The Seattle Sounders had six players competing internationally this past week as part of 2018 FIFA World Cup Qualifying, while the rest of the squad enjoyed lighter training and a few days off with a bye weekend.
Now, with the international break over and the players on national team duty due back Wednesday and Thursday, the Sounders can turn their attention to their pivotal match on Saturday against the San Jose Earthquakes (7:30 p.m. PT; JOEtv, Univision-Seattle, KIRO 97.3 FM, El Rey 1360AM). But how quickly interim head coach Brian Schmetzer can reintegrate them back into the squad will go a long way in determining the outcome this weekend.
“We had a good day of training today, guys are sharp,” Schmetzer said. “The three days off helped. Mixing that freshness, that sharpness with the guys who had long-distance travel, that’ll be key to the makeup of the squad on Saturday.”
Seattle can’t afford to drop any more points at this stage in the campaign, either. It currently sits in eighth place in the Western Conference, four points outside the sixth and final playoff spot. It doesn’t help that its opponent on Saturday is in a similarly dire situation: The Quakes occupy seventh, just one point ahead of Seattle, and could potentially move into a tie for sixth with a win.
“We find ourselves behind the 8-ball, not above the [playoff] line,” Schmetzer said. “[San Jose's Dominic Kinnear] is a good coach. [Chris] Wondolowski is very, very good. They’re a dangerous team.”
The Sounders will need to correct the first-half struggles they suffered in their last away match at Portland two weeks ago. They were galvanized in the locker room and played much better in the second stanza, but a sluggish start at Avaya Stadium could be fatal to any chances they have of leaving with points.
“We can expect a really tough game for us,” said midfielder Andreas Ivanschitz. “We have to continue to battle, to fight and to believe in ourselves in order to make the playoffs. It will be a tough game because San Jose has a very good team.”
Still, Seattle’s poor performance at Providence Park looked more an aberration than a trend. The Sounders had been unbeaten in their last five matches before then, since Schmetzer took the reins from Sigi Schmid and signed Designated Player Nicolas Lodeiro. There’s a different attitude to the team now that was missing in the season’s first 20 matches. There’s a collective understanding that despite their current situation, they have the necessary tools and mindset to reach the postseason, a possibility that on more than one occasion seemed implausible.
“The team is playing better the last five or six games, it’s fun to watch the team play,” Ivanschitz said. “Everybody is motivated, everybody wants to go to the playoffs. You can see that, you can feel that day in and day out, week in and week out. That’s the way it has to be.”
When asked if Saturday is a must-win match, Schmezter went one step further.
“We’ve got eight of them,” he said.
