Sounders Eliminated in Game 3, Minnesota Forces PK Shootout in All-Timer

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The Seattle Sounders celebrate after a goal during Game 3 of their MLS Cup First Round series with Minnesota United on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025 at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minn. (Jane Gershovich / Sounders FC Communications) [/caption]

Saturday's Game 3 action between the No. 5 Seattle Sounders and No. 4 Minnesota United was, by most accounts, the best MLS game of the season.

With the fate of both teams hanging in the balance, the game saw set-piece wizardry, timely goals, a first-half red card, massive missed chances and show-stopping saves before its conclusion at the end of a penalty-kick shootout that lasted for 20 stressful shots. When it was all said and done, the Sounders watched the Loons sing "Wonderwall" with their fans for the third time this season.

Seattle was reeling postgame, trying to come to grips with how it managed to lose 3-3 (7-6) after jumping out to a 2-0 lead and playing up a man for the second half.

"We gave it away,” Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said.

Minnesota United Asleep at the Wheel to Open

The first 10 minutes of this game may have been enough to have most Sounders fans watch the rest of the proceedings in relative comfort, given their team was on the brink of elimination.

True to its Game 2 win, Seattle came out with Jordan Morris and Danny Musovski manning the top of a 4-4-2 diamond hybrid formation, and used that alignment to overwhelm Minnesota's box with the likes of Albert Rusnák, Jesús Ferreira, Cristian Roldan and Obed Vargas bearing down in support. In the fifth minute, Nouhou delivered a cross to Musovski, who one-touched it back to a wide-open Rusnák, who one-touched it himself to open the scoring.

It was a creative goal that Minnesota's five-man backline would rarely give up — an unmarked man in the box had been a foreign concept all season. Lightning struck for a second time just three minutes later, as Ferreira delivered a ball off a set-piece situation into United's box, right at defender Morris Duggan.

What should have been a routine clearance turned into pure disaster.

Duggan barely grazed the ball with a sweeping whiff, leaving the ball to roll innocently into Musovski for something he's made a habit of in 2025: An easy goal.

On the other end, Seattle saw Yeimar give up a tough foul to United's leading xG man in Kelvin Yeboah, connecting on an elbow mid-air that the referees deemed worthy of a yellow at the top of the 18-yard box.

That meant Joaquín Pereyra, Minnesota's steely set-piece taker who has struggled lately, had a chance to half the lead in the 19th minute. The Argentine scorer put his recent struggles behind him, delivering a curling shot to the right side to halt Seattle's momentum and re-engage the Minnesota faithful.

After more chances for Morris and co., the Sounders found themselves holding onto a 2-1 lead late in the first half when Ferreira and United defender Jospeh Rosales collided. Ferreira had words for Rosales, whom he thought took a dive.

Rosales took clear exception to those words, getting back up to deliver an overt headbutt to Ferreira, who opted for theatrics for maximum effect by falling to the ground. The intention by Rosales was enough to get him tossed on a straight red, giving Seattle a manpower advantage for the final 50 minutes of the contest.

Seattle Watches the Game Slip Through Its Hands

Schmetzer was focused on one thing to open the second half, and that was engineering a third goal to break Minnesota's will with 10 men on the pitch.

In the 54th, Ferreira left a ball for Rusnák, who found himself completely unmarked, again, at the penalty spot. With Minnesota United's star keeper Dayne St. Clair practically reduced to a spectator, Rusnák launched the ball into the left post and watched as Musovski's follow was saved.

On the other end, the Loons continued to bide their time and played out a deep throw-in situation in the 61st. Star defender Michael Boxall delivered a ball into the box, which was headed by Duggan to Jefferson Diaz for an equalizing strike on his own cross-goal header.

With Seattle still reeling from the fact that it was tied with a team that was down a man, the Loons went back to the set-piece well on a corner kick in the 71st, as Pereyra hit it to the far post. Unmarked was a newly subbed-on Anthony Markanich, who slipped behind Frei for an uncontested header in close.

Dire straits approached for the Sounders, all of a sudden.

Jordan Morris Reminds the World Who He Is

The Sounders knew what was on the table. They were looking at one of the most disappointing losses in club history, playing a majority of the match up a man.

To Seattle's credit, its intensity in preventing that reality was clear. Both Cristian and Alex Roldan delivered inspired strikes that were parried by St. Clair, while Ryan Kent, playing his first action in three months, had some decent dribbles on the wing.

But with time whittling down and a corner to come in the 88th, Seattle needed to lean on its strong playoff resume for a late goal.

With the season on the line, Rusnák put the ball in perfectly to C. Roldan, who had a nifty single touch in the air to play it for Morris six yards away from the goal. Morris, Seattle's all-time leading scorer, took a sweeping shot on the first time and delivered a beauty that went past multiple defenders’ legs to equalize.

With one fire put out, the Sounders looked for a penalty-shootout win to save their season.

The Most Brutal Penalty Shootout in Seattle History?

