Newcomer Nicolas Lodeiro giving Sounders what they were missing
Aug 26, 2016, 1:21 PM
Earlier this season, after the Sounders slumped to a 1-0 loss at home to the league-leading Rapids despite having 17 shots on the night, Colorado head coach Pablo Mastroeni said, “You don’t make excuses. You find ways to win.” That struck a chord with me because it revealed the chasm between his top-of-the-table squad and Seattle. The Rapids found a way to win, even when they were seemingly outplayed for the majority of 90 minutes.
On Wednesday night in Houston, when the Sounders started to look out of ideas and out of luck after 90 minutes, something happened for them that hadn’t really happened all season. They scored a goal through Nicolas Lodeiro after 4 minutes of stoppage time to salvage a 1-1 draw in a match that looked destined to end 1-0. Their best chances of the night hadn’t gone their way, and it started to look like the same-old Sounders when Jordan Morris missed a golden opportunity on goal. What certainly looked like a Dynamo own goal was deemed by officials to have not crossed the goal-line completely.
The stats in Wednesday’s match are even the reverse of those against Colorado. Houston out-shot Seattle 22-6, with 4-2 shots on target in favor of the Dynamo as well. But the match still ended 1-1. It might not have been a win for the Sounders, but when it looked like they were destined to lose after 93 minutes, a draw was certainly welcome. Quality teams find a way to to get points, even when things look hopeless.
That’s what these new-look Sounders are, a team that finds a way to make something out of nothing, to get points when it looks like there are none to be had. The lineup that started in Houston was pretty different from the winning lineup of the past three matches, and it showed. Substitutions were made in the second half that improved the team, but it was still missing key components and lacked the chemistry that flowed throughout the squad in previous matches.
What this team does have is Lodeiro. While it’s not always ideal to rely heavily on a single player – what happens if he is injured or suspended or absent for some reason? – the Uruguayan playmaker’s influence can’t be overstated. Not only is he a class above nearly everyone else on the pitch, he clearly makes all his teammates better in both tangible and intangible ways.
Lodeiro’s power isn’t just in his goal-scoring, which was obviously extremely important Wednesday. It’s also the way he grabs the game by the scruff of its neck and takes control of it. The humid Houston weather clearly got to both teams – every player out there looked as if he had just emerged from a swimming pool – but Lodeiro put in a 90-minute shift in which he was involved in nearly every positive moment that the Sounders had.
With every match that he plays in – even those in which his direct influence wasn’t as obvious, like Seattle’s win over Portland – Lodeiro shows that he was worth every penny the Sounders paid for him and every second they waited on him. Lodeiro is the ideal number 10, which is the soccer term for the playmaker position that often sits behind the strikers but in front of central and defensive midfielders. In five games with Seattle, he’s played all across the attacking midfield area as new coach Brian Schmetzer has given him license to move around as he sees fit.
The number 10 is hard to define for that very reason. Players that fit the name (and often, the jersey number) can defy true categorization. They tend to roam until they find the right space, pass, or shot. Some tend to resemble strikers, like Pelé. Others might look more like wingers, like Lionel Messi. The closest comparison to Lodeiro I can muster is Diego Maradona, the brilliant, crazed Argentine who almost single-handedly (pun intended) won the World Cup for his country in 1986. Lodeiro has a similar skill-set to Maradona with his technique on the ball, vision, and ability to pick out a pass anywhere on the pitch. He even resembles Maradona physically: compact, short, with a low center of gravity that helps him stay tight on the ball even when dribbling through traffic.
Lodeiro is not Maradona. That’s not even debatable. But he is similar, and he possesses a portion of that same talent and skill that makes him (already) one of the best players in the league. I feel confident that Lodeiro will continue to influence his team like Maradona did, by doing the impossible and helping the Sounders find wins when victory seemed all but out of the question. He’ll carry his teammates along with him, giving them the confidence to do things like what they did in Houston Wednesday.
Spenser Davis also covers the Sounders for Sounder at Heart.