Can Sounders FC get on back track in Open Cup?

As it approaches the halfway point of what’s been a disappointing Major League Soccer season, Sounders FC kicks off a title defense in Portland.

Seattle faces the Portland Timbers at 7:30 p.m. tonight in the third round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, a tournament Sounders FC won last year.

Portland, a member of the United Soccer League, joins MLS next season, but for now the Timbers would love to knock off a few MLS teams in an Open Cup run. The Open Cup, which dates to 1914, is a tournament that runs concurrent to the MLS season and is open to club teams at the amateur level all the way up to MLS squads. Portland has won two qualifying games to reach the third round, while Seattle, like the other top eight MLS teams from last season, received an automatic berth in the round of 16.

Tonight’s game is the second of three road games in eight days for Sounders FC, which lost in Philadelphia on Sunday and plays at the Los Angeles Galaxy this weekend. Seattle won the Open Cup last season, and hopes that starting its title defense with a win over Portland can spark a team that is off to a 4-7-3 start.

One key for Seattle and other teams in the Open Cup is finding the right mix of players when playing more than one game per week. Last year, Seattle frequently started reserves in the Open Cup while resting key starters such as Freddie Ljungberg. Teams are also limited in the number of foreign players they are allowed to use in Open Cup games.

“You have got to mix guys,” Sounders FC coach Sigi Schmid said. “Some guys seem to deal all right with playing game after game. They are able to take on that load. Some are different body compositions and for them, taking on a heavy, heavy load of games is not the best option. A lot of times it comes to individual decision so it’s not like, ‘Oh, Sigi must think this guy is a better player. He’s playing him all the time.’ It’s sometimes somebody just has the physical capacity to do it while the other guy maybe doesn’t. It takes management of your squad rotation and proper management of training.”

And while Sounders FC is on its heels after losing to Philadelphia, which came into the game with the worst record in the league, Schmid said after that loss that his team is still confident heading into tonight game, as well as Sunday’s in L.A.

“We still believe in ourselves as a unit,” Schmid said. “The game’s all about when you dominate, you have to score goals and you have to make sure they don’t score.”

If Seattle wins tonight, it plays host to a quarterfinal game next Wednesday at the Starfire Sports Complex against the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.