It is hard to fathom the complete collapse the Sounders suffered tonight in New England over a ten-minute span late in the match. See club video here.
Seattle was strolling along with a 1:0 lead over the struggling New England Revolution when the Sounders suddenly let their emotions get the best of them. Just over ten minutes later is was 3:1 Revs and Seattle had played what could be argued to be their worst ten minutes of soccer as an MLS side.
It all started when centerback Patrick Ianni was slapped in the face by New England's Shalrie Joseph. Both players went to the ground in the Seattle penalty box around the 67th minute. Replays showed that Joseph clearly slapped Ianni on the neck, but the from-the-waist-up replay couldn't confirm if Ianni had first stepped on Joespeh's foot.
The mele took several minutes for lead official Silvio Petrescu to figure out, and it flustered Ianni and the rest of the Sounders when his decision was to not call anything. When the restart occurred, Fredy Montero was quickly given a yellow card for supposedly pushing a Revs player into some sideline signage.
The Sounders were losing their cool, forgetting that they were ahead on the road 1:0, and instead took up the cause of being stung by poor officiating.
However, it was their shambolic defending that the led to the collapse.
It was 1:1 when the Revs unmarked Chris Tierney headed home a goal in the 70th, mere minutes after the mele. Then two minutes later the Sounders defense was caught again when a ball redirected right to the foot of a Marko Perovic. His poke made it 2:1. The collapse was complete when the Revs knocked the ball around to a wide open Kheli Dube at the top of the penalty area. Kasey Keller had no chance on his finish in the 81st.
Seattle's Steve Zakuani opened the scoring with his eighth goal of the season just before the hour mark.
The play was started with a throw-in on the right side that eventually was played into the corner of the New England penalty area to Alvaro Fernandez. Fernandez then played a ball to James Riley, who threaded a pass to Zakuani for a close-range blast into the net.
In the end it was an embarrassing defeat for the Sounders, and frankly one that is hard to explain. Never before has the club fallen apart so completely, so quickly, turning a possible three road points into an evening to forget as quickly as possible.
The Sounders' string of undefeated matches in MLS crashes to a halt at seven, and slows the playoff drive momentum for the second year side. Seattle are now back at even for 2010, with 9 wins, 5 draws and 9 losses for a total of 32 standings points.
Seattle's playoff chances dipped by almost 15 percent with the loss. Here are the current playoff chances according to SportsClubStats.com.
Seattle will next host defending MLS Cup Champions Real Salt Lake Thursday September 9 at Qwest Field.
Seattle Sounders FC at New England Revolution – September 4, 2010 – Postgame Quotes
Sigi Schmid – Sounders FC Head Coach
(On the match . . .) “I thought we were OK until we’re up 1-0 and the altercation occurred between Shalrie [Joseph] and Patrick Ianni. At that point, I thought we lost our composure a little bit and gave away a couple of goals that we shouldn’t have given away. Obviously the game turned and they scored their chances and the game was over.”
(On the defense . . .) “We haven’t made mistakes back there in a while. We’ve been pretty solid and I don’t think we defended the throw-in well. We had just cleared one off the line right before. Nobody took charge of it and figured out that they were going to do the same thing again, so that was bad. The second goal, I really can’t say anything about it in terms of that it was one of those plays – bang, bang and actually our player [Osvaldo] Alonso tipped it through to them. The third goal was a bad clearance by [Patrick] Ianni.”
(On allowing three goals . . .) “I’m not happy about it, but on the same token we have players that are constantly learning and we have young players. I’ve seen guys make multi-million dollars at Juventus and watch a ball bounce inside the 18 and the other team scores a goal. So to say it’s something that should never, ever happen [ . . .] unfortunately it happens. A lot of goals are scored off of mistakes and we made some.”
Steve Zakuani – Sounders FC Midfielder
(On the match . . .) “I think that was probably the turning point with Shalrie [Joseph] and Patrick [Ianni]. There was like a five, six minute delay and we just scored and after that, I think we maybe – as our coach told us – lost our composure a little bit. We tried to get it back but they just really built off that. They scored the first goal and then the second one came just a bit fortuitous for them. As much as I said that we lost our composure there, we were pretty disappointed.”
(On the loss . . .) “Despite some of the things that went against us, I think that when you’re up 1-0 on the road after you’ve been playing, usually we’re very solid team defensively. Today I think we had a few lapses and it’s just a case of we let them carry too much momentum. You could just see their spirit and confidence building and we didn’t respond to that. It got to the point where we were just chasing the game later on and they’re just a big physical team. They’re going to just keep the ball away. We’ve been winning, haven’t lost in a long time but now we’re going to see what we’re made of. How do we respond from there?”
Mike Fucito – Sounders FC Forward
(On playing in front of his family and friends . . .) “It felt great. This was my first game back, too, after my knee surgery. I wish it were a different result, but it feels good to come back and have my family and friends come out. It’s been a while.”
(On the result . . .) “I think it’s frustrating, especially going up 1-0. I think it’s a game that we should win, so it’s definitely frustrating. We were on a little bit of a roll, too, so we wanted to keep that going.”
(On his plan entering the game in the 82nd minute . . .) “Just push forward and try to get a goal. At that point, we were two goals down, so just try to push and try for a goal.
Kasey Keller – Sounders FC Goalkeeper
(On conceding three goals . . .) “That was probably the worst 10 minutes we’ve played all year. There’s really not much to say about. Hopefully that’s the last of it and it can’t happen again if we want to continue on. We just want to get this out and learn from it and if we don’t learn from it, I’m sure there will be some changes. It’s up to us to put it right on Thursday.”
(On the goals . . .) “The first goal was just a long throw that was flicked to the post. [Osvaldo Alonso] was stuck with two guys at the back post. I thought from different times during the game, we didn’t stick with our runners at the far post and they had multiple opportunities at the back post after a flick or a ball that went all the way through. We never figured it out and we eventually got punished for it.”
(On the second goal . . .) “It just ping-ponged around inside there and ended up to them in a great position to tap-in. But still, I think we were a little flat-footed. We had guys who were there. There was no reason that the ball should have gotten through or the man should have gotten through. I don’t mind the ball; the ball can get through all it wants. We’ve got to stay with the runners. I don’t know what happened. We uncharacteristically just absolutely fell apart after we scored our goal.”
(On the game . . .) “For 65 minutes, I felt like we were going to win the game. And then for some reason, after they scored they picked up the pace and we melted, which is just not like us.”
Comments