Sounders Penalty Woes
The Sounders have conceded four penalties in the last two games, all of which have resulted in game-changing goals for their opponents.
Jeez, man. It seems like this team loves to pick up one annoying bad habit at a time. For a while it’s been flipping between missing chances in the final third and dropping points at home. Now it’s giftwrapping these lovely penalty goals for their opposing team.
Actually, I lied. It’s that and giftwrapping 11-on-10 for the team’s opponents with red cards. But I’ll focus on the penalties here.
Four in the last two. What.
July 13: From 3-0 to Close Game
Picture this: it’s the second half of the Sounders’ game against a Sporting Kansas City side that’s a little worse than mediocre. Seattle is up 3-0, apparently cruising to an easy victory over their opponent on the road.
But SKC is in an attacking phase. The Sounders have held up pretty nicely, but it’s a lot of time to be pressed back to your own posts. Joveljic cuts into the box, looking for an opening among several Salish Sea kits.
Boom. Danny Musovski bumps into him. Joveljic falls to the ground, and referee Elijio Arreguin throws up his arm. A minute later, the ball hits the back of the net.
Okay. One penalty given up is not the worst thing in the world. It happens.
But when it happens twice, it begins to get a little worrying. In the 90th minute, it was RBW knocking into Santiago Muñoz during yet another extended phase of SKC attacking. The penalty swooshed into the net again. 3-2.
Pretty much the entire rest of that game consisted of Kansas City pounding at the Sounders’ low block, but the visitors held out for the win. Phew.
July 16: Not So Lucky This Time
It was way uglier the second time around. After 47 minutes on Wednesday, it was a rerun of the SKC start: 3-0. The team looked like they were firing on all cylinders, really dominating the game against the Colorado Rapids, who sit around dead middle in the table.
Then in the 49th minute, Cristian Roldan and Rafael Navarro collided on an aerial play within the 18 box. Boom, another penalty. A minute later, another penalty goal. 3-1 Seattle.
And yet again, Seattle kept digging the hole. Quite literally a minute later, Colorado came forth with another attack. Ku-DiPietro serviced to Navarro in the box. As Navarro was chasing the ball, Thomas dove down to deflect it, but upended Navarro instead.
3-2 again, this time after two penalties in less than five minutes. Holy moly, that’s not what you want to see from your team.
This go around, their opponents had almost 40 minutes to tie it up. And instead of taking back control of the game and keeping or expanding the lead, the Sounders again fell into a very low block for long stretches, and eventually, a crack showed for long enough for the Rapids to punch one in. The game ended 3-3.
So What’s Happening?
Each one of these penalties was obviously a misplay from the Sounder in question, but some of these conceded penalties were worse than others. In particular, Andrew Thomas’ penalty in the Colorado game stands out as unnecessary. It would have been a bad angle for Navarro to score and a worse angle to cross.
“What am I going to say about Andrew? He tried to make a play. He’s a young goalkeeper, he’s going to learn from that moment, he’s going to be fine,” Schmetzer said after the game.
But the other ones clearly come from the Sounders breaking down under pressure deep in their territory. When they’re up by a couple, they often go into a very low block, bringing all their guys into the box and trying to jam shut any windows. They sometimes get counterplay out of it, but it’s a different strategy from the usual possession game they play.
“We’re asking absolutely everybody to get back, and when we win the ball, we don’t have an outlet,” Cristian said after Wednesday’s game.
Add the fact that they’re clearly tired out there. They’ve played an insane amount of games this year between CONCAChampions, MLS, and the CWC. Big minute stalwarts like Cristian are clearly struggling with exhaustion. And when they’re all bunched up in the box and exhausted, they are less sharp in their movements – leading to clumsiness.
“You look at our first halves and we look sharp, we look fresh at times, we look like we’re in such control of the game,” Cristian said.
Cristian sort of danced around the implication, but the unsaid words were clear – they’re gassed out there by the time the second half comes around.
I think Schmetz has at least started to grasp how much it’s affecting the team, but he still emphatically defended his reasoning for keeping Wednesday’s starters largely unrotated – that reason being that he wanted to start the homestand off hot with the top of the depth chart.
Schmetzer used the maximum number of subs, but the first was a swap of two minute-limited recent injury returns and the last three came in the 80th minute, after Colorado had scored their equalizer.
For today’s game against San Jose, getting some rested players in there in the second half will be key. Let’s hope they can bounce back from Wednesday’s ugly tie and not concede any more blasted penalties.