SEATTLE – Instead of training at their regular practice facility of Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila on Thursday, Seattle Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer opted to have his team train at CenturyLink Field, where Seattle will play the New England Revolution on Saturday.
Why the change of scenery for that particular training session? So his team could re-adapt to what has been unfamiliar surroundings thus far in 2017.
Out of Seattle’s first seven matches of this season, five of them have been on the road, including a recent stretch of three straight away from the friendly confines of CenturyLink starting with a 1-1 draw against the San Jose Earthquakes on April 8.
“We actually trained here [at CenturyLink] because I didn’t want the players to forget what this felt like,” Schmetzer told reporters after Thursday’s practice. “That’s why we’re here today.”
The Sounders have fared reasonably well through the travel-heavy stretch, getting a resounding 3-0 rout of the LA Galaxy last Sunday and managing draws against San Jose and the Montreal Impact. All told, that’s a total of five points from those five road matches, even with a season-opening loss to the Houston Dynamo and a 2-1 defeat to the Vancouver Whitecaps at BC Place on April 14.
“Yeah, it’s extremely nice [to be back home],” Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldan said this week. “There’s no place like home. It’s a special place for all of us. I think we play much better here for whatever reason. We’ve missed our fans.”
Sounders forward Clint Dempsey said he couldn’t remember a stretch during his time in MLS where he started a season with this many road games and admitted there are challenges that come with it.
But Dempsey also pointed out that being put through tough tests away from home early in the season can have long-term benefits as the season progresses.
"There’s been a lot of road games early this season,” Dempsey said on Thursday. “I think the most I can remember in my career.
“It’s an adjustment in terms of the travel and it’s always kind of difficult to go away from home and to play. But I think you take it as a positive. It helps you build character. You find out who you are as a team early on because you’re put in some tough situations. I think we’ve responded well and we’ve been unfortunate not to get more points.”
Dempsey also said he felt as though the five points from the five road matches might not necessarily tell the story.
If not for a desperation late equalizer from San Jose’s Chris Wondolowski and some unfortunate luck that saw Dempsey ring two shots off the woodwork in Vancouver, the total could be even higher.
“In San Jose, you like to think we could have walked away with three points there,” Dempsey said. “Hitting the crossbar twice in Vancouver, maybe that’s a game we could have got a point from, so that’d be four more points then we have now and we’d be second or third place [in the Western Conference] which would look better on the table. But things are looking good. We’ll keep building.”
