SEATTLE — The Seattle Sounders started the opening half of Saturday’s 1-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps in a manner that had been missing during their last two MLS matches. Seattle played the first 45 minutes vs. Vancouver with a confidence and composure that was nonexistent in a loss to Portland and draw in San Jose, two games in which the Sounders allowed a combined five first-half goals.
The team had nearly 63 percent possession on Saturday, meanwhile, and bossed the tempo of the game from the opening whistle. The result was the club’s first clean sheet in 11 matches at a time when getting three points was the only acceptable result.
“What we wanted to do today was make sure that we put [the Whitecaps] under pressure early,” Sounders interim head coach Brian Schmetzer said. “Our messaging throughout the week was two-fold: obviously to try and avoid the slow starts, but the details are always, ‘How do you prevent those slow starts?’ So it’s a little bit better possession early on, it’s a little higher pressure up the field. It manifested itself into a good performance.”
Lone forward Jordan Morris didn’t have too many touches in the first half, but the central midfield play of Ozzie Alonso, Cristian Roldan and Nicolas Lodeiro was strong and the Sounders kept pushing in Vancouver’s half of the field. Outside of a single mistake, in which goalkeeper Stefan Frei made an acrobatic save to deny a ball chipped over his head, the back four was steadfast and resolute in thwarting any potential Whitecaps chances.
A huge component of Saturday’s shutout was the center back play of Roman Torres and Chad Marshall, who started just their second match together this season after Torres returned last week following a year-long ACL rehabilitation.
“I think [Marshall and I] have good chemistry,” Torres said through a translator. “We have very good communication between the two of us. Keeping the clean sheet was the most important thing we were able to accomplish.”
Said Schmetzer: “Roman has a pedigree that is impressive, so these are the types of performances that we expected when we signed Roman. It doesn’t come as big a surprise to me because I’ve seen him in training for the last month and a half, but certainly for all of the fans, it’s impressive. He’s a big guy. He knows his body, he knows the angles, he knows the opponents, so I think that was a performance that you will see more often and if you look at Roman and Chad as a pair, it’s a pretty good pair.”
Fullbacks Joevin Jones and Tyron Mears also got up the field and pushed the pace offensively, putting the onus on the Whitecaps to play defense first. The line of confrontation was higher and allowed for the Sounders to head forward in numbers. Vancouver wanted to catch Seattle on the break, but couldn’t capitalize on the limited number of chances it manufactured.
“We never really felt that we were under that much pressure, Schmetzer said. “We understood what [Vancouver Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson] was trying to do with his counterattacking football. It almost worked for them, but I was very pleased with [goalkeeper Stefan Frei’s] performance.”
The Sounders won for the first time in four matches and since forward Clint Dempsey was sidelined with an irregular heartbeat a few weeks ago. Dempsey had undergone a procedure on the East Coast and returned to Seattle earlier this week, something that Schmetzer said boosted the spirits of the team in training all week and carried over into its start on Saturday.
Another must-win match looms for the Sounders next Sunday in Los Angeles against the Galaxy and the newly unretired Landon Donovan, and the objective will be the same. Keep LA on its heels from the opening whistle and stay compact defensively. A playoff spot is still within reach with six matches remaining, but it will take six more performances like Saturday’s to get there.
