Match Day 4 - There are not moral victories

You’re right. A win is 3 points, a draw is 1, and a loss is 0. No points for a moral victory. Which makes a moral victory as good as a loss.

I don’t really think we had a moral victory anyway. KC earned the win, and part of earning the win is the other team earning the loss, and we did that. Whether we did it on purpose or not, or had some bad luck, or played well, those don’t really matter. But it makes us feel better.

Some have said, Well, with Keller we would have won, since we played so well in the second half. But it seemed to me that we were very disorganized, and that we only started playing better after half, when we were playing a man down. If Keller hadn’t been ejected, we might never have started playing better, and KC would have broken through on one of their quick runs long before the 75th minute.

The non-call handball argument is a lot like telling the police officer, I’ve gone that fast past you on this road a bunch of times, but you never pulled me over before.

Funny, I always read CarlosT as CarLost, since it’s all lowercase on GS.

Nice work, as always.

The unfortunate part to this equation is you are correct in your assessment. Keller is a very good goalie, he covers a lot of ground, I watch the game on TV. I believe that Keller would have covered the shot as he has in the past.
The defense hadn’t adjusted to Dragovon, they didn’t change the way they were playing, they should have played tighter and back Dragovon isn’t Keller.
I have to disagree with ‘no moral victories’ the fact is we are going to lose games, but to play 60+ minutes 1 under to lose in the last ten minutes. the moral victory was giving up a short hand goal late in the game to a 3rd string goalie (nothing against Dragovon) This team is good and learning to play together Fredy and Freddie have not spent much time together. This week will be an honest test for our club, no Keller and 11v11 could result in a 0-0 result that would be acceptable, the defense will be the focus, if we give up anything it won’t be anything cheap!
The boys can now refocus on what needs to be done. Just my $.02

Nice alalysis you did a great job articulating what I was thinking while watching the match. KC left very few passing games an marked very tight they virutally cut off long ball counter attacks.

I also feel that a more seasoned and more physically imposing Keller would have made the save in the 79th minute.

Keller had to come off his line as far as he did because there was a clear perhaps almost certain goal on the play. Arnaud had a lot of momentum and pace going toward the net and placed the ball with enough lift that Keller instinctivly would put his hands up to protect the face.

If the ball would have not glanced of the hands and just hit his chest it would have been a brilliant out of the box save because he thwarted an almost certain goal and would have stayed in the match and the team would have been able to play at full strength and full execute on Sigi’s strategy.

The interesting thing is that the Sounders actually created more clear scoring opportunites in the second half with a man down.

As always, great stuff Dave. ; )

Dave, good write-up. Do you think Montero was holding the ball too long on many occasions? It just seemed to me he was not as sharp as the previous two matches. I think we’re much more successful when we get the ball moving up the flanks which then opens up the center. Your thoughts?

KC got the 3 points but were not the better team on the night. If not for a couple timely saves and the crossbar Sounders would have won this game a man down. From my view in 111 it looked like Arnaud’s shot took a slight deflection. I don’t know that Keller would have had any better chance at stopping that.

Mike, in any sport don’t the rules clearly state how one determines the better team. While there were plenty of things that could be considered positive signs for the future, Seattle was not the better team.

Sure, by score alone you get A > B, A == B or A < B. It’s a necessary calculus for determining points and position in the table but deficient for judging team performance. I wouldn’t be happy if the Sounders lost every game while being the better team but that would be highly improbable.

Love your blog, keep up the good work!

The final score does not always tell the whole story but it is the story that matters in terms of standings and W/L record.

Perhaps “better team” is not the right word. Seattle outplayed KC in many aspects of the game but at the end of the day KC lost. If one is to use the criteria of the final score as the final determining factor than yes, KC was the better team on that particular day.

If one is to do an analysis on possession, passes, skill, shots on goal and flow while still playing a man down than I have to give the advantage to Seattle in terms of having more talent and a higher quality side that lost that particular match on that particular day.

Seattle was on the offensive most of the second half and created more scoring opportunites. I believe if Keller would have been in goal instead of Dragavon, he would have stopped the shot.

