There’s something about playing in Utah that consistently causes the Seattle Sounders to short-circuit.
During Brian Schmetzer’s tenure as head coach, they’ve won two MLS Cups, a Concacaf Champions League title and countless road games. They’ve won at altitude, they’ve won on short rest, they’ve won with rotated lineups, they’ve won in just about every condition; but they’ve never won in Utah.
After Saturday’s 2-0 loss, Schmetzer is now 0-7-2 and been outscored 16-2 against Real Salt Lake on the road. That includes eight shutouts and five multi-goal losses. RSL’s average Supporters’ Shield position during the previous eight seasons was 12th and they’ve only finished better than 11th twice.
This time, they were coming off a 4-0 thrashing in their MLS season opener and had just been eliminated from Concacaf Champions Cup following a 2-1 loss at home on Wednesday.
It didn’t matter.
Despite fielding a lineup that was effectively the same one that dominated Charlotte FC in their own season-opener a week earlier and flying high off an impressive offensive performance against Antigua at midweek, the Sounders struggled to generate consistent chances, were again undone by some mental errors and were ultimately forced to settle for a result that has become all too familiar in this fixture.
Perhaps predictably, this loss came no closer to triggering some grand epiphany than any of the others.
“I don’t have the answer,” Sounders 17-year veteran Stefan Frei said after acknowledging he doesn’t remember the last time he won a game in Utah. “The game is on a knife’s edge. One goal goes one way or the other. We just haven’t figured out how to get it to go our way. There are a lot of changes. There’s no constant. You’d think we’d be able to figure it out.”
As tends to happen during this fixture, the Sounders didn’t exactly help themselves, either.
The match started well enough. The Sounders came out on the front foot and generated a quality chance in the 5th minute when Albert Rusnák got a good look from the edge of the six-yard box and it was blocked out for a corner. On the ensuing restart, Rusnák found Jordan Morris, who rose above the defense and headed a shot that appeared destined to nestle into the side netting for an early lead. Instead, Georgi Minoungou tapped it in. Unfortunately, Minoungou was about four feet offside and the goal was disallowed.
Less than two minutes later, that came back to haunt the Sounders in a massive way. Off a seemingly innocuous throw-in with the defense fully set, Alexandros Katranis floated in a rather aimless cross. The ball took a bounce and appeared destined to be grabbed by Frei, who had come out to the six-yard box. But with a runner no where near the ball and Frei seemingly in his line of vision, Nouhou inexplicably headed the ball down, past Frei and into the net. Nouhou’s reaction suggested he didn’t hear Frei calling for the ball, but even then it’s unclear what he hoped to accomplish by claiming it.
“Mistakes happen,” Schmetzer said. “I haven’t talked to him about the sun, maybe there was something there. But it’s a standard soccer play. It’s one of those things we have to do better at. That’s us shooting ourselves in the foot.”
Of course, it was still early. The Sounders had another 80-plus minutes to turn the result around. They did appear to find the equalizer about midway through the second half when Rusnák finished off a feed from Morris. But that goal was disallowed as well when the referee deemed Morris to have been offside at the start of the play. While the call was tight — and likely correct — replays also showed that Morris could have done more to keep himself onside and that the extra step didn’t even matter.
The Sounders weren’t dramatically outplayed in this game. Although they ceded the possession battle, they did control the field, won the physical battles and were still in position to at least salvage a point until Forster Ajago got behind the defense and scored to make it 2-0 in the 79th minute.
If either of the offside goals count, it’s obviously a very different game. The same could be said for the own goal. But any MLS team is going to struggle with three mistakes that big and the Sounders clearly aren’t at a point where they can afford to do that, especially on the road against a team desperate for a result.
While positives were there to be found, the balance of play still felt an awful lot like last year’s depressing start. The Sounders can ill afford to let this snowball.
“If you want a dose of reality, we’ve won two games against a team from Guatemala,” Schmetzer said. “That’s not disrespecting Antigua, but they play in a league that’s not as strong as ours.
“The learning curve for us is we’ve done some good work. We have to understand scoring goals is challenging, but I don’t want to fall back on last year’s start where we started on the wrong foot.”
The good thing about this early-season fixture congestion is that a chance to change the narrative is right around the corner. But it’s not going to be easy.
The Sounders host Liga MX giant Cruz Azul on Wednesday, then host LAFC the following weekend before heading to Mexico City for the return leg of their Concacaf Champions Cup Round of 16 series. Within a couple of weeks, this season could either feel like it’s taking off or slipping away.
“I’m not worried,” Paul Arriola said. “We believe in ourselves. We have a good locker room.
“The trick for us is finding ways to win when we’re not at our best. Not one person is going to have to carry that load. I’m confident we’ll get better at that and figure out ways.”
