Tactics and Trends: Sustainability ratings

The Sounders win/tie/penalty loss to the Timbers was a gut punch that broke up one of most successful runs of form in MLS history. As in the regular season, the team’s final playoff match featured enough improbable comebacks that by the end, another trip to the MLS Cup Final seemed like destiny—even when the fate of the season lay in the hands of penalties. Unfortunately, as if challenged one too many times by the nearly unbeatable rave green, the soccer Gods chose penalties against Portland as their platform to cruelly prove that no team can win forever.

In the wake of a season that ended as abruptly in November as it changed for the better in July, tough questions remain. Not just…