Sounders Fall 6-1 At Santos Laguna - Statistics, Quotes

Santos Laguna showed all the quality expected of them prior to last week's first leg performance. Wednesday night's performance by the best of Mexico was a reminder to all of Major League Soccer that there's a bit of improvement left here in the United States. One game is not a solid barometer, but as good as the Seattle Sounders can be, the performance in their elimination game is one clearly told by the numbers. Conventional statistics make the loss look like a mere case of finishing as the sides were nearly even on shots, close on shots on goal, but well off on goals scored. Those conventional numbers hide larger issues. Santos Laguna won the duels battle (55%), the passing battle (84% to 79%) and the possession (53.6%) battle. That last issue is the most worrying as Santos is a counter-attacking team. Their control of possession on the counter indicates just how much countering they were doing. At times the Sounders held the ball for long stretches just outside the 18, and still the one-way traffic was evident.

Sigi Schmid's quote sheet focuses on the defensive efforts, the softness on the counter and already starts laying the groundwork for his team's character test coming up quickly with a Saturday match against Toronto FC. There is no time for significant coaching, instead he needs to see his players recover quickly and regain their focus. Whether from Sigi, Michael Gspurning or Mauro Rosales you will not find excuses for the loss. No blame lies with referees nor with luck. Instead all three look at correcting the team's mistakes and moving forward. Seattle Sounders FC has a long travel day and a training day in order to do that. When Sigi says "We need to show our character, our character has to show through," he's saying that because that's all the time they have.

To make the data even worse, Eddie Johnson's sub appearance ended early due to a hip flexor issue.

Seattle Sounders FC at Santos Laguna
CONCACAF Champions League Quarterfinals - Second Leg
March 14, 2012 - Estadio Corona at Territorio Santos Modelo, Torreon, Mexico

Goals by Period12Tot
Sounders FC101
Santos Laguna 246
Scoring Summary:
SAN - Suarez 8'
SAN - Peralta (Ludena) 10'
SEA - Fernandez (Montero) 37'
SAN - Gomez (Suarez) 49'
SAN - Gomez (Peralta, Estrada) 67'
SAN - Suarez (Estrada) 76'
SAN - Ochoa 81'

Seattle Sounders FC - Michael Gspurning, Adam Johansson, Jeff Parke, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Leo Gonzalez (Christian Sivebaek 77), Mauro Rosales, Osvaldo Alonso, Brad Evans, Alvaro Fernandez, David Estrada (Eddie Johnson 62, Roger Levesque 81), Fredy Montero

Substitutes Not Used: Andrew Weber, Patrick Ianni, Marc Burch, Servando Carrasco

TOTAL SHOTS: 18 (Evans 5); SHOTS ON GOAL: 6 (Fernandez 2); FOULS: 16 (Hurtado 4); OFFSIDES: 0; CORNER KICKS: 6 (Rosales 5); SAVES: 4 (Gspurning 4).

Santos Laguna - Oswaldo Sanchez, Ivan Estrada, Aaron Galindo, Felipe Baloy, Osmar Mares, Marc Crosas (Rodolfo Salinas 33), Juan Pablo Rodriguez, Daniel Ludena (Candido Ramirez 63), Christian Suarez, Herculez Gomez (Carlos Ochoa 69), Oribe Peralta

Substitutes Not Used: Miguel Becerra, Santiago Hoyos, Cesar Ibanez, Carlos Morales

TOTAL SHOTS: 19 (Gomez 6); SHOTS ON GOAL: 9 (Gomez, Suarez 2); FOULS: 20 (Rodriguez, Peralta, Salinas 3); OFFSIDES: 5 (Gomez Peralta 2); CORNER KICKS: 3 (Ludena 2); SAVES: 5 (Sanchez 5).

Misconduct Summary:
SEA - Gonzalez 14'
SEA - Montero 30'
SAN - Peralta 41'
SAN - Baloy 45'
SAN - Rodriguez 88'

Referee: Joel Aguilar
Referee's Assistants: William Torres, Juan Francisco Zumba
4th Official: Elmer Bonilla
Attendance: 15,000
Time of Game: 1:58
Weather: Partly cloudy and 90 degrees

*All Statistics contained in this boxscore are unofficial*

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Coach Sigi Schmid
(On what changed in the second half…) "I thought at the end of the first half, the last 20 minutes, we put ourselves back in the game and we played better. We were a little unlucky early in the game when we had the good header from [Alvaro] Fernandez that we could have scored on. Then we came out in the second half—Mauro Rosales had a chance, then they scored off the counter and made it 3-1. Then David Estrada had a good chance and we didn’t put that away. When they made it 4-1 I think we lost our concentration. We have to look at why we started the game slowly, why we started the second half slowly. I have to look at that and see what I can change to make sure that doesn’t happen."

(On Santos Laguna’s counter-attack goals…) "I think losing concentration in the moment, not running with people. Defensively I thought we had a poor game today. I think they won the duels. They won a lot of the duals. When they win all the 50/50 balls, its tough for your team to gain momentum. From that standpoint it was disappointing. Like I say, it’s easy to point fingers and say this guy or that guy didn’t have a good game. Us as a coaching staff, we need to look at it and we need to see what we need to do to avoid these kind of things in the future."

(On the mood at halftime…) "At halftime I thought it was good because at halftime the score was basically zero-zero. We were down 2-1, but we had won 2-1 at home so it was a zero-zero game and there were 45 minutes to go. We felt that the first 20 minutes of the second half was going to be very important—we told them that—but obviously they scored goals and our reaction wasn’t good."

(On what has to be done before Saturday…) "We need to show our character, our character has to show through. I’ll think about it more tomorrow. Certainly there are probably some changes we need to make in our team because of fatigue and maybe performance, as well. It’s just a matter of us showing our character right now and standing back up. It’s easy to go hide after a loss like this."

(On what they can take from the game…) "Right now it doesn’t seem like we can take a lot, except that we know we have to improve our defending. We still need to find a way to get through these difficult moments. We’ve been a good road team and we’ve played well on the road, but today we didn’t play well and Santos was very, very good."

Goalkeeper Michael Gspurning

(On how they rebound Saturday…) "First of all, Santos was the better team today, but I don’t believe that we deserved this result tonight. I don’t care about the result or anything after it’s over. What I care about and what the team cares about is Saturday and our opening game of the season…We have to keep our head up and work on Saturday."

(On how he will shake this off…) "I will think about the game and the goals, but I don’t think I can do that many things…If the game is like this you have to accept it…We will look forward to Saturday. Saturday is a new game. It’s a pity for us and for the fans because we wanted this so much and this result is not a good sign from us to the fans and the MLS, but this game is over and we have to look forward to Saturday."

Midfielder Mauro Rosales

(On the mood at halftime…) "I think we did very well in the first half. We could score, we tied the score in the first half. We were very confident in the second half to start, but after five minutes they scored. We were still looking for a goal and every counter they could score. It was a tough loss. They were a better team in the second half. We could have scored another goal. I think we had the chances. It was a pity that the score was that bad because I don’t think we deserved that, but that’s okay. That’s futbol."

(Looking forward to Saturday…) "We have the match Saturday. Everybody has to know that we made many mistakes and we have to figure it out as soon as possible because we have to start the competition in the best way. Looking for a win. It’s tough to recover after that, but we have to."

(On the feeling in the locker room after the game…) "It was painful because we didn’t expect that. We had lots of confidence before the game and there was confidence at the half. It was a pity that we made the mistakes and they could score. They made us pay for every mistake we had in the game. I think that was the reason. It was painful, but we have to keep it up and try to figure it out as soon as possible."