SEATTLE – Shortly after his team was bounced from the Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs on Sunday night, Bruce Arena was in no mood for handing out compliments to the ones who did his group in.
Sounders FC’s 3-2 win at CenturyLink Field not only offered Seattle a cathartic release and moved the team to the Western Conference Semifinals, it also ended the Galaxy’s attempt at back-to-back MLS Cup titles. And for the first time in Arena’s era in LA, the Galaxy were eliminated before they reached the conference championship, let alone another shot at hosting the MLS Cup final in Los Angeles.
“I think Christmas came early in Seattle,” Arena told reporters. “We absolutely gift wrapped that game for them tonight. Our play in front of our goal defensively was atrocious. We just gift wrapped those three goals. Give them credit – they jumped on the mistakes, but we were shockingly poor.”
So it goes in one of the great rivalries in MLS, which added another soggy but nonetheless spectacular chapter on Wednesday evening. There’s respect across the aisle, but no love lost. Neither team was willing to move an inch for the other, either on the field or in front of the media when the game was finished.
“We’re a better team than Seattle,” Galaxy winger Gyasi Zardes said. “I still feel like if we had buried our chances, we would have come out on top.”
The Sounders, however, might tell a different story. Yes, Clint Dempsey and Nelson Valdez both pounced on costly miscues from Galaxy goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts to grab the team’s two first-half goals, but the hosts controlled much of the tempo over the last 45 minutes, even without injured starters Osvaldo Alonso and Marco Pappa.
After giving up four shots on goal and the bulk of possession in the first half, the Sounders allowed just one shot on goal after the break. Their gamble on pushing versatile captain Brad Evans from the middle of the defense to a new role as overlapping left back opened up that side of the field down the stretch, as did Dempsey’s voluntary shift to the left wing to push Valdez inside to conserve Paraguayan international’s energy.
Galaxy star Robbie Keane, meanwhile, had arguably his most muted game yet against the Sounders, who he’d previously decimated for nine goals in 13 regular season and playoff games combined since 2011. Keane was held to just one shot on the night, and midfielder Steven Gerrard’s lone bright spot came at the wrong end of the field, when he cleared a Sounders scoring chance off the goal line in the 69th minute.
Although Sounders midfielder Erik Friberg later quipped that his game-winning 73rd-minute volley off a poor Galaxy clearance was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of strike, it was a fitting moment to seal the win for Seattle. The Galaxy fumbled along the back line most of the night and the Sounders pounced three times, feeding off a home crowd of over 39,000 that helped reinforce the notion that if the Sounders get the chance to host a big game under the lights at CenturyLink Field, the outcome is all but certain, regardless of how they get it done.
In fact, the Sounders are now 4-0 in one-off games on the Xbox Pitch all-time: U.S. Open Cup titles in 2010 and 2011, and Knockout Round wins in 2013 and Wednesday night.
“In the last two playoff games that we have played them, we have beaten them twice here at home,” Sounders Head Coach Sigi Schmid said, recalling the second leg of last year’s Western Conference Championship. “It definitely feels good. We talked before the game, ‘Hey we started something last Sunday, we want to continue it today, we want to carry it into next Sunday.’ I think these guys have a lot of heart and desire, and I think that carries you a long way.”
