It was a frustrating night for Sounders FC, which dominated possession and had a number of quality scoring chances in its scoreless draw with Sporting Kansas City.
Having played a league match just three days earlier – and with some of its key players out due to injury – SKC was very conservative in its approach Saturday night. That style of play generated the first 0-0 result in the last 35 games at CenturyLink Field.
Here’s what Head Coach Sigi Schmid and his players said in their post-match interviews.
Sigi Schmid:
“Obviously, we are disappointed with the tie at home. We always want to win when we are at home. I thought we had more possession – They certainly played deeper. Right from the beginning of the game, they were trying to kill the game when they were taking 25, 30 seconds for every goal kick.”
“We needed to move our play forward and put a little more pressure on them. In a game like this, you’re not really going to get 10 or 15 chances. Maybe you will get one or two, and you need to finish them when you can. That didn’t fall for us today.”
Brad Evans:
“I think tonight was a little bit of a game of cat and mouse. If we go [forward] too much, I think they probably catch us on the counterattack. That’s kind of the MO when a team comes in and sits back – They want to catch you on a counterattack. I thought we had a good balance of being safe and keeping possession but also creating what I thought was a number of chances.”
Chad Barrett:
“They kind of just packed it in. Most teams come in here and do that anyway. I think with their game on Wednesday and the fact that they had so many injuries, they only had one choice and that was to sit in. We pretty much had a full team on a full week’s rest, and they pretty much did exactly what they came in here for.”
