Postgame Pontifications: Can’t catch a break

For a brief moment, it looked like the Seattle Sounders had finally caught a break. After struggling to generate genuine scoring chances for the first 90-odd minutes, Obed Vargas controlled the ball in the penalty area and then was taken down by Henry Kessler. Referee Fotis Bazakos immediately pointed to the spot.

But almost as quickly, Bazakos had his finger to his ear, indicating that VAR had messaged him to delay the penalty while they reviewed the card.

As soon as the replays were shown, it was pretty obvious the call was going to get overturned. Whether it was part of his natural motion or not, Vargas touched the ball with his hand and gained some sort of advantage from the move. Bazakos took his time to review it all, but ultimately came down with the perfectly justifiable decision to not award the penalty.

Instead of having a chance to equalize from the spot in stoppage time, the Sounders were forced to settle for another disappointing result. This time, it was a 1-0 loss to St. Louis City.

Following the pattern of tough breaks, the only goal the Sounders conceded came on a silly mistake. Playing a simple ball, Jackson Ragen slipped on the wet grass and then handled the ball to set up a free kick. Eduard Löwen hit it almost perfectly, bending it over the wall and with enough pace to get it past Stefan Frei. It was St. Louis’ only real scoring chance until late in the match when the Sounders started throwing numbers forward.

“There were a lot of challenges this week,” Sounders winger Paul Rothrock told the media after the match. “But I think we had a good mentality. We felt good as a group. Conceding early early hurt us. They sat in a low block all game.

“We’ll get better as games progress. I have no doubt the results will start coming. We just move onto the next one.”

Only a week ago, the Sounders were riding high off a resounding 5-2 win over LAFC. Since then, they were unceremoniously bounced from Concacaf Champions Cup; lost Paul Arriola to a likely-season-ending knee injury; and found out Jordan Morris and Pedro de la Vega had suffered muscle injuries that will keep each of them out for at least a month. Just to salt the wounds, they also were playing without Yeimar Gomez Andrade (who had to attend to some personal matters in Colombia) and head coach Brian Schmetzer, who picked up an illness.

On top of all that, the St. Louis match marked their eighth competitive game in the span of 25 days — which included about 17,000 miles of travel — to start the season. It’s not just the wear and tear of playing and travel, it’s that the Sounders were unable to string together more than two consecutive days of training between games and were often unable to even do that.

Against St. Louis, the Sounders still managed to hold their own. Despite playing on short rest and on the road, the Sounders were able to dominate possession and play most of the game in St. Louis’ end.

But after scoring an early goal, St. Louis never seemed inclined to come out of their defensive shell.

Apparently gone are the days where they rely on a hard-press to help generate attacking moments. Instead, former centerback Olof Mellburg has transformed them into a team very much in his image. They tended to sit in a low block and look for opportunities to counter.

For all the Sounders’ time on the ball, they struggled to create meaningful scoring chances. Facing backup goalkeeper Ben Lundt, they were only able to put one shot on frame. Of the Sounders’ 15 shots, only eight were from inside the penalty area and three of those were blocked.

“I thought guys got into good spots,” stand-in head coach Freddy Juarez said. “Maybe we weren’t daring enough to get in behind. We can work on more finishing, but it’s tough when you’re playing Wednesday and Saturday every week.”

For the next three months, the Sounders will only have to worry about league play and they have just two midweek games during that stretch. Short-handed or not, the Sounders will at least have the opportunity to make adjustments.

“I don’t think people realize what we have to do to prepare for these games,” Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldan. “Not making any excuses, but you travel but it becomes disjointed because you’re not able to train and aren’t able to work on things you need to do better. You have to rely on film. Injuries happen. We’re trying to put our best foot forward.

“We’ve not had a regular week of training. We’re just struggling with results. Hopefully those things get corrected.”