Photo credit: Jill Peck
Seattle Sounders 0-Montreal Impact 1
The Seattle Sounders have gone 270 minutes, plus stoppage time, without scoring a goal during the 2018 season. And they’ve often needed to score when playing with fewer than 11 men.
Seattle lost its third-straight match Saturday night, falling 1-0 to the Montreal Impact, which got the only goal in the 60th minute when Ignacio Piatti skated through the Sounders’ defense and found an unmarked Jeisson Vargas, who had a virtually empty net to shoot into.
For Seattle (0-3-0), however, the match was a difficult reminder that they’re continually putting themselves at a disadvantage. Defender Tony Alfaro earned two yellow cards and an ejection in a season-opening loss to Los Angeles FC, and star midfielder/forward Clint Dempsey was given a straight red against FC Dallas.
Saturday night, momentum shifted toward Montreal (2-2-0) when Kelvin Leerdam was sent off in the 40th minute for violent conduct. Leerdam and Impact defender Daniel Lovitz scrapped after a hard challenge sent Lovitz to the turf. Lovitz was given a yellow card for shoving Leerdam, but the Sounders’ right back saw red after retaliating with a slap to Lovitz’s face. MLS has a clear-cut rule mandating ejection for contact to the head or face.
Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said he was “very disappointed” in Leerdam’s mental lapse of judgment.
“Kelvin understands what he did, apologized, but again, it comes down to me because I have to tell them exactly what the expectations are of this club,” Schmetzer said. “It’s not the way we want to do things. It puts the team in jeopardy. It’s not the style of soccer we want to do. It’s not the sportsmanship that we want to have within this club.”
The ejection forced Seattle to make a halftime substitution as Jordan McCrary stepped in at right back. The Sounders used Gustav Swensson as a one-man defensive midfield, with Magnus Wolff Eikrem leaving the field and Seattle using Cristian Roldan, Nicolas Lodeiro and Handwalla Bwana in the attacking midfield band.
“I feel like we may have started off a little slow, but at the same time, we were able to play,” McCrary said. “We didn’t give up a goal, so we were defensive. We did what we had to do. … While we had those 11 guys, we did our responsibilities. It’s just, we need to find a way to push forward, to connect, and keep attacking.
Montreal capitalized on the man advantage in the 60th minute as Piatti went skipping past a couple defenders and found an unmarked Vargas in the middle of the penalty area. Vargas slotted a shot past a helpless Frei.
“I think we could’ve cleared the ball out,” Schmetzer said. “The ball drops to them, but then Piatti is a very, very talented player. And he got around two of our guys and slotted the ball across for an easy tap-in. I would say that our game plan for Piatti worked for the most part, up until that play.”
Vargas, a 20-year-old Chilean striker, netted his second game-winning goal in as many matches, after doing the same two weeks earlier against Toronto FC. Vargas is known for having a more laid-back personality but is letting his play speak for itself.
“A lot of times, the guys that have that type of personality aren’t great on the field, but he has been fantastic for us,” said Montreal Impact goalkeeper Evan Bush . And the other thing with guys of that personality, sometimes it’s hard for them to get in the duels and hold balls up and things like that, but he has done it fantastically.”
Seattle’s attack became more dangerous after the Vargas goal. Will Bruin had a good look that ended up right in Bush’s arms. Lodeiro then forced Bush into a reactionary kick save in the final 10 minutes.
Seattle midfielder Cristian Roldan, who had one shot on goal and won five fouls, said the Sounders aren’t in panic mode, despite remaining in last place in the Western Conference.
“Obviously, it hurts to lose and it hurts to lose even more at home,” Roldan said. “But at the same time, it’s ourselves. It’s not like we’re getting outplayed. And I feel like it has been the same for the last three years. … Even at 10 men, I thought we had our chances. But there’s no panic at all. At the end of the day, I think we have a really good team and I think we’ll be just fine.”
Bwana, who stepped into the Seattle starting 11 in place of the suspended Dempsey, earned praise from Lodeiro.
“I think he played really well,” Lodeiro said through a translator. “He’s a very good player and he’s getting minutes to play. We’re going to continue to support him so he can continue to develop and have minutes.”
“Dempsey obviously brings quality, brings goals,” Bwana said. “… We’ve just got to look forward. We’re missing a lot of guys from the first team, so we’ve just got to find another way to win.”
Montreal, which opened the game in a 5-3-2 formation, had its fair share of possession and chances around the net in the first half, but they were content to stay focused on defense and make Seattle earn a goal, which they weren’t able to do.
“Going into the game, we knew we were a difficult team to break down,” Montreal midfielder Ken Krolicki said. “We showed that against Toronto, so I think we went into [this]game with the same mentality. I think that helped a lot and the red card certainly helped a bit. We became more aggressive as the game went on.”
The Sounders earned several set-piece opportunities in the second half, and the Impact were forced to defend for their lives at times. Krolicki said his team tried not to take anything for granted.
“Seattle is a very good team, regardless of their record this season, so we had to be careful of their attacking pieces. Especially their set pieces, they had a couple chances off that, but Evan made some good saves. Going into next game, I think we need to improve the set pieces defensively.”
Bush made four saves and helped the Impact collect its second clean sheet in as many tries.
“It’s extremely satisfying,” he said. “… Last year, we had three clean sheets the whole season. And we were very aware of that in the offseason. It was something that we needed to improve. And to get our second one in a row against the two finalists from last year’s MLS Cup, it’s extremely gratifying.”
Seattle Sounders FC
Montreal Impact
