Seattle Sounders Vs. CS Herediano, CONCACAF Champions League: Highlights, Quotes, Statistics
by Jeremiah Oshan on Sep 21, 2011 9:42 AM PDT
in Sounders: CONCACAF Champions League
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What else can we say about Tuesday night's gut punch? Clearly, Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid's hands were somewhat tied with his lineup options from the midfield forward. Alvaro Fernandez was on a yellow-card suspension. Mauro Rosales is out. Brad Evans and Erik Friberg are nursing injuries. Mike Fucito had to leave Saturday's game. Fredy Montero has been playing practically twice a week. Osvaldo Alonso was apparently nursing some kind of injury. You get the point.
I don't think for a minute that Schmid was happy about starting a midfield of Amadou Sanyang and Servando Carrasco. He said as much. He also was probably less than thrilled with his options at forward. He must have known there really wasn't a playmaker in the bunch.
And it cost them.
How big is that cost? Well, that's debatable. In theory, the Sounders were going to need a result next week to guarantee themselves a trip to the quarterfinals anyway, and this doesn't really change that. The Sounders can still tie their final two group stage matches and win the group. But the loss does eliminate their margin for error.
Goals by Period 1 2 Tot CD Herediano 1 0 1 Seattle Sounders 0 0 0 Scoring Summary: HER -- Yosimar Arias (unassisted) 25 CD Herediano-- Daniel Cambronero, Cristian Montero, Erick Sanchez (Jose Cubero 77), Francisco Calvo, Marvin Obando, Pablo Salazar, Jose Luis Cordero, Yosimar Arias (Olman Vargas 71), Junior Alvarado, Jorge Barbosa, Anderson Andrade (Marvin Angulo 86). Misconduct Summary: SEA -- Lamar Neagle (caution; Reckless Tackle) 16 HER -- Jose Luis Cordero (caution; Tactical Foul) 34 HER -- Yosimar Arias (caution; Unsporting Behavior) 58 SEA -- Patrick Ianni (caution; Unsporting Behavior) 62 HER -- Jorge Barbosa (caution; Reckless Foul) 67 HER -- Daniel Cambronero (caution; Delaying a Restart) 77 Referee: Neil Brizan Referee's Assistants:-Dion Neil; Ainsley Rochard 4th Official: Lewin Purser Attendance: 10,163 Time of Game: 1:52 Weather: Partly Cloudy-and-72-degrees
Substitutes Not Used: Ronny Fernandez, Oscar Gonzalez, Jean Carlo Sanchez, Jose Cancela.
TOTAL SHOTS: 8 (Jose Luis Cordero 2); SHOTS ON GOAL: 2 (Olman Vargas 1, Yosimar Arias 1); FOULS: 14 (Cristian Montero 3, Yosimar Arias 3); OFFSIDES: 2 (Olman Vargas 1, Jorge Barbosa 1); CORNER KICKS: 4 (Yosimar Arias 3); SAVES: 4 (Daniel Cambronero 4)
Seattle Sounders -- Kasey Keller, Zach Scott (Sammy Ochoa 74), Patrick Ianni, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Leo Gonzalez, Roger Levesque (Fredy Montero 56), Servando Carrasco, Amadou Sanyang (Osvaldo Alonso 56), Lamar Neagle, Nate Jaqua, Pat Noonan.
Substitutes Not Used: David Estrada, Jeff Parke, Tyson Wahl, Josh Ford.
