It’s been an interesting couple weeks to be a Seattle Sounders fan. The Sounders, of course, won their first game of the year, a confidence-building win over the New York Red Bulls. The goals from Clint Dempsey, Jordan Morris and Harry Shipp all doing their part to aid in the good feelings. The game also featured standout performances from Joevin Jones, Cristian Roldan and even Gustav Svensson, who’s proving himself to be a regular Swedish Army Knife.

But then Dempsey went on the international stage and bagged himself a hat trick. That doesn’t do much for the Sounders directly, but it sure is nice knowing that the Designated Player appears to be back to his old self.

Speaking of Svensson, we also got to interview him. He’s got some great stories about playing in Crimea at the time of the Russian invasion and apparently even played a game in Turkey in front of a 45,000-strong crowd of all women. Definitely worth a listen.