Will Seattle progress to the knockout stages of the Champions League?
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SEATTLE—Kasey Keller knows his team faces long odds to advance in the CONCACAF Champions League.
Wednesday against Monterrey, the veteran goalkeeper watched his team come up empty, despite commanding a 17-7 advantage in shots. It was an instant replay of the last week’s Marathon match in Honduras, where he felt Seattle was extremely unfortunate not to earn at least a point.
In both cases, Seattle came away with nothing, meaning the team needs to get close to maximum points to ensure its survival in the competition. After dropping their first two games in the competition, the Sounders must start aggregating points in a hurry.
“You’re looking at two Champions League games where we could have easily been walking away with six points, or at least four,” Keller said. “That’s obviously frustrating, but now it’s about putting this behind us and focusing on a huge MLS game.”
Fredy Montero shared in Keller’s frustration. He led a line that could not find a way past the Mexican club’s defense. Even when Nate Jaqua scored what looked like a good goal late in the game in a scramble after a free kick, it was disallowed by the assistant referee’s flag.
"The ref saw that I was offside,” Montero said. “I saw that the player from the other team actually had touched it with his head. But the ref saw what he saw."
In his post-match comments, coach Sigi Schmid didn’t give up hope of making it through to the elimination round. He was displeased with his team’s failure to protect its home turf, but he doesn’t think the book can be closed on Seattle just yet. Depending on how the other games in the group shake out, Seattle could still sneak in.
“It is what it is, so we have to accept the reality and deal with it," Schmid said.
The club still has four matches to make up ground, but an extremely congested schedule could put that task in the hands of the reserves. In one stretch in October, Seattle plays four times in the span of 11 days.
Despite the loss, none of the Sounders seemed too downtrodden about the result. With a crucial game against Chicago and erstwhile superstar Freddie Ljungberg looming for Saturday night, Keller was ready to move past this match.
Schmid must have had the Chicago game on his radar. Neither of his designated players—Blaise Nkufo and Alvaro Fernandez—played the full 90 minutes in the club’s first two CCL group stage matches. With Nkufo, Schmid planned to insert Jaqua at halftime all along, noting that Seattle plays six consecutive matches on artificial surfaces.
With the club still hoping to defend its US Open Cup title and facing a battle to secure a playoff spot, the Sounders will need to secure CCL points when it can. That journey starts with a Sept. 14 road game at Saprissa of Costa Rica.
Montero is confident that the team can turn it around.
"It's going to be very difficult, but as soon as we can find our rhythm we will be able to convert some goals as visitors and that will allow us to get into the last round," Montero said.
