Photo credit: (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)
The Portland Timbers hit a late goal on Sunday night to knock the surging Seattle Sounders down a peg. The Sounders had come off 3 straight games with points only to have the defense once gain lapse and lose the game.
“Those were not our best defensive moments in this season,” Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer said during a video conference call with media. “That second (Portland) goal was a bit of a dagger, how it all played out. They got the ball in the middle of the field where our guys were a little flat-footed on the entry pass. Credit to the Timbers, but we’ll work on that to make sure we’re a little bit stronger defensively.”
At home, the Sounders had a tie in the bag against the feisty rivals in the Timbers, but in the 83rd minute Portland’s Felipe Mora caught the much-maligned Sounders center backs napping. And for the second game in a row a last minute defensive snafu caused problems for this team.
The Timbers would jump on the Sounders early with a 9th minute goal, but Kelvin Leerdam would strike his own just before halftime. Midfielder Christian Roldan blamed every phase of the game and called the defeat inexcusable. With 15 shots on goal only 3 were on target for the Sounders showing that a sloppy attack couldn’t manage good chances.
“Not putting away the chances certainly sucks and we feel really unfortunate,” Roldan said. “But in that case we should still never lose that game.”
