COLORADO RAPIDS v. SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC

Greetings to my brothers and sisters in Green. Sounders FC travel to Commerce City to face Colorado Rapids. Alpine football. Bring your own oxygen.

What: MLS league match, Colorado Rapids v. Seattle Sounders FC.

Where: Victory Way, Commerce City, Colorado.

When: 6:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, Saturday 19 September 2026 CE.

At Stake: Points in the league and MLS Cup qualification…or not. With 11 matches remaining in the season, Sounders find themselves in 26th place in the MLS league table on 28 points, 26 points adrift of likely MLS league champions Nashville. Sounders are currently in 14th position in the regional table for MLS Cup qualification,  two points adrift of San Diego who hold the 9th and last qualifying berth. So…it’s doable as far as MLS Cup qualification, considering there’s 11 league matches left before the season ends. However, even if we should manage to qualify, we’re not going to get far in that tournament unless our form improves. Dramatically.

Where to Watch: Apple TV.

Where to Listen: iHeart Radio, presumably a KJR AM feed, and El Rey 1360 AM.

If there were ever a time for our Sounders to turn things around, this would be that time. The goal is MLS Cup qualification, but none of that matters unless we can figure it out and start scoring goals again. Where do we have to figure it out? At altitude, nearly a mile above sea level. They don’t call Denver the mile high city for nothin’.

This would be fine, except for the fact that we don’t play exceptionally well at altitude. I am so tired of writing the word ‘altitude’. Anyway, for the uninitiated, at least a percentage of our coaching staff thinks that the effect of altitude is largely psychological. That’s also known as science denial. I believe, and that belief is rooted in results, that Sounders do not particularly play well at altitude. There’s a fucking reason that on the baking mix box, there are separate directions for high-altitude cooking, and if you don’t follow those alternate directions, your fucking scones don’t come out right. Fuck’s sake! I digress. Focus.

So we need a win at Colorado…for a number of reasons. Firstly, to re-affirm that we can win in the league, which we haven’t done since May. Not that I’m keeping count, except for the fact that keeping count is literally my vocation. Also, we need a win because it helps us in the standings and maybe gets us into MLS Cup. Finally, we need a win because it’s not particularly useful to qualify for a cup tournament if the quality of our football won’t even see us through one round of it.

Can we do this? Can we return to winning ways and re-invent ourselves in the waning stages of the 2026 season? Sure. Sure we can. I believe we have enough talent to manage a return to the form that we’ve come to expect from the Sounders FC. Is it going to happen? That’s another matter entirely. If we’re going to sort this mess out, we have to start playing football that doesn’t look like a computer playing Pong with itself. We need field-level execution of our game that possesses the understanding that players and spectators with a top-down view could manage.

Despite where we find ourselves today, the 2026 season wasn’t in any way a total wash. We had a decent run in CONCACAF Champions Cup. It took Tigres to eliminate us, and they needed the away goals rule to do it. We battled a team, the aforementioned Tigres, whose squad is valued at roughly €27M more than ours (this sum was likely larger at the time, as we hadn’t added Joveljic yet) to a standstill and a 3:3 aggregate score in that Quarter-Final cup tie. That’s a massive achievement. We got run out of Leagues Cup by Toluca (squad valued at nearly €42M more than ours), and the Chivas of Guadalajara (squad valued at nearly €43M more than ours). We’re in 26th place out of 30 teams in the league not because of injuries, but because of the fucking MLS $6M (€5.2M) salary cap.

MLS clubs can afford maybe 12-13 decent players, and the other 17 are whoever they can get for cheap, with hopefully some youth, skill, experience, technique, upside, or some combination of all the qualities that generally come with a high price tag for both transfer fees and wages. That’s the product. That’s MLS football. Our squad has an estimated aggregate transfer value of €50.83M. The best squads in Europe, who are constantly contesting the UEFA Champions League, and getting top-six finishes in their respective leagues year after year, have squads whose values are estimated at over €1Billion…each! If I were a Sounders FC academy scholar, Sounders Reserves player, or squad player in the senior team, I would be on the phone with my agent, begging them to scour for any opportunity where the MLS owners aren’t squeezing my ability to earn with their nonsense monopoly. So there’s that.

