Someone is Going to Score Eventually

With the Sounders current scoring drought, they have failed to score a goal in all three 2018 MLS matches, I decided to looked back at the team's leading scorer each of their nine seasons. The table is an interesting one. All of the names on it are iconic members of the Sounders short but highlight filled history. Two main things stood out to me, the 2013 scoring leader was very low and Obafemi Martins was very good.

The Leading Scorer for the Seattle Sounders for Each Year of Their Existence

It wasn't that the Sounders struggled to score goals in 2013. They scored 42 goals in 34 regular season games, amounting to 1.24 goals per game. That is a bit low, but not terrible. For comparison's sake last year's squad scored 52 goals and the 2016 team scored 44 goals. In 2017 Sporting KC scored 42 goals, ranking them 7th of 10 in that category. The thing about 2013 was no one player really pulled away and did anything special.

Eddie Johnson scored 9 goals in 21 games, which is equivalent to 14.5 over a 3 game season. That is a solid number for a complete season. Obafemi Martins and Lamar Neagle both scored 8 goals. All told the Sounders had 11 players score at least one goal in 2013. Really what prevented anyone from scoring double digit goals was the lack of consistency on the pitch. The Sounders only had three players appear in 30 (90%) of their MLS matches. 2013 just didn't produce any kind of special memorable goal scorers.

When it comes to goal scoring players 2014 and 2015 were completely unlike 2013. Obafemi Martins dominated the league. In 2015 he scored a ridiculous 15 goals in only 21 games played. That is a rate of .71 goals per game or equivalent to scoring 24 goals over a 34 game season. That is how many goals league leader Nemanja Nikolic scored for Chicago last season (and he played in all 34 games coincidently).

Another way to look at Martins' scoring prowess is his scoring percentage (the number of goals scored over all the shots taken). In 2015 Martins took only 42 shots to score his 15 goals, which is an even crazier 35% success rate. For comparison last year Nikolic took 118 shots to score his 24 goals, meaning he scored only 20% of the time he shot.

Martins 2014 season was also incredible. He scored 17 goals and also notched up another 13 assists. He was talked about for league MVP, although didn't end up winning the award. On the field Martins partnered beautifully with forward Clint Dempsey, who scored 15 goals and assisted on another 10. The Sounders used this powerful attack to capture the Supporters Shield, given to the team with the best regular season point total.

Looking at the Sounders top goal scorer in each of their MLS seasons reminds us that they will score a goal this year. They might not (probably won't) have a prolific scorer such as 2014 or 2015 Obafemi Martins when the year finishes, but someone will score goals. Even in 2013 when no one player dominated the goal scoring table the team managed to score 42 goals over their 34 games.

Sources: MLSSoccer.com