Sounders break out of scoring drought

SEATTLE — As the poor results mounted this season, Sounders FC players continued to predict that the team was close to breaking out, close to getting out of its scoring funk.

On Saturday night, it finally happened for Seattle. A team desperate for a win, Seattle spent pretty much the entire night dismantling the New England Revolution, and the end result was a 3-0 victory that was the team’s first at home since April 17, and saw Seattle end a 270-minute home scoring drought.

“We had to win, we just had to win,” said midfielder/forward Steve Zakuani, who had a goal and an assist. “We’ve been saying for a while that there will be a game where we’re going to break out, and tonight happened to be that night.”

Instead of trying to figure out what went wrong after this game, Sounders FC coach Sigi Schmid could joke this time about his team’s earlier struggles.

“Well it’s one of those games again where I see we outshot them 19-2, so again we created chances but they didn’t go … Oh, I can change the story,” he said. “I got used to saying the same thing all the time.”

The jovial mood carried over into the locker room, where goalkeeper Kasey Keller gave teammate Leo Gonzalez a hard time, joking that the defender’s goal was a lucky one, then later told assistant coach Brian Schmetzer that “Don Johnson wants his suit back.”

All joking aside, however, Keller said this result was only half of what Seattle hopes to accomplish before a league-wide World Cup break. Seattle (4-5-3) hosts D.C. United Thursday, and would love to head into the break on a two-game winning streak.

“Although we’re going to enjoy ourselves, and fans are going to enjoy themselves, we can’t do this halfway,” Keller said. “We know we’ve got another game on Thursday that we’re more than capable of winning as well. And what a great way to go into the mini break with six points. It’s halftime for me. Now the second half starts against D.C. … This hopefully a large, large step towards a lot of better things coming.”

The rout was started by an unlikely candidate to end the team’s scoring drought, as Gonzalez hammered a shot past rookie goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth to give Seattle a lead in the fifth minute. Gonzalez had played a pass to Zakuani, who misplayed the ball, but his errant first touch went right to Gonzalez, who fired in his first goal since joining the team last summer.

Zakuani made it 2-0 in the 24th minute, scoring his fourth goal of the season. Fredy Montero started the play with a throw into the box, which Brad Evans controlled and played toward the top of the box where Zakuani was able to hit the volley into the top of the goal.

Montero added a third goal in the 42nd minute, taking a pass from Pat Noonan, faking out his defender, then firing a low shot past Shuttleworth.

Seattle continued to apply pressure in the second half even with the three goal lead, and while Sounders FC had more chances, it did not build upon its three-goal lead. Even with the scoreless second half, the game was the highest scoring of the year for Seattle since a 3-2 win last October. The three-goal half was also a first for the team.

After switching to a 4-4-3 formation earlier in the season, Seattle went back to a 4-4-2, and the switch paid off. Schmid particularly seemed to like the way the new formation freed up Freddie Ljungberg on the right wing. Despite not showing up on the score sheet, Ljungberg was dangerous the entire way until he came out for a late-game substitution.

“It was nice to get some goals,” Schmid said. “… I thought the soccer we played was good. I thought playing out of a 4-4-2, I thought we were more dangerous having a partner up front. I thought Freddie Ljungberg wide right was outstanding, creating numerous opportunities for us, and as we get used to him there as well it will make it easier for us to get him the ball more often in better positions also. But I was just pleased with our effort. The theme today was we wanted to play like there’s no tomorrow, and we came out in the first half and we played that way.”

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.