I know that this is a kind of a mince pie of a lot of different problems and scenarios, but it’s because I’m so tired. I’m so tired, tired, tired, you see. I’m tired of being tired. We sold our soul as a club to the corpos. That’s supposed to be like a crossroads/bluesman deal with the Devil that guarantees success. It’s not really working out that way for us. If we were publicly owned and had sponsors that didna make me ashamed that we took their money, I could live with the losing. If anything, making that fucking fool’s bargain has rendered our league owners and executives largely anaesthetised, utterly insulated and divorced from any sort of attachment to our clubs, the spectators, or the performance level of said clubs. It doesn’t matter to them, because whether our clubs win titles or finish bottom of the league there are ZERO FUCKING CONSEQUENCES FOR IT. 

On top of it all, our country is falling apart at the seams. The global economy is a serpent eating its own tail. The bulk of our politicians have sold us out for corporate contributions to their election campaigns. The ultra-far-right-wing rot is spreading across the world with no end in sight. Mass-murder is openly tolerated with most governments of the world either happy to provide cover, or make the cowardly claim that they are powerless to do anything about it. The global ecology is well down the toilet, with governments unwilling to make meaningful enough reforms to even just mitigate the extensive and likely permanent damage they’ve done to the planet. The corporate media keeps jamming propaganda in our faces trying to ignore all of it whilst gaslighting us about carbon credits or some other outrageous nonsense to the point where I don’t know whether to shit or go blind. And then sport, one of the few things meant to distract us from our sheer drop into autocratic Fascism, doesn’t even have the quality or stability to to succeed at even that meagre goal. Economics, politics, geography, history, sport, culture, art, environment, it’s all inter-connected so spare me the “don’t bring politics into sport” nonsense.

At the end of the day, all we’ve got is a football match in the Rockies to make us feel something– anything, beyond the comfortable numbness we’ve all sadly become accustomed to.

If you’re headed to the match, link up with ours and be well-behaved in town and utterly raucous on the terraces. Look after each other. Tie your scarves proper. For those of us here, it’s the same as it ever was. Pubs and dwellings for stories and tellings. Houses and flats for pints and cats. Boats and ships for pie and chips. We turn on the telly, link arms, and hope, because that’s all the corpo bastards have left us.

Shout out to Fog Citeh, Heartland, West Sound Armada, and ECS. Shout out to my Pidcast people — I hope I get to visit your city someday and share the mic with you lot.

It’s MLS league football under the Saturday night lights of Commerce Citeh. GO ON YOU SOUNDERS!!! GET IN!!!

Before kick-off, please join me in the auld toast: “TO THE SEATTLE SOUNDERS FOOTBALL CLUB…AND VICTORY!!!”

(Singing in my best John Denver impersonation) “…Rocky mountain high / Colorado…” (photo credit: do303.com)

The Good News

Looks like Ragen is back. Seems Gomez Andrade is getting close to fully fit. We haven’t lost in roughly a month, so that’s well and good.

Arriola spared us some blushes last weekend with his 81st minute equaliser against Galaxy. I am extremely grateful for that goal.

Our defence is still rated 5th best in the league. That’s not nothin’.

With injured players returning to the fold, perhaps we can aspire to better results going forward.

The Bad News

Colorado are better than we are. four wins and a Semi-Final appearance in the US Open Cup better to be precise. Compounding those unpleasant truths is the fact that we made them better by selling them two very good players (Atencio and Minoungou). There’s also the fact that Colorado outspent us this season by a factor of five (see Intangibles for the actual numbers). You can’t win a championship by attempting to spend your way to it, but you can definitely lose one by underspending or no spending at all.

Sounders are dead-bottom of the league in goal scoring with 25 goals. The top three clubs in MLS, Nashville (50 goals), Vancouver (53 goals), and Miami (61 goals) have all scored 50 or more goals in the league. So that’s a number you can’t really un-see.

Watched one of our newboys, Caden Clark, line up with the Sounders FC Reserves last weekend. He looked well out of sync. I hope that it’s just taking him time to learn the system, or learn how to circumvent the system if said system is utter rubbish. I don’t think this is the final word on Clark and maybe he produces some quality for us if given a chance to. But the initial impression wasn’t a memorable one as Clark was substituted at half-time.

