match: Sunday, February 22, 2026 v. the Colorado Rapids | 6 p.m. PT | Apple TV/FS1
Reign
Schedule to come next week.
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Defiance
Schedule to come.
Looking back at the news
Everything else you need to know
Remembering ‘the Mia way.’ Family, teammates honor UW goalie Mia Hamant (KUOW)
Winner Takes Millions: The 2026 FIFA World Cup’s $727M Jackpot (Yahoo Sports)
US actions in Venezuela put the 2026 World Cup in disgraceful company (The Guardian)
Minnesota United coach Eric Ramsay to take West Brom job (Twin Cities)
Meghann Burke on why the NWSLPA opposes the High Impact Player rule (Full times on Spotify)
KC Current hire ex-USMNT star Armas as coach (ESPN)
USWNT to face Argentina, Canada, Columbia in 2026 SheBelieves Cup (Stars & Stripes FC)
Suwon FC Women Re-Sign South Korea’s Top Female Footballer Ji So-yun (Chosun Daily)
Man admits racist abuse of footballer Jess Carter (BBC)
X Didn’t Fix Grok’s ‘Undressing’ Problem. It Just Makes People Pay for It (Wired)
SEATTLE — From my first visit as an adult, I was absolutely smitten with this city with snow-capped mountains and glistening bodies of water visible on all sides.
The decision to move here when my wife was accepted to Seattle University was probably one of the easiest and most fortuitous choices I’ve ever made. I loved the city’s topography, how people went outside no matter the weather and even the weather itself. I would often feel as if I was living someplace I would have chosen to vacation.
But it was soccer that made me feel like part of the city myself, like I had found my new home. I’ve often talked about how watching the Sounders win their first U.S. Open Cup at the George & Dragon was my first real introduction to the team. A few months later, I started working at Sounder at Heart. That summer, I experienced my first World Cup in Seattle. We showed up to a bar at 6 AM to get a spot for the USA-England match, and barely even got in. Bars all over town were packed, even when the USA wasn’t playing.
It was then that I started imagining what it would be like for the World Cup to actually come here.
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Although the United States’ 4–1 loss to Belgium on Monday wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it to end, I can safely say the Seattle World Cup experience exceeded even my lofty dreams.
Picking one highlight from the six games is almost impossible as every game surprised me in different ways. In the immediate buildup to this tournament, the shine had seemingly started to wear off. Actually getting the World Cup was feeling like a pyrrhic victory, one of those “careful what you wish for” achievements. All anyone could talk about was ticket prices and corruption. Empty seats and unsold hotel rooms felt inevitable. I believed the mood and narratives would change once the soccer actually started being played, but my expectations had been massively re-set.
Once the games began, I immediately realized just how powerful the World Cup can be, especially in a setting like this. The crowd for Egypt-Belgium – Seattle’s first-ever World Cup match – was a near sellout, and it was then that I appreciated the power of the diaspora. I saw Egypt fans with tears in their eyes as they saw their compatriots gathered by the Great Wheel. Their march to the match was pure joy, filled with chants, giant flags and pharoah costumes. The match, itself, was a bit underwhelming – a 1–1 tie – but everyone seemed so happy. That set a standard that was probably exceeded in each game.
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The Bosnia & Herzegovina fan march was genuinely awe-inspiring, as it seemed to go on forever. I swear there were 40,000 people wearing BiH’s blue, yellow and white and they were all singing ‘Ljiljani’ once it was over. The atmosphere for Iran-Egypt was absolutely electric, and I honestly felt like the stadium might explode when Iran scored what seemed to be a late game-winner only for VAR to overturn it.
My favorite memories from this tournament, though, will likely be tied to the way Seattle really came alive for the two USA matches. To see an American downtown flooded with soccer fans is not something I ever thought I’d see, and for it to happen twice in my hometown only made it more special.
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For the Australia match, I came into downtown from my home in Wallingford on a rental bike, traveling along the newly refurbished waterfront before 8 AM. There were already massive crowds gathered.
For this match, I chose to arrive on the Link Light Rail. It was the first time I used it to get to one of the World Cup games, but I wanted to experience what it was like to emerge from Pioneer Square station with hundreds of thousands of others.
Three hours before kickoff, Occidental Square was already packed as thousands of people watched the final moments of Spain-Portugal on the Brick Park big screen. Virtually every bar was already at capacity, with lines snaking out the doors. Inside the stadium, the north pavilion was already teaming with activity and lines to get into the various pro shops snaking through the concourse.
A short while later, I caught up to the USA march to the match. Led by horse-riding Civil War re-enactors, the march took 20 minutes to pass through the intersection of 1st and Main. As it passed, sections of fans broke out into impromptu “U-S-A” chants, sang other American Outlaw standards, played instruments and held a wide variety of signs. My favorite was probably Captain America punching out a Smurf (which were created in Belgium). There were others with Clint Dempsey, Grant Wahl, Weston McKennie and John Denver. They wore eagle costumes, dressed as Founding Fathers, and flag-inspired soccer shirts … so many stripes. I swear I didn’t see a single frown.
