TUKWILA, Wash. — The Seattle Sounders just finished a stretch during which they earned nine points in an eight-day span. Not bad for a team that only a few months ago had 20 points in five months.
Seattle has won four games in a row (dating back to the Sounders’ 1-0 home win over the Vancouver Whitecaps on Sept. 17) for just the first time all season. The team has been completely revitalized since interim head coach Brian Schmetzer took over and remarkably doesn’t even seem to have peaked yet, with three regular season games left before a potential postseason berth.
“[Schmetzer is] guiding us, he’s putting us in the best positions possible for us to make the right decisions,” said goalkeeper Stefan Frei. “Ultimately it’s in our hands, we’re the players on the field and we have to take ownership.”
It’s easy to have been skeptical when the turnaround first began, and it’s not hard to imagine why.
Perhaps the Sounders hadn’t played anybody tough yet? They went to Los Angeles and defeated the Galaxy convincingly in a building LA hadn’t lost in all season on Sept. 25. Perhaps forward Jordan Morris was doing all the offensive heavy lifting? Defender Chad Marshall scored the game-winner last Wednesday. Or perhaps it was all because newly signed midfielder Nicolas Lodeiro has been the only thing keeping the ship from sinking? They went to Vancouver last weekend and earned a come-from-behind road win against a Cascadia rival — without him.
“For us to climb out of the hole, we needed to come together as a team and do it as a team,” Frei said. “When one guy goes down or goes away, there are other guys who are capable of stepping up.
“There’s no time to be moping around or making excuses.”
With the playoffs approaching and the team a 97 percent lock to reach the postseason, a feat in itself that was implausible in July, the overarching question looming over the Sounders is: How do they keep this up?
Nine games in eight days, and two on the road to boot, is no easy task, especially not with the knocks so many of the players are carrying. The team has a 10-day break in between matches, the next being a home tilt against the last-place Houston Dynamo on Oct. 12 (7:30 p.m. PT; JOEtv, KIRO Radio 97.3FM, El Rey 1360AM), and it’s worth postulating whether the break in action could actually do more harm than good.
“The guys always want to keep playing,” Schmetzer said of his players’ eagerness to compete again sooner rather than later. “I would say from a health standpoint it gives us a chance to get some guys back ready for Houston and Dallas, so it’s 50/50. Depends on who you ask.”
Momentum is what carries teams to championships. They need to be sharp and prepared to deal with any obstacles thrown their way, and Seattle has been doing that as well as anyone recently.
“Make sure bodies are right and take care of those kinks and bruises if you can,” Frei said of the biggest advantage of the bye week. “[We’re happy] to get a break, but we’re going to make sure we keep our confidence high by working hard in training.”
