Rosales Is The Key

As Saturday night's match wore on, things were looking pretty dire for the Sounders. Down a goal thanks to a sloppy give-away, they're so far overall flat and uninspired performance did not exactly inspire confidence. Despite having Fredy Montero on the field, their attack was largely non-existent, as evidenced by they're lowly three total shots to San Jose's eight by half-time.

Then, in the sixty fourth minute, Mauro Rosales stepped onto the field to a roaring ovation from the 64,000 plus in attendance. He has quickly become crowd favorite, and he soon demonstrated why the crowd loves him so much. In fact, almost as soon as he stepped onto the field he made his impact on the match, the teams effectiveness and creativity in attack easily doubled. He assisted on two near misses by both forwards Montero and Ochoa, demonstrating the dimension that he brings to the right wing that the Sounders were really beginning to sorely miss.

Not only is it his effectiveness in attack that boosted the Sounders, but also his leadership and incredible work-rate. With these qualities he lifts every single player around him, arguably not only making them look better but also perform at a higher capacity. While the Sounders have continued to be successful in his absence, winning two league matches and their third consecutive US Open Cup, it is by far no surprise that as time wore on his absence was beginning to be felt. Nowhere was this more obvious than their 2-0 home loss against the Philadelphia Union. Without him, while still high in quality with the likes of Osvaldo Alonso and Alvaro Fernandez, the midfield suffers when it comes to holding the ball in accordance with the attack and in turn becomes increasingly susceptible to the attacking efforts by opposing teams. Both Philadelphia and San Jose played right through them in his absence.

In fact, for these very reasons Rosales deserves not only the Newcomer of the Year award, but Most Valuable Player as well.