RENTON — It is often the case that any given play is rarely as good or bad as it likely seemed in real time. When breaking down film, it’s common to see mitigating circumstances that were missed.
That apparently wasn’t the case when Seattle Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer went back and rewatched the first two goals his team allowed in their 3-0 loss to LAFC on Saturday.
“The way I felt after the game, the goals we gave up almost worse on film,” Schmetzer said. “I didn’t like the way the [first] two goals manifested themselves and at that point they controlled the game.”
Schmetzer’s frustrations on the first goal centered around the Sounders failing to cut out the danger before the mad scramble inside the six-yard box that ultimately led to the penalty. Both Obed Vargas and Jackson Ragen had chances to win duels in LAFC’s end, Yeimar Gomez Andrade effectively got taken out by a dummy and Cristian Roldan got turned a couple of times before the cross that João Paulo deflected toward his own goal.
The second goal came from a foul the Sounders really didn’t need to give away, as the ball was already well beyond Omar Campos when Cristian Roldan gave him a relatively light shoulder check. Stefan Frei then came way off his line in an attempt to clear the free kick even though the Sounders seemed to have it covered, leaving the goal mouth exposed. Mateusz Bogusz hit a great volley to score, but it's one Frei likely could have defended rather easily if he had been in better position.
Frustrating as those plays were, Schmetzer also acknowledged that LAFC were simply better on the day. He knows the Sounders must clean up their mistakes if they are to end their eight-game unbeaten run against LAFC when they face off next month in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals and attempt to climb the table in league play.
“The margins in this league are very slim,” Schmetzer said. “They have some guys who, when they had their chances, they converted. We had some chances and we didn’t convert. We have to make plays.
“We’re going to keep trying, work on our defending, make sure we play near perfect and we’re going to catch up to teams.”
Focus on Leagues Cup
The Sounders won’t have long to linger on the loss to LAFC and will, in fact, start fresh when they begin Leagues Cup play on Friday against Minnesota United.
“It might be a good thing for this to happen before Leagues Cup,” Sounders midfielder Albert Rusnák said. “Maybe we find some extra motivation for the Minnesota game and then we’ll look to get back into it for MLS.”
Rusnák was also insistent that as frustrating as the LAFC performance was, the Sounders should still be more focused on the previous 18 matches where they went 11-2-5 across all competitions.
“We were in good form, had good momentum, were collecting points and we could have gotten closer to top 3,” he said. “But it’s one game and we can’t forget about what we did well in the previous games. There are plenty of games to collect more points.”
Yeimar suspended
You’d be excused for forgetting this, but Yeimar Gomez Andrade was red carded in the Sounders’ last Leagues Cup game last year against Monterrey. Similar to league play, the suspension carries over to this year’s Leagues Cup, which means that Yeimar won’t be available against Minnesota. In his place, the Sounders will likely use one of Nathan or Jon Bell.
