MONTRÉAL — One of the biggest obstacles facing the Seattle Sounders in their match against the Impact on Saturday (4 p.m. PT; JOEtv, ROOT Sports outside Seattle, KIRO Radio 97.3 FM, El Rey 1360AM), and any visiting team to the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, is the playing surface.
The artificial turf at Olympic Stadium plays much harder than the Sounders’ home turf at CenturyLink Field and others around Major League Soccer. Balls bounce more and make awkward caroms. Routine first touches become more difficult. Running is more burdensome.
So when the Sounders practiced on the field on Friday ahead of their weekend match, their goal was fairly straightforward.
“The sequence of training today was getting them used to the surface,” said head coach Brian Schmetzer. “Short passes, longer passes, medium passes…They have to adapt.”
Midfielder Harry Shipp spent last season in Montreal and tried to give his new teammates some tips on how to handle the turf. He said coming back as a visitor without extra time to adjust was a lot more difficult than he expected or remembered and that it’s a huge advantage the Impact have.
“You’re more likely to complain about it since it’s pretty bad,” Shipp said. “I’m telling guys to get their first touch down and focus on the little things because some of the things you’re used to doing so simply come hard on this surface.
“A lot of times when you take your first touch you’re trying to put it somewhere because the ground’s smooth and here the ball is so bouncy,” he continued. “The first step is just getting the ball on the ground and then worry about where you’re taking it after.”
After last week’s slow start in Houston, in which they entered the locker room at halftime down 2-0, the Sounders have no time to waste getting acclimated to the turf. When asked how his team would prepare after a long travel day on Thursday, Schmetzer used the phrase, “We have to be mentally sharp,” three times.
“We know there’s going to be a lot of people in the building and we know it’s their home opener and we know that we might have a target on our backs,” Schmetzer said.
Schmetzer mentioned after the loss against the Dynamo that the Sounders learned a valuable lesson about starting strong from the opening whistle and not letting any outside distractions or elements disrupt focus. He drilled it into his players during training and while watching film this past week, and the message seems to have stuck.
“We have to start the game so much quicker than we did [in Houston],” said forward Jordan Morris. “We definitely let them get on top of us. In the second half we proved we have the quality to go out there and create chances and hopefully score some goals. We need to do that right from the beginning of the game.”
