Each week, MLSSoccer.com’s Sam Polak breaks down the top coaching moves from the previous week. In this edition, he highlights Seattle Sounders Head Coach Brian Schmetzer’s impactful decision to bring on captain Osvaldo Alonso as a 59th-minute substitute in a 1-0 win over Sporting Kansas City on Saturday.
The Seattle Sounders' 1-0 win against Sporting Kansas City featured a great game-winning goal from Clint Dempsey, but Head Coach Brian Schmetzer put his stamp on this game, as he has a couple times already this season, with a quality decision to bring on Osvaldo Alonso in the 59th minute.
This change had the obvious benefit of giving Alonso the opportunity to start to regain some of his fitness, having missed some time with an injury, but it was also the correct player to put in to solve some of the problems the Sounders were having and to see the match through.
Seattle had struggled a bit to find the right movement to disrupt Sporting KC’s defensive shape in addition to finding simple passes from their backs into their midfielders like the sequence below.
Once Alonso came in, their possession and movement looked like this.
As Schmetzer noted in his postgame address to the team, Alonso provided needed composure for Seattle. And it was this decision to bring in Alonso’s combination of situational awareness and assuredness on the ball that helped the Sounders secure all three points.
