SEATTLE — The Seattle Sounders played half the game without the only goalkeeper they’ve used since the start of the 2014 season.
D.C. United played more than half of the match with only 10 men.
For 87 minutes it appeared neither team would be able to take advantage of the other’s misfortune. However, with about two minutes left in regulation, left back Tyrone Mears ran into space and fired a rocket into the back of the far netting from about 16 yards.
The defender’s first MLS goal since arriving from England this season gave Seattle a 1-0 win before a crowd of 40,410 Friday at CenturyLink Field.
“Sometimes to get out of a little bit of a slump or the funk that we were in a little bit, a couple of things need to break for you, and it seems like it’s a struggle. It was a little bit of that tonight,” coach Sigi Schmid said. “… (Mears) struck it really well. I think he said he did it for the queen.”
Seattle (10-7-2) snapped a three-game losing streak and moved back into a tie with Vancouver atop the Western Conference standings.
United (10-6-5) remains atop the Major League soccer points race, but suffered its fourth straight shutout against the Sounders.
The first half of that clean sheet was kept by Stefan Frei, who had played every regular-season minute for the Sounders since joining the club in 2014. However, that streak ended at 4,725 consecutive minutes when Frei left the field with a shoulder injury suffered several minutes earlier in a collision in front of the goal.
His departure brought on the regular-season debut of Sounders reserve keeper, veteran Troy Perkins.who faced five shots and made one save in preserving the shutout.
“Frei’s is a left shoulder sprain,” Schmid said. “So we’ll see how it responds over the next few days. It’s always a tough situation when you’re a reserve goalkeeper coming into a game. So for Troy, I thought he did well.”
Seattle once again began with a roster depleted by international duty (Clint Dempsey, Brad Evans and Marco Pappa) and injury (Obafemi Martins). However, All-Star midfielder Osvaldo Alonso was back in the starting lineup for the first time since May 31 after missing five league matches with a left hamstring strain.
“We had to play him more minutes than we wanted to play him,” Schmid said. “We talked to him about that at halftime. We said, ‘Look, we had to make a goalkeeper sub, we probably need you to go 90 minutes.’ … I thought he did a good job of managing his minutes.”
The teams played a rough first half, which took a toll on both teams.
In the 27th minute, United forward and assists leader Fabian Espindola raised his elbow in warding off defender Zach Scott and was given a red card, reducing D.C. to 10 men.
“I thought we came out aggressively,” Schmid said. “When the numbers were even in the game early on I thought we were the better side. I thought we went after them at that point. When they received the red card, I thought we relaxed at little bit at that point and took out foot off the gas pedal a little bit and needed to keep pushing, which we tried to do when we came back in in the second half.”
The Sounders return to MLS play July 11 at Chicago.
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