TOTAL SHOTS: 12 (Nate Jaqua 4); SHOTS ON GOAL: 4 (Lamar Neagle 2); FOULS: 18 (4 tied with 3); OFFSIDES: 2 (Roger Levesque 1, Pat Noonan 1); CORNER KICKS: 5 (Fredy Montero 3); SAVES: 1 (Kasey Keller 1)
POSTGAME QUOTES: Sounders FC vs. CS Herediano
Sigi Schmid - Sounders FC Head Coach
(On game...) "Herediano scored a good goal. It was a free good kick. I didn't think our wall jumped, but he still hit the free kick well. I thought we had some chances, we certainly had some chances in the last 30 minutes of the game. Overall, not one of our best matches. We're dealing with injuries and a heavy schedule, so we had to make some lineup decisions based on that. At the end of the day, our quality tonight wasn't good enough." (On Montero and Alonso changing game...) "The game certainly changed when they came into the game. They're quality players. Alonso got us a little quicker to our marks at midfield, which is what I asked him to do. Montero was able to hold the ball a little bit for us up front and allow people to join in. It helps our game when they're able to come in and do that." (On game challenges...) "We struggled a lot defensively. We didn't do a good job of picking them up. We were too loose in the middle of midfield and we were forcing our wide guys to step up to their back three rather than stay in midfield to defend. As a result, we didn't see enough of the ball and when you don't see enough of the ball, you're not going to get shots. Offensively, our struggles were simply that there were too many incomplete passes. Not enough rhythm into our game. We weren't holding onto the ball. Sometimes we knocked it in the back four, but we didn't really didn't hold it through midfield and in the wide areas." (On Amadou Sanyang...) "Sanyang is more of a defensively midfielder. Carrasco probably wasn't the best pairing, but we didn't have a lot of choices. We knew we couldn' play Ozzie tonight for 90 minutes because of the injury he's coming off of. He did OK. He did some of the things that he does well. I thought Ochoa came in and helped us at the end. He had a header that they made a save on and he held up the ball for us a couple times." (On result changing approach for upcoming games...) "Tuesday we need to get a result. If we go down to Guatemala and get a result, a win or a tie, that puts us through. Right now, it's about that. it was probably not that different based on the results tonight because Monterrey won, so it either way we would have had to get a result down there, so it really doesn't change much. We need to go into Guatemala and get a result. We want to win the Vancouver game because that wins us the Cascadia Cup and that's important to us as a club as well." (On Herediano...) "There's definitely some good players for Herediano. They have some quality players. They have some players that are very dangerous. I couldn't tell you necessarily who they are at this point because if you truly are interested in a player then the price goes up, so we don't want to the price to go up if we do have an interest. I thought they played well and some of the individuals definitely played well." (On Herediano goalkeeper...) "He had a big game tonight. He anticipated the crosses. He cheated on some of them. The quality on the crossing wasn't what it needed to be. When we had quality, Jaqua had two headers that he needs to do better with. Ochoa's opportunity as well. A lot of times our crosses were straight and they didn't hang up in the air." (On forward options...) "Strategy going in was that Noonan was going to fall off the front line a little bit. Jaqua is a big forward, so it allows you to get some crosses into him as well. Montero has played the last four games in a row, we needed to rest his legs a little bit. Fucito has a bad ankle from the last game, so he couldn't play, so our choices were pretty obvious." Pat Noonan - Sounders FC Forward (On their offensive struggles...) "Connecting passes and just anticipating, winning 50-50 balls and getting aggressive and wanting the ball at our feet. We weren't doing any of that in the first half and it took until we were down 1-0 and chasing the game late in the second half in order to start playing." (On Herediano keeper Daniel Cambronero...) "He made some good saves. We needed to put more on frame and make him work, but the ones we did maybe just didn't get to the corners enough or out of his reach. The ones we did put on goal he did well with." Nate Jaqua - Sounders FC Forward (On the game...) "I don't think we came out the first half as well as we needed to. The second half we played a little bit better and we got some more chances. Yeah, it's disappointing we weren't able to find the back of the net. We need to be of better quality in the final third and get more chances in the first half." Sammy Ochoa - Sounders FC Forward (On almost scoring at the end of the game...) "I didn't see the goalie...I thought it was in, but all of a sudden his hand showed up." (On how he was feeling in his debut...) "A little nervous, but excited. I think after I touched the ball the nerves went away and I felt good. Bad thing we didn't get the win but still it felt good to play." (On how he felt physically...) "I felt good. For 20 minutes I felt really good but I think as soon as I put in a little more work--I'm not in a rush--I'm pretty sure with the staff I'll get there." (On not having to rush himself into shape...) "We have great players on top, a lot of great competition. I'm not in a rush. We're taking this slow, the slower the better, but I can't wait to get out there." Jafet Soto - CS Herediano Head Coach (On difference between this week and last week...) "Last week was a game that was destined that way. We had only two chances for Sounders last week over there and they had two goals. This week we managed the game and scored, so we managed to win the game." (On competing...) "We always play to win. We came to compete and when you compete, you come to win." (On goalkeeper...) "He's a great goalkeeper. He's been on the national team. He's just 24 years old and has a great future." (On win helping motivate for next games...) "If we have any chance, even if just mathematical, we're going to fight to win and try to win the games." (On fouls...) "It was normal. In any futbol game where you play all that you have there's going to be collisions and that's normal in the game." (On goalkeeper health...) "He's fine. He had a couple of knocks during the game, but when a team plays you with a lot of crossings, there's a lot of physical play to try to cut those crosses." (On playing in Seattle...) "We're playing against a great team that is running second right now in the MLS League. We knew they had a win last weekend."
