After 16 days, five matches and 5,400 air miles, Sounders FC’s players raised their arms in victory at CenturyLink Field on Saturday afternoon. A 4-2 win over Chivas USA gave Seattle 18 wins on the season to match the club’s all-time best single-season total.
With the grueling string of matches now in the rearview mirror, Sounders FC can now shift its focus to the final four matches of the regular season.
“It’s been a long patch of games. To go on a 12-day road trip at this part of the season and play the amount of games that we have in the last period of time is strenuous on our guys,” Sounders FC Head Coach Sigi Schmid said. “I was very proud of their effort today. We put ourselves in a difficult situation in the beginning of the game and the ability to come back from that situation and in the second half we managed the game well.”
Obafemi Martins scored two goals to overtake Eddie Johnson on the club’s single-season scoring charts with his 15th goal of the season while Clint Dempsey and Lamar Neagle both added tallies of their own. The win didn’t come without some adversity as Chivas got on the board first.
In the 12th minute, Erick Torres opened scoring when he pounced on a loose ball in front of an open net. Felix Borja got into the box up the left side, but his shot was met by the charging Stefan Frei for the save. The rebound spilled to Torres and he dropped it into the net for his 15th goal of the season.
Seattle issued a quick response though as Martins sent a laser-beam past Dan Kennedy for his 14th goal of the season in the 14th minute. Marco Pappa rolled it out to Martins in space and, without anyone challenging him, he bent a shot inside the far post to beat Dan Kennedy for his 14th goal of the season.
Chivas reclaimed the lead in the 18th minute when Leandro Barrera rocketed a shot off the crossbar and the rebound fell to Torres. He played it back to Felix Borja in the middle of the box for a first-time shot that Frei got a hand to, but couldn’t keep out of the net as Chivas went up 2-1.
In the end, the goal was credited as an own goal to Jalil Anibaba.
“We’re frustrated with that and that’s something we addressed at halftime,” Schmid said of allowing two goals. “It’s something that we know has to get better.”
By halftime, Seattle would storm its way into the lead.
Lamar Neagle evened it up in the 37th minute with his eighth goal of the season. On an interchange between Dempsey and Martins, the ball took a deflection and spilled behind the defense where Neagle was left alone with Kennedy and he calmly placed a right-footed shot in to equalize at 2-2.
In first-half stoppage time, Dempsey notched his 13th goal of the season on an assist from Martins to put Seattle into the lead for good.
Dempsey and Martins played a 1-2 at the top of the box, then Martins sprung Dempsey behind the defense and he touched a left-footed shot past Kennedy to make it 3-2 going into the break, but that didn’t keep the team from wanting to do better in the second half.
“We were more disappointed in giving up the goals that we give up. We need to lock it down,” Neagle said. “We know we are going to be able to score goals because we have the talent on the field to do that. We just need to pick it up defensively.”
The Sounders picked up where they left off to start the second half and Martins extended their lead with his club-record 15th goal of the season.
Battling in tight space on the edge of the box, Martins danced around the defense to elude his marker and cut a right-footed shot that took a deflection, but not enough to keep it out of the net and Seattle grasped a 4-2 lead in the 51st minute.
Seattle held possession well the rest of the way and kept Chivas from breaking into the attack, finishing off the match with a win and finishing the 16-day stretch with three wins and two losses.
“I’m proud of the group and I’m proud of our character. We’ve shown an ability to come back in a lot of those games. There was nobody more disappointed than the group after the games in New York and Dallas,” Schmid said. “But we’re in first place and people are still chasing us. We’re going to continue to put that pressure on for the rest of the season.”
Seattle will take two days off before returning to training on Tuesday to prepare for the final four matches of the season next Sunday at the Colorado Rapids.
