Seattle Sounders: Postseason Preview
/By Ian L (@ahandleforian)
To say that the Seattle Sounders exist solely to confound me would simultaneously be both incredibly narcissistic and also accurate. I’ve been tasked with the preseason and postseason previews for the perennial contenders for the past few years, and every single time I’m more and more tempted to just submit this as my draft:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Editor’s note: this would not be up to ASA’s stringent editorial standards, as we’re not Bleacher Report… yet.)
See the thing with the Seattle Sounders is that at very few times over the last several seasons can you look at their underlying numbers, their place in the standings, and their play on the field and you think “Yes. This all checks out”. But for whatever reason, Seattle just simply did not pass my eye-test this season. If you were to pick six matches from this season out of a hat and watch them, there’s an extremely good chance your opinion of them would be somewhere between “ooof” and “meh”. Their underlying numbers suggest they should probably be on the edge of the playoff picture or out of it all together, but the only thing that matters at the end of the year is what that number to the left of the team in the table says. Now, this isn’t to say that they aren’t capable of being good at soccer. They are. We’ve seen it, but at times this season I also saw a team so abject that I was certain that whatever magic that allows them to annually float towards the top of the Western Conference had abandoned them. But it didn’t. Every team in the West has been playing for second since like March and lo and behold when all the flamethrower smoke clears there’s Seattle: number two with an amenable playoff draw.
Seattle have earned a reputation as slow starters. This was something the staff was very focused on rectifying, and they did. Seattle came out of the gates with a head of steam, taking five wins out of their six matches. Their early season clash with LAFC was billed as the first matchup of the two best teams in Major League Soccer. They, uh, did not win and getting back up off of that mat wasn’t easy. Those all-consuming marauders to the South not only beat Seattle, they popped the balloon keeping them at the top of the table. They took 10 of the next 30 points on offer heading into the summer. International call-ups decimated an already wounded squad and the long summer months of June and July were not pleasant times in the Emerald City. If there were a season low point, it undoubtedly came on a trip to the LA Galaxy where they were only spared the blushes of losing despite having a man advantage by one of the most random and wild own goals I’ve ever seen in MLS, but then the ship was righted. A bit anyway. Five wins in their last eight matches were just enough to see out the late season pushes of Minnesota and RSL (WHAT happened in the West this year?), and Seattle again found themselves in the catbird seat (non LAFC division) of an oddly tiered Western Conference. It wasn’t often pretty. It very frequently wasn’t good. It was certainly buoyed by the even more lacklustre play of rivals, but it was enough and that’s all it needed to be.
Statistics:
Possession: 50.2% (9th in MLS)
Passes per game: 471.8 (8th in MLS)
xGoals for: 45.2 (17th in MLS)
xGoals against: 47.5 (16th in MLS)
xGoals difference: -2.2 (16th in MLS)
Here’s some analytics for you. Those underlying numbers suck, but having underlying numbers that are bad isn’t unbroken ground for this team. It’s not unusual for Seattle to plod about a bit in the attacking phase of play. They are, let’s say, picky in and around the area. Their haul of 426 shots this season was the league’s sixth lowest. Being picky isn’t in and of itself necessarily a bad thing, but when you look at how much Seattle possess the ball and how many passes they complete, it makes you wonder where all of these possessions are going (and it doesn’t seem to be going to super high leverage shots either - Seattle rank 12th in the league for shots with an xG value greater than 0.25). For as much as these underlying numbers suggest that Seattle shouldn’t be in the playoffs, much less the second seed, they’re actually better than they were last season. Now this puts me in a bit of a difficult position, because last year I suggested that Seattle were in fact, very good, and that their underlying numbers were more of an anomaly than their results. This year, I can’t help but have the opposite impression.
| Shots For | Shots Against | Goals For | Goals Allowed | GD | xG | xGA | xGD | Points | xPts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 426 | 473 | 50 | 47 | 3 | 45.2 | 47.5 | -2.2 | 56 | 46.4 | |
| 429 | 453 | 49 | 36 | 13 | 43.5 | 49.8 | -6.3 | 59 | 42.7 | |
| 500 | 412 | 51 | 39 | 12 | 55.1 | 39.6 | 15.5 | 53 | 57 |
I apologize to Seattle fans if this is sounding a bit too doom and gloom, but don’t worry, I have good news! Thanks to whatever events somehow transpired to leave Seattle with the top non LAFC spot in the West, Seattle will play all of their matches at home until such a time when they’d have to play LAFC, NYCFC, or Atlanta. Seattle have been quite good at home this season.
| Shots For | Shots Against | Goals For | Goals Against | GD | xG | xGA | xGD | Points | xPts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 262 | 205 | 33 | 21 | 12 | 28.5 | 20.5 | 8.1 | 37 | 30.5 | |
| 164 | 268 | 17 | 26 | -9 | 16.7 | 27 | -10.3 | 19 | 15.9 |
Looking at this, I’m inclined to believe that the switch to a one match playoff will greatly benefit Seattle. While, I think that a home and away series tends to mitigate upsets a bit more and favor stronger teams, Seattle have been so much better at home this season that I think it’s definitely in their best interest to play there as often as possible during the postseason.
