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# Sounders Fall to St. Louis City SC to End Frustrating Week
- URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/sounders-fall-to-st-louis-sc-to-end-frustrating-week/
- Published: 2025-03-16T20:34:57.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T06:21:04.000Z
- Author: Corbin Smith
- Tags: Sounders, Yeimar, Jordan Morris, Paul Arriola, Obed Vargas, Pedro de la Vega

\[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="8295"\]

![  Seattle Sounders midfielder Obed Vargas (18) during the MLS Western Conference Final match.  ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/seattle-sounders-midfielder-obed-vargas--2818-29-during-the-mls-western-conference-final-match--format-original.jpg)

Seattle Sounders midfielder Obed Vargas (18) during the MLS Western Conference Final match. \[/caption\]

Earlier this week, when the injury updates hit the news cycle with the names of Jordan Morris, Paul Arriola, Pedro de la Vega, Yeimar and Brian Schmetzer, Seattle Sounders FC knew this would be a tough result to get on the road against a good St. Louis team. 

That was especially the case as matchday approached, and having none of those names available would mean Seattle would play this one without their head coach, top striker, top defender, one of the top playmakers in de la Vega, and one of the club’s big offseason acquisitions in Arriola.

Sounders FC is not a club known for making excuses, though, and Fredy Juarez has head coaching experience at the MLS level and, more importantly, has the respect of the locker room. So it’s safe to say internal expectations going into the match were to get a result. 

That wasn’t enough, however, as the Sounders fell 1-0 on the road to St. Louis on Saturday, March 15 — concluding a frustrating week for the club.

Early on, Seattle literally struggled to get their feet under them with Jackson Ragen slipping at the top of his box and unintentionally handling the ball as he fell to the ground on what proved to be a slippery surface at Energizer Park. On the ensuing free kick about 25 yards out, St. Louis talisman Eduard Lowen buried a perfectly placed shot into the corner past Stefan Frei to give the home side the lead in the 15th minute. 

Seattle responded with a period of dominating possession but an inability to truly test goalkeeper Ben Lundt — a common theme for the evening.

The second half was more of the same as Seattle came out determined to get back in the game. Possession was there as Seattle ended the game with 66% of the ball, a dominating number in today’s game, but a lack of clear-cut opportunities was the undoing of the away side in the match. The Rave Green ended up finally getting in on goal late in stoppage time as Obed Vargas was taken down in the box to seemingly give Seattle a penalty in the 95th minute. But VAR intervened and determined that the Sounders youngster handled the ball in the leadup, thus negating the penalty and the chance for Seattle to snatch a late equalizer. 

Even with the quality of players unavailable for the match, and the absence of the head coach, Seattle will still feel frustrated by how much they controlled the game but struggled to create chances. Granted, St. Louis has a solid defensive record and has yet to concede a goal in MLS this year, so this was not an uncommon outcome for them. 

That said, there are still multiple positives to take from the match as Obed Vargas continues to impress in the center of the midfield, as does Cristian Roldan. That partnership has been the most consistent part of the Sounders play early in the season. Jon Bell also looked impressive filling in during the absence of Yeimar. Defensively, besides the somewhat fluky goal, St. Louis didn’t create much themselves. The fact Seattle was missing its most important piece defensively but still looked as solid as ever on the road is a positive.

The loss comes on the heels of disappointingly getting knocked out of the Champions Cup, as well as losing 3 key members to long-term injury. And with this result now, Seattle sits at 10th place in the Western Conference. It is still early in the season, so no alarm bells are ringing just yet at Longacres. But another slow start in MLS means that the Sounders will have to crawl out of a hole to get back in the playoff picture, and they will have to do so without Morris, de la Vega and Arriola for the foreseeable future.

Seattle will need its depth players to step up. Players like Paul Rothrock, Danny Leyva, Georgi Minoungu, Jesus Ferreira will all be heavily relied on more than expected. Because of how deep Seattle is — thanks to the acquisitions in the offseason by general manager Craig Waibel — as well as not having the Champions Cup to stretch the squad even thinner, the Sounders can weather this early season storm but results need to turn around quickly if they are to shake off the label of another slow start to the season.