For more than a year, Orlando City had been quite literally unbeatable at home. And barring one gritty win at D.C. United a lifetime ago back in early June, the Sounders simply could not pick up a full three pointer away from CenturyLink Field.
Both of those records fell to the thresher of Seattle’s resurgence on Sunday. And boy was it a sweet way to get the train back on the tracks.
The Sounders got a hat trick from Clint Dempsey and kept Orlando City from a goal in the run of play en route to a smashing 3-1 win at Camping World Stadium in sweltering Orlando. And make no mistake, Seattle duly deserved all three points. The Sounders were incisive in the final third, dangerous with their possession and had the more dangerous of the chances all evening.
After a rugged start to the season, the Sounders suddenly have four points from their last two games and notched their first back-to-back positive results in three months. The Brian Schmetzer era in Seattle is off to one heck of a start.
After a much-needed road win snapped Orlando City’s unbeaten home record in 2016, here are three things we learned from Sunday’s big win.
Dempsey’s On Track (with a little help from his friends)
One of the most pointed questions this year was what it’d take to rope Dempsey into the attack with more regularity. Over the first two thirds of the season, Dempsey struggled to connect with a midfield that didn’t have an attack-minded option willing to consistently step out of the deep to undertake that coveted interchange to open up back lines.
That has changed. And that’s partly down to Schmetzer’s switch to a 4-2-3-1, partly down to a more energized team as a whole and partly down to a man named Nico Lodeiro.
It’s hard to miss Lodeiro’s influence on the field as he picks out runners and breaks high presses and carefully dances around tacklers. Lodeiro was 22-32 in Orlando City’s attacking half, put in five crosses and had two secondary assists. The diminutive Uruguayan was the guy behind the guy for most of the match.
Indeed, all three of Dempsey’s goals were glorified tap-ins created in the build-up before it ever hit Dempsey’s foot. It harkened back to the days when Dempsey ran with Obafemi Martins and most of the heavily lifting had been done by the pair by the time the two had entered the box. Lodeiro is hardly Martins in terms of playing style, but he’s opening up the entire field in his own way.
On Dempsey’s first goal, a response to Orlando City’s opener in the first 10 minutes, Lodeiro found a hard-charging Tyrone Mears on the right flank, and Mears whipped in a ground-skimming cross that found Dempsey wide open in the box. All Dempsey had to do was direct it in. Then, on Dempsey’s third just after half, Lodeiro hit a back line-destroying through ball to Morris, who then found Dempsey for the easy look.
This was all made to look far easier than it was, but it proved once and for all that at his best, Dempsey is a chance finisher, not a chance creator. The Sounders are set up to facilitate that strength now. Get excited.
Possession With A Purpose
The Sounders have never struggled for possession. Not in previous seasons during U.S. Open Cup championship runs, not in a jaunt to a Supporters’ Shield in 2014, and certainly not earlier this season.
It’s easy enough to criticize the attack under previous coach Sigi Schmid, but be sure to limit those barbs to chance creation and finishing. Because under Schmid the Sounders attempted more passes per game than any team in MLS, most of them under 25 yards. They were quite good in keeping the ball, but more often than not that ultimately ended up as aimless possession not directed into the box for shots. That, it would seem, is no longer the case.
The Sounders were a lot of things earlier this year, but incisive in the final third was not among them. In lieu of a chance creator in the middle slice of the field, so many chances were first funneled in from wide positions. Without a midfielder willing to hug the touch line, those deeds inevitably fell to fullbacks Joevin Jones and Mears, and the results often weren’t pretty.
The crosses were often lofted too high or dribbled too short, and even if Dempsey or Morris did find an open pocket of space in the box, the ball wasn’t threaded into their feet.
Things have changed on that score. Suddenly everything seems more dangerous, crosses included. The obvious tie binding everything together is Lodeiro, a crucial piece of the puzzle who’s been instrumental in bringing out the best in everyone around him. But it’s been more than just Lodeiro. The crosses from the fullbacks are more dangerous. Dempsey’s positioning over the last two games is as good as it’s ever been. Morris is taking on defenders heads-up with as much aplomb as ever. And Osvaldo Alonso and Cristian Roldan are freed in the 4-2-3-1 to defend more and attack less. The specialization has worked.
But the biggest key is that the possession is simply more dangerous now. Until the Sounders went into a shell late with a two-goal lead, they held a 55-45 edge in possession on the road against a tremendously dangerous attacking team and cashed in on three of their four shots on target. That’s efficiency for you.
Is the Ship Turning Around in Time?
The book on the first half of the Sounders’ season was not good. They averaged a paltry point per match, and they hit the Western Conference cellar at the latest point in a season ever before settling into ninth place for a few weeks entering the regular season’s final third. Anything is possible in MLS’s forgiving playoff system, but even this looked like a stretch. Were Seattle’s playoff hopes dashed upon the rocks before August even arrived?
The easy answer to that is no, but the nuanced answer is perhaps a bit more convoluted. No, the Sounders were never really out of playoff contention, mathematically at least. But the optics were not particularly kind.
They still aren’t, really, but they are better. Can the Sounders dream of the playoffs even still? In short, yes, they can. Even if it is somewhat far-fetched.
The Sounders’ win in Orlando didn’t move them in the standings, but it did inch them closer to the sixth and final playoff spot currently held by Portland. Seattle is now on 24 points through 22 games, which is eight points behind Portland but with two games in hand. If everyone above Seattle stays on their current points per game average pace, Portland will be the last team into the postseason with 45 points.
If that happens (and there’s no guarantee anything happens in this crazy league), Seattle needs to find 22 points from its last 12 games. That’s an average of about 1.8 points per game, or about seven wins. From 12 games. Not easy.
That might seem like an insurmountable height at the present moment, and it’s certainly a dim light at the end of the tunnel. But it’s a light, at least. Seattle’s four points from its last two matches set up the possibility that the Sounders’ season won’t end when the regular season does for the first time in its MLS history. And that alone is reason enough for a shade of optimism.
