When the 2021 schedule was first released, one stretch stood out. The Seattle Sounders were to embark on a three-game road trip in mid-August that would feature games against their biggest rival, a stadium in which they hadn’t won in six years and the defending MLS Cup champions. That they were to do this over just seven days — something they’d never done, including home games or not — only promised to make it even more difficult.
If there was any three-game stretch in which you might excuse the Sounders for failing to claim any points, this would have been it.