Brian Schmetzer knows that when his Seattle Sounders face Minnesota United during the playoffs, he might need to try something different to find an edge. The two sides have already faced off twice with Minnesota winning both, and with the chance of another three games against the same opponent Schmetzer and his coaching staff are looking at ways that they can tilt things in their favor in order to advance to the next round.
Although Minnesota have played with a back line of four in each of their last two matches, one of the calling cards of Eric Ramsay’s team has been a back-three or —five. Schmetzer and Co. feel like they have a possible answer to that set-up: playing with two forwards. The Sounders have used two forwards for stretches in games, but haven’t made it a regular part of their approach.
“Well, the two forwards is, you know, something that we’ve toyed with,” Schmetzer explained to gathered media after training on Thursday. “Especially against teams that play a back line of five. You know, provided Minnesota go back to back line of five.”
With Jordan Morris fit and in form, the ability to pair him with either Danny Musovski or Osaze De Rosario to provide a different dimension to the attack and an additional target from set pieces or for crosses gives Seattle another approach they can use if their typical system isn’t getting the job done. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t tradeoffs.
“We’ll just see,” Schmetzer said. “We’ve done a little bit of work with two forwards. You know, it just gives us another forward, but you've got to take something from somewhere else.”
That tradeoff probably means this won’t be something the Sounders turn to from the start of a game, but particularly as a game wears on if Seattle need a goal to either go to penalties or claim a win, it’s a solid tool to pull out of the box.
“Whether that’s in midfield, whether it's a pocket guy, whether it's, you know, a defender coming off and Alex inside, I mean, there's multiple ways to take a player off to add a forward,” Schmetzer said. “It just depends on the game, how it’s flowing, you know, there's lots of different factors.”
Seattle’s versatility up and down the roster allows the team to throw a range of different looks at opponents, providing a structure that is simultaneously fluid and solid – are we calling it the Seattle Sounders superfluid? Only we can decide that. Whether it’s Nouhou and Alex Roldan both able to operate as fullbacks or centerbacks (or central midfielders, goalkeepers, wingers, etc., in Alex’s case), Reed Baker-Whiting and Kalani Kossa-Rienzi each being able to play anywhere on the flanks, or Jesus Ferreira and Albert Rusnak being potentially game-changing players at numerous positions, the Sounders can arrange themselves in any number of combinations on the field. Further augmenting their arrangement by combining any two of Morris, Musovski and De Rosario (to say nothing of using Ferreira as a 9/9.5) only makes the team more potent while giving opponents another set of possibilities to try to account for.
