SEATTLE — If getting over opening-game jitters wasn’t enough of a challenge for the Seattle Sounders, city traffic threw the team another curve prior to Wednesday night’s game.
As Sounders coach Sigi Schmid prepared his team for its Champions League quarterfinal match — its first competitive game of 2012 — he had one slight problem: four players, all starters, weren’t at the stadium. Thanks to the accident that snarled traffic on westbound I-90 Wednesday afternoon, forward Fredy Montero, midfielder Osvaldo Alonso defender Jhon Kennedy Hurtado and goalkeeper Michael Gspurning did not make it to CenturyLink field until roughly 30 minutes prior to kickoff.
Despite that unexpected challenge, and despite playing a Santo Laguna squad that is in midseason form nine games into the Mexico Primera Division season, Seattle was still able to open its season with a 2-1 victory in front of 23,433 fans, many of whom were apparently also delayed by traffic based on the late-arriving crowd.
“It was an interesting beginning to the game today because there was the accident on I-90 and we had (four) players stuck on the wrong side of that accident,” Schmid said. “… We were nip and tuck as to, ‘Are we going to have to change the lineup? Are they going to get here on time?’”
The four players did get there on time, but not by much. Gspurning, who already has the tough job of replacing Kasey Keller, an American soccer legend, also had to worry if he would be late to his first game as a Sounder.
“I don’t what happened with the people who were involved, but I wish them and their families all the best, that’s the most important thing,” Gspurning said. “… I was here just 18 minutes before the kickoff, so it was more stressful before the game than in the game. It’s not a normal pregame situation. But OK, we did well, we won the game and hopefully it will never happen again.”
Wednesday’s win doesn’t mean Seattle advances in the Champions League — a tournament that crowns the club champion from North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Rather, the Sounders have the “halftime” lead over Santos heading into next week’s second leg in Mexico.
“Of course we are happy with the win, but it’s just halftime,” Gspurning said.
If Seattle’s players were out of sorts following the abbreviated warmup, it didn’t show as the Sounders were the team creating the early chances. That led to a 1-0 lead in the 12th minute when David Estrada headed in a perfectly-placed pass from Montero, giving Estrada his first goal as a professional.
Estrada, who has had a very minor role in his first two seasons with Seattle, was starting in place of newly acquired forward Eddie Johnson. Johnson has been limited in training because of a hamstring injury, though he did make his Seattle debut as a 78th-minute substitute. And in what was just his seventh start in all competitions since Seattle drafted him in 2010, Estrada was named the man of the match.
“I’m so happy for David because it’s been a lot of years of work,” Schmid said. “… I’m very happy for him because nobody works harder, nobody is more committed than he is and nobody wants it more. For him to play in this game, to score against Santos Laguna being a guy who was born in Mexico was huge for him. I’m very, very happy for him.”
Santos ramped up its offensive pressure in the second half and eventually pulled even in the 61st minute on a Herculez Gomez goal. That lead lasted just two minutes, however, with Brad Evans putting Seattle back on top on a header off Mauro Rosales’ free kick.
“It’s a character that we displayed last year and it’s a character that still sits within this team,” Schmid said of Seattle’s ability to recover from adversity. “… I said before the game that for us a large part of tonight was going to be about our mentality because we weren’t going to be as sharp as them, and I think our mentality showed through.”
Of course players know none of what they accomplished Wednesday will matter if they can’t play Santos to at least a tie next week. Having beaten Monterrey in Mexico last year, Seattle travels south next week confident it can win on the road.
“The guys are confident right now,” Evans said. “Obviously we’d like to have the shutout and not let that one go in, but to respond and get the second goal, it gives us even more confidence going down there. We know that they have to beat us, and I can tell you that nobody is scared of going down there, that’s for sure. We’ve did well anywhere we played away from home last year. We’re confident.”
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.
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