Joe Towner / PNWMF
Given the size of the crowd inside, I have to assume that the vast majority of those in the march weren’t planning to attend the game in person. They just wanted to be part of this intoxicating energy, equal parts hope, anticipation and FOMO. City officials said 25,000 fans participated in the march, 10,000 more than took part in the one before USA-Australia. Some estimates have suggested there were as many people downtown as there were for the Seahawks’ Super Bowl prade that pushed into seven digits. Hard as that is to believe – that a soccer match could attract a crowd like that – my eyes told me it was at least possible.
The Overlook Walk’s Salish Steps were packed, just as they were many other times during these magical few weeks. Otherwise vacant storefronts were suddenly impromptu soccer bars. The Historic Triangle Pub was revived, featuring a massive screen and overflowing beer garden just around the corner from the stadium. In the Chinatown/International District — which is one of the downtown neighborhoods that hasn’t benefited as much from the World Cup crowds — hundreds crowded into Hing Hay Park to watch the game. The demand for viewing spots was seemingly insatiable.
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The good vibes flowed seamlessly into the stadium. The buzz was overwhelmingly positive, talk of a serious run was on lips all over the park. “Why not US?” wasn’t just an empty platitude spoken by Argentinian head coach Mauricio Pochettino, it was a mantra that turned otherwise uninterested Americans into believers.
Photos by Max Aquino / Sounder at Heart
Seattle, long overlooked on U.S. Soccer’s list of preferred sites, has been dubbed “The Cathedral of Cascadia” by none other than the USMNT’s Twitter account and fans did everything possible to live up to that lofty praise. I’m not one to get emotional about the National Anthem, but when 67,000 people are collectively singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” it’s hard not to get lost in the moment. Somehow, I didn’t even notice the four fighter jets that buzzed the stadium to punctuate the song. At Minute 1, fans broke out the classic “Boom-Boom-Clap”-style “U-S-A.” You’d have thought the USMNT players would have been ready to run through walls.
Instead, they were utterly incapable of channeling that into their play against Belgium. After four matches in which they played with energy and spirit, they came out utterly flat against their most talented opponents to date. At no point did they have control of the match. They were down 1–0 before the match was even 10 minutes old, and were a bit lucky not to be down 3–0 by that time.
The one moment the USMNT had a chance – following Malik Tillman’s wonderful free kick that brought the match level – was almost immediately spoiled when they allowed Belgium to re-take the lead immediately off the ensuing kickoff.
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Still, there was hope coming out of halftime. It didn’t take long for that to be spoiled, either. In the 57th minute, goalkeeper Matt Freese came way out of his box and badly misplayed a seemingly innocuous ball over the top, allowing Hans Vanaken to loft an uncontested shot from 35 yards into a virtually undefended net.
There were more “U-S-A” chants and Eddie Vedder even tried to inspire the Yanks by chugging a beer while on the jumbotron during a hydration break.
If there was a shred of belief left in the building, it was slowly and achingly asphyxiated until Romelu Lukaku struck the final blow with a powerful strike off another sloppy turnover in stoppage time. Fittingly, he and the Belgium bench celebrated with a mocking “Trump dance,” acknowledging the role the president insisted on playing after potentially getting FIFA to declare Folarin Balogun eligible for the match despite getting a red card against Bosnia & Herzegovina.
The mood in the streets after was obviously a far cry from how the day started. Players spoke about letting themselves and the fans down. There’s an undeniable sense that an opportunity has been missed, that a confluence of events quite like this may never arrive again. That may be true for the USMNT and the greater American soccer scene.
But I’m not sure it’s true for Seattle. Our status as “Best Soccer City in America” is not new, even if it’s not a moniker we’ve tried to trademark. We reguarly brought 30,000 to Lumen Field when most of the MLS was lucky to draw half of that. Although the buzz around the Sounders has diminished a bit over the years, the World Cup crowds were actually smaller than the club’s most popular games.
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Updated Seattle/PNW attendance records show World Cup matches occupying slots 6-10 (66,925 for each of final 5). Sounders own top 5. Among those bumped out of top 10: Sounders-Barcelona, DC United-Real Madrid, Man United-Celtic.
— Frank MacDonald (@frankmsounders.bsky.social) July 7, 2026 at 1:12 PM
It’s not that our city has discovered a love for soccer, but maybe this was the catalyst for its reawakening. Sounders leadership has a chance to embrace this moment and make sure it has legs long after the FIFA circus leaves town.
Our local leaders have a similar responsibility. We’ve always known that Seattle is a world-class city and now the world does, too. Our public transit is very good by American standards, but it can be world-class if we will it into existence. We showed how much energy can be harnessed when public space is given back to the people, and not handed to cars. Local businesses showed what they can do when unnecessary and burdensome paperwork doesn’t get in their way.
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The World Cup was an event that I think exceeded all expectations, but the aftermath can be even better.
Thanks to Susan for the photo. She called to tell us about a dog stuck on the rocks off Beach Drive near Harbor West (the condos on pilings), and a crowd gathering to figure out how to rescue it from the rising tide. We were away from the desk at the time but after returning a little while later, we heard the situation mentioned on police radio, with word the dog had been rescued, so we didn’t head that way. Then late tonight Susan sent photos, explaining that the dog apparently is known to swim to those rocks and back, but for some reason got stuck this time, “until a paddle boarder and kayaker paddled out to it to coax it off the rocks and back to the shore.”
