By Wednesday night’s match at D.C. United, the first three months of the MLS season had worn the Sounders down to the rails.
Clint Dempsey and Nelson Valdez were both at points distant for Copa America duty. Roman Torres still has not returned from his 2015 knee injury. Chad Marshall sat with a lingering injury. Zach Scott left the match in the 40th minute with an injury, giving way to a first-half bench stint from Tony Alfaro for the second consecutive match.
None of that mattered. Seattle weathered D.C.’s rolling waves of thunder in the first half, fought through a lull early in the second and then powered through the final 15 minutes with a fury uncommon to mankind. Suddenly the whistle had gone and it was 2-0 and the Sounders had their first road win of the season.
“It’s good for our confidence,” said Sounders keeper Stefan Frei, who pitched his fourth shutout of the season. “It was good to get the three points.”
There was plenty to digest about this match, so let’s jump right into three salient things we learned on a massive Wednesday night for the Sounders.
Joevin Jones to the rescue
Joevin Jones is a left back. He’s an attacking left back, no doubt, but there’s little question that his best utility in the long run has been stationed behind the midfield as an overlapping threat. After some early struggles adapting to a new place and a new coaching staff, Jones settled in and earned some rest in favor of Dylan Remick after playing 90 draining minutes in a 2-1 loss at New England on Saturday.
On Wednesday, his role shifted. For the first time in Seattle, he came on as a super-sub winger. And he put in one of the great sub stints in Sounders history.
Jones came on for Andreas Ivanschitz in the 74th minute, and in a mere 16 minutes he managed to create the situation that led to Morris’s opening goal in the 79th, and he finished brilliantly for the second four minutes later. As a fullback-playing-left wing, there is little more (if anything) Jones could possibly have done to lift the Sounders to three points.
Jones’ numbers unsheathe his insanely efficient night. He only attempted eight passes and completed all of them, registered a completed cross, and managed to cram 19 touches into his sub stint.
That escalated quickly. 2-0 @SoundersFC. #DCvSEAhttps://t.co/0ib8uuPX5z
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) June 2, 2016
His real utility was displayed in two moments of magic. His speed helped Jones combine with Erik Friberg in space and get loose at the edge of the area for a stinging shot that forced Bill Hamid to direct it back out. Morris was there, pounding the chance Jones started back into the net. His goal came similarly, Jones crashing off the left and lifting a beautiful touch over Hamid in the Key of Messi. A night to remember.
Anchoring Acosta
D.C. United is relatively predictable in an attacking sense. They play lots of long balls, look to find space on counters and practically sprint off the blocks the moment they capture any turnover in the midfield. This doesn’t necessarily make D.C. easy to beat, but it at least makes the film sessions a bit more easy to predict.
The one major wild card in that equation this season is tricky second forward Luciano Acosta. He’s the unaccounted attacker who pops up in dangerous spaces and pulls defenders out of position. And the Sounders dealt with him about as well as you can, practically throwing an anchor around his neck after halftime once they figured out his rhythm.
At one point early in the first half, Acosta threw the brakes on a quick move and put Scott on his backside. Twenty minutes later, Osvaldo Alonso and Friberg were practically plucking possession off his feet on recoveries.
Acosta only went 71 minutes, but the Sounders limited him to a marginal 31 percent success rate on the one-on-one duels that feed his game. He had two key passes but none into the box, and he was kept without a shot on target. These days, slowing down Acosta is analogous to slowing down D.C. United. Credit to Brad Evans and the defensive unit for doing their job.
In the nick of time
The Sounders are off on a nearly three week break in league matches for the Copa America Centenario after Wednesday, which put an added bit of urgency on the result. The Sounders were ninth of 10 teams in the Western Conference, had only won four of their first 12 games and hadn’t picked up a win on the road in 2016.
Lose against D.C. and it’s a long couple weeks of soul searching. Draw and you’re practically in a holding pattern. Win? That’s a different jolt of positivity entirely.
The Sounders still have plenty of ground to cover, but there is almost certainly help on the way. During the halftime show Wednesday night on the Sounders broadcast, General Manager & President of Soccer Garth Lagerwey noted the team is pointedly going after a Designated Player in the summer window. That slot has been open since Obafemi Martins left for China in February. Lagerwey also mentioned a midfielder to help stoke some creativity out of the forward line wouldn’t be out of bounds.
These are all good things. It could also be that Dempsey and Valdez are both back training at Starfire Sports by the time the team convenes for its next match against the New York Red Bulls on June 19. Wins produce positivity. Wins like this on the precipice of a long layoff heal wounds.
Good news for a Sounders team that desperately needed some.
