Sunday night’s season opener against the Colorado Rapids is the perfect opportunity for the Seattle Sounders to start off MLS 2023 with a win. The Sounders are 23-8-4, +26 against the Rapids in MLS play. Colorado only has one win over Seattle since November 2020.
Robin Fraser’s Rapids finished one spot ahead of Seattle last year, and has since added six significant talents requiring transfer fees or allocation money. Where the Sounders stood pat in a soft reload, Colorado is trying to rebuild. They lost Gyasi Zardes (9 goals all comps 2022) and replaced him with forwards Kévin Cabral (3 all comps goals in 2022) and Calvin Harris (1 all comps goal in 2022), getting much younger in the process.