The Seattle Sounders dropped three more points in the second of their four six-pointer matches as part of “Six-Pointer August” on Sunday night at Lumen Field versus RSL, thus making the Claret and Cobalt the third western conference adversary to go undefeated across both match-ups with the boys in rave green this year. With the 2-1 loss, the Sounders are now 3-6-0 in their past nine games with only nine matches left in a regular season that has been a rollercoaster for Brian Schmetzer’s squad, from going on a near-perfect run in the CONCACAF Champions League to become the first MLS club to win the competition, all the way to suffering through a three-defeat scoreless drought last month and finding themselves currently below the playoff line.
The hosts of this weekend’s contest came out of the gates with strong intentions. After Nicolás Lodeiro won the ball deep in RSL’s defensive third, the Sounders’ captain poked the ball to Cristian Roldan who then fed the ball to Raúl Ruidíaz who made a couple of moves before getting a shot off to hit the crossbar before the ball deflected off the back of Zac MacMath to bounce into the net. However, after VAR reviewed the sequence, Cristian Roldan was found to be narrowly offside before receiving the ball from Lodeiro, thus erasing the goal and keeping the game level at 0-0. Seattle never seemed to be able to regain their attacking threat and promise for the remainder of the first half after their goal was overturned. “That’s what we talked about before the game, getting an early goal, being on the front foot coming out right when the whistle blows, all of that sort of stuff,” said Brian Schmetzer. “It goes in your favor, you have the euphoria of playing with a lead, and then the air comes out of the balloon.”
The opening half would only be made worse in the 32nd minute when RSL ran back towards Seattle’s half off the counterattack after a failed set piece opportunity for the Sounders. Jefferson Savarino played a superb long ball over Seattle’s backline for Sergio Cordova, whose first shot was saved by Stefan Frei, but his second go at goal was able to somehow make its way past Frei and two defenders on the goal-line to put the visitors up 1-0. The breakaway goal for the visitors coupled with the reversal of Seattle’s goal earlier in the first half seemed to serve as a detrimental tandem for the Sounders’ morale in the final quarter-hour of the first half. “I believe that the team has enough veteran players in there to overcome some of those moments,” said Schmetzer. “But then we give up that transition goal off a corner kick and that further deflates the team (and) gives them (RSL) a little bit of more confidence and how they want to dictate the tempo of the game.”
The opening 15 minutes of the second half were relatively quiet from the Sounders, who finally registered their first shot on target of the game in the 60th minute. But just a couple of minutes later, the boys in rave green finally had their moment. After a good spell of side-to-side ball movement from the hosts, Albert Rusnák hit a splendid low ball from the top of the 18-yard box that ripped through the heart of his former club’s back line before reaching the back of the net to equalize the game at one goal a piece in the 62nd minute. Several moments later however, Real Salt Lake would go on to take all the air and excitement out of Lumen Field once again, when Savarino’s service found a wide-open Andrew Brody who hit a cool and composed volley past Frei to put the visitors up by a tally again in the 64th minute. “Everybody knows that the first five minutes after you score is always the most critical time, and we get ourselves back in the game through Albert’s goal, and then we should have done better there,” said Schmetzer. Despite bringing Fredy Montero and Will Bruin into the game during the final stretch and pouring numbers forward, the Sounders would taste defeat yet again in what has been a troublesome couple of months for the boys in rave green.
After racking up 60 points a year ago with the likes of Stefan Frei and Nicolás Lodeiro missing substantial time due to injuries, the Sounders now have only 32 points to show for the 25 league matches that have been played so far this season. But the biggest point of concern for the club and the fanbase alike is Seattle’s streak of successfully qualifying for the MLS Cup Playoffs being in serious jeopardy, which the Sounders have been able to accomplish every year since joining MLS in 2009. While his squad has been staying the course through the ups and downs that the 2022 season has had to offer, Brian Schmetzer is well aware that time is not on the team’s side. “What we saw tonight and then the last spell of games where we’ve been up and down, we have not been consistent enough,” said Schmetzer. So we will continue to work on that and the playoffs are still within reach, but I do agree with everybody in the room and all the fans that time’s running out, so we got to figure this out very quickly.”
Despite the clock of the regular season ticking away, Schmetzer remains optimistic about his team’s abilities and potential to turn the ship around before it’s too late. “The key thing is trying to find some stability in these last nine games now to try and figure out a way how to get this group of players to play together,” said Schmetzer. “They know how to play, so I think there’s just a lack of consistency in both the rotation and in the way we play.” For the boys in rave green to turn things around, the Sounders will have to go through what can be argued as the toughest and most important three-match stretch of the year, when they will play on the road in LA against the Galaxy, Portland versus the Timbers, and travel from corner to corner across the country to face Orlando City at the end of the month. But Brian Schmetzer and staff seem to be ready to maintain their constant approach towards individual games rather than thinking about a set of matches. “I’m not looking at three road games. I’m looking at one, which is the Galaxy and they came off a good result,” said Schmetzer. “That’s the game that we’ll focus on and that will be a critical game to try and collect points like I said. We will go down there and we will fight and work and try and get a result down there.”