In the Brian Schmetzer era we do not play particularly well at altitude. Sounders FC are 4-6-11 in combined away matches at Colorado and Salt Lake. Silver lining: All four of those victories were achieved at Colorado. Sounders are 4-4-3 in league matches played at Colorado on Brian Schmetzer’s watch. Sounders all-time results (since 2009) at high-altitude (both Colorado and Salt Lake away) are 10-8-19. Draw what conclusions you will from those numbers.

The Side I Would Select

Nouhou at left-back, because sure, he’s good, and also we sold everyone else that plays that position. Ragen is supposedly fit and good to go, so that’s good news. Hawkins because he’s shown well in recent performances, although Lopez would also be a good choice at right-centre-half. Kossa-Rienzi is supposedly fit and ready for action, so let’s have it. Kingston’s played pretty well this season, although whether it’s he or Brunell or Dotson, it’s gonna be pretty much the same. I like Arriola on the left and Jordan on the right, as Rothrock is out injured. Would have liked to see Clark get a runout at the #10, but I watched him in a reserve match and he didn’t seem like he’s up to speed just yet with our system…such as it is. With that in mind, Albert seems like the logical choice in the centre of the park. Joveljic because at least this way he’s not scoring critical goals against us as he did with Los Angeles…and Kansas City.

GK     Thomas

LB     Nouhou

LCH     Ragen

RCH    Hawkins

RB     Kossa-Rienzi

LDM    Kingston

RDM    Cristian

LF     Arriola

CAM   Rusnak

RF     Morris

CF     Joveljic

The Side I Think The Gaffer Will Select

This is a likely safe bet as I don’t think the Gaffer really trusts Lopez or Hawkins at centre-half. Don’t ask me why, as I think both those players are more than competent.

GK     Thomas

LB     Nouhou

LCH     Ragen

RCH    Alex

RB     Kossa-Rienzi

LDM    Brunell

RDM   Cristian

LF     Morris

CAM   Rusnak

RF     Arriola

CF     Joveljic

Intangibles

The Referee for Saturday night’s match will be Elijio Arreguin.

COL record with Arreguin as Ref: 1-0-1

SEA record with Arreguin as Ref: 1-0-0

COL aggregate squad estimated transfer value: €55.2M

SEA aggregate squad estimated transfer value: €50.83M

COL 2026 transfer fees paid: €25.6M

SEA 2026 transfer fees paid: €5.2M

Sounders results in high-altitude league matches all-time: 10-8-19

Sounders results at COL in the league under Schmetzer: 4-4-3

Sounders results at RSL in the league under Schmetzer: 0-2-8

Rapids’ Manager Matt Wells has coached at Tottenham, Fulham, Bournemouth, and Club Brugge. Although he was a coach at all of those clubs, his appointment at Colorado marks his first known assignment as Manager. Wells holds a UEFA B Coaching License.

General notes on personnel

Colorado transfers IN:

Cobb (Atlanta United) €450,000

Ojediran (Lens) €3M

Phillip - draft

Miguel Navarro (Atletico Talleres) loan

Diop - reserves

Williams (Granada) €3M

Thompson (Toronto FC) undisclosed

Minoungou (Seattle Sounders FC) €1.75M

Maziz (OH Leuven) free

Farkhi (Maccabi Tel Aviv) €5.2M

Sadiq (AZ Alkmaar) €1M

Whittaker (Middlesbrough) €11.2M

Dowd - reserves

Colorado transfers OUT:

