Your Friday (Playoff) Kickoff: Why history is on Seattle’s side vs. Dallas in Match 3

The home-field advantage continues. Not just the normal “Lol MLS” home-field advantage, where home teams win at a rate higher than any other league in the world. The “Seattle is a city of nightmares” home-field advantage the Sounders seem to have over FC Dallas. The good folks at MLSsoccer.com pulled this stat after Match 1…

Seattle are unbeaten in 18-straight home MLS matches against FC Dallas (14W-0L-4D incl. playoffs) dating back to 2012. There has only been one longer home unbeaten run by one team over another in MLS history: New England’s 20 straight against New York from 2002-13.

The actual date of Dallas’ last MLS win in Seattle is May 25, 2011. Seattle haven’t lost at home to FC Dallas since the first term of the Obama administration. Seattle haven’t lost at home to FC Dallas since Mumford and Sons got consistent radio play. Seattle haven’t lost at home to FC Dallas since people listened to the radio. Seattle haven’t lost at home to FC Dallas since your parents didn’t understand how to use Facebook. Seattle haven’t lost at home to FC Dallas since “Friday” by Rebecca Black was YouTube’s most popular video. Seattle haven’t lost at home to FC Dallas since CHIVAS USA.

It’s been a long time, y’all. And there’s no real explanation for it beyond winning on the road in MLS is hard, and winning against a team as consistently excellent as Seattle is hard, and winning against a consistently excellent team on the road is really, really hard. It’s not like Seattle has a particular grudge against FC Dallas. But, the fact is, no one at FC Dallas knows what it’s like to win in Seattle as a member of FC Dallas. That matters on some level. Seattle can’t just rely on home-field advantage to carry them home, though. They’ll need that home-field advantage…

They’ll need to put in the kind of performance you’ve come to expect from a healthy Sounders lineup. It seems like injuries have been a constant for this group over the last couple of years. The team’s stars have gotten older and less available as time has gone on. When this group has all of their best pieces at their disposal, though, they still have enough juice to remind everyone why they’re the league’s most successful team over the last decade or so.

Well, dear reader, I’m here to inform you that they have everyone available for tonight. Raúl Ruidíaz, Cristian Roldan, João Paulo – they’re all ready to go. It sounds like Reed Baker-Whiting is good to go, too. The Seattle Death Star may not be as powerful as it used to be, but it is fully operational at this point.

They did have a few moments in Match 1 where Jesús Ferreira almost turned the game on its head. They got overrun quickly in Match 2. All it takes to potentially make this a long night for Seattle is an early goal that forces their sometimes lackluster attack to chase the game all night. Which, hey, speaking of…