Sounders top Sporting KC 1-0 to advance in MLS playoffs

Published 10:30 pm Thursday, October 27, 2016

SEATTLE — Stefan Frei did the dirty work for 87 minutes. Then Nelson Valdez finished it off in the 88th.

And Seattle Sounders FC is on to the MLS Western Conference semifinals one more time.

Frei was a wall in Seattle’s net, and Valdez scored his first goal in almost a year as the Sounders defeated Sporting Kansas City 1-0 in a winner-takes-all knockout playoff game Thursday night at CenturyLink Field.

Frei made seven saves, several of the diving variety, as Seattle spent much of the game on the defensive. Then Valdez headed in Joevin Jones’ cross in the waning moments as overtime beckoned.

Seattle marches on to the Western Conference semifinals for the eighth time in its eight seasons of existence. The Sounders, seeded fourth in the conference, advanced to face top-seeded FC Dallas in the conference semifinals. The first leg of the home-and-home tie will be played Sunday at CenturyLink Field.

Frei was outstanding, particularly during the first half when he made a pair of diving stops on drives from Paolo Nagamura early in the contest, then had to change directions to palm away a deflection by Kevin Ellis as Seattle owed Frei for the game getting to halftime scoreless. Frei then was at it again late in the second half, thrusting out a leg to deny Benny Feilhaber after Feilhaber dribbled through the defense.

“That’s a number,” Seattle coach Brian Schmetzer said about Frei’s seven saves. “Let’s talk about the quality of the saves. He kept us in the game. Peter (Vermes, Kansas City’s coach) had his team ready to go, and Stefan was the one who kept us in the game in the first half for sure. It was the quality of the saves, not the quantity of the saves.”

That gave Valdez the opportunity to be the hero. Valdez, a Paraguayan international forward and one of Seattle’s three designated players, has had a tough 2016, going scoreless in 16 appearances during the regular season. The last time he found the net for the Sounders was last Oct. 28 in Seattle’s 3-2 victory over the L.A. Galaxy in last season’s knockout round of the playoffs.

But Valdez’s long drought couldn’t have ended at a better time for the Sounders.

In the 88th minute of a scoreless game, the Sounders worked the ball to Jones, advancing from his left-defensive position. Jones put on a burst of speed and clipped a cross out front, where Valdez came flying in and sent a bullet header past Sporting goalkeeper Tim Melia to send the crowd of 36,151 at CenturyLink Field into a frenzy.

“I can’t think of a better person to be rewarded for this moment, because he’s worked so hard all season long,” Schmetzer said of Valdez, who came on as a substitute in the 79th minute. “I know there’s people out there who have said things and we get it, we’re all pros and we understand the business we’re in. But for him to come through in such a critical moment is well deserved. He carried the team on his back here and I’m so happy for Nelson Valdez.”

While Schmetzer was all smiles after the game, Vermes was anything but. Kansas City’s coach spent his press conference berating the officiating, which he believed decided the game. He decried Sporting having a goal disallowed early in the second half when Matt Besler was judged to be offside when he headed the ball into the net, and he argued Seattle’s Osvaldo Alonso should have been ejected midway through the second half because of a foul on Feilhaber that he thought warranted a second yellow card.

“First, congratulate Seattle for moving on,” Vermes said. “Unfortunately, the game was one in which we score and our guy was onsides, they score and their guy was offsides. Unfortunately, Alonso for them should have been thrown out of the game, which would have changed the game. So there were three plays within the game that completely changed the match.

“This game was taken away from us today.”

Spot kicks

Seattle played without attacking midfielder Andreas Ivanschitz, who missed his third straight game because of a sprained right knee. With Ivanschitz out the Sounders continued to use Christian Roldan in more of an attacking role than his usual spot as a holding midfielder. Seattle was also without Oalex Anderson, a dangerous attacker off the bench, because of a hamstring injury. … Kansas City was without veteran winger Brad Davis. Davis was listed as questionable coming into the game because of a calf injury.

For more on the Seattle sports scene, check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/heraldnet/tag/seattle-sidelines, or follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.