Sounders found positives in how they played against Botafogo

SEATTLE — There are, famously, no points awarded for moral victories.

The Seattle Sounders were well aware that their best chance to keep any hopes of getting out of their Club World Cup group involved getting points from their match against Botafogo on Sunday. Their 2-1 loss left them empty-handed.

But even before that match, the Sounders were saying that their No. 1 objective in this competition was to show they can compete with three very good teams.

That the Sounders outplayed the reigning South American champions for large stretches of the match was at least proof of their quality.

“I’m fiercely proud of the effort the guys put in,” Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said in the postgame press conference. “They’re a great team and put us under pressure in moments but we matched them. The difference in the first half was quality in a couple of key moments.”

The Sounders finished the match with 60% of the possession and a 23-12 shots advantage, while also racking up more than twice as many expected goals.

The difference, unfortunately, was that Botafogo simply made more of the chances they had. Their first goal came after Nouhou was caught retaliating to a slight shove in clear view of the referee, giving away a free kick after the ball had been passed out of the danger zone. Their second goal came when Igor Jesus — who is likely soon heading to English Premier League side Nottingham Forest on a $20 million transfer — perfectly placed a header from the penalty spot that Stefan Frei was a little late to react to.

The goals will stand out, but there were other finer elements that Botafogo excelled at, too.

“We have to harvest the learnings from several aspects of this game,” Sounders midfielder Paul Rothrock said. “They were better than is in several aspects. How they fouled. When they fouled. They stopped counter attacks at crucial moments.

“There’s a lot of lessons to learn from this game and we have to learn them quickly because we have two big matches.”

While the Sounders came into the match with plenty of energy, they seemed to have more composure in the second half when they built a 19-5 shots advantage and kept Botafogo mostly pinned in their own end, accumulating 35 touches in Botafogo’s penalty area while only allowing five in their own.

When the Sounders finally got their goal off a Cristian Roldan header from a Rothrock cross, enough momentum had built that an equalizer felt entirely possible. The crowd may have only been been comparable in size to a normal home game, but the energy felt much bigger.

The goal also gave them something material to point to in their performance. After one round of play, they remain the only MLS team to have ever scored in this tournament.

The Sounders feel like they can use that going forward, even if the next games are against Atlético Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.

“We had belief,” Roldan said. “We’re at home, we have nothing to lose and we need to play like that. We have to treat every game like a final and go out there and compete with some of the best in the world.”

The Sounders understand that the odds are almost hopelessly stacked against them. Atlético Madrid are arguably one of the top 20 teams in the world. But they also just suffered a 4-0 loss in their group stage opener. Even if the Sounders were to somehow find a way to beat them, they’d still need to find a point against PSG in the group stage finale.

“I think I have more faith than you do,” Rothrock said when asked about the Sounders’ chances. “I'm still not giving up and think we can pull that off.”