SEATTLE – Clint Dempsey scored his first goal of the season to help Seattle equalize against the Chicago Fire Saturday night. While the forward had failed in his nine previous outings in 2018, his conversion Saturday helped the Sounders to a 1-1 draw at CenturyLink Field in front of an announced crowd of 39,513.
Dempsey scored on a tap-in in the 22nd minute after a series of quick passes played Will Bruin into the box wide of goal. Bruin drew two defenders, before sending the ball across the face of goal to meet a sliding Dempsey to open his 2018 scoring account.
The goal was Dempsey’s 47th regular season goal with Seattle, tying the club record set by former Designated Player Fredy Montero.
“It feels good anytime to score,” said Dempsey of his finish. “Being an attacking player. It’s what it’s about. Getting goals, getting assists. It’s been a tough year, both for me personally, but for the whole team. We’ve have a lot of injuries. It’s been difficult to create chances, but now that we’re getting guys healthy, we’re able to create a lot more. Hopefully more goals will come for everybody.”
Still, Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer was not satisfied with the result.
“If you’re a soccer fan, it was end-to-end action,” Schmetzer said after the match. “If you’re a coach you don’t like all the action at the opposite end of the field where (keeper Stefan Frei) had to come up big and save us far too many times in the second half. As far as attacking core that we had, I think it’s getting a little better. Against DC United, you had 15 shots, tonight, (18) shots.”
Dempsey’s goal was needed to equalize a long-range strike from Chicago’s Aleksandar Katai in the ninth minute. The Serbian winger found himself on top of Seattle’s penalty area with time and space and slotted a shot past a diving Stefan Frei to the right post as a pair of defenders converged on him to give the visitors an early lead.
From there, the game continued in a back-and-forth fashion, as each sided traded close calls. Seattle’s Victor Rodriguez made several dangerous moves against Chicago’s right back Diego Campos, while Katai, Luis Solignac and Bastian Schweinsteiger found plenty of room to work in the wide channels.
Seattle finished with a narrow advantage in shots taken, 18-15. Chicago made more of its chances however, finishing level with the Sounders with seven shots each on target.
Keepers Richard Sanchez and Frei each made six saves, including a series of sprawling blocks to deny dangerous chances as the match grew into its final minutes.
Ultimately, though, it was an injury that ended the match. In the dying seconds of stoppage time, a cross looped in from the right side was contested by Frei and Chicago substitute Alan Gordon. Gordon’s elbow made contact with Frei’s head as both leapt for the ball, and the keeper crashed to the ground and lay motionless for several moments before eventually being helped to his feet by trainers.
With Seattle out of substitutes, referee Armando Villarreal blew for full time to prevent Seattle from having a field player switch into the keeper jersey for the final play of the game.
For Schmetzer, the day ultimately represented two precious points dropped in an increasingly precarious situation.
“We’ve got to keep going,” Schmetzer said. “We are starting to look at the standings and do the math. Today was two points dropped. So we’re being realistic with (the players). We’re telling them we need to be positive. We still have another home game, we’ve got a couple winnable road games. Every game has to become a final. Every game has to be one where we maximize our chances of getting points. Again, 18 shots, the chances that we created, I thought our set piece delivery was good tonight, so there are some things that we can be positive about.”