Seattle Sounders Win MLS Supporters Shield The Old Fashioned Way (VIDEO)

Oct 25, 2014; Seattle, WA, USA; The Seattle Sounders FC pose with the Supporters

"“To touch is to heal.To hurt is to steal.If you want to kiss the sky,Better learn how to kneel.On your knees, boy.”-U2, Mysterious Ways"

It was boldly predicted that Sigi Schmid’s Seattle Sounders would simply draw with Bruce Arena’s Los Angeles Galaxy on Saturday afternoon at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, Wash. As it turns out, the Sounders won their first-ever Supporters Shield the old-fashioned way, defeating the Galaxy 2-0 before another sellout crowd. WIth the win, Seattle gain home field advantage for the entire postseason. They also get placed in Pot A of the 2015-16 CONCACAF Champions League Draw.

Let’s take a look at six things we learned, followed by player ratings for the match between the Seattle Sounders and Los Angeles Galaxy.

1. Marco Pappa the hero for Seattle

Seattle won the Supporters’ Shield through their depth, and midfielder Marco Pappa, who came in after 73 minutes, led the way. In the 85th minute, he gave Seattle the lead on a sequence from Obafemi Martins and Clint Dempsey and in the fifth minute of stoppage time, Pappa slammed the door shut. Take a look at these gems.

2. Seattle tapped to complete the Treble

We here at the MLS Multiplex are confident that more history will be made with Seattle winning the MLS Cup. This has been a successful season for the Sounders, if not the best ever, and the Sounders have the right talent and depth to make their treble dream realized.

“The Shield is another feather in the cap of our organization,” Schmid told MLSSoccer.com’s Ari Liljenwall. “People forget that we’re still a very young organization. We’re six years in and we’ve won four Open Cups and a Supporters’ Shield.

“Our mantra for this season was that we were going to try and be greedy. We have one more thing [the MLS Cup] to be the ultimate greedy people. We’ll enjoy it today and tomorrow. Then it’s back to work.”

“To me, if you look around at other leagues, when you win the league it’s a big deal,” Dempsey said. “And that’s how we’re going to treat it, as a big deal. No matter what the public thinks of it, we were the best team throughout the course of the year.”

3. Robbie Keane’s absence results in calculated loss for Los Angeles

The Galaxy elected to sit out captain Robbie Keane on Saturday due to his inability to cope with the artificial surface. Not having Keane in the lineup was costly as it prevented the Galaxy from having at least one successful sequence go their way.

“We can’t play a whole lot better than that,” Galaxy midfielder Landon Donovan told MLSSoccer.com’s Scott French. “If I’m not mistaken, I think they had three shots? Four? Up until the goal [by Marco Pappa in the 85th minute], you would have thought that they were never going to score.

“Give them credit. They made a play that made the difference, but I think we’re OK with the way we played,” he continued. “We just needed to find a goal, and that let us down today. Overall, an excellent performance, and, obviously, results matter — it’s hard to lose — but I think we can be confident with how we’re playing going forward.”

4. Galaxy also missed Omar Gonzalez’s presence, too

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Another contributing factor to the loss was Omar Gonzalez being suspended for this contest. But Donovan believes that the Galaxy will be able to turn things around when Gonzalez returns for the MLS Cup Playoffs.

We’re confident that having him there, having Omar back next week, that we’ll look a little bit different,” Donovan told French. “But that being said, we played very well tonight, and if we play like that in the playoffs, there’s a good chance we’re going to be holding the trophy by the end.”

5. Teams now know how to defeat Los Angeles

Matthew Doyle, the Armchair Analyst on MLSSoccer.com, wrote that the one thing that can beat Los Angeles is to disrupy the rhythm. The sixth thing we learned is, of course, the stats, but here’s what Doyle wrote regarding the disruption of the Galaxy’s rhythm.

"“This is where the boxscore (especially possession) can be a liar. Yes, LA were smoother and more purposeful with the ball, and yes, they did create more danger than the Sounders. But that doesn’t mean they created much danger at all.Seattle, for all their struggles through 75 minutes, did a superb job of blunting the Galaxy’s attacks and turning decent looks into low-percentage shots, and low-percentage shots into no-hopers:"

"Those 13 shots, including both Alan Gordon’s whiffs at the end, combined for less than one expected goal. Take out Gordon, and LA’s number plummets to about .51.The Sounders may have spent all day on the back foot, but they still kept their shape and scrambled well. It would have taken something extraordinary from the Galaxy, and without Robbie Keane, they didn’t have “extraordinary” in their bag today.”"

6. Once again…The Stats Don’t Matter

That leads to the sixth thing we learned: the stats don’t matter. Los Angeles dominated a number of categories but they don’t matter one bit if the team defense nullifies everything. Seattle’s team defense and organization is what will make or break their chances of securing the Treble of American club soccer.

Team Statistics

Seattle Sounders to left, Los Angeles Galaxy to right

Seattle Sounders Player Ratings

Stefan Frei 7, Chad Marshall 6, DeAndre Yedlin 7, Leonardo Gonzalez 6, Zach Scott 5.5, Brad Evans 6, Gonzalo Pineda 5.5, Lamar Neagle 7, Osvaldo Alonso 7, Clint Dempsey 7.5, Obafemi Martins 8, Marco Pappa 9, Djimi Traore NR

Los Angeles Galaxy Player Ratings

Jaime Penedo 4, A.J. DeLaGarza 3, Dan Gargan 2.5, Leonardo 3, Robbie Rogers 3, Baggio Husidic 3, Juninho 4, Marcelo Sarvas 3.5, Stefan Ishizaki 4, Gyasi Zardes 4, Landon Donovan 3.5, Alan Gordon NR, Jose Villareal NR