Sounders Player Ratings

Schmid nobly accepts blame but too many had their worst game in the Sounders jersey

Sometimes the opponent just plays well. Having rewatched the Columbus Crew v Sounders FC game though, this does not suffice to explain how bad this Seattle performance was.

Every player has a best – and a worst – performance in a jersey and for a few simultaneously the latter came in Ohio.

That is something to dismiss in the case of a player who has just arrived and has generally done well like Tyrone Mears, but when we state that this may have been Osvaldo Alonso’s worst game as a Sounder, that is more ominous.

A collective lethargy set in.  Tracking and marking was slovenly. Sometimes defenders challenged for the same ball but more often it was an even number less than one.

Over half the side deserves some blame for the third goal. Where was Tyrone Mears is only the starting question on that one. Sounders are not the only side to collectively back off when a dangerous player runs across the goal looking for a shooting option. After all, they often benefit from a collective fear of the tackle when Martins is dancing with the ball seemingly glued to his foot.

Schmid himself nobly threw himself in from of his players in the post match media scrum:

“We gave them too much space, [we]might have gotten the tactics wrong, but that’s on me. That is something I have already thought about if we run into them again and how we may play them a little bit differently. We made a decision to play one way and maybe that was not the right decision, but on the same token, sometimes we were in position, but we were just a step slow.”

That Seattle ‘gave them too much space’ might be a great deal of an understatement, probably just ahead of ‘a step slow’. In Schmid’s defence, scoring goals on the breakaway has been a formula for recent success. So sitting back and awaiting the tackle and turnover might not, on paper, have seemed like a bad idea. The problem was the tackle never came.

With last week’s game being played on an overtly small baseball field in New York, there was never going to be space for anyone and that tactic may have been in use but barely noticeable.

Nonetheless, Columbus were just too good to be allowed to run at Seattle and that must go down as an intelligence failure, as well as an error of judgment on Schmid’s part. Recent arrival from Columbus Chad Marshall could perhaps have seen it coming too.

Schmid has a week to work out what it will take to avoid the Whitecaps exploiting such deficiencies. Asked that question, he responded with less than a panic answer:

“You can’t get too high and you can’t get too low. We are alright and we are a good road team. We have been on the road now and we’ve had 5 games on the road. We are 2-2-1 on the road and I don’t think there are that many teams with that kind of record.”

I agree.

Sounders fans should not get too low about the team’s overall sluggishness. They still scored twice on the road even if one was a gift. Stefan Frei was resilient as a last line. Lamar Neagle remains in reserve even if it means a tough decision to rest a higher profile player to give him a start.

Where they should be concerned is Osvaldo Alonso’s drop below his best since he returned from injury. One can wonder if he was brought back too soon.

When Clint Dempsey is injured, you can bet that Jurgen Klinsmann is on the phone to Schmid immediately to discuss his recuperation. Therefore, without insinuating that anyone but Schmid and the Sounders physio take the big decisions, two people are at least involved. With Alonso’s exclusion from either Cuban or US sides, there may have been one less voice for Schmid to take into account. Something is not right though.

In the 48th minute, Columbus midfielder Tony Tchani lost control and practically offered the ball on a late to Alonso. Rather than time a perfect challenge to dispossess, Alonso hacked into the general area and committed a foul with Martins frustratingly waiting in space nearby. Had Alonso been at his best, the Nigerian would have been haring down on goal terrifying back-pedaling defenders within seconds

Elsewhere several players just had an off night. Martins dropped below his fantastic standard though he can point to a excellent performance from Crew’s Emmanuel Pogatetz who really stood up to Martin’s physicality with his own in one of the game’s fascinating side battles.

It is Dempsey’s job rather than Martins’ to drop back and fight for possession if enough isn’t already forthcoming. Dempsey didn’t do enough in this department but he did score two goals, the first a really excellent one.

Mears was always going to have his worst game one day. Sadly he chose to do it while Dylan Remick was also having his. It has to be said that Chad Marshall chose his homecoming to have his least influential game too. Gonzalo Pineda had a slightly better outing than Pappa. One of them, or Ady Rose, may make way for a Neagle start against Vancouver depending on what tactical alterations Schmid makes for the Whitecaps.

The player ratings will go through the players one by one