When Lamar Neagle put Sounders FC ahead of the Colorado Rapids in the fifth minute on Saturday, Seattle would’ve been more than happy to rest on its scooped-out midfield for the rest of the match. A goal on the road is precious, and protecting it suddenly became the key against an offense that’s had historic struggles. With the in-form tandem of Osvaldo Alonso and Andy Rose sitting in front of a largely healthy defense, the onus fell to Colorado to break them down.
But the plan cracked apart in the 22nd when Gabriel Torres snuck behind Dylan Remick and slotted home a one-time finish to tie the match. After a loss last weekend, Sounders FC wanted all three points in exchange for an ascendent performance this time. And over the course of the game’s remaining 68 minutes, they turned in a vintage road performance to do just that.
How did they flip the script to come away 3-1 road winners in mile high conditions? The answer lies in Sounders FC’s ability to play into its strengths later in the match in a way that the Rapids’ confused and overloaded back line couldn’t handle.
Sounders FC’s passing matrix from the match is telling, primarily because of what it says about how the team’s midfield setup interacts with the forwards and what changed as the match wore on.
Clearly, the team’s predilection to tilt the field toward the fringes and core out the middle was present again on Saturday. With the metronomic Alonso and the more defensively inclined Rose, the connection between the midfield bank and the forward line of Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins was slightly larger than usual.
But let’s focus this lens even tighter around the locus of the team’s attack and the connective tissue between Martins and the rest of the central midfield: Dempsey.
Dempsey only played 70 minutes on Saturday thanks to a recent hamstring injury, but those minutes, particularly after the half, were illustrative as to how the Sounders grew in comfort and began wearing down the Rapids’ central midfield triangle of Lucas Pittinari, Marcelo Sarvas and Dillon Powers. Dempsey made three key passes in the match. All three came in the second half before he was subbed off, and all three were made inside the evacuated part of the middle of the field.
Why and how the middle gradually opened up for service is key to understanding how Sounders FC’s attack operates when it’s humming at peak efficiency. Remember, for all the Rapids’ recent offensive ineptitude, they kept four clean sheets in their first five matches of the season.
Without a higher attacking midfielder and both Martins and Dempsey dropping to running channels, Sounders FC essentially invited the Rapids’ defensive midfield of Sarvas and Pittinari to press with possession. The trap sprung, Seattle excelled at punishing and exploiting the leftover space with quick-hitters off turnovers it did well to create.
The movement on Neagle’s ultimate match-winner in the 25th began with a Rapids turnover at midfield that Remick thrust back into the Rapids’ half immediately. Both Pittinari and Sarvas were forced to retreat from advanced positions, and the turmoil in the rearguard allowed Marco Pappa to loft in a perfect ball for Neagle, who wasn’t tracked into the box.
And while the business end of Sounders FC’s third was a product of Martins’ otherworldly foot skills and fondess for the unbelievable, the action that preceded it was vintage Seattle. In the 73rd minute, substitute Gonzalo Pineda turned over Powers in Sounders FC’s half, and Rose put in a beautiful 40-yard ball over the top to Martins. The blazing forward with a truck full of ideas looked up to see two defenders on his back but nobody else within 30 yards. That freed him to be creative in the way only he can, and the result was another highlight reel goal.
WATCH: Obafemi Martins scores ridiculous goal after beating two Rapids defenders
As the match wore on, the game increasingly became Sounders FC’s to lose. With a quick-strike attack like this and enough attacking options to fill two lineup sheets, there aren’t many defenses that can withstand 90 minutes of this kind of calculated pressure and come out the other end alive.
