After struggling to star the year, the Seattle Sounders have fought their way back into playoff contention as we near the end of the season.
Even through a crushing rivalry loss to Portland, Seattle still have a great shot to make the playoffs. If the regular season ended today, the Seattle Sounders would not be in the playoffs. As it stands, they’re sitting four points south of the red line and the 6th place in the Western Conference.
Despite some others throwing in the towel on this season, it’s not just feasible for the Sounders to make the playoffs: it’s likely.
Here’s why.
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1. Strength of Schedule
Compared to the other teams that are real contenders for the last spot, the Timbers and the Earthquakes, the Sounders have a very favorable schedule. One simple (see: simple) way to calculate the strength of schedule is by averaging the points of upcoming opponents.
This very rudimentary strength of schedule analysis gives Seattle the most favorable schedule of the three. Seattle’s remaining games come against teams with an average point total of 34.125. San Jose’s come in less favorably with an average of 38 points, while Portland’s looks even harder with 40.33.
Two-thirds of Portland’s games are against the top three teams in the Western Conference. San Jose sees these teams for three out of eight of their upcoming games, while Seattle has half of their games against bottom-two teams.
The Sounders’ last two games, however, are against top-three competition. As a result, they will have to really take advantage of the easier opponents for the next few weeks before the last two games.
2. Number of Matches Remaining
There are two facets to this important reason why the Sounders will be in the playoffs come November.
Both the Sounders and the Earthquakes have two full games in hand over the Timbers. A win and a draw are all that’s needed for either team to leapfrog Portland in the standings.
In addition to this, Portland are playing three CONCACAF Champions league matches. Two of these are strenuous away matches in the heat of El Salvador and Costa Rica. While Caleb Porter surely won’t put out his full starting XI at these games, it’s still an extra three games the squad must weather, physically and mentally.
It also puts them in the unenviable position of being two games down of Seattle and San Jose, while playing one more total match over the rest of the season. They have less rest and must perform better over less games.
If Portland were to, say beat Philadelphia, Houston, and Colorado once, and lose to Colorado, Dallas, and Salt Lake, they finish with 44 points. That leaves Seattle only needing four wins and a draw or three wins and four draws to match them.
This is completely possible, as they play Houston, Chicago, and Vancouver twice, all struggling teams.
3. Form
In recent weeks, even with a crushing loss to Portland, Seattle has been the best of the three teams. Form is also the reason that the Vancouver Whitecaps, who have the same number of points as Seattle, have been omitted from this list. They have scored a total of one goal in their last five matches.
Seattle is 3-1-1 in their last five, and have been scoring a lot, averaging over two goals a game. Portland is continuing to be a goal scoring machine, but San Jose has averaged just over a half a goal a game. The form is all on Seattle’s side.
This is partly due to Lodiero bringing the creative excitement on offense that was missing for the beginning of the year. One great player can bring up everyone around him by attracting the attention of the entire defense. With Lodeiro around, you can’t focus as hard on Dempsey and Morris. The second a defense takes their eyes off Lodeiro, he’s going to make a game-changing play, like for example, any of these:
There’s a reason he was the MLS Player of the Month. It’s no coincidence that Seattle’s recent run of form coincides with Lodeiro’s arrival.
The Sounders are a little bit down, but they aren’t out of the playoffs at all. When this team is hot and has the defense working as hard as the offense, they seem unbeatable. With Torrés returning, our back four look as strong as they have all season. This team looks poised to make a run.
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Scarves up, Seattle.