SEATTLE – In retrospect, the Houston Dynamo are the team that made Seattle get tougher.
In 2009, the Dynamo dismissed the Sounders from the playoffs, holding Seattle scoreless for 180 minutes. In that first-round playoff series, the Dynamo stymied Seattle’s attack with physical play and kept their Colombian superstar Fredy Montero off the score sheet.
On Sunday night, Seattle took a huge step forward by defeating that same Dynamo team by a score of 2-0. While a regular-season match doesn’t tell the entire story, especially against a struggling club coming off a Thursday night SuperLiga match, Seattle may not have won in this type of game last season.
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“Today was a good result, especially against Houston,” said head coach Sigi Schmid. “Last year and in the past, when we’ve played teams that are more physical or robust, [those] are teams that have given us a hard time. We were able to match that and came out ahead at the end of the day, so I was very pleased.”
Last year’s Sounders failed to compete against the most physical teams in the league (who Schmid identified as Chivas USA, Houston and New England), going 1-5-3 in 2009.
Said Schmid at the conclusion of last season, “When we played the rest of the league, we only lose three games but we lose five out of nine against that group. It’s because we need to maybe become more physical; add a physical asset to our game.”
That solution ended up being Blaise Nkufo, who was brought in to absorb punishment from defenders. Against the Dynamo, the Swiss striker found out first-hand what that entailed, playing against two of the league’s most physical center backs in Bobby Boswell and Eddie Robinson.
During Nkufo’s 87 minutes, he was knocked to the turf countless times and earned a yellow card for what could have been perceived as a payback foul on Boswell.
“I told [Nkufo] that tonight was going to be a physical night,” said Schmid. “He was going against two guys who are certainly very aggressive and would play him very tight. He’s not a flopper, so obviously he felt he got taken down a few times.”
Another step taken to address the “toughness deficiency” was a beefed-up strength and conditioning program in the offseason, designed to increase strength. General manager Adrian Hanauer has seen the results in the play of a number of players, including the scrappy Sanna Nyassi and Nathan Sturgis.
“If you look at the group now, they’re bigger,” Hanauer said. “We talked about this going into this year, and maybe the beginning of the year didn’t look like this, but part of our objective was to get our main group stronger and more physical.
“You look at Fredy Montero, he is stronger; more physical this year.”
The months of work manifested themselves in the game’s critical moment. Montero’s lower-body strength and body position allowed him to shield and turn the much bigger Robinson for the game-winning goal. Montero has now scored or assisted on 14 of Seattle’s last 17 goals.
Perhaps most importantly, the club has preached a change in mindset as a reason why Seattle may be tougher.
“Ultimately it comes down to mentality,” Hanauer said. “We’ve had some guys go in for some tough 50-50 balls but they are fighting and battling for each other. Ultimately it’s that mentality that makes the difference.”
