At least for this season, the Seattle Sounders' adventure in the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League is over.
The Sounders couldn’t escape the dreaded MLS Champions League road trip curse in Mexico, succumbing to Club América’s devastatingly effective attack in a 3-1 loss that dropped MLS clubs to 2-35-8 all time in competitive matches south of the border. One of those wins, of course, belonged to the Sounders in 2013, but they couldn’t replicate their feat at the Estadio Azteca on Wednesday night.
The Sounders entered the second leg even at 2-2 after a scintillating draw at CenturyLink Field last week, but that left them on unsteady purchase. Due to the away goals rule, América owned the tiebreaker, forcing Seattle to either win the series by a goal-inflated draw or win the game outright.
Ultimately, neither possibility came to fruition.
For now, the Sounders shift their gaze to the MLS season opener on Sunday against Sporting Kansas City at home (4 p.m. PT/FS1/KIRO 97.3 FM, El Rey 1360AM). But on Wednesday, the Sounders were left wondering if they left a result on the field. Here’s a look at three things we learned from the match.
The Sounders had three leads in this series and lost all of them
In the first leg in Seattle, the Sounders led the match twice, once at 1-0 and again at 2-1. On both occasions América equaled out the score in lightning fashion, the first return salvo coming within 90 seconds of Seattle’s opener just before half. Of course, a large portion of the explanation points directly to América’s devastating front duo of Oribe Peralta and Darwin Quintero, who combined for four of the team’s five goals in this series.
But that has to be a particular point of frustration for Sounders coach Sigi Schmid and his coaching staff. Three times—including once on Wednesday—Seattle snagged leads, and each time América flew back with violently effective responses. In the second leg, Seattle snagged a 1-0 lead just before halftime off an Osvaldo Alonso cross that hit Nelson Valdez and then rolled in off the back of an América defender.
A minute later, Quintero bagged the equalizer. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.
This isn’t necessarily a cause for broader concern. A two-match sample size is far too small a thing to extrapolate into macro issues, and as we’ve touched on in this space before, América’s attack is more robust than any Seattle will face in MLS this season. But that proclivity in this series is certainly something to monitor as the season begins.
Rubens Sambueza runs riot
Every team needs a playmaker, but you don’t necessarily expect the primary string-puller to be operating almost entirely out wide. More often than not they tend to dip inside Zone 14—the central region just outside the box—where almost all of the most dangerous service from the midfield into the box originates. Whether Seattle didn’t expect América’s primary playmaker to live outside the fullbacks or just couldn’t stop him, Sambueza was an irrepressible force for the entirety of this series.
Incredibly, Sambueza assisted on the first four of América’s five goals throughout both legs, meaning his creative instinct essentially would’ve been good enough to guide América past Seattle on its own. He created more goals than the Sounders scored. He split his service between Peralta and Quintero evenly, and he spent time on both flanks testing both Tyrone Mears and Joevin Jones with varying results. But there’s little question the Argentinian had a devastating impact on this series with his vision and pinpoint crosses.
What’s more, reports out of Mexico suggested Sambueza dislocated his shoulder over the weekend in a 4-1 loss to Tigres. He wasn’t even supposed to play. Whether those reports were inflated or Sambueza simply gritted through the pain, he looked no worse for the wear on Wednesday.
Time to flip the page
Schmid’s lineup indicated just how seriously he took this competition, even as it hung on the precipice of failure following the first leg. With the MLS opener just four days off, he could’ve sat some of his projected starting lineup on Wednesday and given the kids a go. But he didn’t, starting what’s expected to be his first choice lineup going forward for a third consecutive match. If you had any doubt Seattle flew south to win the thing, those were dismissed the second the lineups were released.
That said, the lost opportunity here immediately has to flip to the backburner, because there isn’t much time to dwell. Seattle will take its flight home and have a short week of prep work for a Sporting KC team that is invariably a tactical stampede. Sporting KC lives on the counter, especially on the road, and they do their best work trampling downfield at breakneck speed. For Seattle to deal with that adequately, they’ll have to be fully focused.
Different clubs view the CONCACAF Champions League through different lenses, but there’s little question the Sounders gave it their undivided attention. Unfortunately, they ran up against the tournament’s defending champions, which perhaps shrouded how well they played at times in an attacking sense. The magnifying glass will now flip to the defense as Seattle attempts to shore up its gaps down the spine in preparation for the coming MLS storm.
