It’s not been easy to be a fan of the USMNT for a while, now. Youth teams are always full of promise and excitement, though, and three Sounders players had been called up to represent the US at the U-17 World Cup in Brazil.
I’ll admit that I was pretty high on the team’s prospects, but especially on the three Sounders, Ethan Dobbelaere, Danny Leyva, and Alfonso Ocampo-Chavez. I was sure that this tournament was going to be a platform for the trio to break out. I had watched them play with Tacoma Defiance, I had been impressed by the pedigree of Raphaël Wicky, the coach brought in in March, and I thought the team had played pretty well in World Cup qualifying.