Photo by ISIphotos.com
By JOSE M. ROMERO
They weren’t, and probably won’t be last year’s New York Red Bulls. But Saturday night’s Seattle Sounders FC was in many ways the same club as it was in Year One. And that doesn’t bode well for the Rave Green and its faithful.
Seattle’s strength is and will continue to be in the back, at least until scorer Blaise Nkufo arrives to help bolster the offense. The Sounders’ defense was strong again Saturday in a 1-0 loss to New York, from defensive midfielder Osvaldo Alonso to goalkeeper Kasey Keller.
But coach Sigi Schmid has to realize, if he hasn’t already, that his talented team can’t get by on quick counters and occasional Steve Zakuani one-on-one runs to score goals. And at some point, Seattle has to finish more chances if it is going to live up to the lofty expectations set for the club.
Sounders fans had to have left Qwest Field Saturday wondering if another long streak of goal-less games at home is at hand. The team didn’t score at home in four games from July 25 to Sept. 19 last season, though it outshot its opponent in three of those matches.
Saturday night, Seattle set club records set club records with nine corner kicks in the first half and 12 for the game. It outshot the Red Bulls 17-10, and forced goalkeeper Bouna Coundoul to make five saves.
Give NYRB credit – Coundoul was on his game, and the Red Bulls made the best of a good albeit well-defended chance when Macoumba Kandji scored off a corner kick in the 21st minute. It is clearly a better team than last season’s version, with two wins already, and the Red Bulls are quite a step above the young and mistake-prone Philadelphia Union team that came into Qwest and was soundly defeated 2-0 on March 25.
But nine corners and 17 shots produced zero goals this past week. And then there is this lovely nugget from the team: In 34 regular-season and playoff games, Seattle is 13-1-8 when getting at least one goal. It is 0-8-4 when held scoreless.
That includes an 0-3-4 mark at home.
“I'm not displeased with our effort, I'm not displeased with our ability to get forward but I am displeased with our ability to finish,” Schmid said after the game.
The simple answer in finishing chances is practice, practice, practice. But Sounders FC did that last year, too. Teams are going to continue to mug Freddie Ljungberg and Fredy Montero, so chances for them will be based on their ability to get free for open shots.
Perhaps the team sensed that when deciding to add proven scorer Pat Noonan to its depth at forward. But Noonan needs time to adjust to how his teammates play and fit in.
Maybe the secret to stopping the Sounders is fouling its playmakers. Maybe it is great goalkeeping. Or maybe the Sounders have to find other ways to generate chances, even if it means sacrificing something on the defensive end.
That seems to be where Schmid finds himself at present.
“"Disappointed that we weren't able to get one. We did enough work to make that happen,” he said. “When we went to three in the back, we actually had less of the ball. Sometimes it might have been better to stay with the four because we were applying a lot of pressure. Guys were pushing up out of that. You've got to roll the dice sometimes.”
Especially at home, where goals for Sounders FC are at a premium.
That’s ridiculous. If you deliberately target your opponent’s best player, it helps you for what, the last 50-60 minutes of one game if he has to be subbed? Yet you’re down a man for that same span after a red card. And you (99% of the time) won’t face the team again until a couple months from the injury, so “best player” will be back by then. Physicality is one thing, but thuggery has no place in The Beautiful Game (or in hockey, for that matter). Ljungberg’s right, to some extent, although the flopping/whining has got to stop.
Also, in both hockey and soccer, if your thug can’t skate (run), stickhandle (dribble/pass), or play defense, he’s a liability on the ice (field), and you’re handicapping your team by playing him. In hockey, this means you only give him a few shifts, and the other 11 forwards have to pick up the slack. But in soccer, you can’t sub at will, so he’s just a traffic cone out there for the other team to run around the whole game. Until he’s ejected for your suggested leg-breaking tackle…
True that.
ps. You need a new name, you are still better than fans from other cities.
yeah, really, they lost to Portland in the preseason, and it was barely mentioned…
Double “this”. That’s the most useless “lovely nugget” I’ve ever seen. Are we supposed to be surprised that they didn’t win any games in which they were held scoreless?
Yes, but it wasn’t on the street, my friend. It was on that plastic pitch of yours.
When you write stupid things in a term paper at university, you fail your class. When you write stupid thingson line, Seattle fans love you! Apples & Oranges, baby. Or as we say in my country, olives and tomatos, my friend.
And I should know, I was scoring goals, dating models and choking people before you were born.
dead on mr. gibson. this is a coaching gaffe. get the right players on the field together. they’re there. they just haven’t come to grips with who has the most quickness and talent, and therefore chemistry… now they’re spinning estrada, the #1 pick, over fucito, since levesque hasn’t made any sense. when did letoux ever score? yet they played him all last season.
listen to ljungberg. don’t you think he’s somewhat informed on who’s got skill? get FUCITO on the pitch. time to open this thing up a bit. no, a lot!!
