In general, if you think you’ve got a handle on what’s happening in a Cascadia Cup match – particularly the Seattle Sounders vs. Portland Timbers fixtures – you’d best check again, and hold on loosely.
The Pacific Northwesterners reminded everyone of that yet again Saturday night at Lumen Field. A previously one-sided match on course to be a Sounders rout turned on a dime in the 53rd minute when Léo Chú collided with Zac McGraw after taking a heavy touch on the ball with his thigh at a near-sprint in midfield.
Chú had a solid claim for man of the match honors up to that point. The Brazilian winger had earned the corner kick that led to Seattle’s opening goal, a back-post header by Raúl Ruidíaz, and scored the Rave Green’s second himself to give the hosts a 2-0 lead after half an hour. The Timbers looked disconsolate and disorganized, appearing every bit like a team with just two wins in their previous nine league matches who had recently parted ways with head coach Giovanni Savarese.
“2-0’s a dangerous lead. We all know that,” said Seattle head coach Brian Schmetzer postgame. “And teams that are capable of doing a lot of damage in playoffs, winning championships, top teams in our league, take 2-0 and make it three. And so that's the storyline for the second half, maybe.”
Chú had whipped off his jersey to celebrate his goal, an automatic booking under FIFA rules. So when referee Jon Freemon decided his clash with McGraw was excessively dangerous and worthy of a caution, it meant his ejection, forcing the Rave Green to defend their lead with just 10 men. Within 20 minutes, the Timbers had drawn level via goals from substitute Dairon Asprilla and a jaw-dropping long-range strike from Evander, snatching a point to take back across the Columbia River.
“The guys put everything into the game, and just give the game – just give it to them,” said a frustrated Schmetzer.
“There are some positives,” he mused later, “but I can't quite comprehend them right now.”
The Seattle boss did not hesitate to acknowledge this as two points dropped rather than one point gained, and was clearly unhappy the Timbers’ six-year unbeaten streak at Lumen Field will continue – though he made sure to defend Chú despite the extent to which his shirtless goal celebration cost the team.
“It's not just the defending or Léo's yellow cards. The second one was soft, by the way, I saw it. Very soft,” said Schmetzer. “The kid was going, he gets smashed by a guy that's 6-foot-5, and Léo Chú is 5-foot-7 and a buck-25. But it's a team sport. If we had a really good first half, it would have been 3-0 and the game would have been over. And that's where everybody's super frustrated.
“You take a yellow that's preventable,” he added of the celebration. “The kid’s going to learn from it, we're going to move past it. It's unfortunate again, because, 53rd minute, I mean, we were thinking about taking him off, but I normally don't make subs that early in the second half. And so he and I have to build that trust and we talked about it and we'll get better.”
Schmetzer said he addressed Chú's mistake in both a team and individual setting – “Issue’s done, taken care of,” he declared – and underlined the importance of trust and patience in the dynamic winger, whose output can be inconsistent even if his spirit and commitment are not.
“Look, you guys, we can't blame the kid for the entire loss of two points. It's a team sport. But he knows better, he should do better. OK, fine. Fair enough,” said the coach. “I got to credit the kid for the goal that he took. Because we've talked about Léo Chú and his defending a lot. And he actually understood in that moment that his defending is actually an attacking movement when he pinched inside and he stole the ball. So he was excited. So he's going to learn from it.”
The Sounders are running second in the Western Conference, though with 28 of their matches already played, the clubs nearest them in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs race hold games in hand and four of their last six are on the road.
As is usually the case in Sounders-Timbers, one side’s woe was the other’s glee. While they remain four points out of the West's playoff places and out of sorts in terms of overall performance, interim head coach Miles Joseph sounded eager to fight until the very end.
“Everything's right there to play for. I told the guys before the game that with last week's win over [Real Salt Lake], basically we put our foot in the door, and then get some points today and now we're going to start to kick that door open for the playoffs,” he said.
“I think it's important for our club,” Joseph added with regards to the context of this result. “It's a huge rivalry and we enjoy coming up here and getting points.”
