Over the course of a long Major League Soccer season, not every result is going to be pretty. Sometimes a team needs to just put its head down and grind, something the Seattle Sounders did on Saturday in their 1-0 win over the New York Red Bulls at Lumen Field.
Seattle needed a match like that. After a blistering start to the year with five consecutive clean sheets at home, the club dropped its next two home fixtures. Saturday’s shorthanded result, in which the Sounders were forced to see out the game with 10 men for the final 15 minutes, is the perfect shot in the arm the team has been looking for as it embarks on three home matches in eight days.
“Nobody is going to care at the end of the year how we won, why we won,” said Head Coach Brian Schmetzer. “It’s three points, and it’s three points at home.”
The Sounders lead MLS in clean sheets with eight through 15 matches, and six have come at Lumen Field. Seattle has allowed just four goals in eight matches at home, and Saturday’s was the toughest, most satisfying shutout yet.
“In a time when things were really frustrating, for us to have to really pull together and be very supportive of each other and try and coax the last amount of energy out of each other is a good feeling that we were able to do so successfully,” said goalkeeper Stefan Frei.
For his bit, Frei was called upon for two massive stops. He held onto an Elias Manoel header from six yards out in the 50th minute before denying Manoel on a breakaway in the 66th with a left-handed save that he pushed wide for a corner.
The Sounders’ starting back line of Alex Roldan, Yeimar, Jackson Ragen and Cody Baker held the Red Bulls to little else on the evening. Xavier Arreaga and Nouhou also made appearances after the red card to João Paulo in the 75th minute to lock in the result.
“That team gutted it out tonight,” said Schmetzer. “We could have conceded, but they held firm. Eight clean sheets for the group is a big, massive stat.”
The defensive prowess is especially notable after last year, in which Seattle earned just six MLS clean sheets in 34 league matches. The club has already surpassed that mark before the start of summer.
The Sounders are hoping a resilient effort like the display they had this weekend will buoy them as they first welcome the San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. PT; MLS Season Pass on Apple TV | TICKETS) before hosting the rival Portland Timbers on Saturday, June 3.
“It was a total team effort,” said Frei. “It’s the start that we wanted. We have three out of nine [points] so far, so that’s good. But it’s just the start.”
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