Arguably the best match in Major League Soccer last season had the worst ending in store for the Sounders.
Few will forget the manic final moments of regulation in that particular match, namely the Chad Marshall goal in the 90th minute that might have should have sent Seattle past FC Dallas and into the Western Conference Finals.
And then the deflating Walker Zimmerman goal moments later to even the aggregate and send the match into extra time. After penalties, the match was over. And so was Seattle’s season.
That day was characterized by FCD’s youth getting the better of Seattle in the final moments. Oscar Pareja’s subs, too, made the most of their time as Seattle tired late on. Zimmerman was one. By the end of the game, Seattle’s beat up and bruised back line had drafted Cristian Roldan into service at left back. Against a rampant attacking foil like Michael Barrios, the results were predictable.
That day was a dark one for Seattle. They get to exorcise some of those lingering demons on Saturday (6 p.m. PT; Q13 FOX/KIRO 97.3 FM/El Rey 1360 AM).
And in Frisco no less, the scene of the crime.
As of Tuesday, that task didn’t seem quite so daunting as it did last fall. After beating Sporting KC on April 17, FCD lost its next three matches a combined 8-0, more than 300 consecutive minutes without a goal.
That changed, though, on Wednesday, when FCD snapped the skid with a hearty 2-1 win over Portland. They finally looked like the team so many picked to win the Western Conference in the preseason, if not MLS Cup too.
So what to make of this particular iteration of FCD? How much of it will be recognizable from the one that advanced past Seattle last fall?
The quick answer is that it isn’t particularly different at all. The trickier question to answer is what Seattle plans to do about it from a tactical vantage point.
If you look at FCD’s three-match losing skid, two items immediately pop off the page: all three were on the road, and all three opponents play the same hotrod soccer FCD does. Vancouver is the most break-heavy team in the league, even more so than super-charged and possession-averse FCD. The Red Bulls play through the middle but do so at a breakneck pace. And Toronto FC relies on a barrage of long balls from Michael Bradley and funnels possession to Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore at the head of the formation as quickly as humanly possible.
The primary takeaway here is that FCD can struggle when faced with a mirror image of their style of soccer. Oscar Pareja’s men are so dangerous precisely because they not only don’t mind if your possession-oriented offense takes the air out of the ball, they actually prefer you to do so. Despite having an average of less than 50 percent possession in almost every game this year, FCD is third in MLS in shots per game and play almost no long balls.
This is directness without blindly bashing the ball over the top. Atletico Madrid’s Diego Simeone can relate.
That, from Seattle’s perspective, will be the most difficult matchup on Saturday. How do you play your preferred style, which is to boss the game, and not play into FCD’s desire to run at you on quick breaks in space?
The answer may ultimately be to fight fire with fire.
Every team is more direct on the road than they are at home, and you shouldn’t expect anything less from Seattle in Dallas this weekend. But Seattle’s diverse lineup options give it a ton of options on style of play, and as we discussed earlier this week in this space, Erik Friberg’s recent emergence as a key line-linker gives Sigi Schmid’s crew a lot of direct leeway. They can play speed soccer too.
Friberg is nothing if not a north-south creator. He hardly ever squares off passes, and if you watch him off ball he’s almost always prodding the build forward with his movement in space. That’ll be important this weekend, because while Seattle won’t want to gift FCD turnovers in the middle to push them into their break offense, Seattle knows it can play FCD’s fast-paced game and have some success in the attacking third. Friberg proved in the 2-0 win over San Jose that he can be the midfield’s engine room. They might need that again in Frisco.
Defensively, it’s difficult to boil down a single team to a single player with talents like Fabian Castillo and Barrios floating around, but FCD tends to go as Mauro Diaz goes.
Seattle does not employ a man-marking defensive system, but Osvaldo Alonso tends to pick up the runs of the opposing team’s No. 10 by dint of his ability to pester them out of their comfort zones. So as far as one-on-one battles go, the colliding orbits of Diaz and Alonso should be of prime interest. Alonso is undergoing something of a late-career renaissance (his average match rating is fifth in the league), and Diaz has been slow to return to his top form since an injury kept him out for part of April. That helps diagnose at least part of FCD’s breakdown during their recent slide.
But letting loose Diaz, arguably the most dangerous creative midfielder on his day in all of MLS, would be a mistake Seattle won’t overlook. In this case, cutting off the head of the snake means pushing Diaz out of the attacking third as often as possible and denying him space to operate. It just so happens cutting down open areas is an Alonso specialty.
Seattle is on something of a high right now with quality wins in its last two, and now five wins in seven matches. That said, Seattle has yet to pick up a win on the road this year, and its only point away from CenturyLink Field was secured on a miraculous last-second goal from Marshall against last-place Houston in a game the Sounders probably deserved to lose on balance of play.
It goes without saying that FCD provides a bit of a stiffer challenge. And if the returns from the last two matches are any indication, the Sounders are up for it.
