SEATTLE — The Seattle Sounders needed this one. And thanks to one of the purest goal-poaching goals of Jordan Morris’s career, their hunt for the postseason is still very much alive.
All three points. A Cascadia Cup win. And another rung climbed on the slippery Western Conference ladder.
Thanks to yet another Morris goal in the last 10 minutes of a critical game, the Sounders managed to drop a defensively resolute Vancouver team 1-0 and put pressure on sixth-place Portland. The Timbers still have two games in hand on Seattle after Saturday, but the Sounders’ win kept the treadmill churning and put the Sounders in position to make up even more points over their final six games.
The Sounders dominated the match - Vancouver didn’t register a shot on goal - but these regional rivalries are never quite that easy. Indeed, Saturday’s match had a bit of everything: madcap Stefan Frei saves, a stern performance from Roman Torres, ricocheted shots off the post Nicolas Lodeiro doing Lodeiro things.
Without further ado, three things we learned.
Jordan Morris Isn’t A Rookie Anymore
With Clint Dempsey on the mend, opposition defenses are able to narrow their focus to essentially two players: Lodeiro and Morris. Nobody else spends all that much time in the attacking third, and teams can afford to roll coverage to shut down Lodeiro and track Morris’s runs. It hasn’t always worked on Lodeiro, who’s among the best in MLS at slowing games down and buying himself space.
But Morris is often a different story, as Saturday’s first half showed. Vancouver dropped creator Pedro Morales into the hole to better cut off Morris’s advances, and it mostly worked early. Morris only had 10 touches in the first half, and only two in the box. He had his moments of danger, but Vancouver’s defensive game plan was obvious: deny Morris oxygen, push Lodeiro deeper and try to neutralize as much of the threat as possible.
The sign of a veteran goalscorer is course correcting based on what the defense presents and finding a way through anyway. And that’s exactly what Morris did in the second half.
Here’s Morris’s touch map.
Note that six of those eight touches in the box came in the second half, including a brilliantly won header off a Lodeiro cross that won the game. Morris also got in a couple dangerous crosses and helped spearhead a few breaks with his speed. Even with Kendall Waston head-hunting, Morris managed to wriggle free enough to win space.
Morris now has 10 goals, making him just the fifth rookie in league history to hit double digits. He also now has five match-winners, the most for any rookie in MLS. Whatever burdensome expectations were dropped on his shoulders before the season, he’s met them. And while he might be a rookie in classification, he’s certainly not playing like one. Not anymore.
The Sounders’ Defense is Better With Torres
The Brad Evans-Chad Marshall pairing in the central defense was never bad, and it always had its upsides. Pairing a natural center mid with an aerial dragon like Marshall made for a pretty power-packed one-two punch that made the duo as versatile as it gets. But the cohesion was never quite as strong as it might’ve been had both been natural center backs.
Torres is back. And the Sounders’ defense suddenly looks like an iron shield.
“Roman has a pedigree that is impressive,” Sounders interim coach Brian Schmetzer said. “These are the types of performances that we expected when we signed Roman.”
Torres more or less didn’t put a foot wrong all day, pairing with the deeper-lying Marshall to obliterate attacks as they rolled forward. Vancouver largely peeled back its midfield and tried hitting occasionally on the break, which allowed Torres to flash the speed he never gets the adequate credit for possessing. But his real benefit is in the fear he strikes into opposing strikers and midfielders. Vancouver hardly got near him.
Torres’ tremendous positioning tends to make his physical stats a bit more run-of-the-mill, but he directs traffic around him like a boulder parked in rapids. The Whitecaps simply didn’t have an answer.
We knew the Torres-Marshall pairing was the way forward before Saturday. Since returning three weeks ago Torres has been maybe the most consistently effective player on the field. But if there were any lingering doubts that the partnership might not be as good as the coaching staff hoped? Put those to bed.
Sounders Live to See Another Day
Seattle wouldn’t have been dead in the water with a draw (let’s not tread in loss territory), but it wouldn’t have served them. It would’ve essentially kept the status quo below the red line - Vancouver, San Jose then Seattle - and allowed Portland to widen the gap between the sixth and final playoff spot and everyone else.
Simply put, the Sounders needed a win to feel remotely good about their playoff hopes. And they got one.
The Vancouver match represented the Sounders’ third straight game against a team directly above them in the standings. In the previous two Seattle had only captured one point, which not only helped Portland assert its spot in sixth but also allowed San Jose to hang around. Another draw would only make the postseason seem more remote.
Further, a draw would’ve compounded and supported the Sounders’ struggles without Dempsey. Only they proved they could get it done anyway.
The win allowed Seattle to leapfrog Vancouver with a game in hand to pull itself ever closer to sixth. With six games to go, Seattle is right in the thick of the postseason hunt, and they have a quality performance and a fully deserved three points to thank.
