Sporting Kansas City tried. They did their best to find the flank, run the channels and feed the break. And there were several instances on Saturday when they might’ve succeeded.
But they didn’t. For reasons why, look no further than the rapidly improving Sounders FC backline.
In the offseason, some of the turbulence surrounding Seattle’s backline cast that spot on the field in dubious light. Sounders FC was prolific on the attacking end in 2014, and they rode that horse to a Supporter’s Shield, but they gave up as many goals in the regular season as any playoff team in the league. And the back line got a shakeup in the offseason, further muddling the picture. Could Brad Evans make the transition to centerback? Was Tyrone Mears up to filling DeAndre Yedlin’s vacated position at rightback? Unanswered questions.
The season is still in its early paces in a lot of ways, but the one blaring truism about this particular Sounders FC side revolves around the defense. Yes, the attack is vital and exciting with Obafemi Martins and Clint Dempsey. And yes, the midfield pairing of Osvaldo Alonso and Gonzalo Pineda is one of the tightest of its kind in the league. Indeed, the two combined for 232 passes against Sporting KC, the highest total among two players in the league this season. They broke the record they’d set a week earlier.
But the defense has quietly stolen the show. And never was that more evident than in Sounders FC’s scoreless draw against Sporting KC over the weekend.
Through its first 11 matches, Seattle’s surrendered just nine goals. That’s joint top of the league alongside the Colorado Rapids, who sit in last place in the Western Conference with seven fewer points than Seattle. The team’s ability to open up the throttle while simultaneously staying switched on and compact at the back is a distinguishing hallmark in a few notable ways. Nearly all of them were on display against Sporting KC.
The most unique facet about this defense is its distribution ability. On Saturday, Chad Marshall, Dylan Remick, Mears and Evans combined completed 80-percent of their collective passes. That’s a staggering percentage to hold for a defense over 90 minutes. Thanks in part to the collective pressure Alonso and Pineda relieve, the back line is freed to ping around a few passes and build attacks from the back. That’s why three of the team’s goals this season have come from builds of at least 17 consecutive passes. The midfield might set the table, and the attack might get the glory for finishing, but the defense built the table in the first place.
But that distribution is only as good as the defense’s ability to blunt attacks in the first place, and on that score this back line is particularly distinguished.
Examples of this were everywhere. In the ninth minute, a long throw bounced through a thicket of defenders in Sounders FC’s box and found Krisztian Nemeth toward the far post. But even as the ball found Nemeth’s right foot just eight yards from Stefan Frei’s goalmouth, Mears was plastered to his back. Nemeth’s shot, robbed of the space and time to make it dangerous, was timid and easily handled. In the 51st, Sporting KC tried to crank up one of its customary quick-fire attacks from the flank, but when a cross found Jacob Peterson’s head, both Marshall and Evans were behind him, in perfect position. Again, Frei had only to fall on the meek effort. Five minutes later, SKC tried to break but couldn’t gain entry into the box for a clear cut chance, and a 20-yard shot flew well wide.
Even when Seattle went down to 10 towards the end of the match after Pineda took a knock, it organized capably and got a championship performance from Frei. Sporting KC perhaps came closest to breaching the walls in the 92nd when Benny Feilhaber uncorked a rocket from 25-yards that Frei parried away acrobatically. But as close as that was to hitting the net, it was also an instructive moment in the game’s architecture. Sporting KC relies on high percentage chances on net with the possession it concedes with its playing style, and Sounders FC continually robbed that fire of its air.
So when Feilhaber let fly from deep, it was a road map to Seattle’s success. The league’s best chance-creator had been relegated to popping speculative shots from deep, and the frustration etched on his face after the opportunity went begging told the story ably.
When it needs to, this Sounders FC defense is capable of throwing up a shield few teams in MLS can break with anything approaching regularity. Seattle proved that once again in a shutout against a robust attacking team like Sporting KC.
