TUKWILA, Wash. – As the Seattle Sounders gear up for Sunday's road matchup against the Colorado Rapids (3 pm ET; Unimas), the focus rests squarely on correcting the series of defensive miscues that have plagued the team in recent games.
Seattle have scored 57 goals on the season, good for the second most in MLS. But the Sounders have also given up 11 goals in their last four MLS matches, a troubling trend that head coach Sigi Schmid says his team is determined to squash as the postseason nears.
“We’ve taken goals in a lot of different ways,” Schmid told reporters following Seattle’s practice on Thursday. “Sometimes we’re a little bit too loose in the final third. … Sometimes we get pressure to the ball, but we don’t get pressure to the options that the ball carrier has.”
Both Schmid and center back Chad Marshall said that some of the defensive breakdowns could stem from Seattle’s highly offensive mindset, which has left the Sounders vulnerable at times on counterattacks.
“Part of it comes because we’re a very offensive team,” Schmid said. “We tend to go forward and so sometimes we leave things a little open or we put more energy into that area of the field, which is great because we score goals. But we’ve got to find the right balance as well.”
Added Marshall: “We’ve talked about it, and we know it’s a problem that needs to be sorted out. Hopefully we can do that for this weekend.”
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Right back DeAndre Yedlin also cited his team’s occasional vulnerability on counterattacks as the main area the Sounders need to address defensively. The Colorado matchup would be a good place to start correcting the defensive struggles: the Rapids rank 13th in MLS with 41 goals scored in 30 games.
“We just need to do a better job of putting out those fires and keeping the ball,” Yedlin said. “If you don’t lose possession, you can’t give those up. … I definitely get forward, so teams are exposing that space.”
Ari Liljenwall covers the Seattle Sounders for MLSsoccer.com.
