The Seattle Sounders kicked off the month of August with an invaluable three points earned against FC Dallas at home on Tuesday night. The Sounders have now gone unbeaten versus FC Dallas in 16 straight home matches across all competitions dating all the way back to May 2011. For the boys in rave green, very little needed to be said regarding the importance of this mid-week affair with their western conference rivals from the Lone Star State. Last Friday’s loss to league-leading LAFC marked only the second time in Seattle’s 14-year history in the MLS that the club accrued at least 11 losses by the end of the month of July in a given season. Combining that with the fact that the Sounders haven’t been able to keep themselves consistently above the playoff line so far this season, the home side was eager to get their final set of 12 games off on the right foot to ensure that their postseason consistency in MLS doesn’t end this year.
While the Sounders dominated possession for the first half at just over 64% and were moving the ball well from side to side, they weren’t able to create as many goal-scoring chances and be as “goal dangerous” as they might have liked. A lot of this can be attributed to FC Dallas’ strong defensive profile so far this season, having conceded only 25 goals in their first 23 matches, tied for second in the western conference, but the visitors’ five-defender line-up also made matters difficult for Seattle. “It’s difficult to play vertical, it’s difficult to play behind them when they have a backline of five, there’s too many bodies in there,” said Albert Rusnák. “So we needed a little bit of patience and keep the ball (moving) and make them tired.”
The Sounders were rewarded for their patience in the final stretch of the opening half of play when Cristian Roldan hit a wonderful overhead ball to Jordan Morris who made a fantastic run behind Dallas’ defenders before being checked by a charging Maarten Paes in the box to give Seattle the penalty kick opportunity. Nicolás Lodeiro made no mistakes in slotting the penalty kick shot into the bottom of Paes’ net to give the Sounders the 1-0 lead in the 39th minute. Even with the introductions of Jesus Ferreira at halftime and Paul Arriola in the 61st minute, the Sounders found a way to navigate through the second half with their 1-0 lead and end the game with their first shutout victory in six matches. “Sometimes when you’re in a tough spell like this, it’s all about how hard you work and I thought the guys worked really hard today,” said Jordan Morris.
Prior to Tuesday night’s contest, Seattle had earned only four clean sheets in league play so far this year. The Sounders have also already conceded 27 goals, only six goals away from the league-best 33 goals that they allowed last season. Albert Rusnák and Jordan Morris highlighted the significance of the team earning a shutout victory once again. “We haven’t been scoring a lot of goals lately, but we also haven’t been keeping clean sheets lately,” said Rusnák. Jordan Morris, who drew the penalty kick that led to Seattle’s goal, added to his teammate’s sentiments. “It’s been a bit since we’ve gotten a shutout, so it was important for us to try to keep a clean sheet,” said Morris. “So it’s definitely a team effort. It’s all 11 guys working hard defensively to keep a clean sheet.”
To say that the past six months have been a rollercoaster for Seattle would be an appropriate descriptor. The Sounders have done everything from making history and winning CONCACAF Champions League to going on a three-game scoreless drought in the month of July and frequently floating above and below the playoff line in a conference where all postseason positions except for the top two seeds are still very much up for grabs by nearly all of the 12 other clubs. Brian Schmetzer had a very simple and short, but powerful message about his side on Tuesday night. “It’s all about the character in that room, those guys want to win,” said Schmetzer. “They are not resting on the laurels of CCL. They want to play well, they want to play better, and see how far we can get.”
The month of August will be a very telling indicator of how far the Sounders can truly get this season. The title “Six-Pointer August” has been bestowed by some Seattle fans due to the fact that four of the club’s six games in the month of August will be against western conference rivals that are within three points of the Sounders, thus the boys in rave green will have several matches in the coming weeks that will have significant implications on not just their personal playoff future, but the entire playoff picture in the entire western conference, which is still quite blurry, to say the least. “That spell that we just had over the last 5-6 games, maybe it was mental fatigue, maybe it was physical fatigue,” said Rusnák. “But we have to regroup and we have to focus on the last 11 games that we have in the season in order to push above the playoff line and end as high as we can so we can host a playoff game, but today was a good start to hopefully a winning run.”
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