It may not have started the way the Seattle Sounders would have liked. But they got the result they needed in the end, emerging with a 4-2 home victory Saturday afternoon against Chivas USA.
The Sounders certainly didn’t make it easy on themselves. Seattle once again fell prey to their habit of conceding first, giving up a goal to Chivas USA forward Erick Torres in just the 12th minute to continue a run of five straight games in which the Sounders have conceded a go-ahead goal in the first half.
Obafemi Martins equalized two minutes later, but the Sounders then went behind again following an own goal from defender Jalil Anibaba.
“[We are] disappointed in the goals that we gave up,” Seattle midfielder Lamar Neagle said after the game. “We’re giving up easy goals and we definitely need to lock it down. ... We know we’re going to be able to score goals because we have the talent on the field to do that, so we just have to pick it up mentally defensively.”
The Sounders rebounded thanks to a strike from Neagle and Clint Dempsey then put them up 3-2 going into halftime. Martins added another early in the second half, bringing his season total to a team-leading 15 and also setting a franchise record for goals in a single season.
“He’s had a good season,” Seattle head coach Sigi Schmid said of Martins’ milestone. “I think he’s sustaining his effort and sustaining it now late in the season. He’s a very important piece of our team and he and Clint are very good together.”
Added Neagle: “He’s a great player. You can see that. Everybody knows that. It’s not a surprise that he’s scoring goals. He pops up in the right places and he does everything the right way.”
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Some nifty combination play between Martins and Dempsey led to game-winning goal just before halftime, a tally that gave the Sounders a big momentum-shifting lead heading into halftime.
“[Martins and Dempsey] are those playmakers that pull rabbits out of the hat and you just don’t know how,” defender DeAndre Yedlin said. “You need one of those guys and luckily we have two of them on this team. Those two are so key for us. We’re just happy to have them.”
The victory gave Seattle three necessary points at a critical juncture in what has turned into an all-out fight for the Supporters’ Shield crown with the LA Galaxy. But finding a way to prevent teams from jumping out to early leads still figures to be the biggest concern for Seattle as the playoffs quickly approach.