With that said, soccer like life is not always fair, you can do a lot of right things and still come out on the losing side.

KC won the match but I still think there are a lot of positives to take away. Given that we are only 4 matches in to the season that is a good thing at this point. : )

Good points by all. KC had a very good game plan coming into the match. They wanted to defend with all 10 players and counter off Seattle attacks. It worked beautifully. KC didn’t really dominate the first 30 minutes, as I have read on many a blog, but they were excellent at countering and having the better scoring opportunities.

I just don’t think that Seattle was ready for the style that KC was playing because that is not how they had ever played before. That is why SSFC looked disjointed early, but were able to regroup after halftime and clearly outplay KC everywhere but the scoreboard.

Was it a moral victory? It wasn’t on the scoreboard and that is what ultimately matters. However, if they come out and tie or win against Chivas, then psychologically you can say it was.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the players have looked at the schedule and are already looking forward to the KC rematch (Oct 17th). I know that I am.

The Sounders were clearly the better team for the first 25 minutes of the Second Half. For the rest of the game, KC outplayed them – including the first 30 minutes, when it was 11 v. 11. The red card was a no brainer – the officials really had no choice if they have even a nodding acquaintance with the rules of the game.

Fredy Montero was exceedingly disappointing. He seems incapable of delivering a decent pass and was constantly caught in possession after trying to beat his third man in the space of ten yards.

I thought it was an effort that was long on guts and effort and short on any real cohesion.

Hey, and I thought everybody thought I was crazy! Thanks for the mention, Dave.

Seriously though, handball is one of those calls that is not widely understood and FIFA doesn’t do enough to lay out useful guidelines. In my view, the red card is like getting a ticket for following the car speed limit in your pickup truck instead of following the “truck” limit. Yes, you were driving in a “truck”, but the type of “truck” you’re driving and the type of “truck” targeted by the law are different and the difference is probably spelled out in the text of the statute.

In the Keller case, there are two relevant parts of Law 12 – Fouls and Misconduct that apply. The first is the handball offense, which is first defined in the section about fouls meriting a direct free kick. The second is the sending off offenses, one of which is denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity by committing a handball. In both places the rules use the word “deliberately”.

So what’s the standard for “deliberately”? A big part of the test for whether a contact is deliberate is the hand-to-ball vs ball-to-hand question. What that’s getting at is the question of which player caused the contact. If Keller caused the contact by moving his hands to contact the ball, then it’s a foul and under the denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity rule has to be a red card as well. If the attacker caused the contact by kicking the ball into Keller’s hands, then it’s no foul and the game continues. Once the whistle blew, it could be nothing but a red, but the question is, given a perfect application of the rules, should it have been a foul? From what I saw, no.

As for the larger topic, I don’t agree. While the moral victory gets us exactly zero points in the standings, the manner in which the game was played mattered. But for some sharper finishing, we’re talking about the Sounders’ amazing performance by starting the season with four straight victories. As Greg mentioned, the score doesn’t always tell the whole story, and the term “against the run of play” wasn’t invented for nothing. If we play our matches the way we played the second half against KC, we’ll win many more matches than we’ll lose.

I feel you are correct looking for signs from this match looking forward, but not looking back to the previous match. If that makes sense.

I like your analysis of the foul, Carlos. But from replays it seems clear to me that Kasey raised his hands like a goalie, not like a field player sliding to block a shot. The ball was kicked into his hands, but he put his hands there, where they wouldn’t have naturally been. Field players can’t run around with their arms outstretched and claim ball-to-hand every time the ball hits them, just because they’ve had them out there the whole game. Or can they? Maybe I’m not clear on a handball.

I admit I was being a little sarcastic in my earlier comment. I do believe in moral victories. But I also agree that a handful of moral victories give you nothing in the end. And if they start to pile up, these “Played well but still lost” games, they cease to be moral victories and become simple frustration and exposure of deficiencies.

