Raúl Ruidiaz

Lore & Background

When the Sounders held the first overall selection in the 2016 MLS SuperDraft, the choice of young Peruvian winger-forward Raúl Ruidíaz was met with cautious optimism. He was raw, untested in North American competition, and far from a household name. What the club's front office saw, and what the crowd at Lumen Field (then CenturyLink Field) would learn to trust, was a striker with an almost preternatural sense of where to be and when to strike. Within his first two seasons, Ruidíaz had carved out a starting role and become the team's most reliable goal-scorer, a player who could unlock a defence with a single well-timed run behind the line.

His defining moment arrived in the 2019 MLS Cup Final. After a tense, goalless first leg in Seattle, the second leg in Atlanta carried the weight of the franchise's first major trophy. Ruidíaz, operating as the lone forward, found space with a run that split the back line and finished coolly past the keeper. The goal was not flashy; it was surgical. The Sounders' first MLS Cup was sealed, and Ruidíaz was named the match's Most Valuable Player. The image of him sliding on his knees in the Atlanta turf, jersey number 11 visible, became one of the most enduring visuals in Sounders history.

Over five seasons, Ruidíaz accumulated a reputation as a player who was statistically consistent but qualitatively transcendent in the moments that mattered. He was not always the top scorer on the roster, but he was the player the team turned to in cup finals, late-season deciders, and high-pressure matches. His departure after the 2021 season, when his contract expired, left a void that the club has yet to fully fill. For the fanbase, he remains the face of the 2019 title and a symbol of what a single, perfectly placed strike can mean to a city's football identity.

In Their Own Story

The air in Atlanta was thick, humid, heavy with the kind of silence that falls over a stadium when two thousand Sounders fans in the away section hold their breath in unison. Eighty-some minutes in. The score is level. The aggregate is level. Ruidíaz, breathing hard, his white-and-green kit dark with sweat, receives the ball on the left channel. He doesn't look up. He doesn't need to. Two touches, a cut inside, and then the run—the run he's made a hundred times in training but which, tonight, feels like it's been waiting five years for this exact second. The defender steps up. Ruidíaz is already past him. The keeper comes out. Ruidíaz doesn't shoot. He lets the keeper commit, then slides the ball across the six-yard box, low, patient, inevitable. The net ripples. The away section detonates. And Raúl Ruidíaz, number 11, drops to his knees in the Georgia dirt and lets the sound hit him.

Reader's Guide

Raúl Ruidíaz (born 1992, Lima, Peru) arrived in Seattle as the 2016 MLS SuperDraft's first overall pick and spent five seasons (2016–2021) as the Sounders' primary forward, wearing the number 11 shirt.

His career with the franchise is defined less by raw goal totals than by quality and timing. Ruidíaz was a clinical, movement-based striker who thrived in the spaces between defenders, and he was consistently the player the Sounders leaned on in their highest-stakes matches.

The pinnacle of his Sounders career came in the 2019 MLS Cup Final. In the second leg against Atlanta United, Ruidíaz scored the decisive goal to secure Seattle's first MLS Championship. He was named the final's Most Valuable Player, a recognition that captured the consensus: the title belonged to him as much as to the team.

Beyond the trophy, Ruidíaz's lasting impact is cultural. He gave the Sounders fanbase a finisher they could trust in the moments that defined the season. His calm, composed approach to the box—minimal touches, decisive runs, no wasted motion—became a template for what the club aspired to in its attacking play. Even after his departure, the image of his 2019 winning strike remains one of the most referenced moments in Sounders history, a reminder that sometimes a single goal, placed perfectly, is enough to change everything.

Did You Know?

• Raúl Ruidíaz was selected with the first overall pick in the 2016 MLS SuperDraft, making him the Sounders' top draft investment of that era.
• His 2019 MLS Cup-winning goal came in the second leg of the final, after a goalless first leg, meaning that single strike was the difference between a title and another empty season.
• Ruidíaz was named the MLS Cup Final Most Valuable Player in 2019, an individual honour that underscored his central role in the Sounders' first major championship.
• He represented Peru at the international level, bringing South American flair and a direct, physical style to the Sounders' attacking play.