For one half, the Seattle Sounders looked unplayable. That’s not a phrase that’s been written often this year. Seattle dominated the opportunities, held their opponents away from goal and took advantage of three chances to find a not-unassailable (but certainly imposing) halftime advantage.
That all changed after the break.
The Philadelphia Union came out swinging, and Seattle retreated into its shell. Chances began to fly, and the Union grabbed two goals in nearly as many minutes. No longer was it possession for the sake of possession — it was now possession for defense’s sake. It’s what Seattle has struggled to do this year: protect a rare lead.
They finally did it, even if it took 52 days. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t easy. But it happened, and Seattle has (just) its second win of the year at the tenth time of asking.
“When you score three goals away from home, your expectation is that you’re going to win,” Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said. “And that was the expectation at halftime. We’re certainly going to learn from nervy moments in the second half, but that was a monster performance from a group that, you know, it’s them against the world.”
The first half was everything that this team can be. In possession, the team was utterly commanding: each pass found its mark with aplomb. Obed Vargas looked to be the best player on the pitch — his command of the midfield pushed the Sounders into the attack time and time again. When Raúl Ruidíaz struck from near the halfway line after pickpocketing José Martínez, it was deserved. When Vargas added a pretty curler, it was a point proven twice. When Ruidíaz converted a penalty, it seemed too good to be true.
“I was right behind [Raúl], and I yelled ‘Shoot!’ right away,” Cristian Roldan said. “He’s a special player because he always has an eye for goal. You see it in training, you see it in games, right? He always looks, so the entire half, I was telling him, ‘Look at the goalie, look at the goalie’, and so any chance that he got he was going to shoot.”
But out of the intermission, Philadelphia introduced Jack McGlynn, Alejandro Bedoya and Kai Wagner, three regular starters held out of the game from the outset due to the restrictions surrounding lineups in rescheduled matches. Those three turned the game on its head: Wagner swung in four crosses — completing three — in the second half alone, and McGlynn’s goal in the 57th minute was compounded by a Bedoya assist to Daniel Gazdag that brought the deficit to just one.
It was now all about protecting a lead — something that Seattle has struggled to do this season. Just three days ago at DC United, a red card turned a 1-0 advantage into a deficit that despite their best efforts, the Sounders couldn’t recover.
“Maybe I think it was mostly what inspired us the most was the way we ended our last game,” Vargas said. “I think we were all eager to play this game and get going again, because you know, playing with 10 men and being the better team and creating all those chances — it was unfortunate that we didn’t have enough time to tie the game [in DC]. But I think it was just not momentum from last game that inspired this team to keep going. It really fueled us, you know, we proved it to ourselves and that’s the most important thing.”
But they held on in this one, and that was enough to please Schmetzer. He didn’t even need João Paulo, whose inclusion on the bench Schmetzer said wasn’t marred by injury; He intended to use him, but Vargas and Atencio were too good.
“[It’s] testament to the two young kids in the middle of the field, and those kids covered a lot of ground,” Schmetzer said. “And that was a decision that I made in the second half, that I was going to go with the guys that were on the field.”
When confronted with Vargas’ performance, it raised questions for the manager.
“We’re talking about Josh or Obed with [João Paulo], but he’s now put himself in the conversation. We’re going to play against LA Galaxy without Alex Roldan, so if I put Cristian Roldan back at right back like I did against DC, who’s going to play where Cristian plays?”
“You might just have seen your answer tonight.”
The Sounders are back in action against the Galaxy on Sunday — another quick turnaround — but one that Schmetzer believes the team will be ready for. That match kicks off at 3:45 PM Pacific Time, at Lumen Field.
Feature photo by Caean Couto / Sounders FC Communications