It’s Waiting for the Press that’s the Problem
Dear Trixie,
Oh me, oh my. It's only the beginning of the season and I'm already behind. First things first. You are getting so big. It's kinda unreal. Your pop sends me Snaps every so often and the other day I stumbled across a baby photo. I couldn't believe it, comparing the two. It boggles the mind, Trix. I remember hearing that “you’re getting so big” junk when I was your age (er, not when I was your age but I remember people--adult people--saying that to me). And I hated it of course because when you're a kid all you want to be is treated like an adult and when you're an adult you want to go back to being a kid. I suppose that is the great, unstoppable press of time. Ok, ok. I'll stop being a doting uncle and be the responsible uncle that talks to you about soccer.
The Sounders have only played two regular season games but they’ve also been a part of some extracurriculars, namely CONCACAF Champions League (or CCL, for short). What the heck is that? Don’t worry I’ll tell you. CONCACAF is our confederation. There are 6 confederations organized by FIFA, soccer’s international governing body. Our’s is the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football or abbreviated as CONCACAF. CCL is a tournament for club teams (as opposed to national teams) who have finished top of their league in the last season or so (I say “or so” because different leagues use different calendars and it gets a bit complicated but you get the idea, the best teams from the continent in the last year… or so).
Our first match of 2018 was away at Santa Tecla for CCL. Santa Tecla are a Salvadoran side. They’re a solid team but one we were well-matched against, giving us a strong possibility to advance. In the first leg we played flat and looked gassed very early. Very very very early. Injuries prevented us from taking an honest first team (we travelled without Torres, Ozzie, Leerdam, Deuce, or V-Rod) and we walked away with a 2-1 loss. Unfortunately for us, Jordan Morris didn’t so much as walk away as limp. He tore is ACL and is out for the rest of the season. This doesn’t bode well for our attack.
Or so you’d think! Because a week later we played the second leg at home and blew them out 4-0. This time they looked flat and our midfield ran like clockwork. Our first half left a bit to be desired and they pulled a lot of time wasting tricks out of the bag but once we scored that first goal in the second half, it was off to the races. Santa Tecla needed an away goal and that really opened up their defense. After the second goal, you could see some players begin to lose the light in their eyes and by the third… well, it started to get sad at one point. The big tactical change came at halftime. When centerback Alfaro was subbed out, Svensson slipped back to pair with Torres, and newcomer Magnus Wolff Eikrem (how cool a name is that?) joined the midfield. This was a decided push for attack and it was a great decision by Schmetzer. After all, who cares if you showed well in a knock out tournament? If you don’t try to advance, why are you participating?
Hot on the heels of that game came the season opener against expansion side LAFC just 3 days later. With another CCL game on the horizon, we started more of a second team. Former Sounder Tyler Miller was in goal for LAFC and boy howdy did he have a game! He was peppered with 22 shots, 13 of which were on target or blocked. Good for him but gee cripes can we finish some goals? Rossi slipped one passed in the 11th minute and from there on out we were chasing this game with personnel who were clearly outmatched. But coach and GM have both said explicitly that CCL is the priority and, with fixture congestion that has us playing 3 games in a week, it was understandable we might have to take the first part of the MLS season on the chin.
Ok, now back to CCL 3 more days later to face CD Guadalajara at home in the first leg. Save the gaping hole where Jordan Morris would’ve played, we put out a defiant first team and again laid so many shots down, you’d think we were on a 21 run. But only one found the back of the net and late (not until after the 75th minute). This was a frustrating game to watch. The clean sheet was critical but missing so many opportunities in the attack was disheartening. It left a bit to be desired moving into leg two.
Which would come just a week later, speaking of disheartening… the fixture congestion and short off-season has made for an injury-plagued roster. We’re still without Ozzie and V-Rod but pile into that med bay Morris and our key playmaker, Nico Lodeiro. To boot one of the best centerbacks known to man, Chad Marshall, is taken out with a bad injury to the head and so is Will Bruin. All before halftime! Let this be a lesson to you, Trix. When you go up for a header, you need to put your arms out to body the other players away from the ball. Noggins knocking is no fun. Down 5 starters at first whistle and then two more (as well as those possible subs) by the 35th minute. I’m not sure at this point you could even call it a B squad that got their rears handed to them 3-0. Thus ends our CCL journey. But moreso than that is beginning to sow the seeds of doubt for the season.
And 4 days later we’re back at it in league play. I actually haven’t watched this game yet. I think this weekend I’ll watch a replay or at least the condensed match. Though, I know the scoreline (it isn’t pretty) and Reddit has made me well aware that Dempsey is shown a pretty unceremonious red card and then is quite the poor sport coming off.
As I said, time presses onward, so where does that leave us? No more CCL. That’s for sure. At least for now. But we have a whole season in front of us. Bear in mind, even though we’ve played 6 games, only 2 of those have been regular season MLS games. Meaning we have 32 games to figure it out.
There’s obviously something I’ve glossed over. Which is, of course, the result from 2017 MLS Cup. By now I’m sure you know, the Sounders did not win. If I’m honest we didn’t play well. If I’m really honest, we didn’t play well in either final. But time presses on. After one of those lackluster performances, we raised a cup. After another, we had nothing to hold but our head in our hands. Time presses on.
Looking at the transfer windows and roster rules, the likelihood we’ll sign a big name striker to lead our attack, a replacement for Jordan Morris, cut any dead weight, or add any other critical pieces will have to wait until summer. Time in this case is a cruel friend. It’s a lot of cloudy skies in the short term but, in the long term, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I know those two analogies don’t connect as well as I’d like and maybe time won’t fix that. But it will fix a lot of other things. We just have to wait.
Yours in Time,
Uncle Nick
