Sounders roar to 4-3 comeback after going down 3-0 early

Wednesday’s match between DC United and the Seattle Sounders saw both teams achieve the depths of despair and the heights of jubilation as DC United went up 3-0 before surrendering four unanswered goals in the span of 27 minutes. With the Gold Cup still ongoing and a couple injuries here and there neither team was at full strength. Of note was that both sides were without their starting keeper as Bill Hamid is with the USMNT and Stefan Frei was out with a lingering injury.

The Sounders came out of the gate domination possession but looking rusty, with numerous poor turnovers and overall sloppy passing. The defense as a whole was slow to mark runners and was easily split. In the eighth minute Patrick Nyarko punished Brad Evans and Roman Torres for their miscues when he blazed past them to get the touchline and play a ball across goal for Deshorn Brown. Brown got in front of Chad Marshall and calmly tapped it in the net for DC United’s first goal against Seattle since 2011.

Twenty minutes later and the defensive issues were still present for Seattle. Lloyd Sam sprung Sean Franklin loose in the left side of Seattle’s penalty box. Franklin smartly played the ball back to Ian Harkes who was unmarked and had plenty of time to shake the late-coming defenders before drilling the ball past Miller.

The mistakes kept coming for Seattle and while they didn’t surrender any more goals as they closed out the first half it was still a poor enough performance that the crowd at CenturyLink Field booed them as they left the pitch for halftime.

The Sounders looked like they’d started to figure out how to attack again to kick off the second half. However a sloppy turnover from Evans coupled with a total inability to mark Lloyd Sam in the ensuing transition meant the Sounders once again found themselves picking the ball out of their own net. Down 3-0 in the 50th minute the situation, like Seattles ability to attack up until that point, was hopeless.

Then just a minute later Harry Shipp made a seemingly simple pass to spring Joevin Jones down the lefthand side. Jones in turn launched a perfect cross that Will Bruin made a great run for. The offseason acquisition got his head on it and hit it passed DC for the goal. Still at 3-1 down there was a feeling in the stadium that all the goal would do was keep DC honest.

Wanting to chase after the game, Bryan Schmetzer made two tactical subs in the 54th minute. He brought in Nouhou for Harry Shipp and elected to give Kelvin Leerdam his first appearance as a Sounder as the recent signing entered for Aaron Kovar. The ensuing formation played more like a 4-3-3 with Svensson as the lone DM and Roldan and Lodeiro pushing farther up the field.

The subs and tactical shift paid near immediate dividends. In the 62nd minute Nouhou collected a poor clearance from DC to recycle the attack to Joevin Jones. Jones played in a RIDICULOUS chip pass with the outside of his right foot that found a diving Evans to bring Seattle within one.

The next 12 minutes saw Seattle launch attack after attack in search of the equalizer. Finally in the 71st minute Roldan made a great play to slip around tow defenders and launch off a shot that was deflected out for a corner. Nicolas Lodeiro stepped up to take the corner, while Gustav Svensson got ready for a near post run. Lodeiro raised his hand and started his wind up and 10 seconds later the ball was in the back of the net courtesy of an insane flick on from Svensson. Running away from goal on the near post he managed to flick in Lodeiro’s corner to the upper right corner of the goal in oder to bring the Sounders level.

Four minutes later all hell broke loose in CenturyLink Field as yet another counter started. Will Bruin won the ball in DC’s final third and laid the ball off to Cristian Roldan. The recent USMNT call-up beat his defender and splits the wickets of DC’s keeper Travis Worra to put the Sounders on top a mere 28 minutes after going down 3-0. In doing so the Sounders became the first team in MLS’s 21 year history to come back from 3-0 down to win a game in regulation. 

As the Sounders shepherded the game out Nicolas Lodeiro lashed out against Marcelo Sarvas by kicking his groin. The action earned the Uruguayan a red card and a 1-game suspension that’ll see him miss Sundays matchup against the San Jose Earthquakes. 

History books aside it was a night full of crazy happenings. No one would’ve predicted DC United to score three goals after scoring a league low of 14 all season. No one would’ve predicted the Sounders to score four goals either with Jordan Morris and Clint Dempsey missing. And yet somehow both happened on the same night in the same arena during one of the craziest spans of 90 minutes Cascadia has ever seen. The Sounders will look to carry the momentum forward for their match on Sunday against San Jose. A match made more complicated due to the absences/suspensions of Morris, Dempsey, and Lodeiro. Meanwhile United will look to take their offensive positives into Saturday’s matchup against Houston.