It is possible, if one is foolhardy and determined enough to try, to condense the whole of this pendulous Sounders season into a story about Nicolás Lodeiro’s hairstyle choices.



In retrospect, the first omen that Seattle was in for another rough start was probably when Lodeiro showed up at the team facility in March with his hair cut close to his scalp, as if with a Bic razor. Like Samson following the Delilah’s betrayal, without his jet-black locks Lodeiro was reduced to a mere mortal. Shorn from the Uruguayan national team ahead of the World Cup, Lodeiro looked for a while forlorn, a grey cartoon cloud hovering over his exposed dome.



Coincidentally or not – you be the judge – it was only after his mane grew back out in the early part of the summer that Lodeiro began to again resemble the 2016 league Newcomer of the Year and MLS Cup champion.



Ahead of the playoffs, boldly – some might say courageously – Lodeiro made...