CARSON, Calif. – MLS's two best teams this season face off for the Western Conference Championship of the MLS Cup Playoffs, presented by AT&T, and Robbie Keane knows what “the fans want to see.”
“Two top teams trying to play and trying to win a game,” said the Irish striker ahead of his LA Galaxy's first-leg showdown Sunday afternoon with the Seattle Sounders at StubHub Center (5 pm ET; ESPN, get tickets here). “If that's the case, I think we have a good chance.”
That's not likely to be the case, the Galaxy acknowledge. They expect the Sounders to adopt a defensive posture, much as they did during the home-and-home series that ended the regular season – and gave Seattle the Supporters' Shield – and in their Western Conference semifinal victory over FC Dallas.
“Their last, probably, four or five games, they've developed a mentality of being pretty defensive-minded and very hard to play against, and I think at this time of year, that's a good formula to have,” Landon Donovan said following LA's training session Thursday at StubHub. “It works for them because they have some special players that can make special plays on the offensive end. … And there's no two forwards in the league like Clint [Dempsey] and [Obafemi Martins].
“Through the year, they were more willing to take chances, attack with their fullbacks, attack with their midfielders, but I think Sigi [Schmid, Sounders head coach has] made it very clear to them that if they defend well and get the ball to those two, that they have a good chance to win. So far, it's worked, and it's our job to break that up.”
The Galaxy are confident in their ability to do so, given their success at home – 16-1-4 this year at StubHub, including “away” games against Chivas USA and a CONCACAF Champions League victory over Club Tijuana – and quality of their play in their last outing, a 5-0 destruction of Real Salt Lake.
Two years ago, they routed Seattle, 3-0, at home at this stage, advanced on 4-2 aggregate and captured their second straight MLS Cup title, just the third team in league history to do so.
Backline leader Omar Gonzalez believes it's imperative for LA to take advantage of the situation.
“Away goals are involved now, so we've got to make sure to shut them out,” he said. “And when we get chances in front of their goal, we need to make sure to punish them because every single goal matters, and it's very important we go into their house with a lead.”
The Galaxy also know that it’s not the end of the world if they don’t win big in the first leg.
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“If we play a complete 180 minutes, we have a very good chance to win,” Donovan said. “And the good thing for us is we know how we play at home, and we're going to play in a way that allows us to create a lot of chance and, hopefully, score a lot of goals. But the beauty of it is if it doesn't happen – if we don't win by a lot of goals, if we tie, if we even lose – we know that Seattle's a place we can go and get results and get big results.”
LA is 4-4-2 all-time against the Sounders at CenturyLink Field, with a 4-0 win in 2010 and a 3-0 win in late July. The Galaxy dominated the regular-season finale in Seattle before conceding two late goals in a 2-0 loss.
“We've played each other so long that both teams know each other inside-out, nearly,” Keane said. “I think we just have to worry about what we do. If we concentrate and play the way we know we can play, like we did against Salt Lake, then I think we should be OK, but we can't get drawn into thinking too much about Seattle. Of course, we have to be wary of them – we know that, we know exactly what they are – and the next few days, we'll go over a few little, small things … refreshing the lads' memories.”