(On if Herediano showed them anything they weren't expecting...) "I think a lot of our problems came from our own mistakes, our own passing. They're a good team--they passed the ball well, but it took us maybe to 45 minutes to figure out their formation and understand where we need to be to cut out passing angles. When we did win the ball we just gave it right back with some careless passes and maybe not anticipating and not getting some runs, and that was all over the field."
(On the physicality of the game...) "Yeah it was very physical. It was physical down there, it was physical here. You expect these type of games from clubs. It's just one of the ways it is, and we still have to find ways to get a goal.
(On chasing the game at the end...) "It's really hard. Being a forward, you're required to be there at the right time and take advantage of minute-to-minute to get in. I was trying to do my best. I didn't get the goal, but I was there on that cross."
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jaqua
i know this sounds like an old tune, but jaqua had 3 chances with plenty of time at the game last night. at the professional level the amount of time given to him should have been enough to score on all three chances. He needs a new environment as warming the bench has clearly not helped motivate him.
scott and levesque showed their old USL, sub MLS quality…weird as these two sometimes prove to be more than adequate for MLS level play.
by fuzzyforeigner on Sep 21, 2011 10:06 AM PDT reply actions
I don't think the issue is motivation.
Jaqua’s skills are deteriorating like crazy. Sadly, no amount of benching is going to fix the fact he can’t aim a shot anymore. I was a big Jaqua fan the first 2 years, but he’s obviously lost something.
"The fans are excited. And the stadium, well, it ignites with explosion."
Overall, we came out flat and stayed there
This really was just an off game, and that said, we still had our chances. My only concern is that the depth of our bench was shown, and it wasn’t pretty. The contrast between the team before and after adding Montero/Alonso was stark and telling. We definitely fielded the team that lost 6-0 to ManUtd, but we didn’t do it this time by choice.
by Brougham Hooligan on Sep 21, 2011 10:34 AM PDT reply actions
you've been holding in that depth thing for a while now, haven't you?
It’s true, this team is not 25 players deep. No arguments there.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Sep 21, 2011 10:58 AM PDT up reply actions
which team in mls is deeper?
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
by Dave Clark on Sep 21, 2011 3:43 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
Depth
I keep having to remind myself that we have become spoiled. Name another team in MLS that would have still fielded a competitive team in a Champions League competition minus the following weapons:
Zakuani, OBW, Fernandez, Rosales, Fucito, Evans, Friberg, Riley, Boss, Seamon, Montero and Alonso. To claim that we don’t have a deep bench isn’t really accurate. We have a wounded bench.
And if not for a handball in the 6 yard box that the refs missed and a brilliant save on Ochoa’s header, the Sounders could have still won the game or at least finished with a draw.
by Abbott Smith on Sep 21, 2011 4:15 PM PDT up reply actions
Bleh
I though Sanyang and Carrasco were fine. The whole defense was mostly fine. Herediano had very few serious chances in the game. Keller had 1 save. Scott, on the other hand, was woeful. He gave up 4-5 balls to HER in the first half on what should have been pretty easy passes. Two of them were straight across the top of the box and just terrible decisions. The pressure up top got to him. He also committed the foul that turned into the goal.
Our main issues were up top. You can’t play 2 people up top whose first instinct when they get into the box is to knock the ball back for someone else. We weren’t playing with an advanced midfielder. THERE WAS NO SOMEONE ELSE. They had to go straight and hard for goal every time. I liked what I saw from Ochoa. I think you see him eat into the Jaqua minutes pretty quickly.
Nos Audietis
I should add
as awful as it felt to be a Sounders fan last night, the Herediano goal was a borderline miracle and we had two chances that took near-miracles to stay out of net. So our worst meaningful game of the season means we were barely edged by a goal. . not that bad.
