Seattle Sounders Scouting Report: In Which I Channel D.A.R.E.

D.A.R.E., still 1,000% on brand.

Yeah, yeah, up goes another post. What can I say? I get nostalgic about every regular season one or two games before it ends…

…and then I forgot every last thing about it one day after MLS Cup. I am a simple man overwhelmed by the passing of the seasons. Enough about me. Preview time.

Does it get better than two teams playing their nemesis (both on and off the field) with all kinds of things on the line? This Saturday (aturday, aturday, aturday) won’t just establish who leads and whom follows in the post-season dance, it will decide which team takes home the Cascadia Cup (still wide-open) among? the Seattle Sounders, the Vancouver Whitecaps and…your…Portland Tim-BERS! [CROWD GOING WILD! REGGAETON HORNS!!] If I’m tracking the information posted on Sounder at Heart right, fun fact, Vancouver actually has the weakest grip on the Cascadia trophy.

The math is simple for the Timbers: if Portland wins and Vancouver loses or draws at Real Salt Lake, the Timbers host the play-in game versus Vancouver and lift the Cascadia Cup to the heavens! [SOUND OF CROWD GOING WILD, REGGAETON HORNS!!] The math gets a little more complicated around Seattle, but that has more to do with the mad scramble/crash-up derby among the teams that currently sit between 5th and 7th in the West. I pulled Vancouver out of that grouping because they can’t finish any higher than 7th, but, unless my math is wrong (as always, check it) Houston Dynamo FC, the Colorado Rapids, and Minnesota United FC can finish in any order – that’s up to and including Minnesota falling to 8th place (which would happen if and only if Vancouver beats RSL and they lose at home versus St. Louis CITY FC). Bottom line, Seattle will sit in third or fourth by the end of the night regardless and,

Even if I just wrote The Great Gatsby of playoff maths, all the above counts as a massive digression from the task at hand – i.e., tallying the things to worry about against the Sounders this Saturday and/or finding the best path to prolonging the Agony of Brian Schmetzer. Let’s turn to that now…

Seattle Sounders, The Basics
Record/Top Stats: 3rd in West, 5th overall; 16-9-8, 56 pts., 50 gf, 34 ga (+16); home record: 8-2-6
Last 10 Results: WLWLWWTWWW
Home or Away: HHAAAHHHAA

Seattle Sounders 0-3 Portland Timbers: Fun! (And Pointless Anxiety!)

First, so, SO good.

Tonight’s challenge is to walk the line between celebrating a good, useful, comedy-rich win and acknowledging that, despite the 3-0 score-line, the Portland Timbers didn’t play a great game. They may not have even played a good one.

Going the other way, I see not just free money in my bank account, but a fall-down fucking hysterical situation where Mike Penso waves off a penalty shout for a trip on Nico Lodeiro that 90% of the world agrees he should give, only to reward the Timbers with an equally obvious call (something like) 40-45 minutes later for a handball just inside the area, and only after video review. Maybe the whole CCL banner stunt felt tacky to Penso too...

Because I’m about to grind a couple personal axes, I want to make a couple things very clear. First, I genuinely enjoyed the win. If nothing else, it’s exciting, i.e., a dramatic pratfall in the middle of Seattle’s presumed stroll to the throne that so many people (including me) expect them to make. Everything down to the start of the game worked toward setting up that narrative; Seattle even had one of their typical flurries around the 17th-19th minutes, one of those periods where they got off two quality shots out of a period of sustained pressure. Related thereto, and more than a little fortunate, Aljaz Ivacic completely missed both shots; he didn’t see Raul Ruidiaz’s shot till it bonked off his head and bravo, Claudio Bravo, for clearing the ball off the line on the other, but ain’t that soccer, sometimes? (Surely, you get all or some of that in here?) Isn’t that why they call it the blues?

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the game only really turned when Seattle’s Jackson Ragen got sent off for a wild-ass foul on Eryk Williamson, like, stupid early in the second half. Sure, Portland scored a go-ahead goal out of three passes and Jaroslaw Niezgoda’s ass at the 24th minute – also, hold this thought, because I’m obsessing – but I didn’t feel the weight of resignation among Seattle's players until after Ragen’s dismissal. As much as Portland’s opener put Seattle on their heels, they played as if someone had set their game-plan on fire and waggled it in front of them (while doing some really uncomfortable, faux-erotic dance) after the Ragen’s second yellow. From that point forward, some vague sense of not knowing what to do next weighed on their every step and every pass.

Basically, as good as the goal felt (very! thanks!), it didn’t take too much to imagine how Seattle would get back into the game at the half-time whistle. Five minutes after that red card, I straight up knew they had too much doubt in their heads to get anything better than the draw. Part of me thinks Brian Schmetzer chased his charges onto the field after burning the thought “put your stamp on the game” into their heads. When Ragen did, the wheels spun off.