The Seattle Sounders came away with a 3-1 win over New York City FC Sunday. Cristian Roldan, Gustav Svensson and Harry Shipp all scored against the Eastern Conference’s second-place team as the Sounders won their third match in a row.
Here are three takeaways from the afternoon:
1) Sounders much stronger in second half
While the club was lucky to be up a goal at halftime after withstanding six shots from New York City over the first half hour, Seattle came out laser-sharp in the second half and pulled off the more dangerous half despite having less of the ball. In one sequence, the Sounders took four shots in two minutes starting in the 80th minute, but could not crack New York City’s defense.
Brian Schmetzer said halftime has always been a crucial tool to the club’s success.
“Halftime is a chance for the coaching staff as a group, and also the players as a group, to come together and discuss certain things we’ve seen, both on and off the field, what we’ve felt and what the players have felt, and make corrections,” Schmetzer said. “We have the luxury of having (assistant coach) Djimi Traore sit upstairs, and he gives me a visual of what’s going on from upstairs. We also have a very good sports science team, where they take snapshots and photos of certain set pieces and plays that we can also digest at halftime and make corrections on.
“Then the routine is, you try to listen to some of the players as they’re talking amongst themselves, then you make your coaching points. And then, again … the assistants do their jobs and add anything that I may have missed. So, it’s a collaborative effort amongst the staff, amongst our sports science people and then amongst the players themselves. I think they understand that there’s corrections that sometimes need to be made, and they’re usually willing to listen.”
2) Grinding out results during critical stretch
The Seattle Sounders managed unlikely runs to reach MLS Cup in both 2016 and 2017 in the back half of both of those seasons. Now, the club seems like it may pull off another such run after a six-match unbeaten run that has seen them take 14 of 18 available points.
Still, midfielder Cristian Roldan said this run feels different than previous years, when the club’s quality of play drastically increased through the acquisition of international players.
“They are all different,” Roldan said. “The incredible thing about this one is that we aren’t playing well, we are grinding out games, we are winning these games because we are playing good defense and scoring that one or two goals. That’s the scary part. You think about six unbeaten and then if we start playing like we are supposed to, we can go on a really long run.”
3) Sounders end July unbeaten
The Seattle Sounders’ unbeaten streak received a big shot in the arm from three consecutive victories in nine days thanks to Sunday’s win.
After seeing off the Vancouver Whitecaps at home and managing a 1-0 victory on the road midweek against San Jose, Seattle completed the month of July without losing a match.
The last time Seattle completed a month without a league loss was last summer, when it completed both July and August with a combined 6-0-3 record as part of a club-record 13-match unbeaten streak to propel itself back above the red line en route to a 2017 MLS Cup appearance.