Andrew Thomas was at the lowest point of his professional career when the Seattle Sounders lost their shootout against Minnesota United that ended their 2025 season. Having been trusted by Brian Schmetzer to enter the game just before the end of regulation to be in net for the anticipated spotkicks as Seattle sought a place in the next round of the MLS Playoffs, he had a chance to continue climbing in a season that had already seen him reach new heights as a professional player. Despite dislocating his finger while forcing an attempt wide on the first shot, he went on to make a pair of saves during the shootout. But when it was his turn to shoot in the 10th round, Thomas clanged his spotkick off the crossbar. 

As Minnesota celebrated, he could feel the ground drop out from under him.

 “You feel that you’ve let your teammates down, you feel like you’ve let the fans down, the city down. That inevitably just takes a period of time to accept,” Thomas recently told Sounder at Heart. 

This article originally appeared in IV: The Sounder at Heart magazine. Issue 1 serves as a...