Nos Audietis
the problem with Sanyang and Carrasco...
Wasn’t that they played badly, per se, it’s that they didn’t add anything offensively the way that Alonso, Friberg and Evans can. You’re right, if we had better personnel up top, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but we didn’t and that’s why they were not a good pairing.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Sep 21, 2011 12:33 PM PDT up reply actions
I was furious at first that the ref didn't red card the keeper at the end for time wasting.
But now I’m glad, because it gives them a better chance against Monteray.
The Seattle Sounders are just reDQulous
Riley also injured
Mayers posted Riley got some kind of concussion in the DC game so he wasn’t available last night either. That’s pretty f’n scary. So we got Scott at RB. Yeah…
Was that from the incident where Scott pole-axed Riley from behind?
That was a nasty friendly fire incident.
by AliasDictusTyrant on Sep 21, 2011 1:57 PM PDT up reply actions
To: Scott haters
Remember those Dallas games? Scott COMPLETELY shut down Brek Shea. I wasn’t paying real close attention to the game last night so I can’t say much about how he played, but he’s been a solid backup and able to play central or wide right.
by thesafetylemur on Sep 21, 2011 12:43 PM PDT reply actions
he has been
but last night he was really bad.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Sep 21, 2011 1:02 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Agreed. He can be great or awful.
That’s the problem with Scott…consistency. Though he’s not as scary on the field as he used to be. He’s definitely gotten better this year.
by Zakuani11Fan on Sep 21, 2011 1:04 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
The reason Scott performed so well in those Dallas games
is because Sigi’s objective for him those nights was simple: get in Shea’s jock, and don’t let him breathe. His overall defensive responsibilities for those matches were far different than when he has to go out and just play defense. That’s when his flaws are greatly exposed. He’s actually not very good at keeping marking up on free/corner kicks, and frequently loses his man. His decision making with the ball is questionable at best. The real problem with Scott is that he is a liability when playing in games against teams without a Brek Shea on their roster.
by MicahRowe18 on Sep 21, 2011 1:07 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
I think with this game fresh in mind it is hard to remember his positives
Scott was beaten like a one legged man in an ass kicking contest last night.
He was out of position, did not have good first touches, almost gave two break away goals to the opposition by taking too long with the ball in a last back situation. I don’t hate Zach Scott but his game last night was brutally awful.
Nos audietis in somniis, Nos audietis in altum: You will hear us!
Scott exposed
The problem with this game is that Scott wasn’t simply expected to be a supporting cast member on a good starting 11. He was asked to play a complete game, including the offensive responsibilities of a right defensive wing. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a starting caliber complete game in his arsenal. He does very well when his strengths are isolated and his weaknesses can be absorbed by the remaining players on the pitch. Last night, this wasn’t the case. The Sounders had to ask him for more than he has in the tank.
This said, the Herediano goal was a beautiful set piece strike. No Sounders player was really responsible for a horrendous gaffe that led to the goal. Though how the Sounders avoided giving up a goal on the play that the ball eluded Keller, struck the post and then bounced back into the 6 yard box with a Herediano player just staring at it, boggles the mind.
Chalk one up to the fact that on this night the Sounder’s Dlist team wasn’t quite good enough. Frustrating, but that’s football.
by Abbott Smith on Sep 21, 2011 4:46 PM PDT up reply actions
To reiterate:
Scott COMPLETELY SHUT DOWN THE FRONT RUNNER FOR MLS MVP.
by thesafetylemur on Sep 21, 2011 5:56 PM PDT up reply actions
Am I the only one who found this bit extremely interesting?
There’s definitely some good players for Herediano. They have some quality players. They have some players that are very dangerous. I couldn’t tell you necessarily who they are at this point because if you truly are interested in a player then the price goes up, so we don’t want to the price to go up if we do have an interest.
That was the comment I thought most revealing.
What exactly does that mean? The Sounders will act disinterested to avoid raising the price of a player they may want to acquire the services of??
Well that, but also that it almost sounds as though they're interested in someone(s) who play for Herediano
by Aaron Campeau on Sep 21, 2011 3:25 PM PDT up reply actions
Thats how i interpret it.
