Visiting injured troops in late Summer 2014, BEF leader Sir John French described the war as being “a stalemate in our favor.” The war would last another four years but it is an apt description of the Seattle Sounders postseason.
The Sounders are winless in the postseason only advancing past FC Dallas by virtue of the away goals rule. The team’s offense has been D.O.A.
Yes, the same team that feasted on opposition scoring a hair under two goals a game, the Sounders has only managed to get by with one single score by defensive holding midfielder Osvaldo Alonso. With nearly $10 million of salary going to five forwards, it makes for a great spectacle in the regular season, but is shaping up for what could be another in a long line of forgettable playoff runs in the Emerald City.
Four Four Crew
With their 1-0 win over the Sounders, the Galaxy have forced Seattle into a do-or-die scenario. Seattle needs to win on Sunday. This means not only finding the net, but keeping the Galaxy off the scoreboard. A 2-1 Seattle win would see LA, not Seattle, advance due to the Away goals rule.
Alonso (hamstring) expects to return. Still the Sounders hope MLS Defender of the Year Chad Marshall can reprise his performance from last week. Marshall was everywhere putting out fires in the final third of the field putting in one of the best individual defensive efforts in any recent MLS playoff game.
“The officials made it clear that no one is getting sent off.”
Seattle was lucky–Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said as much–that Marshall’s center-back mate Zach Scott played the full 90. A variety of hard fouls, feckless challenges and a commitment to persistently infringe at any opportunity so intense a chapel filled with monks taking a vow of silence would loudly protest, Scott inspired the following comment from the Galaxy’s Landon Donovan: “The officials made it clear that no one is getting sent off.”
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Following last week’s match, I’m quite certain the MLS brass is rethinking that policy. There’s a thick line between physicality and reckless abandon. Zach Scott crossed it vigorously and frenetically last Sunday.
This underlines the key point: Seattle were so passive and pedestrian of offense and so afraid of the Galaxy’s attackers, the Sounders put very little going forward. The pressure all fell on the Sounder’s backline and goalkeeper Stefan Frei.
Meanwhile up top, Obafemi Martins, who burnished his credentials as a legitimate MVP candidate, Clint Dempsey spearheaded a blunt attack.
Obafemi Martins and Clint Dempsey’s first half against the LA Galaxy on November 23rd.
Seattle collapsed into their box seldom mounting more than a token defensive front until well past the final third. As exemplified by Galaxy defender Robbie Rogers, usually content to work in a cross, took uncontested shots from the top of the box.
The cautious approach worked if you are going to define a 1-0 loss as success. It certainly seems like a success compared to the 5-0 drubbing the Galaxy gave Real Salt Lake in the Galaxy’s only other home game this postseason.
But that approach is not good enough against a Galaxy team that led the league in both goals scored and fewest goals conceded.
The Sounders completed 221 passes in the attacking half against the LA Galaxy. However Seattle completed fewer than half of their passes in the final third (89) compared to 366/189 for the Galaxy.
Meaning: whatever sustained attack the Sounders created, seldom lasted as the team approached LA’s danger point.
Is it bunkering or are the Sounders MLS’s version of the Oakland A’s: regular season gang-busters who as Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane famously lamented in Moneyball, “My shit just doesn’t work in the playoffs.”
No kidding. In the loss, the Sounders postseason goalless streak reached 216 minutes. With Sunday’s game, the Sounders can well beat the record of 279 minutes set by Columbus Crew in 2002.
Sir John French, always seeking to break through a nonexistent German flank, was fired before the conclusion of World War I. Despite all of his success with the club–Seattle has never missed the playoffs and has numerous trophies–Schmid is going to have another long off-season if he can’t get a better performance out of his club on Sunday.