SANTA TECLA, El Salvador — The Seattle Sounders have everything to play for in the return leg of their Round of 16 match against Santa Tecla FC in CONCACAF Champions League.
After falling 2-1 at Estadio Las Delicias on Thursday, Seattle will welcome the Salvadoran champions to CenturyLink Field on March 1. Playing without some big names in Clint Dempsey, Román Torres, Ozzie Alonso, Kelvin Leerdam, Víctor Rodríguez and Magnus Wolff Eikrem, the Sounders took a 1-0 lead into halftime before succumbing to two goals in a 10-minute span in the second half.
“A game is a game whether it’s in Central America, North America or South America,” said Head Coach Brian Schmetzer. “Santa Tecla played well. I think we can play better. I can’t blame the astro turf, I can’t blame the travel. My players fought hard, but at the end of the day, they scored two and we only scored one.”
Said midfielder Cristian Roldan: “We at times didn’t come to play, and that’s our own fault. The conditions were difficult, we expected that, but Santa Tecla played well and they bossed the game for a bit.
“It was a difficult game, they controlled most of it and the majority of the chances, but we had that one shot, that one goal that changed the game and we have to be tighter defensively and not let them score those two goals because it changed the series.”
Roldan said Santa Tecla was much stronger on the ball in possession than he had expected and showcased some skill from a team and country trying to make a splash in the region. The Sounders have one of the best home-field advantages in MLS, though — Seattle has only lost one game at CenturyLink Field in the year and a half since Schmetzer took over — and will try and use that to their advantage to turn the deficit around next week.
“The mathematics are if we win 1-0, we can go through,” said Schmetzer. “We’ll go through all the scores. But at the end of the day, we have to just play a little bit better at home, pick the tempo up, make sure we’re putting pressure on them in the right moments and make them feel our crowd. Make them feel our pressure to make them make mistakes so that we can score some goals.”
Added Roldan: “El Salvador has good competition. Their teams have quality and we saw it today. But playing at home in Seattle is a whole different animal, and hopefully we can take advantage of that.”