I wonder who it could be.
"The fans are excited. And the stadium, well, it ignites with explosion."
I might be mistaken
But I believe those comments came after a reporter directly asked Sigi if the FO would be interested in signing Herediano’s goalkeeper after his stellar performance and this was a comedic way Sigi chose to respond.
in other words I think it’s a little out of context and that Sigi was making jokes to keep the defeat speech lighthearted.
That is not in any way to discredit the legitimacy of using CONCACAF as a great scouting opportunity.
Or for that matter whether or not the team is looking at one of their players.
by Phatfingerz on Sep 21, 2011 10:36 PM PDT up reply actions
However, Leo might be be talking...
to his former team about his experience with the Sounders. So there is a connection with Herediano and you never know what might be brewing.
by ballardiana on Sep 21, 2011 10:40 PM PDT up reply actions
Interesting
it never occurred to me, although its obvious once you think about it, that CCL games are a great way to scout players.
by Brougham Hooligan on Sep 21, 2011 3:28 PM PDT up reply actions
I might be too late to this thread, but here it is anyways.
This might be asking a lot of someone who might want to run with it. But if someone were motivated, I’d really like to see what the minutes of each player on the team per season, per competition are.
I have no idea how you would cube the data to take into account injuries, multiple competitions relative to each other and the regular season, friendlies, international call up, etc. It might also be interesting to see which players made the 18 for each game. Maybe also see what the record is of the teams that played games where their players played ‘X’ percentage of possible minutes to that point.
Maybe even do an average of minutes played for the games that players made the 18, which might automatically take into account who made the trip, was injured, called up to international duty, etc.
Anyhoo…
One thing I keep hearing about is how we have a limited roster size and how if we were deeper, we would do better at games like last night’s against "that one team from Costa Rica". I’d like to better understand why people think that having a deep roster with soccer would affect a game where you can only have at most 14 different players play in a game, and 11 of those players will play more than 95% of the total minutes possible. And those top 11 will play the majority of the minutes in a season assuming there aren’t injuries or a guy who was good in practice can’t play under the pressure of a real game.
I get that last night’s game we only had Hurtado and Keller who are normal starters played. But most of the other 9 regularly make the 18 on a regular season game.
If I were to guess, why we like the expanded roster this year is because we want to have better competition in practice when players get injured, which makes our starting 11 sharper on the field in a game that matters. I don’t think it has anything to do with us expecting those players that are at the bottom of the roster to really be able to step up and challenge for a regular starting spot.
Please discuss.
by SoundersForever on Sep 21, 2011 11:59 PM PDT reply actions
A few thoughts
Without getting into the detailed statistical analysis, a few thoughts come to mind.
1. At least 11 players from the Sounders original roster of 30 possible players were unavailable for the Herdiano game. That’s over 30% of the roster. The depth of the bench isn’t academic.
2. Depth doesn’t just create competition in practice or a hedge against injury. Depth gives the coaches tactical flexibility. The Sounders have been able to tailor their line uo and formations to particular opponents. Greater flexibilty also makes it harder for other teams to prepare to play the Sounders. As you pointed out only 14 players can actually field the pitch in any game. The depth aalows the potential for mismatches.
3. The depth also addresses the grueling nature of competing on 3 fronts simultaneously. FCD is paying for their inability/unwiilingness to rotate lineups.
by Abbott Smith on Sep 22, 2011 6:38 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions
I'll say this...
anyone who says we lost last night because we aren’t deep enough is kinda looking for an excuse. We put out a team that was capable of beating Herediano. We didn’t because the guys we put out didn’t play well, not because they weren’t good enough.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Sep 22, 2011 8:08 AM PDT up reply actions
I don't have it broken down by competition
but no outfield player has played more than 88% of total available playing time (Osvaldo Alonso), but after that only three have than 63% (Montero, Riley, Parke). The only other two over 60% of total time are Mauro and Alvaro.
The starters for the Herediano loss average 34% of available minutes (Sanyang being the real downer). They have started 12 games and appeared in 19 games on average. All of those include the Tuesday game. I don’t have minutes played broken out by match. 9 of the 10 outfield players have appeared in over half of available matches.
And, they barely lost. The result was fair, but it was a very close game. The depth of this team has done VERY well.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
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