Amadou (Helsingborgs) free

Sam Bassett (Pittsburgh Riverhounds) free

Edwards (Oakland Roots SC) free

Harris (Sporting Kansas City) free

Jones (Las Vegas Lights) free

Larraz (Vancouver Whitecaps FC) free

Maxso (Kalba) free

Rafael Santos (St. Louis City SC) free

Cole Bassett (Portland Timbers) €2.25M

Vines (MLS Pool) free

Ronan (Aberdeen) free

Murphy (San Diego FC) free

Herrington (Hull City) €14.8M

Sealy (CF Montreal) €1.2M

Rafael Navarro (St. Louis City SC) €10.4M

Wathuta (Orange County SC) loan

Comparison against common opponents

COL 2:0 POR

SEA 1:5 POR

POR 2:1 SEA

(against POR: COL 1-0-0 +2, SEA 0-0-2 -5) decisive edge COL

COL 4:1 LAG

SEA 0:2 LAG

LAG 1:1 SEA

(against LAG: COL 1-0-0 +3, SEA 0-1-1 -2) decisive edge COL

SKC 1:4 COL

COL 2:0 SKC

SKC 1:1 SEA

(against SKC: COL 2-0-0 +5, SEA 0-1-0 0) decisive edge COL

COL 6:2 HOU

HOU 1:0 COL

HOU 0:1 SEA

(against HOU: COL 1-0-1 +3, SEA 1-0-0 +1) marginal edge COL

LAFC 0:0 COL

COL 1:0 LAFC

LAFC 1:0 SEA

(against LAFC: COL 1-1-0 +1, SEA 0-0-1 -1) decisive edge COL

VAN 3:1 COL

SEA 0:2 VAN

VAN 0:3 SEA CCC
SEA 2:1 VAN* CCC *at Spokane

(against VAN: COL 0-0-1 -2, SEA 2-0-1 +2) decisive edge SEA

COL 0:1 STL

STL 1:0 COL

COL 0:3 STL USOC

STL 0:1 SEA

SEA 4:1 STL

(against STL: COL 0-0-3 -5, SEA 2-0-0 +4) decisive edge SEA

MIN 0:1 COL

MIN 0:0 SEA

(against MIN: COL 1-0-0 +1, SEA 0-1-0 0) edge COL

RSL 2:1 COL

COL 1:0 RSL

RSL 2:1 SEA

(against RSL: COL 1-0-1 0, SEA 0-0-1 -1) edge COL

COL 1:2 DAL

SEA 2:1 DAL

(against DAL: COL 0-0-1 -1, SEA 1-0-0 +1) decisive edge SEA

COL 1:0 SD

SD 3:0 COL

SEA 1:1 SD

(against SD: COL 1-0-1 -2, SEA 0-1-0 0) even

COL 1:0 ATX

ATX 1:1 COL

ATX 3:1 SEA

SEA 1:2 ATX

(against ATX: COL 1-1-0 +1, SEA 0-0-2 -3) decisive edge COL

COL 2:0 SJ USOC

SJ 0:1 SEA

SEA 3:2 SJ

(against SJ: COL 1-0-0 +2, SEA 2-0-0 +2) edge SEA

Know Thine Enemy

Colorado as they lined up in their 1:0 victory over Montreal on Saturday 12 September at Victory Way.

GOALKEEPER

Nicolas Defreitas-Hansen, 25

United States

Notable Clubs: Colorado Rapids (28/0)

Estimated Transfer Value: €300,000

Notes: Developed by Weston, Everton, and Swansea City. Played at youth levels for both United States and Denmark (I don’t usually record youth appearances/goals or honours for players over 23, but this seemed worthy of note).

DEFENCE

Miguel Navarro, 27

Venezuela (23/0)

Notable Clubs: Zulia (19/0), Deportivo La Guaira (42/1), Chicago Fire (97/0), Colorado Rapids (19/0), Talleres (55/1)

Estimated Transfer Value: €2M

Notes: Developed by Zulia. Won a Supercopa Internacional with Talleres.

Loic Williams, 24

Spain

Notable Clubs: Tenerife (21/0), Granada (66/1), Colorado Rapids (10/1)

Estimated Transfer Value: €3M

Notes: Full name: Loic Williams Ntambue Kayumba Girones. Developed by Levante, Patacona, Valencia, and Girona.

Rob Holding, 30

England

Notable Clubs: Bolton Wanderers (26/1), Bury (1/0), Arsenal (98/2), Sheffield United (10/0), Colorado Rapids (28/0)

Estimated Transfer Value: €3M

Notes: Developed by Bolton Wanderers. Won 2x FA Cup, and 3x FA Community Shield with Arsenal.

