Lodeiro and Ruidiaz: Seattle Sounders’ South American spark

They might not be the most high-profile South American players in MLS, but Nicolas Lodeiro and Raul Ruidiaz have Seattle Sounders on the verge of glory.

The last and only time Seattle Sounders won the MLS Cup, Nicolas Lodeiro had just arrived in the league from Argentine giants Boca Juniors.

The Uruguayan has played for some of the most well-renowned sides across the world of soccer, including Nacional in his homeland, Corinthians in Brazil, and Ajax in Europe before joining Boca. Legendary, historic teams.

The MLS incarnation of Seattle Sounders, on the other hand, was less than ten years old when Lodeiro joined, but it has been on Puget Sound where he really found his feet. Aged 27, the playmaker was entering his peak years when, with the 2016 MLS season already underway, he made the move to the Pacific Coast.

He wasted no time establishing himself as one of the best players in the league and helped drive Seattle to its first MLS Cup. This was a team sat second from bottom in the Western Conference when he arrived, and 20 games later they were lifting the cup. He duly picked up the MLS Newcomer of the Year award, but there were few players more valuable to their team in 2016 and there was a strong case for him to be named MVP.

Four of his eight goals that season came in the playoffs, and it was his outstanding performance in the Western Conference Semifinals against Dallas which really set the tone for that postseason run. To round off his season he was one of the players who netted in the penalty shootout which decided the final against Toronto FC.

In his three full seasons since, Lodeiro has never failed to reach double figures for assists and has become an integral part of Brian Schmetzer’s side. He helped propel them to another MLS Cup final in 2017, in which Toronto took their revenge, and in 2018 enjoyed arguably his best season with the club despite being knocked out of the playoffs by rivals Portland Timbers.

He is, without doubt, one of Seattle’s brightest stars, and his importance to the side was illustrated when he was named club captain ahead of the 2019 season.

Joining him on the roster in 2018 was another South American, Raul Ruidiaz. Like Lodeiro, the Peruvian made an immediate impact on his new team, scoring 13 goals in 15 starts after jetting over to Cascadia immediately following Peru’s involvement at the World Cup. Ruidiaz didn’t take a break then, and this work ethic has been evident ever since.

It’s no surprise that Lodeiro assisted both of Ruidiaz’s outstanding goals against LAFC, but it is a surprise that this hasn’t happened more often this season with how well they fit together.

The diminutive Ruidiaz is made in the mold of the classic South America striker: strong, evasive, and hard-working with a low center of gravity which makes him difficult for defenders to handle.

Ruidiaz makes sure he stays in central areas, ready to capitalize on any chances which come his way. He will press from the front in defense, but his main aim is to make sure he is in the optimal position to score goals.

The heatmaps below, from SofaScore, show the scheming of Lodeiro on the edge of the final third (top) and the goalscoring readiness of Ruidiaz (bottom), whose heatmap is concentrated around the penalty spot, despite having taken no penalties.

Ruidiaz has found the net 14 times this season, with four assists to boot, but it is in the playoffs where he’s really come into his own. Three of those goals and two of those assists have come in the postseason, and his link-up play with Lodeiro further down the coast in California was a joy to watch.

“The playoffs are a rite of passage, you have to understand how important they are and how critical they are to the success of the whole organization,” Seattle Sounders GM Garth Lagerway said in an interview with The Athletic.

“When Raul played against Portland, I thought that he got it. In the second leg especially, I thought he was magnificent. That performance really, really stood out. In the biggest moment, he really delivered his biggest performance, probably up until the LAFC game last week.”

The goals against LAFC were special, both assisted by Lodeiro and, perhaps surprisingly, the first time he had scored more than once in a game this season. Lagerway and Seattle hope Ruidiaz has one more big game left in him this season as the Sounders host Toronto FC on Sunday in MLS Cup.

Though there may be more lauded Latin American players in MLS, especially at Atlanta United and LAFC, and neither Lodeiro or Ruidiaz made the 2019 MLS Best XI, they are the ones with a chance of final glory, and the interplay between them will be key to Seattle’s fortunes.