The Sounders need a specialty Set Piece / Free Kick taker beyond anything else, and this was their major weakness also last year. They are also adapting to life without LeToux which was a major loss – he injected a lot of hustle into our team and was a very opportune player that really did well forcing opponents into mistakes.
Also an Enforcer (Jaqua was our most physical player last year and he’s out on IR for quite a while) – I am for them signing Donald Brashear or some other hockey player tough guy to hand out punishment on the pitch. I mean you get a red or yellow card for the tackle if you are unlucky but you break your opponents best players leg – that is way more valuable than a 1 or 0 game suspension. I think if we don’t already we will see more fights in the MLS than in the NHL, or at least more physical play from what I have seen so far.
my point being LeToux had the most mins of any regular non-starter by far, and those mins were cumulatively significant throughout the season. yet his goal production was abysmal, for the reasons stated…
and for the 1st 2 games this season, you’ve seen a clone performance…
Someone mentioned it above, the concerning thing is not that the Sounders didn’t score in a few games, it is that they didn’t score in 12 games last year. Tough to win like that no matter how your defence does.
I do think we’ll be better than that this season. If Ljungberg will stop griping and just keep making dangerous runs and sending nice through balls, I’ll be happy. I do think dropping him back to a midfield role with the ability to roam will help.
The sounders have a good team, but the offense seems to consist of Iron Lung running straight at people & Motero trying to slip behind the defense…repeatedly. Very unimaginiative. Right now, if you shut down the underwear model, they’ve got nothing going on offensively. They’re looking at 10-10-10 this year. Maybe Nkufo will make a difference. Maybe not. I wouldn’t be too excited about how well Noonan played against RBNY as he always plays them well. The fact that the team he has punished repeatedly kept him off the score sheet should worry you Seattle fans. A lot.
I agree with the premise, and add this may lead to further long stretches of scoreless football for the Sounders. As a Sounder supporter it worried me that management sat on the same group of players and started the season with basically the same anemic attack strategy. Sigi has used the same spin after every scoreless game asserting creating chances satisfies him, well it shouldn’t. Blaise Nkufo might be joining a bottom feeder when he arrives, with an ownership more concerned with marketing than soccer.
Why wouldn’t I be? When you strangle a guy on the street, you go to jail!
LOL!!!….Oh, you are serious….
Any word if the league is going to suspend Roy Miller for his deliberate choke around the neck of Pat Noonan? There is plenty of photographic evidence of said event. In any other major pro sport (NBA, MLB, NHL, NFL) in this country he would be punished.
Come on, Aristotle. I know you’re supposed to be using your ancient Greek philosopher metaphors and all of that but have you REALLY actually watched someone try to get blood from a stone? lol, but I definitely do agree that Seattle has been woeful on the finishing. Maybe Noonan’s the answer this year. Not that I’m really eager for that because then Seattle fans would just become even more insufferable if their team actually begins to fire on all cylinders….
Ives- Spot on analysis of the Sounders. Our defense is solid but our attack is letting us down. Noonan is a welcome addition to the team, and I see him contributing quickly. Our hopes of a title seem to rest on what Kufo brings to the table this July, unless we sign another DP
That being said, I expect some poor unsuspecting MLS team to get absolutely punished soon. I would much rather spread 5 goals across a couple games, but the more likely scenario is the sounders absolutely unloading on someone.
Great to read you again Jose!
Sounders are going to kill this year.
And then the Timbers lost to the Kitsap Pumas. . . HA squared!
Also, welcome back to the intertrons, Jose! Looking forward to some more Sounders coverage from Arizona on Ives.
Le Toux was a 70th minute sub most of the time last season. He started sparingly on the wing when injuries or national team duty for Evans removed Sigi’s first and second choice.
I agree with your assessment of the play – they do look like they link up much more effectively than last year.
Don’t forget they lost to the Timbers at home in March…HAHA
I’m not so worried about scoring this year, based on what I’ve seen from the first two matches. The problem last year was often miserable passing and a complete inability to get shots off. But the Sounders have really scooted the ball around beautifully for long segments of both games this year, smartly linking up in ways that eluded them almost all of last season. And they’re getting off shots now. As long as they’re firing away they will score enough points—Freddie, Fredy, Brad Evans, and Stevie Z are just too skilled to keep missing the frame.
Nice to see Jose around!
But… but …but..we’re the greatest and most important team in soccer history! How can this be?
OMG!! Jose, is that really you? We miss you here in Seattle. Seeing your name in the by-line has just made my day. Ives, I haven’t been too happy with your comments about Ljungberg (even though deep down I agree) but you’ve made up for it with the article from Jose. Hope to see more from him! Hope all is well in AZ, Jose!
Make that writing.
Great to see ya righting for the sounders again.
This!
Should we be surprised that Seattle hasn’t managed to win a game in which it didn’t score a goal? That’s insightful stuff.