The Squad
This is my best guess as to what we’ll see when Seattle meet FC Dallas. The main sticking point is whom Brian Schmetzer will appoint as Kee-hee’s partner against FC Dallas and going forward in the playoffs. Xavier Arreaga has had an up and down settling in period, but getting two red cards in his last two matches (albeit with some admittedly very harsh yellow cards) is likely going to give the coach some pause. Roman Torres has not endeared himself to management either, having just finished serving a 10 match suspension for using banned substances - but he returned to the fold against Minnesota with a repentant haircut and the decisive goal. My instinct is that Schmetzer will go with the Panamanian, but nobody should be surprised if it goes the other way.
Victor Rodriguez will be a part of this picture should he be healthy, but I don’t have to tell Sounders fans that he will almost certainly not be. By my count, Victor has 49 MLS (plus playoff) appearances for Seattle and he’s missed 25 matches through injury. This year it has been one ailment after another, and it’s too bad because when he’s available he’s been solid.
Joevin Jones has returned from Germany and so far it’s been a pretty underwhelming reunion tour. When Jones left for Darmstadt, he was the best left back in the league, now he’s a pretty run of the mill MLS winger. It makes sense that he’s filling in here with Brad Smith and Nouhou Tolo able to handle left back duties, but outside of his best showing of the year against Minnesota, Seattle will be much happier if Rodriguez is able to play.
The other possible question mark for this Seattle’s squad is just what Emmanuel Cecchini will be bringing to the table. Cecchini arrived toward the end of the summer window and has barely gotten any minutes, with his only start coming during a match when Seattle legitimately had no other choice. It may be too early to call this one, but watching him struggle to get minutes reminds me a bit of the Magnus Wolff Eikrem situation, which did not end well for Seattle (though it ended up fine for Eikrem, who went back to Norway and has been one of the league’s standout players). Cecchini is younger, and it’s possible that he just needs some more time and maybe even an offseason to work himself into Schmetzer’s plans, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Why Seattle Will Not Win MLS Cup
All teams in the West have the same huge obstacle to overcome if they want to have the big parade: LAFC. Even if we go forward operating under the assumption that Seattle are a very good soccer team (and I’m clearly not convinced), LAFC is just flat out better in every single way. Seattle’s early season trip to the eventual shield winners resulted in one of the most hapless Seattle performances I’ve ever seen. Their squad hasn’t gotten better since then (it’s actually gotten arguably worse with the retirement of Chad Marshall and the injury to Will Bruin) and none of the reinforcements that have arrived have set themselves apart so I don’t see another trip to LAFC ending differently without some major changes in LAFC’s circumstances.
With Lodeiro, Ruidiaz, a recently exceptional Jordan Morris, Cristian Roldan, and Stefan Frei it would be insane to suggest this team is lacking in talent. This team can win and they can and have beat good teams this season, but I look at stuff like this:
and I just can’t see a trip to LAFC, NYCFC, or Atlanta going super well for Seattle. Look at how little of an obstacle Seattle pose to teams moving the ball around. Seattle don’t seem to have a formal pressing system and by that I mean that while individuals certainly do some pressuring actions sometimes, it’s not on the level of something that LAFC or the NY teams do. If anything there does seem to be a brief counterpress from Ruidaiz, Lodeiro, Roldan, or Morris depending on whomever is around and you can see that reflected here with some measure of success right in zone 14.
While pressing has become very en vogue in world soccer over the last few years, it isn’t the end all be all tactic. It’s just hard to counter when it’s done well, and we’re starting to see MLS teams do it very well indeed. If you’re a Seattle fan, look at the top eight teams on that first graphic and then look at the bottom eight teams on that list. Which lunch table do you want to be sitting at?
Why Seattle Will Win MLS Cup
Despite my less than enthusiastic reviews of this year’s team, they aren’t actually that far away from being one of the favorites again. If something happens to LAFC, Seattle, with their home-field advantage, have to be considered favorites coming out of the West. This again, is where I suspect the one game playoff may favor Seattle’s interests. Beating LAFC over 180 minutes is a daunting proposition, but a team beating them in 90? Hardly impossible. Now, it isn’t likely. I’m not predicting this is what will happen. I’m just saying there’s a better chance of it happening in one 90 minute game as opposed to a two legged series against the team that is both the best home and away team in the league. But this is soccer and more than that - this is MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER - so let’s just theorycraft a little scenario here. The Galaxy do what the Galaxy do best and take out LAFC in the second round. Seattle and the Galaxy have another offensive fest in Seattle and once again Seattle come out on top. Out east, NYCFC stumbles against Toronto and RBNY once again prove to be a thorn in Atlanta’s side. Now Seattle is hosting MLS Cup and you have to like their chances at home against any of those teams left. Is it going to happen like that? Almost certainly not, but it’s not IMPOSSIBLE is it? If things break favorably for Seattle they certainly have the ability to go out and win it all again, but things breaking that kind of favorably means that the three best MLS teams have all gotten tripped up somehow, so I wouldn’t count on it. Looking at the way things are set currently, I don’t see it happening, but changing one or two variables in the complex equation that is MLS postseason soccer and Seattle’s prospects can get significantly better. I never bet on MLS and even if I did, I wouldn’t ever bet against Seattle.