Postgame Pontifications: Wakeup call

SEATTLE — Heading into their final game before the Leagues Cup break, the Seattle Sounders could hardly have been feeling better about themselves. Almost three full months of plugging along and doing enough to get results had morphed into a winning streak that had the Sounders genuinely feeling like they might be getting back to their own elite standards.

Over the course of 90 minutes — but really in less than 30 — that notion took a major blow. LAFC didn’t so much play the Sounders off the pitch in their 3-0 win on Saturday as illustrate the gaps that still need to close. The Sounders showed that they can play with LAFC, but in order to beat them they need the breaks to go their way. They did not.

The Sounders knew that LAFC would likely sacrifice possession for the ability to hit on the counter, and yet were helpless to stop it. That’s basically how LA got their first and third goals, quickly transitioning from turnovers to put the Sounders on their heels. The first one ultimately resulted in a penalty, while the second saw Denís Bouanga do what he does best and finish off a breakaway despite some quality effort to make it difficult. The second goal — a Mateusz Bogusz wonder-strike off a volley — was the kind of class the Sounders have often lacked, even when they are otherwise playing well.

“There are no excuses, they were better than us tonight,” Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said in a rather blunt assessment. “We shouldn’t have been down two goals.”

Schmetzer effectively took the blame for the Sounders’ slow start, admitting that the somewhat experimental lineup didn’t perform how the coaches envisioned. In his defense, I thought it made sense on paper. In practice, however, putting Pedro de la Vega on the right wing with Reed Baker-Whiting on the opposite side with Cristian Roldan at right back just ended up looking like a collection of players who weren’t quite sure what the others were going to do.

The lack of understanding certainly contributed to the first goal, which saw several players miss opportunities to make plays and resulted in a goal-mouth scramble that ultimately ended when Nouhou flopped on the ball and was called for a penalty.

“That first goal was just shooting ourselves in the foot like earlier in the year, that’s on us,” Schmetzer said. “That’s on me because we weren’t set up right. We were trying to get fresh legs but it didn’t work.”

That goal played directly into LAFC’s game plan, as they were never inclined to get too expansive anyway. When Bogusz took advantage of another Sounders mistake — Frei got himself way out of position while failing to get to a cross — the chances of a comeback were slim at best.

There was some promising play in the second half — after the Sounders went with a more familiar personnel grouping — but even then their best looks on goal didn’t came until second-half stoppage time, when the game was already well out of reach.

The most frustrating part about this game was that the Sounders didn’t really give themselves much a chance.

“The scoreline for us isn’t indicative of where we see ourselves when we look at teams like LAFC,” Cristian Roldan said. “That’s the frustrating part. In this game in particular, we didn’t feel like the gap was that big. They were good in front of goal and took their chances well.

“You have these types of games, you learn from them and you move on. We were on a good spell and confident going into this game, but the timing of the goals screwed up the game, deflated us and we’re chasing.”

Although Schmetzer said his preference would be to have another league game to sort of wash out the taste of this match, they’ll need to settle for some Leagues Cup matches for the next month. I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing, though.

Here’s what I think the Sounders need to focus on over the next month:

Don’t let the momentum die

Dispiriting as the loss to LAFC may have felt, it remains true that the Sounders have gone 11-3-5 in their last 19 games. That’s a pace of 2.0 points per game. One loss doesn’t undo all of that.

It’s not like the Sounders are matched up against world-beaters in the Leagues Cup, either. They’ll face Minnesota United and Liga MX’s Necaxa, two very middling teams, at home.

Minnesota United have never even gotten a point in nine previous trips to Seattle and are also in a horrible run of form. Prior to winning their last home game, they had gone 0-7-2 in their previous nine matches.

Necaxa is coming off an Apertura where they finished ninth in the 18-team league and are 1-2-1 in the current campaign.

Failing to advance out of the group should be not a realistic option and it would be ideal if the Sounders could play a couple elimination games as well, then get a couple of weeks off before returning to league play. That would seemingly set them up nicely for a stretch run that will include nine league games, mostly against opponents in the lower-half of the table. They’ll also have one more shot at LAFC in the Open Cup semifinals, with the winner of that game likely to host the final.

In other words, there’s a lot left to play for.

Figure out your best XI

While I still believe the Sounders’ main problem is that they don’t seem to have the type of game-changing talent they really need to stand toe-to-toe with the best teams in MLS, there’s no reason they can’t at least be more competitive and give themselves a puncher’s chance. To do that, though, they need to dial in who they are, what they’re best at, and which players need to be on the field to make them their most effective version of themselves. Leagues Cup presents a great opportunity to do just that.

If the Sounders can get four games in that tournament, that should be a solid sample size to get everyone on the same page and figure out a lineup. Maybe that includes Paul Rothrock on a wing, maybe Cristian Roldan is the right back, maybe Reed Baker-Whiting is the left back. Heck, it could even include Raúl Ruidíaz at striker. I’m pretty convinced that Pedro de la Vega is in that group as well, but they do need to figure out how he’s best deployed.

On a team that is built around positional play, they can’t afford to have him freelancing as much as he has been in his early appearances. I suspect that’s mostly a result of him trying to do too much. These matches will hopefully give us a better idea of what he can do once he’s fully integrated.

Make at least one addition

I don’t expect the Sounders to make a game-changing addition this window — that likely requires buying out Ruidíaz, which my reporting suggests is very unlikely — but they have the capacity to do something. I may sound like a broken record at this point, but doing nothing can’t be seen as an option even if that’s mainly optics.

The cold, hard fact is that LAFC have now gone 5-0-3 against the Sounders in their last eight meetings. The Sounders haven’t even scored against LAFC in their past three meetings at Lumen Field. Even if the Sounders believe in their roster, doing nothing is an awful look.

The obvious area for improvement seems to be on the wing. Yes, there’s already a fair amount of competition for minutes there, but I still think the Sounders need someone with a slightly different skillset than what they already have. Give me someone who can stretch the field and provide a direct threat.

Honestly, though, I could be talked into liking any number of moves. Is it possible to find a more natural backup for Albert Rusnák? Might João Paulo’s longterm successor be available? I don’t expect this player to be an automatic starter, but someone who can shake things up is absolutely needed.

To the degree that it’s possible to spin anything positive out of this loss, it’s that hopefully it was a wake-up call of sorts. The Sounders have done impressive work to get themselves back to a point where something can still be made out of this season, but there is clearly plenty of work to do before they return to the standard they set for themselves.