Sounders fall 2-0 to New York City FC, fifth loss in six games
Published 1:30 am Sunday, June 26, 2016
SEATTLE — Brad Evans has seen enough.
The Seattle Sounders FC captain had some stern words following the Sounders’ 2-0 loss to New York City FC on Saturday afternoon at CenturyLink Field.
The Sounders suffered the indignity of having a handball allowed for the first goal, committed a major gaffe for the second, and continued to fire blanks up front. Now Seattle is in danger of falling into the basement in the MLS Western Conference, depending on how Houston fares Sunday in its game at Portland.
And Evans did not hide his displeasure following the game.
“Some guys it’s in one ear and out the other — ‘I’m here to do my thing and that’s it’ — and some guys are here for the team,” Evans said when asked about talking to his teammates as a captain. “We have to figure out the best combination and we’ve all got to be on board for the exact same goal, because if we’re not we’re only going to find ourselves in the bottom two.”
Frank Lampard scored a controversial goal late in the first half for NYC (6-5-6), then Ronald Matarrita put the game away near the end of regulation following a terrible giveaway by Seattle’s Joevin Jones. Meanwhile Seattle (5-9-1), despite playing against the team that had surrendered the most goals in MLS, was unable to get its sputtering offense going.
“We’re not watching fantastic soccer being played against us,” Evans said. “We’re not watching teams slice and dice us apart and get chance after chance after chance. We’re watching teams get garbage goals against us, quite possibly a handball and then a deflection, and on the last one a mental error that leads to another garbage goal.
“I think if we were giving up fantastic goals, then OK, teams are better than us,” Evans continued. “But right now that’s not the case. I don’t think we’re facing teams that are better than us, we’re just not finishing chances, and once we do that I think we’ll find ourselves on the right side of a result.”
Seattle is going to need those results soon. Things are beginning to look grim for the Sounders as they approach the midway point of the season. Seattle has lost five of its past six, and it’s possible the Sounders — who have never missed the playoffs in their eight-year history — will be as many as eight points out of playoff position by the end of the weekend.
The problem has been goal scoring. Seattle managed just three goals during it’s current six-game swoon. Indeed, the Sounders’ 13 goals (in 16 games) is the fewest in MLS. Granted, the past three defeats came without star forward Clint Dempsey, who is finishing up his stint with the U.S. national team at Copa America. But even a proven goal scorer like Dempsey has managed to find the net just twice in his 10 appearances for the Sounders.
On Saturday it was more of the same. The Sounders were able to create their share of dangerous moments, but rarely were they able to do anything in those moments to seriously threaten NYC’s goal.
“Right now we’re like a blunt razor,” Seattle coach Sigi Schmid said about his team’s finishing.
“We felt we could get behind their high line, and we did,” Schmid added. “But once you get behind that high line and get breakaways, instead of going a foot-and-a-half wide it’s got to go six inches inside the post.”
It doesn’t help when the team doesn’t get any aid from the officials, either.
What may have been the game’s decisive moment came in the 38th minute. NYC had a corner kick on the right that was initially cleared by the Sounders. NYC’s RJ Allen clipped the ball back toward the goal mouth, where Lampard used his body to direct it past Seattle goalkeeper Stefan Frei.
After a brief moment of consideration referee Alan Kelly awarded the goal, determining the ball came off Lampard’s chest. The Sounders objected, with replays showing the ball actually came off Lampard’s wrist. Kelly went back to deliberate with his linesman, and after another delay the goal was upheld, giving NYC a 1-0 lead.
“It changes the whole game,” Schmid said. “It’s a handball, the referee doesn’t call it, they discuss it, the linesman’s thinking it was no handball on Lampard, it was a handball before, they don’t see it. Now we’re down 1-0, their confidence is up, our confidence is down.”
Seattle had some chances in the second half, but Jordan Morris wasn’t able to finish off an early partial breakaway, and the Sounders weren’t able to turn late pressure into scoring chances.
Then NYC put the game away in the 87th minute. Jones’ errant pass into his own penalty box gifted the ball to NYC. Frei and defender Chad Marshall both made last-ditch challenges, but Matarrita was on hand to put the third chance away and send the crowd of 47,537 streaming toward the exits.
Spot kicks
Schmid was honored prior to the game for reaching the 500-game milestone as an MLS coach. Schmid, who began his MLS coaching career with the L.A. Galaxy in 1999 and is the only coach the Sounders have had since they began play in 2009, reached the 500-game mark in last week’s 2-0 loss at the New York Red Bulls. He’s the first coach in MLS history to reach 500 games. … Saturday’s game was just the second time this season that NYC’s three international stars — England’s Lampard, Spain’s David Villa and Italy’s Andrea Pirlo — started the same game. Lampard has spent most of the season battling a calf injury.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
