Stromson — Seattle Sounders: A fiery finish

Hello all, and welcome back to another update of the Seattle Sounders story! I’ll apologize in advance: this one is going to be a bit on the lengthy side. I got carried away while playing yesterday afternoon, and ended up playing all the way through to the end of the season (I’d planned on doing an August — September and then an October — November post), so there won’t be quite as much detail as usual (I’ll make it up with a video at the end!). When last we left, we’d just been drawn against Joe Public in the CONCACAF Champion’s League, and were doing pretty well in the MLS. Let’s see how the remainder of the year panned out:

August Results:

We began the month of August with two league fixtures: Houston and Chivas USA. Neither team was doing especially well in the league, but Houston had one of the lowest «allowed goals» totals in the league, so I knew I’d be up against a staunch defense. I turned out to be correct as we battled to a very hard fought 1-1 draw against the surprisingly talented Dynamo squad. Chivas provided only marginal resistance, and we walked out easy 1-0 winners in a game where I had the squad playing slow and relaxed.

Next up was our first leg of the NACL Preliminary Round against Joe Public. We were traveling all the way to Trinidad and Tobago (over 7,000 miles away) for the fixture, and I was nervous that we’d be too out of sorts to perform well. We were heavy favorites though, and anytime Fredy Montero takes the pitch I feel confident of a win.

Heartbreak!! A pyrrhic victory if ever there was one, we’d won comfortably but at what cost? The post game physio report delivered dreaded news — Montero had broken his arm and would be out for the better part of 3 months. To make matters even worse, my backup striker (a 35 year old) injured his back in training the very next day and would be out for 4 weeks. I forgot to take a screenshot immediately, but a few weeks later showed this:

Losing our best player and both of our strikers hurt us quite badly, and we saw an immediate drop off in results. Fortunately we were still able to squeak out a win in both of our next two games courtesy of some stellar midfield play from Alvaro Fernandez and John Rooney.

September Results:

Following our 6-0 aggregate win over Joe Public, we were drawn into the NACL Group «D», which consisted of:

-Monterrey (Mexico), Olimpia (Honduras), Vancouver (Canada), and ourselves (America?).

We were seeded third behind Monterrey and Olimpia, but ahead of Vancouver. This was a strong group, and I had no reasonable expectation of advancing out of this group, figuring the only team we were capable of beating would be Vancouver (but without Montero, I wasn’t sure if we could even do that). First up was our opening match against Vancouver:

Yikes! As I’d feared, a Montero-less Seattle was a non-existant Seattle. Despite our being heavily favored to win the game, we allowed the Whitecaps to walk all over us, and we could’ve easily lost the game by 2 or even 3 goals. In fairness, we did get a few quality shots on goal, but just weren’t able to take advantage of our few chances. I hate to say it, but we didn’t deserve to win. We had a short break before we pulled off a 2-1 away win over Columbus in the league, and then we immediately headed home for our first leg match against Olimpia:

Okay, so we deserved that one too. Neither team played especially well, and the media prediction of a hard fought draw rang true. Olimpia looked far more dangerous in the final third than we ever did, but Kasey Keller managed to summon some more magic to see us through and grant us the one point. We immediately jumped on a plane for Chicago,  where we were due to face off agains the Fire for the first time all year. The Windy City wasn’t kind to us, and we lost a scrappy 0-1 game. We had no time to dwell on the loss though, as we were once again airborne and on our way to Mexico. Monterrey were heavy favorites in this match, and I was hoping just to keep the result respectable.

Whaaaaaaat!? I could only throw up my hands as the final whistle sounded. Not only had we just beaten the number one seed in the group, we had dominated them. Monterrey never seriously challenged us, and had only a single scary shot on goal in the waning moments. I was ecstatic, but there was still quite a bit of work to be done.

October Results:

I was excited about entering October. October was when Fredy Montero was due back, and we desperately needed his talents if we were to have a realistic chance of advancing out of Group D and challenging for the MLS Title. At the same time I was rather concerned, as we had no fewer than nine matches schedule for the month (including one playoff game), and didn’t have a single break longer than three days.

Well I’d say that went fairly well. Fredy Montero made his triumphant return against Vancouver, and scored the winning goal in the 75th minute as we earned some revenge for our earlier defeat. He followed up the effort with a brace in a thrilling match against Kansas City that saw David Estrada score the winning goal in the 87th minute. We wasted a perfectly good lead against Real Salt Lake, and gave up the tying goal in the 89th before taking out our frustration on Chivas.

