SEATTLE — No. 8 wasn’t pretty — as so few of the seven preceding it have been — but it may have been the most important. By beating Sporting Kansas City 3-1 on Saturday, the Seattle Sounders not only set a new single-season, post-shootout record for longest win streak, but they once again showed that they can hang with any team in the Western Conference.
The statistics weren’t particularly flattering — the Sounders were outshot 19-9, out-dueled 55-45 and out-possessed 61-40 — yet the match never seemed to be careening out of control once they recovered from Diego Rubio’s 2nd minute goal.