Seattle, WA – A strong start to the 2023 MLS Regular season seems like a thing of the past for the Seattle Sounders, now having dropped three of their last four at Lumen Field. That includes tonight’s brutal defeat to the San Jose Earthquakes, despite Seattle tripling the San Jose expected goals and dominating every major offensive statistic. Even though the Sounders were without forward Jordan Morris, their starting lineup didn’t see a ton of shakeup and Seattle still generated plenty of offensive opportunities, but their finishing issues that have been prevalent since the second half of last season began are sticking around. After tonight’s win, the Sounders will have little time to try and recuperate from this loss ahead of their big rivalry doubleheader match against the Portland Timbers.
San Jose Earthquakes goalkeeper Daniel De Sousa Brito lays down with the ball in extra time, trying to kill minutes as teammate Rodrigues joins him (Photo by Nate Koppelman)
San Jose slips one through
The first half of this match saw the Sounders be the better squad in terms of their attack, but the broken record of Seattle’s poor finishing remained to give us a scoreless result after 45 minutes. The Sounders were able to put together five different prime scoring opportunities before the halftime whistle, with two each from Leo Chu and Heber, but couldn’t sneak anything past San Jose Earthquakes goalkeeper Daniel. Similar to their first half, the Earthquakes began the second half on the aggressive side of the ball. San Jose secured a free kick just a minute into the second half, which spiraled into three total set pieces. The free kick became a corner, which was defended well but became a second corner. The third set piece was the charm, as San Jose put together an excellent sequence to break open the scoring.
The Earthquakes had a trio of their player contribute, as Cristian Espinoza’s corner kick found the leaping Rodrigues in the box, who’s header sent the ball down perfectly to Jeremy Ebobisse. Ebobisse had been left all alone in the box, having just to extend his foot to redirect the ball and send it past Sounders goalkeeper Stefan Frei to get San Jose on the board in the 48th minute of the match. A few quality passes and a missed assignment later, and Seattle found themselves conceding the first goal of the match at home once again in an all too familiar sequence this season.
Seattle Sounders FC outside back Alex Roldan had a solid match, generating three chances for the rave green (Photo by Nate Koppelman)
Failure to finish remains prevalent
Since the second half began on the 2022 MLS regular season for the Seattle Sounders, they’ve found themselves bitten by the poor finishing bug. It’s a very odd situation for Seattle, who have plenty of quality attacking players and goal scorers on the current roster who are proven to be able to find the back of the net. The Sounders have had matches since then that have broken this bad habit, obviously including Jordan Morris’ four-goal game on the road in Kansas City, but for the majority of the time Seattle has found themselves with poor finishing. The Sounders can generate opportunity after opportunity, including tonight when their 23 shots, 10 corner kicks, the big chances missed, and 2.96 expected goals were not enough. Seattle forward Heber leads all of MLS in missed chances, and you’d hope that eventually he would bust through and start converting. That didn’t start tonight, as the Sounders were shutout.
As mentioned, Seattle had five prime opportunities in the first half to beat San Jose keeper Daniel, but Heber and Leo Chu squandered two chances each. In the second half, the Sounders had 17 chances on goal and missed them all, including some brutal opportunities from substituted forward Raul Ruidiaz. Raul, the Peruvian goal machine, had a chance in extra time that seemed like a sure-fire goal. Forward and teammate Leo Chu sent an excellent cross into the box for Ruidiaz, getting the ball to curve past the Earthquakes defender and straight to Raul. Ruidiaz’s attempt to redirect it to goal, where Earthquakes keeper Daniel was out of position and leaving the net open, sailed to the left for a goal kick out of bounds. Ruidiaz laying on the ground afterwards summarized how everyone in the stadium supporting rave green felt, dropping another winnable match.
Seattle Sounders FC forward Leo Chu continues to have impressive matches, but wasn’t recorded with a goal or assist tonight (Photo by Nate Koppelman)
What’s next?
Following tonight’s midweek match loss to San Jose, Seattle has a two-day turnaround before their next match. The Sounders will do their best with limited time to prep for their rivalry doubleheader match against the Portland Timbers, a Cascadia Club who has humiliated their rivals from Washington in recent memory. Seattle has lost the last four matches in head-to-head competition against Portland, and trials the Timbers in all-time record in their battles against each other by four matches. The Sounders aim to change the momentum of the rivalry, and their current slump, when the two teams lock up at Lumen Field with a kickoff time of 1:30PM PST. The OL Reign, Seattle’s professional women’s club in the NWSL, battle the Portland Thorns later in the day with a kickoff time at 5PM PST.
Check out Nate Koppelman’s match gallery here!
