There’s strange games, and then there’s the Seattle Sounders’ Saturday night victory in Columbus. A 4-0 victory in which three second-half goals accelerated the away side into a no-doubt victory over the league’s most recent champions would normally be lauded — instead, it’ll carry an asterix.
A frustrating first-half red card drawn by Columbus (14-5-7) goalkeeper Abraham Romero was compounded by the lack of backups on the Crew bench. With defender Sean Zawadzki in goal, the Sounders (12-9-7) went on to push four goals into the back of the net — three from Albert Rusnák, who netted his first career hat trick, and rolled out of the Midwest with a victory.
Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer made just one real change from his lineup that lost in Portland last weekend. Academy graduate Reed Baker-Whiting made an appearance at left back in place of Nouhou, who played on Saturday with Cameroon. Andrew Thomas, who entered the Timbers match early on after Stefan Frei was involved in a collision, began the match in goal.
Seattle looked similarly toothless to their prior matches in the opening half-hour. Just one touch in the box was worsened by no registered shots — and Columbus continued to press forward. Despite adding four shots in that period, though, the Crew couldn’t force backup Thomas into a save.
Add to that a Jordan Morris chance on the doorstep that the forward turned inexplicably wide of the post, and the Sounders were ruing missed opportunities.
Seattle’s fortunes changed dramatically in added time.
Chasing a through ball, backup Romero stepped far out of his area. Morris beat him to it, and the Mexican cleaned out the forward on the way through. A quickly delivered red card sent him to the showers.
Columbus, though, didn’t have a backup. Regular starter Patrick Schulte is away with the US Men’s National Team, and they’ve exhausted the four-match allowance for both of their MLS NEXT Pro goalkeepers.
Left with no other option, Columbus head coach Wilfred Nancy inserted Zawadzki. Albert Rusnák duly put the Sounders’ second shot on target of the half into the back of the net.
“I'll be honest, Rusnák said, “I felt a little bit more pressure taking the free kick than if an actual goalkeeper was in net., I kind of felt like, you know, you have to score.”
It took the Sounders all of 16 minutes to double their advantage. Once again, it was a well-played ball from Paul Rothrock — one that Morris may have dispatched regardless of the caliber of player in net.
“The conversation was ‘Get the second goal’, Morris said. “That would give us,a bit of a cushion and feel more comfortable, because if they score, they can sit nine guys behind in the ball and make it tough for us to get to get another goal.”
By the 67th minute, it was no contest. Rusnák slipped a shot from 20 yards out into Zawadzki’s bottom right-hand corner. Three minutes later, he added his third — Seattle’s fourth — from a first-time finish inside the area.
The foot came firmly off of the gas pedal with 10 minutes to play. Seattle moved into fifth place with the victory, and grabs an important away win.
“They did a professional job,” Schmetzer said. “Those shots were well taken. It was well played. Sometimes, when you go up a man, it's not easy to play because there's that unspoken pressure you should do this, you should do that.”
“Some people may say, ‘They had a field player in there,’ but we play what's in front of us,” he continued, “and the shots, the chances we created, the way we defended the whole game tonight was…again, I have to give kudos to the guys that were in that locker room.”
Feature photo by Jeff Dean / Sounders FC Communications
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