It’s almost hard to overstate the difference in Danny Musovski compared to where he was a year ago. Let’s try anyway…
At this time last year, Musovski had gone 20 games since his last MLS goal and was in the midst of a three-month absence due mostly to a series of injuries. By the end of the season, had played less than 750 minutes and contributed just two goals and two assists across all competitions, easily the least productive professional season of his career.
It didn’t start out much better this year. After a relatively unproductive preseason, Musovski struggled to find the back of the net in his first five appearances this year. Along the way, he missed a couple of sitters in Concacaf Champions Cup play and had run his goal-less drought to 28 MLS games.
Fast forward to Sunday and that all seems like ancient history. Musovski is coming off his second brace in three league games, leading the Sounders to a 4-0 road win over the LA Galaxy. Musovski now has 10 goals in MLS play and 12 across all competitions, both career highs for the 29-year-old. He also finds himself among the league leaders in terms of goals and xG per 90 minutes.
“There’s always ups and downs,” Musovski said during Sunday’s postgame press conference, crediting health and and an ability to manage niggling injuries as the biggest difference between last year and this year . “It’s never always good, it’s never always bad. Some years, you just have better opportunities than others.
“Forward momentum is huge. When you’re not scoring, it feels like it gets a little harder to get that first one. But once you get rolling and once you get a little bit of confidence, it helps you going into every single game.”
In a lot of ways, Musovski seems to be a good avatar for the Sounders as a whole. For large chunks of last year — even when they were playing well — scoring never really seemed to come easily. There were a lot of set pieces, a few others out of transition, but with at least one of Albert Rusnák or Jordan Morris involved in seemingly every single one.
Lately, the goals are coming in bunches and from just about everywhere.
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After their four-goal outburst against the Galaxy, the Sounders have now scored 26 goals in their past eight matches across all competitions. That’s the highest-scoring eight game stretch in club history, besting an eight-game run in 2014 in which they scored 23, which included a six-goal thumping of the Chicago Fire in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals.
It’s not just the number of goals or even the level of competition that’s so impressive this time, it’s that the goals are coming from so many different players in such a variety of ways. Snyder Brunell, who was making his MLS debut, became the 11th player to score in the last eight games. Of the 19 field players who have started at least once during Seattle’s 10-game unbeaten run, 15 have contributed at least a goal or an assist. Meanwhile, they’ve lost four different starters to injuries that have or will cost them at least a month of playing time.
After making seven changes from their midweek game, the Sounders scored three of their four goals after creating turnovers in the offensive end against the Galaxy. Their first goal came at the end of a 21-pass sequence that started with them winning a 50/50 ball near midfield. The second goal was also started by winning a ball at midfield, but this time they pressed forward with a little more urgency with Paul Rothrock delivering a incisive ball to Musovski, who finished off his own rebound. The third goal also came off a turnover, but one in their own end that allowed them to get into the open field, while the final goal was another ball off a 50/50 with a quick transition into attack.
This comes on the heels of a Leagues Cup run in which the Sounders finally figured out how to score on set pieces, while sprinkling in strikes of transition and patient build-up. Right now, it seems like they can score from anywhere on the field.
“Some national writer talked about how we have the deepest roster in MLS and I happen to believe that as well,” Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said. “I think the ‘next man up’ theory is relevant because you can never go from one end of a MLS season to the other without adversity. You must have in your pipeline, on your bench, guys that come in and do the business and we have them.
“It certainly makes my job easier.”
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