Sounders’ winning momentum halted yet again in 2-0 loss at FC Dallas

It was a little unreasonable to expect the Sounders to get out of Dallas with three points on Saturday, considering the home side’s impeccable home form (three league losses since the start of 2014 season). But coming off of two solid home wins, Seattle was expected to at least put up a strong defensive performance and happily come out with a draw.

An early penalty (a bit soft, but a fair decision) and late second for FC Dallas kept Seattle from getting anything from the match. The stout defense and recent attacking sharpness that Seattle had shown in the last two matches disappeared, as mistakes and poor finishing meant yet another road loss.

Head coach Sigi Schmid told the media after one of this week’s training sessions that he thought his team hadn’t played too poorly on the road, despite getting just one point from three matches away from home. It’s true that their first two away matches were far from bad — some sketchy refereeing handed them a loss at Real Salt Lake and their draw in Houston was a deserved result in a hard place to play. But even solid performances don’t make up for losses, and Seattle just hasn’t managed to find a way to get the results they need away from CenturyLink.

The defense that many (including myself) have been hailing for the last month looked rather anemic in Dallas. What seemed like a collective lapse in focus allowed midfielder Mauro Rosales to float a perfect ball into space for Michael Barrios to latch onto without much effort. The early penalty, for the most part, can’t be blamed on Sounders’ defender Chad Marshall — Dallas’ Walker Zimmerman went down quite easily, and it was the sort of thing that happens 10 times per match and is rarely called. It was up to the judgment of the referee, but I can say pretty confidently that 80 percent of refs would just wave the play on.

Brad Evans may have had one of his worst performances of the season. And it’s not that he was horrible, he just didn’t look as confident as usual and was caught out of position during Dallas’ second goal. The speed of Dallas’ attackers threatened the Seattle defense often, and if not for the quick thinking of goalie Stefan Frei to run off his line and clear the ball outside of the box, the home side could have had a couple more goals. Evans and Marshall somehow let the attackers slip past them, perhaps suggesting that the defensive line shouldn’t have been so high if the defense can’t properly control it.

Clint Dempsey’s positioning this season has been a bit perplexing, as he’s often listed as starting in the midfield but lurks farther forward for much of the match. Sometimes this has worked for the Sounders, sometimes it hasn’t. Against Dallas, Dempsey was officially listed as center forward, but was unable to make much of an impact from that spot.

As I recall, this match was the first time we saw Ozzie Alonso, Cristian Roldan and Erik Friberg in midfield together. This should have been excellent. In fact, it was the trio I had been wanting to see for a few weeks now. Roldan and Alonso had been playing pretty well together in midfield this season, and I expected this lineup to help the group stay solid while allowing Friberg to express himself and create attacks from deep. While he was able to do that, the rest of midfield seemed to get bulldozed by Dallas constantly.

Roldan and Alonso both gave away possessions in poor areas, and the transition from defense, to midfield, to attack was not nearly as fluid as it was against San Jose. I expect Schmid to revert back to a lineup similar to what he put out against San Jose when Colorado comes to Seattle next weekend.

Despite the midfield’s poor overall performance, Friberg still managed some excellent chance creation, especially his superb ball in the first 30 seconds of the game for Herculez Gomez that the forward wasted. His excellent deep cross to Jordan Morris was also wasted, as the youngster headed the ball directly at the Dallas goalkeeper. Friberg is probably the only outfield player to come out of that match looking positive.

And finally, all good things have to come to an end. Morris’ dream run of four goals in four matches wasn’t meant to continue, but there’s no reason to think Morris won’t keep scoring this season. The Dallas defense kept the young forward shackled for most of the match, but he still made some dangerous runs and showed his growing chemistry with his teammates. It was clear that he and Dempsey were frustrated with each other at times, but they still look much better than they did for the first few matches of the season. I expect Morris to get back on the scoring train very soon, and I think he’ll reach double digits within the next couple months.

So, while the loss was disheartening for both Sounders players and fans, it’s good to realize that FC Dallas is still second in the conference and has one of the best home records in the league in recent seasons. Seattle looked dangerous at times, and even though they’ll need to improve their road performances if they have any hope of a deep playoff run, they seem capable enough to beat teams like Dallas and Colorado at the fortress that is CenturyLink Field.

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