For the first time in over four months, the Sounders are headed north of the border. And they’re taking their nine-match unbeaten streak with them.
Heading into Wednesday night’s match against Vancouver Whitecaps FC at BC Place (7 p.m. PT kickoff; JOEtv; KIRO Radio 97.3 FM and El Rey 1360AM), the Rave Green are on the verge of setting a club unbeaten streak record at 10 with a win or draw tonight.
But even with the club unbeaten dating back to the June 17 loss against New York City FC, don’t expect the team's confidence to be too high with two massive Cascadia matches in five days.
“[Our] confidence is high but having said that we’ve never been overconfident so I’m not too worried about that,” goalkeeper Stefan Frei told media ahead of the team’s trip the Vancouver. “We need the confidence as it’s going to be two very emotional games; we’re going to take it one at a time. We’ve trained hard and we’re going to go up there with the intent of getting something out of the game.”
The Sounders last trip to Vancouver resulted in a tough 2-1 loss with former Sounder Fredy Montero supplying the two Whitecaps goals.
Head Coach Brian Schmetzer knows that holding their own on set pieces is a must if the Sounders are to take points on the road.
“We’ve talked about marking inside the box and making sure our set pieces are good because they do have a big team on set pieces so we’ll try and correct like that,” Schmetzer said.
Added Frei: “They have multiple guys who are good up there. There are tons of threats and options for them that we’ll have to be aware of and shut down.”
If the Sounders can keep Montero and the Whitecaps attacking threats to a minimum, they’ll head into Sunday’s tilt against the Portland Timbers holding a new club unbeaten record and a little more breathing room in the Western Conference standings.
