Seattle Sounders FC lacked many things in a 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy on Sunday night, but one thing the team agreed went missing was energy. From the opening seconds – when Juninho miskicked a shot well wide – to the final whistle, the California hosts looked hungrier and in better shape.
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That hunger bore fruit when Edson Buddle threw himself at a corner kick to open the scoring, when Juninho doubled the lead after Seattle's midfield ceded him yards of space and when Alan Gordon's cross trickled over the goal line upon hitting James Riley.
“It's obviously disappointing,” rued Sounders FC head coach Sigi Schmid. “We have to play with energy, and I think we got overrun. They were active with moving around in midfield, and we never got tight enough to anybody. If you give a player enough time and space, he will show you how good a player he is. We didn’t even give them anything to deal with at times.”
The Galaxy's second goal was particularly indicative of that. Juninho picked up the ball in Seattle's half and moved tentatively towards goal. Both Patrick Ianni and Pete Vagenas backed off him, nearly folding into the defensive line, giving the Brazilian ample space.
Granted, Juninho still had to hit a wicked shot with plenty of topspin to beat Kasey Keller from 30 yards, but he never should have found the space to shoot in the first place.
“There were a couple of instances before the [second] goal where we could have pressured the ball and didn't,” Schmid continued. “I think that was the story of the night for us. We didn’t get enough pressure onto them, defensively, early enough.”
In the middle of the second half, Seattle did manage to meet the Galaxy's energy briefly. During that spell, Steve Zakuani coaxed the ball into the corner of the net to halve the deficit and Sounders FC put Donovan Ricketts under a bit of pressure.
Still, the late rally proved insufficient.
“They came out with energy, credit to them,” Zakuani said. “The first 45 minutes they were playing some great stuff and made some great movements. They took their chances and didn't make as many mistakes and that was the difference.”
The last time these two sides met, Los Angeles handed Seattle their worst-ever home loss in a 4-0 trouncing. The Sounders FC front office even went as far as to offer a refund in the form of credits to season ticket holders following the match.
Sunday's game wasn't nearly as humiliating for Seattle, but just as easily could have been, claims captain Kasey Keller.
“We got beat by a better team, simple as that [and] nothing more," the veteran keeper said. "That is what we need to strive to do bring, that energy. The only positive thing that we can take out of this game is that somehow we weren't down five-nil. We found a way to keep the score respectable and now we need to figure out the rest.
“We are not at the level we need to be at and, obviously, we need to improve drastically.”
