CARSON, Calif. – Before we completely turn the page from Sunday’s match, a few thoughts from Seattle Sounders FC head coach Sigi Schmid after Seattle was defeated 3-0 by the LA Galaxy in the Western Conference Championship First Leg.
Schmid stresses that his club has confidence in their ability to erase the three goal lead and history certainly shows –check out this piece by the Seattle Times – that they have experience of scoring a high number of goals at home.
Schmid’s thoughts are below…
(On what he was most disappointed in…)
SCHMID: “Just disappointed that we didn’t keep it at 1-0. I thought we had the ability to keep it at 1-0, and we should’ve kept it at 1-0 and played with a better mentality at that stage. But at the end of the day, guys on the field, they’re trying to do things. We were still possessing the ball, we were still getting some looks going forward, and we got caught on the counter. It’s typical. That’s the way Bruce likes to play, that’s the way LA plays, where they’ll sit back and they’ll counter-attack. When you’ve got the speed of Landon and the speed of Keane, and their creativity that they possess, they’re a team that very dangerous.”
(On the Seattle back line looking disorganized…)
SCHMID: :I think the movement was good for them, but I think more so than anything, it was us giving the ball away at times in midfield, which put us under duress. Guys getting caught in advance positions with the ball, as the ball turned over and therefore they had space to counter into. The thing is, guys like Landon and Keane and Beckham, they cheat sometimes on defense, and if you turn the ball over badly and they’re in good positions on the other end, they’ve got the quality to make you pay.”
(On the deficit being similar to RSL last year…)
SCHMID: “We also take solace in the fact that we beat LA earlier in the year 4-0 at our place. We know we’ve got to come up with the same sort of effort we came out the last time we played at home last year, and we’ve got to come out with a better result.”
(On whether the first goal changed the complexion of game…)
SCHMID: “I think we possibly pushed a little bit when we shouldn’t have pushed to try and get the goal back, because getting the goal back wasn’t important. 1-0 was fine. Obviously they’ve got some veteran guys. You add up just the three players I mentioned, they’ve got more caps times 20 than my whole team does. Or maybe times 100. From that standpoint, they’re a little more cagey, they’re a little more, ‘OK, this is all we need to do today,’ and for some reason maybe we didn't quite recognize that. But I think the goal at the end of the half certainly changed the complexion a little bit, and it’s over now.”
(On if Seattle learned anything from last year’s defeat to RSL…)
SCHMID: “Obviously we didn't learn much because we did the same thing this year. We talked about it, we talked at halftime, and we said 1-0 is OK. We walk away 1-0 we’re alright. I really tried to emphasize that at halftime, but then at the end of the day we didn't. So now we have to come back and we've got to play with the same attitude, the same conviction that we played with last year in the game two but we've got to score more goals.”
