In the postgame press scrum after Sounders FC thrashed Vancouver Whitecaps FC 3-0 on the road on last Saturday, Seattle head coach Sigi Schmid was typically decorous.
Schmid’s been around the game for decades in a multitude of capacities, meaning he’s seen and heard just about everything. At this point in his career, surprise is a relatively foreign concept.
So when Schmid was asked if he had a handle on this season’s wacky, unpredictable series between Seattle and Vancouver, he shook his head and simply shrugged.
“I’m not going to try to figure out the series,” Schmid said.
Considering the wild swings it’s taken this season, that’ll probably save him a few gray hairs. But the teams’ matchup in the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League at CenturyLink Field on Wednesday (7 pm PDT; FOX Sports 2) is perhaps the most crucial of all five games of 2015 thus far, considering the Sounders can’t settle for anything less than a win in order to advance in the regional tournament.
Like dance partners pulling in close and then flinging each other to the outer reaches of the floor, the pattern between the Whitecaps and Sounders this season has been tumultuous and scattered. Seattle played one of its most compete games of the season in a 2-0 win at BC Place on May 16, and the next meeting two and a half months later resulted in a 3-0 loss at CenturyLink Field to a Whitecaps team surging to the top of the Western Conference.
Sandwiched between a 3-0 loss at home in league play on Aug. 1 and that 3-0 win on the road last Saturday, the Sounders earned a crucial 1-1 draw at BC Place in their CONCACAF Champions League opener on Aug. 5. Logistically, that result meant Seattle has been in more difficult straits and emerged with a result once already this season.
The Sounders managed to earn a road point against Vancouver four days after being unwound by that same team at home. Now, the situation is flipped.
“It’s a little funny seeing them on the weekend and then knowing in a few more days you’re going to have to play them again,” midfielder Lamar Neagle said on Monday. “Luckily this one’s at our place, and we got a result at their place.”
Even as Seattle continues to patch up its walking wounded carryover from the summer, it’s still struggling to keep everyone healthy. Midfielder Osvaldo Alonso (below, left) was in the midst of one of his finest performances of the season on Saturday before he injured his right leg and hobbled off in the second half.
Schmid said this week Alonso felt “OK,” and that he felt “much, much better” just a few days after the injury, but his status for Sunday’s match against Sporting KC, let alone for Wednesday’s meeting with the Whitecaps, appears to be in some doubt.
In addition, central midfielder Erik Friberg was a game-time scratch from the 18-man roster last weekend with an injury - his status this week is also up in the air - while Andreas Ivanschitz and Nelson Valdez are both still gathering match fitness.
Historically, CONCACAF Champions League matches have provided Schmid a chance to rotate in younger players while utilizing his deep stable of veteran players. Aaron Kovar enjoyed a few standout performances in the competition this year, while players like Micheal Azira, Jimmy Ockford and Thomás have had opportunities to impress.
That back-and-forth struggle - how many regular starters do you rest versus the cachet provided by advancing in the competition - is certainly in play this week.
“I think we have guys who are playing out there, are playing 90 minutes, but are they 90 minutes fit yet? Probably not,” Schmid said. “So we don’t want to put any player into a situation where we’re going to jeopardize injuring them. But on the same token, it’s a game we have to win. There’s a mix that’ll probably result in this game more than in past games.”
“The implications are that we’re playing in the Champions League, we know that we need a win, that a loss or a tie will eliminate us,” he added. “So we have to go out and we have to win the game on Wednesday.”
By the end of the regular season, the Sounders and Vancouver will have played five times during the course of the regular season, and they’ll have faced off twice in less than five days on two separate occasions. Schmid, unsurprisingly, has seen that too. When he coached the LA Galaxy, his side played the San Jose Earthquakes six times in one season.
If the Sounders make the MLS Cup Playoffs and somehow meet up with the Whitecaps again, the two teams could conceivably play seven times this year. That’d be one of the few things Schmid hasn’t seen.
Not yet, anyway.
