Seattle was down injured regulars Kelvin Leerdam, Osvaldo Alonso, Roman Torres and Victor Rodriguez before losing Magnus Wolff Eikrem to a visa issue and opting to leave Clint Dempsey at home to rest.
SANTA TECLA, El Salvador — The festivities began hours before kickoff as locals wearing the home side’s strikingly familiar shade of green arrived in beer-drinking, salsa dancing droves.
As a loudspeaker blared the region’s hottest dance tunes, children took turns kicking balls into a net on a miniature indoor field set up adjacent the municipal Estadio Las Delicias here. There isn’t much separating the Sounders from CONCACAF Champions League first-round opponent Santa Tecla FC on the uniform front — both preferring green kits with blue trim — but most of the thousands filing in on Thursday night had come to see what differences exist on the field.