The Sounders are facing down an eventuality they haven’t had to cope with in more than two months. After a raft of wins and arguably the most remarkable late-season turnaround in MLS history, it’s a threatening one.
How do you pick up points without Nicolas Lodeiro?
The fact that the Sounders picked up wins in each of their last two lessened the dramatic importance of a win Sunday in Vancouver (5 p.m. PT; FS1; KIRO Radio 97.3 FM, El Rey 1360am). The Sounders are level on points with the Portland Timbers and still have a game in hand, so a draw would do nicely in Seattle’s effort to put some distance between sixth and seventh place. It may not seem like it, but the upcoming midweek fixture against the Houston Dynamo will almost assuredly be more important from a standings vantage.
But the Sounders haven’t gotten to this stage by playing for draws. They’ll aim for three points against a Whitecaps team that’s struggled at home this season with a record around .500. And the big news is they’ll have to do it without Lodeiro.
In Seattle’s scrappy 1-0 win over Chicago on Wednesday, Lodeiro picked up another yellow card. It was his fifth in 10 games, and league rules stipulate a one-match ban in that instance. For the first time since he joined the team for a July 31 match against the LA Galaxy, Lodeiro won’t be on the field for the Sounders. And coping without one of the most impactful players in the league won’t be a casual stroll through a leafy park. Especially not on the road.
Lodeiro’s been so reliable over the last two months that it’s almost been easy to take his form, consistency and health for granted. The Sounders have had 10 games since Lodeiro joined the team, an available pileup of 900 possible minutes. Remarkably, Lodeiro’s played every single stitch of that, all 900. In that run, the Sounders are 6-1-3, and Lodeiro has three goals and eight assists.
So much for a learning curve.
How the Sounders cope on Sunday isn’t exactly clear. Sounders interim coach Brian Schmetzer has never had to face this scenario since taking over. His head coaching timeline coincides exactly with Lodeiro’s arrival in Seattle. Schmetzer’s 4-2-3-1 he introduced from his first game is more or less predicated on Lodeiro, who occupies the one space for which the Sounders don’t have a like-for-like switch. At every position the Sounders can mix and match without much issue. Not Lodeiro’s.
In fact, the Sounders would just assume forget the last time they played without the Uruguayan creative. The Sounders lost 3-0 against Sporting KC on July 23 in one of the more uninspired performances in franchise history, the final straw before the team parted ways with longtime coach Sigi Schmid. The formation was the 4-3-3 Schmid had been trying without much success to install, and it ended up looking like a jumbled mess.
If that feels like a lifetime ago, you aren’t alone.
The main thing you’ll notice is the circular gap in the middle of the Sounders’ formation where a creator should be. Schmetzer diverted nearly all of his attention to cinching that up over the last two months, a task made significantly easier with the introduction of Lodeiro. But the 4-2-3-1 fit the personnel better in general, which has been obvious to anyone who’s watched this team rack up win after win since the beginning of August.
Whatever the Whitecaps decide to do, Schmetzer probably won’t opt to shy away from the 4-2-3-1 on Sunday. The Sounders are on a short week of practice after Wednesday’s win, making any systematic changes more unlikely. Plus, there’s no reason to get away from what’s worked, even if you’re missing your No. 10.
Schmetzer has two relatively simple alterations if he wants to keep from rocking the boat. The first is to drop Erik Friberg into that creative role underneath Jordan Morris and hope an all-action afternoon covers for the fact that he doesn’t generally prefer to play the final ball. I recently spoke to a talent scout for a major Bundesliga club, and he called it playing the “pre-final pass.” There isn’t a metric for it, but it’s what Friberg does best.
But here’s what I’d do. Move Cristian Roldan up the park and pair Osvaldo Alonso up with Friberg in the deep midfield.
This isn’t ideal (nothing is with Lodeiro sidelined), but it gives you the best chance in the attacking third. If you look at average positioning maps, Roldan is consistently the most comfortable of those three central midfielders in the attacking half, and he’s gotten more so since being introduced to Lodeiro. His game isn’t necessarily predicated on killer final passes, but he knows the attacking movement of that front three better than any other candidate for the position. It’s worth breaking up his partnership with Alonso for one game to see how it operates.
As for Vancouver, the Whitecaps got a group-clinching 4-1 win in the CONCACAF Champions League over Central FC at midweek. They were poor over the summer but have kicked on late, going unbeaten in four of their last five games with wins in three. The only loss in that span? The 1-0 result the Sounders put on them on Sept. 17.
The Whitecaps were disorganized in the attacking third that day and gave up a bevy of chances with their carelessness at the back. That might not improve on Sunday considering sizable center back Kendall Waston - the heart and soul of that back line - will miss the match. The Sounders may be missing their best attacking threat, but the Whitecaps are without their best defender. Should be interesting to see which absence hits home most acutely.
The Sounders’ tremendous form over their last 10 games means Sunday’s match isn’t in must-win territory. Still, picking up another three points would go a long way toward shoveling dirt on the Timbers and inching ever closer to a playoff bid that looks more miraculous by the day.
