SEATTLE — They partied in the rain at CenturyLink Field Saturday afternoon, a celebration not just of the Sounders claiming another trophy, but of how far they have come since a miserable finish to the 2013 season.
There were family photos taken with the team’s newest piece of hardware, flowers handed to fans and balls kicked into the stands as most of the 57,673 in attendance were in no hurry to leave the celebration.
By beating the Los Angeles Galaxy 2-0 in their regular-season finale, the Sounders claimed their first Supporters’ Shield, the trophy given to the team with best record in Major League Soccer. And by gritting out a shutout victory in an ugly foul-fest, a result that came a week after they overcame a two-goal deficit on the road to earn a draw, the Sounders also showed that these aren’t your 2013 Sounders.
Last season, Seattle waas one of the most talented teams in the league, and for a while looked like a Supporters Shield was well within reach, but then it finished the regular season going 0-4-3, nearly missing the playoffs. The Sounders did make the playoffs, however, only to suffer the indignity of elimination at the hands of Portland, their biggest rivals.
That disastrous finish had some fans calling for a coaching change, and others even wondering if Clint Dempsey, a midseason addition, was going to be another big-money disappointment for a team had had a history of whiffing on designated player signings. Sigi Schmid kept his job, but the roster underwent a significant makeover, one focused as much on improving team chemistry as adding talent.
And those offseason moves worked to perfection, culminating in Saturday’s celebration. However, even with the top seed in the playoffs, there are no guarantees for the Sounders. As is the case in every sport, and especially in this league’s history, the postseason can be a crapshoot, but by being the league’s best team over a 34-game season, the Sounders validated the not always popular offseason decisions they made.
This Sounders’ season wasn’t perfect, and they again had some-late season hiccups, losing three of five at one point. But when it looked like momentum had shifted to the Galaxy, which thanks to a wonderful quirk in scheduling, played Seattle twice to end the season, the Sounders showed the resilience that has become their calling card of this year. They came back from a 2-0 deficit last week to earn a draw in L.A., then won Saturday when Marco Pappa’ two late goals turned an ugly game into one of the most significant victory’s in the club’s six-year history.
“It means a lot,” Schmid said of winning the Supporters’ Shield coming on the heels of a tough season. “Last year, it was just a freakish year as a coach. Luckily, I haven’t lost all my hair, I’m blessed that way, I guess. … Last year was just really frustrating at the end, because we were turning everything upside down trying to figure out what would make it work, and we just couldn’t get to chance and couldn’t get it to work.”
“There was a while there where you guys were like, ‘They’re struggling now, here we go, Deja vu is happening.’ I said all along, this isn’t Deja vu, this is a different group, this is a different character group. … It’s important for our group to know that this isn’t last year — they knew that all along — and to continue to believe in themselves.”
And a quick aside for the casual soccer fans — I assume you’re at least a casual fan if you’ve made it this far. As odd as it might seem to the American sports fan, winning what is essentially a regular-season championship is a big deal in soccer. Most of the top leagues around the world don’t have a playoff system, but instead reward the team that is the best over the course of a season. That doesn’t usually produce as much drama as a playoff format, but it does reward the team with best body of work over a season, something that frequently doesn’t happen in playoffs (We’re looking at you, World Series).
“In Europe, we don’t play playoffs, so if you’re on the top of the league, you’re champions,” said forward Obafemi Martins, who assisted on Pappa’s game-winner after playing a nice give-and-go with Dempsey. “So I’m going to take what we just did today as the champion of the league. Now, we have the MLS playoffs, too, so we have to continue to train as we normally do and get ready for the playoffs.”
Or as Drew Carey, one of the team’s minority owners, told the crowd after the game, the Supporters’ Shield “means the most to me because it’s the hardest to win.”
Now, the Sounders will try to cap this memorable season with their first MLS Cup, and if they can do that, they would be the first team in league history to win a Supporters’ Shield, U.S. Open Cup and MLS Cup in the same season. But regardless of what happens in the postseason, the Sounders showed on Saturday, yet again, how much tougher, more resilient, and just plain better they are now than last season. And as they partied in the rain, last season’s tumultuous finish felt like it happened a long, long time ago.
“Everybody’s on the same page, I think that’s the biggest thing,” defender DeAndre Yedlin said. “Everybody has bought in, everybody is fighting for the same thing, and when you have that and you have the quality of the players on this team, it makes for excellent chemistry and an excellent team, and that’s what we’ve been showing this whole year.”
Herald Columnist John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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