CARSON, Calif. — The Seattle Sounders lost a game Sunday, but they stressed that they remain in position to win the series.
The Los Angeles Galaxy opened the Western Conference finals with a 1-0 win before a sellout crowd of 27,000 at StubHub Center. The two-game, aggregate-score series will resolve Sunday (Nov. 30) in Seattle.
“Of the three results that you want it’s obviously the latter,” midfielder Brad Evans said. “But the reality is we still give ourselves a chance coming home now. And I think coming into the locker room we feel confident that we can play better in all aspects.”
The Sounders had their share of chances to equalize. And the Galaxy had plenty of chances to increase its cushion. However, the only shot that reached the back of the net came in the 52nd minute, when Marcelo Sarvas fired a shot that skimmed off the leg of defender Chad Marshall and past goalkeeper Stefan Frei.
“It hit off the side of my calf,” Marshall said. “(Sarvas) cut it back; I tried to get out there on it. Unfortunately it hits my calf. I didn’t see it after that … but I’m sure it hit enough that it throws Stefan.”
Coach Sigi Schmid thought the problems began well before that.
“The start of that goal was really on the right-hand side of the field,” Schmid said. “They were playing three against two for us for about a minute and we didn’t get a defender out there to help and turn it into a three-against-three. And that allowed the ball to get back into the middle, and then Sarvas hits a shot that I think Stefan’s going to save if it doesn’t get the deflection.”
That goal will have to be made up at CenturyLink Field. And it could take more than a simple one-goal win, as the Sounders failure to score at L.A. could come back to haunt them in a series that values road goals as the first tie-breaker. That sets up a second leg in which L.A. advances with a win or a draw or even a one-goal loss by any score other than 1-0. A Sounders 1-0 win would send the game to added time and penalty kicks if needed. Otherwise, the Sounders need to win by two goals to advance.
“We’ve still got everything to play for in the second game,” Seattle forward Clint Dempsey said. “You would have to think that you would have to score to advance, so we’ve got to get goals. But at the same time keep playing the way we’re playing. We’re creating chances.”
Some of Seattle’s best chances came from Dempsey and Obafemi Martins. Each had first-half chances in back-to-back shots that Galaxy goalkeeper Jamie Penedo snuffed. Penedo came up big again in a one-on-one situation with Dempsey in the second half.
“The first one was a deflection and the ball kind of came high on me,” Dempsey said. “So what I tied to do was just try to get it down, and the keeper made a good reaction save. The other one was a give-and-go with Oba and the ball was kind of behind me a little bit so I dragged it with my left foot — I had a good first touch — but I didn’t have much of an angle. The only thing I had was to try and chip him. He barely got a hand on it.”
The Sounders played without midfielders Osvaldo Alonso and Lamar Neagle.
Alonso was held out with a lingering leg injury that Schmid indicated was about 80 percent Sunday and is expected to be healed enough for his return next weekend.
Neagle’s absence was more of a surprise, with the club announcing about an hour before the match that he had been allowed to return to the Northwest “to deal with a serious personal matter.”
“Certainly those guys help our team,” Schmid said. “Neagle’s got nine goals and nine assists, so he’s somebody who that helps us on the attacking. And obviously Ozzie is Ozzie. We hope they both will be available next week and it would make things better.”
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