Wednesday, July 26, was the one-year anniversary of Brian Schmetzer taking the reins of the Seattle Sounders, and the last year at the helm has been anything but uneventful.
The Sounders mutually parted ways with longtime head coach Sigi Schmid on July 26, 2016, and up stepped assistant Schmetzer. All he had to do, as General Manager & President of Soccer Garth Lagerway has said, was average two points per game the rest of the season to help Seattle grab its eighth consecutive playoff berth.
Schmetzer did just that and the rest is, well, history.
“The first six months were with the blinders on trying to stay above water,” Schmetzer said Wednesday. “The second half has been a learning curve for me. It’s been a learning curve because we have a fairly young staff with Djimi [Traore] and Gonzo [Pineda] and myself as a first-time [MLS] head coach.”
Schmetzer has been a rousing success so far. Entering Saturday’s match at the LA Galaxy (7 p.m. PT; ESPN, KIRO Radio 97.3 FM, El Rey 1360AM), he sports a 20-10-11 record in MLS regular-season and postseason play. He also owns a 4-2-1 record in Cascadia matches and is 2-0-1 against the Galaxy.
The first thing Schmetzer & Co. did heading into this season, his first full campaign in charge, was ask a bunch of questions. “Why did we do this for the last eight years? How did we do this for the last eight years? What were the end results of the last eight years?” The staff wanted to revisit every area they could to try and improve. If things went well, they left them alone. If there were things that needed to be addressed, they pragmatically addressed how to do them better.
“The biggest [difference between being head coach and an assistant] is that it’s more time,” Schmetzer said. “It’s more work being the head guy.”
Schmetzer’s favorite moment so far is of no surprise. Being able to lift the club’s improbable first MLS Cup last December meant even more for the Seattle lifer and former Sounders player.
“That day was a very good day for this franchise,” Schmetzer said. “[It was a] great day for the players that gutted through it, great day for the fans.”
Not far behind, though, has been the recent progression that has his team 6-2-2 in its last 10 matches, a mark that includes the largest comeback in MLS history, a three-match winning streak and the first three-game stretch of scoring three or more goals in club history. Seattle enters Saturday’s match against the Galaxy fifth in the Western Conference and just four points out of first place.
“We’ve worked hard,” Schmetzer said. “I never have complaints about the players, they always put it in, but us as a staff being able to see some fruits of our labor, the team starting to round into form, I take some pride in that.”