Game 1's penalty shootout, which Seattle dropped 3-2 after three questionable misses, was an unquestionable disaster. Both Roldans failed to convert as Minnesota snuck out with a 1-0 series lead, prompting fans to wonder if those issues could reemerge in Game 3.

To Seattle's credit, it didn't have quite the same blunders early in the shootout. Andrew Thomas had subbed on for Frei, as Schmetzer's insistence on keeping Frei in for penalties after the Game 1 loss gave way to a last-minute decision to go with the Leagues Cup hero. Pereyra stepped to take the first penalty, and true to his recent form across the past few games, missed the post entirely.

In Thomas' diving play at the ball, he came down on his left hand, and Schmetzer revealed postgame that he had suffered a dislocated finger. With outfield players forced to step in the net if he couldn't continue, Thomas got the finger put back in place and continued to do his job.

After a make from Rusnák, Morris hit the crossbar to put the Sounders level things back up. By the end of the first 10 kicks, both teams had made four. It wasn't until United's seventh kick of the shootout that Thomas would notch his first save, diving right to stop a shot from Markanich.

Seattle's young star in Vargas stepped to the spot to try and put his finishing touches on a series in which he had scored a brace. Despite his undeniable acumen at striking the ball, Vargas decided to go for a delayed run-up, stopping his momentum just before striking the ball.

He hit the left post with St. Clair frozen in the middle of the net, immediately burying his face in his hands.

The injured Thomas would be called on again, and he would deliver another diving save to his right to stop Hassani Dotson's bid to put United ahead. Osaze De Rosario, the Tacoma Defiance man who scored the opening goal against Inter Miami in the Leagues Cup final, had a chance to put it away.

He went left like Vargas had, but St. Clair refused to fall for the same trick twice, stopping that ball in its tracks. After a make from St. Clair (yes, the shootout had reached the keepers), Thomas stepped to the spot. He got behind every bit of the ball, launching Seattle's hopes and dreams with it.

But alas, he had done his job in the net, and his shot wasn't meant to be as it was sent back by the crossbar, which St. Clair subsequently jumped up and kissed.

2025, a year full of the highest of the highs and the most scoring ever done by a Sounders team in a season, ended with its most sensational match.

And its deepest heartbreak.

Takeaways: That Can't Happen.

Nobody was happy postgame.

It's harder to find moments in the saga of a match where Seattle didn't miss an opportunity late than ones where they capitalized on the fact that the Loons had 10 men on the pitch. The one moment that was on the minds of Schmetzer and Rusnák, was the 54th-minute miss off the post from Rusnák that would have made it 3-1.

It was one of multiple chances in that early-to-mid second-half timeframe where Seattle had a chance to break Minnesota's will, and Rusnák acknowledged that was the best look of them all.

"I had the easiest chance probably of all season to put it away, 3-1, hit the post," Rusnák said. "I don't know why, but it just, right now, feels like it wasn't meant to be."

Schmetzer echoed that point, "It wasn't meant to be."

But the hard truth that the Sounders will have to come to terms with when the raw emotion of the moment subsides is that it was Seattle's night.

United came out like the team with far less playoff experience, and made the huge mistakes that every coach will point to after an elimination loss, and say, "That can't happen in the playoffs."

From Duggan's whiff to put Seattle up 2-0 to the most baffling and potentially costly first-half red card you'll ever see from Rosales, United made sure Seattle would not only have a chance, but an overwhelming burden to win this game from the early going until Thomas' final miss.

Simply put, Seattle had no choice but to pull this one out, and the final numbers had all the makings of a win.

After a Game 1 loss that saw Seattle fail to score on over two expected goals, the Sounders managed seven goals in two matches and generated 2.3 xG (eight shots on goal) on Saturday afternoon. Overperforming your xG against Minnesota’s back five is a feat, and Seattle did it twice in a best-of-three just to go home after losing two penalty shootouts.

When the Sounders look back on this game, they will see three set-piece goals against them and many more conceded penalties in scoring position, knowing Minnesota is the most reliant team in MLS on set pieces. There was never a question of how to beat United, but the Loons always found a way to get just what they needed in the way of chances with 10 men on the field.

In the shootout, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone you'd want to take a penalty to put your team through to the next round more than Vargas, who could have played his last match as a Sounder as his interest in Europe grows.

It was Seattle's night, and the reality the Sounders manifested feels surreal; it reads like a Twilight Zone episode that fans and players alike are unsure how to perceive.

"It just doesn't feel right," Rusnák said, to that effect.

With one trophy, a participation award at the FIFA Club World Cup and a Concacaf spot secured in 2025, the Sounders made no illusion about the MLS Cup being the main thing all along. To come up short in this fashion, after playing 50 matches in a season, was heartbreaking. Schmetzer has seen this club through every phase of its existence as a local, as a player and as its most heralded coach.

He wasted no time calling Saturday what it was.

"This is the toughest loss that I've ever experienced at this club," Schmetzer said. "The standard at our club is games like this don't happen, and we should have been moving on."