The match against Olimpia proved to be a real nail-biter, and we saw ourselves down 2-0 at the half before Estrada and Montero lead a ferocious comeback that allowed us to scrape out a point. An easy win against Houston was followed up with another shocking result against Monterrey. I was stunned at the final Group D table:

We’d finished first! The quarter final draw wasn’t due to go through until December 8th, but we’d managed to achieve our goal of advancing to the knockout stages of the competition! Our excellent October run (and a convenient New York loss) saw us finish top of the table in the MLS and we earned the team’s first ever Supporter’s Shield (awarded to the team with the best record in the MLS):

We were drawn up against the Chicago Fire for the Conference Semi Final, and I was a little nervous about the fixture. Head over to the next page to see how the playoffs unfolded!

I had been under the impression that the top two seeds were allowed to skip the Semi Final stage, but I was apparently in correct. Regardless, as the #1 overall seed, I was pitted against 8th seed Chicago. The MLS Conference semi finals are a two stage affair with no away goals rule, so ties are settled by extra time and penalty kicks. The first stage was to be held at Toyota Park in Chicago, a stadium that hadn’t been friendly to me in the past:

Excellent result! We played well, and were much more successful than the last time out against the Fire. The only two blemishes on the night were a late goal we gave up for cheap, and a 90th minute injury to winger Danny Earls. Fortunately the injury turned out to be nothing, and he wasn’t going to miss any time (whew!). The possession arrow slightly favored Chicago, but we looked the more threatening team throughout the match. This gave me some confidence heading into our crucial home leg:

ARGH!!! AGAIN!? Yeah yeah, we won 2-0 and advanced on a comfortable 4-1 aggregate in a match where I was fairly certain we were playing the Chicago reserve squad. My frustration stemmed from a cheap challenge (that resulted in no penalty) had put Fredy Montero down and out for the remainder of the game. The word I received from my physio post-match was grim: Fredy had broken his ankle and was to be out for 2-3 months. I could’ve punched something such was my anger. Fortunately for the local drywall, I’m not a violent person, and so was content to merely throw a pair of socks across the room and pout for few minutes. This was a crushing blow to our title hopes, and it couldn’t have occurred at a worse time. Thankfully I didn’t have long to dwell, and we immediately set to work preparing for our Conference Final matchup against the LA Galaxy.

Brilliant! We gave a fine performance as the squad went out and won one for Fredy (who is extremely popular in the locker room). We showed a lot of heart, and despite losing our best player, we put on quite a show. An LA own goal got us started, and the squad just took off from there. A late defensive breakdown gave the Galaxy a consolation goal, and they nearly managed to put a second on the board were it not for a fine save from Kasey Keller. This set us up for the ultimate showdown: an MLS title match against D.C. United!

I had very mixed emotions heading into the United match. I get along very well with their manager Ben Olsen, and we have great mutual respect for each other. Our teams are rivals, but we get along well on the pitch (they’re probably following their manager’s example). We’d beaten United in all three of our meetings so far (twice in the league and once in the US Cup), and I felt good about our chances. Then again, without Montero I wasn’t nearly as confident, and DC had beaten some good teams to get this far. The match was also to be played back in Chicago at Toyota Field, which also gave me pause (the stadium is jinxed, I swear it). The squad handled the pre-match media run-up (or lack thereof) well, and we walked onto the pitch with heads held high:

Agony! Despair! Watery beer! It was a game for the ages, but we just couldn’t manage it in the end. The first half was a complete deadlock with neither team generating anything that looked like a real chance, and was dominated by a subpar midfield display. My spirits were lifted when Nkufo put away an excellent shot to give us a 1-0 lead, but they immediately fell again as Quaranta burned us for an equalizer only four minutes later. As time wound down, it became apparent that we’d be heading for extra time. I decided to make a pair of subs and set the squad up for full blown «turtle mode». Our fitness was slightly better than United’s and I hoped to wear them down enough for us to slip in a late winner. If all else failed, penalties would be an acceptable result. We had several excellent penalty takers, and I was confident in Kasey Keller’s ability to stop shots.

Unfortunately we never got the chance to test my theory. My defensive posturing backfired, and Quaranta broke down our defense almost single handed to give DC the winning goal. I let my head drop as the final whistle sounded on our defeat. We hadn’t been able to beat United when it really counted, and they were taking home their 5th title as the result. Ben Olsen, ever the classy guy, sung my praises to the media in his post game interview, and I was sure to return the favor. If I had to lose to anyone, I’m glad it was him.

Next Steps:

So where does this leave us? Watch the video below to find out (I decided to test out a second video to gauge your reaction)! I apologize for any miscellaneous noises; I’m still figuring out some of the finer points of recording. :-p

Seattle Sounders End of Season 1

Thanks for reading (and watching) guys, hope you enjoyed it!