Roman Torres is the real hero of the Seattle Sounders

After Saturday night’s MLS Cup triumph, there’s a lot of praise going around for the Seattle Sounders. For Brian Schmetzer turning the team around after starting so terribly, for Nicolas Lodeiro helping push the attack to new levels after his arrival, for the team’s veteran core finally finding that extra gear to win the MLS Cup. But with celebrations in full swing, there’s one player who those praising the Sounders cannot forget — Roman Torres.

And it’s for a lot more than scoring the winning penalty kick, which Torres hammered home with a quality far greater than expected from a central defender. It’s not even for his performance in the final against Toronto FC, in which he was easily Seattle’s Man of the Match before Stefan Frei made that save in extra time to keep Toronto from scoring. It’s for everything he’s done since returning from a major injury — Torres made a profound impact on the Sounders since he rejoined the team in the summer.

Torres signed for the Sounders in early August 2015, and he made a huge impact then as well, starting four matches for Seattle and helping massively improve its defensive quality. Unfortunately, in that fourth start he suffered a torn ACL, an injury that ultimately saw the Panamanian international sidelined for 11-and-a-half months.

Once he came back, though, Torres made a huge and rapid impact. He was a halftime substitute in his return, a heavy loss to archrival Portland Timbers, and then started Seattle’s next MLS match, a 1-1 draw against the same San Jose Earthquakes he’d suffered his injury against.

Even in that game-and-a-half, Seattle’s defense looked far better than it had for weeks before his return, with Torres’ imposing physical presence, work rate, and impressive instincts helping stabilize and improve a tired and beleaguered unit.

From then on, Torres started every MLS match for the Sounders, with the team winning five times and losing just once in his eight starts. He was the rock that the last strides of Seattle’s comeback was built on. And while injuries kept him from taking the pitch in two of Seattle’s six playoff matches, its sterling defensive showing in its run to the MLS Cup final and the shutout of one of the top-scoring teams in the league in the final were largely because of the confidence and inspiration Torres gave his team, even when he wasn’t on the field.

And in that final, Torres was almost a man among boys. Playing all 120 minutes, Torres hardly put a foot wrong all match long, almost entirely neutralizing the threat of Jozy Altidore and constantly breaking up Toronto attacks before they could become too dangerous.

Any time the Sounders needed a defender to make a play, Torres was there to get the job done — and he was consistently their greatest threat on set pieces as well. Anything his team needed from him, Torres put every ounce of effort he could muster into, no matter what it was.

That’s exactly the kind of effort and quality that the Sounders needed to help turn their season around. And while the hiring of Schmeltzer and the signing of Lodeiro helped reinvigorate much of the team, the defense was still struggling. Once Torres returned, however, he gave Seattle exactly what it needed, and the team as a whole became so much better thanks to its defense being more reliable.

Torres was, quietly, a huge part of how Seattle became so good so quickly, and it is very likely that the Sounders never would have made the MLS Cup final without him. If that, on top of his performance in the final, doesn’t make Torres a local hero, nothing will.