SEATTLE — The Seattle Sounders on Saturday did something the club had never done before: come back from three goals down to earn a point.
Things looked bleak through 74 minutes at CenturyLink Field, as the Sounders trailed the New England Revolution 3-0. Seattle had hit two crossbars and a post and had gotten burned on the counterattack despite a massive amount of possession. The goals, though, just wouldn’t come.
“We were controlling the match from the early part of the first half, and they were fortunate to get that first goal,” said head coach Brian Schmetzer. “It allowed them to tactically play a bunker-and-counter game.
“Life isn’t always fair,” he continued. “That’s part of soccer, that’s part of what makes our sport so great.”
The Sounders put up some gaudy numbers on Saturday. They completed 742 passes with an accuracy of 89 percent, had 74 percent possession and has 26 total shots, but took time for that dominance to come to fruition.
Three goals from Nicolas Lodeiro, Will Bruin and Osvaldo Alonso in the final quarter-hour miraculously leveled the match at 3-3, but the Sounders, while proud of their ability come back, lament letting the match get so out of hand.
“What I’m most frustrated about again is that those guys put so much effort in and so much of themselves into the team and into the game, and they cannot reward themselves with a performance that gets us all three maximum points,” said Schmetzer.
“The character we showed to come back was amazing,” said goalkeeper Stefan Frei. “That’s the one positive to take from this. The fight, the spirit, the togetherness to bail your teammates out.”
