SEATTLE, Wash. – The Seattle Sounders pulled off a 1-1 draw at home against the Columbus Crew at CenturyLink Field Saturday. Raul Ruidiaz scored on a retaken penalty to earn a point for the home side in front of an announced crowd of 33,080.
The penalty was awarded in the 78th minute, when substitute Nouhou raced up the left side and smashed a cross into the penalty area, which struck the outstretched arm of Harrison Afful.
Referee Jair Marrufo pointed to the spot, but Ruidiaz’ low shot to the left was saved by Columbus goalkeeper Eloy Room.
As Room was mobbed by teammates for preserving the Crew’s one-goal lead, Marrufo signaled for a video review, which revealed the keeper had left his line early. Marrufo ordered the penalty retaken, which Ruidiaz put away at the left post.
Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer had no doubts that the Peruvian striker would disappoint on the retake.
“The referees got it right,” Schmetzer said. “VAR got it right. You can clearly see on the replay that he had stepped forward. He can go sideways, but you can’t step forward. Raul’s not going to miss two in a row. He’s just not.”
Columbus struck first through Gyasi Zardes in the 33rd minute when the forward raced through Seattle’s back line and met a Luis Diaz cross at the back post. The shot proved to be the only of the half for the visitors.
Seattle had a chance at an equalizer in the 52nd minute, when Jordan Morris found Miguel Ibarra with a through ball, which the midfielder neatly tucked away after chipping a sliding Room. Marrufo reviewed the goal, which showed Ibarra had been offside when the ball was struck and the goal was disallowed.
The wait for Ibarra’s first goal as a Sounders continues, after the midfielder failed to score on an open goal during the season-opening win against Chicago.
“I told him it’s coming,” Schmetzer said of Ibarra. “He’ll eventually get the goal and have a breakthrough. You see what the kid brings. He’s goal-dangerous. He had some good moments today. I’m happy to have him in the squad.”
Ruidiaz’ equalizer sparked a flurry of activity over the final 10 minutes. Both sides threw numbers forward in hopes of claiming all three points.
“They definitely threw the kitchen sink at us in the second half,” Columbus coach Caleb Porter said. “That’s them. You saw that last week in the second half when they were down. Good by us to get through. We bent a lot, broke a little. The good news, getting better without losing is the way we want to do it this year.”
Seattle outshot Columbus 17-5 over the span of 90 minutes, but the two clubs finished with three shots on target apiece. Despite ceding 56.3 percent of the possession, the Crew outdueled the Sounders 59-51 and won 13 tackles to Seattle’s three.
Schmetzer said his club must find a way to start matches more authoritatively.
“Before the game, (keeper Stefan Frei) came in and said ‘we’re not going to wait to get scored upon to get going,’” Schmetzer said. “Two weeks in a row that has happened. We will try and address that. Again, I told the guys ‘we want to be a team that’s hard to beat.’ That goal – credit to our opponent, because it was a good ball in behind – but there were a couple of moments when the play was developing that we could have played better defensively to keep it at 0-0. As the game wore on, I think we started to take control of the game.”