However, “If we play our matches the way we played the second half against KC,” we will lose a lot of games 0-1, since we couldn’t manage to finish any of our chances, and we allowed KC the space they needed.

We need to play like we did vs. Red Bull and TFC, not the way we played against KC.

I’m glad the regulars are pouring in here. The dialogue is excellent. Thanks Dave, and Coug, and all.

Dave (or anyone else),
I’d like to get your thoughts on Sigi’s late game tactics. I keep thinking that Seattle should have made some defensive substitutions around the 75 minute mark and circled the wagons to protect the draw. From Section 108, I could see around the 70 minute mark that Zach Scott was GASSED (mouth open, hands on hips) and Harrington clearly had his number when he came on in the 77th. The aggression was clearly warranted coming out of the halftime break. But I felt that continuing this approach led to the goal—Seattle made a run, got overextended and couldn’t get reorganized in the face of KC’s counterattack. When your team is playing a man down, as the coach I think you have to know that your team will be tiring and make adjustments. At some point isn’t it Sigi’s responsibility to put his aggressive philosophy aside and protect the available point?

I am not in favor of playing for the point when 3 are available, as I feel that a coach should stick with their philosophy.

BUT that does not mean that Sigi shouldn’t have subbed more.

Ianni is faster than Marshall, or Sturgis.
Zakuani should have been on earlier

Fitness was an issue, but not strategy or tactics late. Sigi’s system matters, it got 9 points of 9 in the first 3 games. But it requires more speed than a man down Seattle could use late in the match.

Cornchops, as for handball, while it’s not specifically in the rules anywhere (and that’s what I mean about FIFA not providing useful guidelines), the general test I’ve heard is whether the hands are in an unusual or unnatural position. An example of a correct non-call was the goal Adriano scored against Milan earlier this year. He leaped up to head the ball, got a bad contact with it with his head, and it ricocheted in off his arm. It’s not a foul even though his arms were stretched in front of him because they were in a natural position during that motion and furthermore his arms were moving away from the ball as it made contact.

Keller could argue (and probably did), that he was trying to protect his face and you can definitely see from the replays that the ball was headed towards that general vicinity. In the end, I think Keller was done in by the fact that he had his palms out. Palms inward, and the motion of his arms looks much more innocent, as a protection of his face or even trying to bring his arms in to his body to avoid a potential foul.

As for the moral victory aspects of the game, honestly, we dominated the second half before and after the goal. Yes, a little sharpness was lacking for whatever reason and being down a man eventually allowed Arnaud to take his shot. But you can’t score if you don’t create the chances and we were doing that in spades. Yes, defeat sucks and the “moral victory” is worth exactly the same number of points as a loss, but how many teams in this league can drop from their top keeper to a pool keeper and play for 50 minutes before giving up a goal? I think if the shoe is on the other foot and Hartman is sent off after 29 minutes, it doesn’t take the Sounders 50 minutes to score. And I think we don’t stop at one goal either.

As Dave said, we need look at what this game means for the future. Keller getting sent off in the first half has to be one of the top nightmare scenarios for the Sounders. If we had gotten beat the way we beat the Red Bulls, RSL, and TFC, then we should start to worry. If the team had collapsed and a 1-0 loss had been a lucky escape, then we could consider our deficiencies revealed. It could have been a blowout, and would have been for most teams. Instead the nightmare came true, but the team came together, fought hard and almost got the result. Even though we lost, this game reinforced my belief that we should step out on the field fearing no one. Respect our opponents, yes, but fear no one.

Definitely, the way we played for most of the second half, a man down and without our own personal wall, was very reassuring. It makes me feel good about this team. If they had played like that from the outset, the Keller situation likely never happens, we’re probably up early like we were in the first three games, and all’s well. Too bad it took a red card and a lackluster first half (and probably a nice SigiTalk in the LR) to get us going in that direction.

But I’m not worried. I, like you, fear no one. TFC away played a big part in my confidence in the team (road, no Fredy, outside distractions, supposed tough atmosphere), but the second half vs. KC helped.

Looking forward to seeing how we do at Chivas. Should be another nice test.