For the first time ever, Seattle Sounders 2 have lost the season series to Portland Timbers 2 thanks to tonight’s 4-1 loss in north Portland. S2 put out one of the youngest-ever sides to play a USL game and were able to hang with T2 for the first 60 minutes of the game but were eventually bested by the more experienced side and mental and physical fatigue. There were some good moments from S2, including some fantastic one-on-one play from Azriel Gonzalez and Joshua Atencio’s first USL goal, but two goals from Foster Langsdorf and a goal each from Renzo Zambrano and Adrian Diz Pe were too much for S2 to overcome.
The footwork in this sequence is just .#PORvSEA pic.twitter.com/q1Okv35LDh
— USL (@USL) August 20, 2018
In all honesty the game didn’t really get going until nearly the 30’ when T2 started attacking in earnest. They quickly got their first goal in the 34’ after an error from Castro. The ‘keeper came out for a corner kick but was unable to get anywhere near the ball and after a deflection the ball was left headed toward an empty net. Several S2 players had a chance to clear the ball near the goal line but no one could get the ball through the traffic they all created and the ball eventually fell to Langsdorf who was able to tap the ball in from a yard out to give T2 the game opener.
From there T2 dominated the possession and chances for the rest of the first half but S2 were able to keep their deficit to one with both solid and last ditch defending.
S2 came out of the second half with much more energy and dominated the first 15 minutes. It looked almost certain they would even the score. Their first earnest chance of the game came in the 46’ off of a corner when Khai Brisco headed a speculative lofted ball towards the T2 goal. Kendall McIntosh had to wait to react to the slow shot because David Estrada threatened to redirect the ball with his head. The ball ultimately drifted over Estrada’s head and McIntosh was able to react late to keep the ball out with a strong right hand.
A few minutes later Gonzalez almost evened it with some spectacular individual soccer. He received the ball near the top of the 18 in the 52’ and beat two T2 defenders with some nifty dribbling. This opened him up for a left-footed shot which he gave a good effort but was unable to get quite enough bend on and it went wide.
After S2’s spell of dangerous play, some luck saw T2 extend their lead. After the S2 backline did well to slow an odd man counter Zambrano sent in a speculative shot that took a deflection off of Rodrigue Ele and in to the net to make it 2-0. After this bit of luck for T2, S2 looked to have all the energy sucked out of them and the extremely young lineup just couldn’t hang with T2 for the rest of the match.
T2 added a third in the 68’ when both Ibrahim Usman and Khai Brisco failed to tracka run from Langsdorf in the box and Marvin Loría was able to find him with a simple cross to make it 3-0.
S2 were able to get one back in the 76’ when another deflection gave Joshua Atencio his first USL goal but two minute later T2 got their fourth when Adrian Diz Pe headed in a ball after a T2 shot hit the crossbar.
The young S2 showed some moments of promise and brilliance but were not in the end cohesive or strong enough to keep up with the more experienced T2 side.