On a less sarcastic note, I don’t necessarily think that the sky is falling in Seattle. As mentioned here, Noonan made an immediate impact when he came in. Nothing amazing, just brough a calm collected presence in place of Levesque’s unpredictable approach to the game. I actually thought the biggest issue from this game was starting Levesque over Noonan. Schmid should have gone away from Levesque after last week’s useless performance.
And I don’t think Noonan will take long to fit in. From what I saw, he seemed to be fitting in much better than Levesque was.
Good article highlighting a serious problem Sounders FC must solve. But I chuckled when I read the following stat: “In 34 regular-season and playoff games, Seattle is 13-1-8 when getting at least one goal. It is 0-8-4 when held scoreless.”
So what you’re saying is that the Sounders don’t win when they don’t score? Does anybody? I think if you checked all the other teams’ records when being shut out, they’d most likely be similar. Columbus in 2009, for example, was 0-5-1 when failing to score. LA in ’09: 0-2-3 when shut out. SJ: 0-7-0. NY: 0-14-1. Teams that don’t score generally don’t win. LA squeaked out 3 scoreless draws, but generally you’re going to lose if you can’t put it in the net. The big difference is, Columbus only failed to score in 6 games, LA in 5. Seattle failed to score 12 times, putting them in a class with the abysmal 2009 Red Bulls, at least in one statistical category.
It would be nice to see Sigi finagle a way to join his former player Robbie Rogers with the Sounders. Its just what the doctor ordered.
Jose, great having you back covering the Sounders. Hope AZ is treating ya well. Ives, very smart move getting someone of Jose’s dedication to the site.
Seattle shouldnt worry too much.
NJ RED Metros have been on a luvky tear. Outplayed in two games and still won.
The league will catch up with Lindpere.
If Im NJ im more woried cause Angel has showed absolutely nothing this yr. He seems to be in Lothar Mathheaus Luciano Emilio collect a check mode
Jose! Hope you’re well, we miss you up here. Joshua has been doing a great job with the blog so at least it wasn’t left in bad hands but its nice to know I can continue reading your work. Best of luck in AZ!
Wait that didn’t sound right. I meant the loss was a dismal occasion, you writing about them was the good news.
JOSE!
Dismal occasion to see you writing about the Sounders again.
If they’d give Nyassi and Fucito some real minutes to settle in and play, Seattle would experience the kind of speed, open shot creation, and finishing this team desperately lacks. They stuck with LeToux all last season, and it was clear in June he didn’t have the goods. Levesque doesn’t either. When will they get it???
Great article Jose! I think fans should not generalize about the current lineup’s finishing capabilities from one frustrating game. Although last season speaks loudly about the team;s capabilities.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, but they ALL could have been 3-3 shootouts.
Happy to be back in the game, though I never left…once it’s in your blood, it stays. Appreciate mi amigo Ives for giving a guy a place to keep writing. AZ is good, but wow do I miss Northwest soccer.
I think we miss Jaqua in these situation he wasn’t deadly on set pieces but he was our main target. If we can’t at least get shots on goal off set pieces Jose is right there’s just no incentive not to foul either of our forwards if they get within 30 yards of goal.
Nkufo is good is he’s getting caps for the Swiss Nats. He really can’t be worse than Levesque at the least.
I want to like Seattle but watching them can be so painful. They have a serious problem when it comes to scoring. Watching them try to score is like watching someone try to get blood out of a stone. It would be different if they didn’t create so many chances, but they create more than enough to score a lot more goals than they do. It always seems like the last pass is just off or even when the chance is actually there to score they find a way to miss it. I felt like the game was lost when NYRB scored first, and that the rest of the game would be a situation where Seattle would create plenty of chances but still never even equalize, and that’s exactly what happened. There’s nothing clever about the prediction, it’s how I always feel when Seattle goes down a goal.
Jose is back !!!!
Blaise will be here soon.
I hope the flight to Toronto (MLS Cup ’10) isn’t too pricey from Arizona !
There were some bright points though. Zakuani was making it happen with some good moves and a few quick shots. Something that didn’t happen last season. I thought we looked good despite that pretty darn good goal by the Red Bulls. This game could have just as easily been a 3-3 shootout.
Just wanted to echo its nice to Jose still writing about soccer.. also i think Seattle can’t wait fro Nfuko or Jaqua to get healthy. We have no physical presence right now in the air. Roger isn’t cutting it on corners.
Maybe it would help Seattle if they brought some kryptonite the next time they play RBNY. Zing!
tell us something we don’t know.
Jose! Hope you’re liking Arizona.
I concur Ozzie. Noonan instantly injected energy into the lineup with his introduction. I think Freddie L. needs to drop into the CAM role, Evans off to the right side and have Noonan partner with Montero up front.
On a completely different note: GREAT TO SEE JOSE BACK AT IT! Good piece sir.
Jose Romero? You stole Jose from the Seattle Times? Joking, but Jose will be a good contributor. Anyways, I think the scoring drought won’t be as bad this year. The offense is close to clicking, and Noonan will certainly speed that up a bit.