Sounders Rap

I certainly wouldn’t call it being “Galaxied,” as we were in our most humiliating home loss some months ago, because it was by no means a match and performance that resembled that one. But well into the second half, the score-line in this home loss to DC United was looking as if it was headed in that same direction.

Only some late concerted effort, which finally led to a couple of breakthroughs made the end score look a little more respectable for us. Chalk this one up as well to being another one of those bizarre games we’ve witnessed the Sounders play and end up losing, but it is certainly no less painful than the others. On the contrary, it might be just the opposite, give how we dominated large chunks of the play and, especially in the second half, piled on the pressure only to see ourselves sucker-punched with each extended episode of sustained pressure on DC United.

It by no means was a complimentary commentary about our defense, even if the first DC United goal, which went into the net after taking a nasty deflection and sent Keller diving the wrong way, was less about poor defending and just plain bad luck. Yet, you know what they say about bad luck – we often make it ourselves. And it could be argued that perhaps one or more of our boys could have closed down on them quicker before the shot was unleashed from just outside the penalty box.

The second and third DC United goals, well, do you really want me to get into it? Let’s just say they were classic examples of what can happen when the opponent is clearly poised to play the counter-attacking game on the road, and despite knowing this full well, we fall asleep on the rare occasion when they do actually get to counter-attack.

Remember what I said in my last article about needing to stay focused? Well, we simple did not do that in defending against the counter-attack by DC United.

Once being two nil down and desperately chasing the game in the second half, we simply made our uphill task of getting back into it seem radically unlikely even if not impossible as DC United set back and essentially parked the bus in front of goal. And when we were caught sleeping again in defense during what was perhaps their only foray down into our final third of the field and conceded on looping header by an unmarked player, the obvious storyline of the night became obviously blinding – even if we managed to pull back two late goals to make the score-line look respectable.

Mark Fields

On paper the home game against DC United looks to be a good prospect to bag all three points. While the Sounders have been one of the surprises of the season in that they’ve had trouble finding any kind of consistency in their game, and as a result dropped some precious points along the way, DC United seems to be out-doing us quite nicely when it comes to dropping points.

However, I doubt if Sigi is taking this game any less seriously than say the Galaxy or Revolution game. We all realize that this is a real chance for the Sounders to build on the momentum from last week’s win and try to get a mini-streak going and hopefully cap this two-game home stand on a high note. However, DC United are also looking for their own mini-streak after coming off a tie with Real Salt Lake.

It’s nice that DC United did us a favor of sorts and took points off Real Salt Lake, but this should also serve as a reminder of what can happen on any given days – and just what DC United is capable of doing, especially if we don’t take the game hard to them and open it up with some scoring early on. While getting the crowd also going has never been an issue, this will certainly help make United’s task all the more insurmountable. Much like the game against the Revolution, early goals are going to be crucial for us as we’ll need to set the tone and hopefully make it clear that we intend to slam the door shut and there’s not going to be any question about the outcome.

Therefore, the players will have to come off the blocks with a sense of mission – showing focus and determination similar to what we saw last Saturday.

Playing Freddie Ljungberg on the flank has been a brilliant stroke on Sigi’s part. It has eased the opponent’s abilty to double team and mark him as was the case earlier in the season when Freddie’s runs from the middle of the pitch seemed to broken up before they could start. This inevitably ended up in broken plays, misplaced passes or loss of possession. With Ljungberg and Zakuani on the flanks, it’ll also help the attack be more effective at stretching DC’s defenders and give us more width.

DC United have yet to earn any points on the road. Let’s keep it that way.

Mark Fields