The whistle blew and a haze fell on CenturyLink Field. Players demurely shook hands and applauded fans. Coaches combed over brief post-match synopses. The Brougham End continued with their drums and chants and flags.
But the haze was there, like a filmy sense of injustice falling over the cool evening like a pall. The game should not have gone like this. It never felt like it should’ve veered in this direction. And yet here were the surprising Colorado Rapids, pouring out of Seattle with another three points against the odds.
Seattle, despite its dominance, was left in the lurch. Again.
Despite a series of eye-popping statistics that showed Seattle as the ascendent team on its way to at least a point, the Rapids bucked trends again by taking a 1-0 win over Seattle on Saturday. Axel Sjoberg’s goal just before halftime was the match’s only tally, and that’s how it finished. Despite everything.
Saturday’s match was an eye-opener in a number of ways. Here are three things in particular we learned from it.
The Rapids don’t need oxygen
Under Pablo Mastroeni this year, the Rapids have thrived in situations like these. They’re basically a roaring fire that doesn’t need to be fed by oxygen to survive. They don’t need possession, they don’t need a bevy of chances and they certainly aren’t troubled by teams that rack up shots.
Their game plan is surprisingly direct, but it works. It’s what’s allowed them to claw their way to the top of the Western Conference via half chances, four-touch builds and lethally effective set pieces. And it’s what bit the Sounders on Saturday for the second time against this team this season. Of course it was a corner kick.
Look at these numbers and weep. Seattle owned a 66-34 edge in possession, out-shot the Rapids 17-9, out-passed the Rapids 650-348, out-crossed the Rapids 16-1, had a 10-2 edge in corners, and held Colorado to a subpar pass success rate of 76 percent.
The Rapids had one shot on goal in 90 minutes. It was Sjoberg’s header. It went in. The Rapids won.
“It’s not a beauty contest,” Rapids coach Pablo Mastroeni said after the match. “It’s all about winning.”
Never was that more evident than on Saturday.
The Rapids certainly didn’t make it pretty, but they did do it effectively. Not one Colorado attacking player had an individually outstanding game - Jermaine Jones was surprisingly quiet - but Micheal Azira and Sam Cronin were outstanding in the defensive midfield, Seattle missed chances and Colorado cashed in on its one big one. Soccer can be a frustrating game when things seem to go well and the results don’t fall. This game fell firmly in that category.
Sounders performance contrasts the result
Based solely on the cold afterglow of the result, one would assume the Sounders didn’t play particularly well. Sure, the Rapids entered (and left) as the top team in the Western Conference, but Seattle was shut out for the third time this season and now have four fewer total goals than any team in the conference.
But that wasn’t the case. Or anything even close to the case, really.
In literally every way except the scoreline, Seattle’s overall team performance won’t leave Seattle coach Sigi Schmid with a sour taste in his mouth - that’ll just be down to the final score. Seattle did better than it has all year at chance creation, notably at pushing players into the box and generating more meaningful and deadly scoring opportunities. The Sounders snapped off a whopping 11 shots in the box, four of which tested Rapids keeper Zac MacMath.
Notably, there were two golden chances that just missed. Clint Dempsey, who had unquestionably his best game of the season, fired directly at MacMath early in the first half when Osvaldo Alonso played him in for a one-on-one chance. Then, late in the second half, Dempsey narrowly missed again on a header Marc Burch cleared off the line at the last moment. The defense too was largely sound with the makeshift duo of Brad Evans and Zach Scott largely keeping the Rapids from doing much of anything in the run of play.
Even outside those chances, Seattle continually found itself in dangerous spots. Jordan Morris nearly scored twice - once from his left foot, of all things - while the formation was objectively working. It settled into a nominal 4-4-2 with Dempsey playing the second striker under Morris, and especially in the first half, Seattle was rampant and dominant.
“Guys are getting decent looks on goal,” Schmid said. “It’s tough to say (the issue is) this one thing. Experience for some of our players helps, because it makes you a little bit cooler, a little bit more deadly in key situations. At the end of the day, we did a lot of our training this past week, we put them in front of goal as much as we could.”
But goals change games. And for all of its danger, Seattle didn’t get one.
Pivotal win time comes early
Last season, a brutal summer in which Seattle lost eight of nine at one point left the team desperately needing to cash in on September and October performances to make the playoffs. The Sounders did that, straightening the plane in time to cruise into the playoffs on a monster unbeaten run and in fine form.
With most of the same cast back, it looks as though the Sounders will need to find its second wind a bit earlier this time around.
Seattle only has 13 points from its first 11 games, which is not yet an apocalyptic figure. The Portland Timbers, the league’s reigning champion, is off to an even worse start with 12 points from 12 games. But even at this early juncture it’s never too early to start counting points, because each one dominoes on the next. And things are about to get interesting in the month of June.
Both Dempsey and Nelson Valdez, who wasn’t in the 18 on Saturday due to injury, will miss at least the next two games with Copa America duty. At least from the Sounders’ perspective, though, it might’ve gotten a jolt of light in the same breath. After making a preliminary 40-man roster, both Evans and Morris were left off the final 23 for the Copa America. Both will be available for the entire summer.
There’s a sense that the goals will come eventually. It’s almost impossible to create this much danger and have none of it pay off. So the Sounders will keep banging away at shots in practice, continue to work over the lineup, keep moving pieces until it clicks. Because it’s not must-win time just yet, but those days will arrive fast.