Keegan Rosenberry, 32

United States

Notable Clubs: Reading United (14/1), Philadelphia Union (80/3), Colorado Rapids (203/9)

Estimated Transfer Value: €600,000

Notes: Developed by Spirit United, Penn Fusion, and Philadelphia Union. Played his university football for Georgetown (90/4). Won the 2016 MLS Fair Play Award.

MIDFIELD

Josh Atencio, 24

United States (1/0)

Notable Clubs: Seattle Sounders FC (91/1), Colorado Rapids (48/1)

Estimated Transfer Value: €2M

Notes: Developed by Seattle Sounders FC. Has played for the United States at youth levels (13/0).

Paxten Aaronsen, 23

United States (4/0)

Notable Clubs: Philadelphia Union (37/4), Eintracht Frankfurt (14/0), Vitesse (14/4), Utrecht (33/8), Colorado Rapids (32/7)

Estimated Transfer Value: €6M

Notes: Developed by Philadelphia Union. Won a CONCACAF U-20 Championship. Named to CONCACAF U-20 Championship Best XI. won CONCACAF U-20 Championship Golden Ball and Golden Boot (7 goals).

Hamzat Ojediran, 22

Nigeria

Notable Clubs: KF Egnatia (11/0), Debreceni VSC (32/3), RC Lens (17/1), Colorado Rapids (22/1)

Estimated Transfer Value: €3M

Notes: Developed by E&A Academy. Played for Nigeria U-17s (4/0). Won an Albanian Cup with KF Egnatia.

FORWARD

Georgi Minoungou, 24

Burkina Faso (9/3)

Notable Clubs: Seattle Sounders FC (31/2), Colorado Rapids (19/0)

Estimated Transfer Value: €1.5M

Notes: Won a Leagues Cup with Seattle Sounders FC.

Darren Yapi, 21

United States

Notable Clubs: Colorado Rapids (116/13)

Estimated Transfer Value: €2.5M

Notes: Developed by Colorado Rapids. Has played for United States at youth levels (11/0).

Donavan Phillip, 21

Saint Lucia (1/1)

Notable Clubs: B1 FC (9/2), Colorado Rapids (6/0)

Estimated Transfer Value: €100,000

Notes: Played his university football for Oakland University (19/5) and North Carolina State (41/25).

Familiar Faces

Colorado midfielder Josh Atencio played for Seattle Sounders FC (91/1) from 2020-2024.

Colorado winger Georgi Minoungou played for Seattle Sounders FC (31/1) from 2025-2026.

Squads

Beaudry, Hansen, Dowd, Rosenberry, Cannon, Williams, Holding, Cobb, Navarro, Travis, Ojediran, Aaronson, Atencio, Frederick, Fadal, Maziz, Whittaker, Farkhi, Harris, Jamison, Stewart, Phillip, Wathuta, Yapi, Minoungou, Sadiq.

Sounders FC from:

Frei, Thomas, Gomez Andrade, Hawkins, Kim, Kossa-Rienzi, Lopez, Nouhou, Alex, Ragen, Sailor, Brunell, Dotson, Gomez, Kingston, Clark, Cristian, Rusnak, Arriola, Joveljic, Morris, Musovski.

Injury List

(as listed on mlssoccer.com at press time)

Colorado -

OUT: Diop (knee), DiPietro (shoulder), Steffen (shoulder), 

MATCHDAY DECISION: Maziz (leg).

Sounders FC -

OUT: Rothrock (hamstring), Ferreira (hamstring), De la Vega (quadriceps), Petkovic (knee).

MATCHDAY DECISION: Gomez Andrade (calf).

Discipline

(as listed on mlssoccer.com at press time)

Colorado: Thompson is suspended and will serve a one-match ban for accumulated bookings.

Sounders FC: No players suspended. Dotson out next match if booked.

Fun Fact

Sounders FC Reserves play their last match of the MLS Next Pro season on Sunday. We will host Timbers2 with the kick-off at Starfire set for 2 p.m. PDT. Our lads are in the 9th and last qualifying berth for MLS Next Pro Cup, although San Jose Earthquakes II are level on points with us at 39 and could displace us should they get a better result in their last match. Sounders FC Reserves are currently 20th place in the MLS Next Pro league table.