The Sounders owned the best record in MLS last year, and every guy who scored a league goal in 2014 is back for 2015. All should be sweetness and light. But there’s a large shadow across the Sounders’ sky—Bruce Arena and the L.A. Galaxy.
Arena’s Galaxy beat the Sounders in the Western Conference Final last year. That makes three times in the Sounders’ six seasons that the Galaxy have bounced them from the playoff party. The Sounders could finish 34-0-0, with Clint Dempsey scoring 25 hat tricks and delivering a kick so powerful it gets Bertha running again . . . and the playoff storyline would still be “Can they finally get past L.A.?”
Since the question’s inevitable, I went looking for answers. Why are the Galaxy the Sounders’ kryptonite?
At least the Sounders kept it close in 2014. “In the past L.A. was clearly better,” says Dave Clark, founder and manager of the indispensable blog Sounder at Heart. “Last year, L.A. wasn’t clearly better. The teams were very evenly matched.”
“Both teams play pretty standard 4-4-2 formations with active wingers and facilitating-type central midfielders,” Sports Illustrated soccer writer Liviu Bird told me. “The distance between the two is smaller than the playoff results make it seem, but the Galaxy always finds a way to win in the playoffs.”
The difference between the two teams may be found just off the field of play. As even Sounders partisan Clark will admit: “Bruce Arena is the best coach in the history of U.S. soccer.”
Nothing against Sounders coach Sigi Schmid! Schmid has won more games than any MLS coach ever, and you’ve seen why in his six years here. Schmid has masterfully mixed an ever-changing roster. He lines up a talented prospect here with an MLS retread there, pairs experienced internationals with raw collegians, and has brought the Sounders within sniffing distance of a league championship every year.
But Arena has succeeded on soccer’s biggest stage, taking the USA to the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup. Writes SB Nation soccer editor Ryan Rosenblatt: “The U.S. played in various formations, changing drastically from match to match on the world’s biggest stage and unleashing a level of tactical nous that left some of the world’s best managers dumbfounded.”
Hey, if Seattle teams don’t have a history of playoff success, at least we have a history of losing to exceptional leaders like Arena. The coaches/managers who most recently knocked out our top four professional teams are all legends of their sport. Back in 2001, Joe Torre led the aging Yankees past the 116-win Mariners. Gregg Popovich’s Spurs ended the Sonics’ final playoff run. And, for some history you teenage readers might actually remember, there was Arena last November and Bill Belichick in S***r B**l XLIX.
The most recent Seattle heartbreakers—Arena and Belichick—share a similar upbringing, reputation, and coaching style. Born seven months apart in the 1950s, both exhibit the approximate spontaneity and insouciance of Dwight Eisenhower. Each graduated from top liberal-arts schools in the Northeast—Arena from Cornell, Belichick from Wesleyan. Detractors of both coaches accuse them of Machiavellian tactics.
More pertinent, Belichick and Arena are both “game plan” coaches. They tailor their tactics from week to week and half to half, based on their opponent. Arena’s secret to success against the Sounders? “He’s taken away Seattle’s big scoring threats,” says Clark.
Fredy Montero is the Sounders’ all-time leader with 47 MLS goals—but in 328 career playoff minutes against the Galaxy in his career, didn’t score once. Obafemi Martins is second all-time with 25 career MLS goals. But Martins is scoreless in his 532 minutes against the Galaxy.
Though he has most of his team back this year, Schmid has made one decisive and important change: Midfielder Brad Evans is now central defender Brad Evans. With Evans in defense, the Sounders will have one of their smartest and most anticipatory players right in front of the goal. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Galaxy recently have been best known for late, unexpected runs into the box that defenders leave uncovered. Perhaps Evans will do a better job of sniffing these out.
Sounders fans will keep a wary eye on the Galaxy as the season progresses. On paper the team is weakened. Landon Donovan, the best player in league history, has retired; the Galaxy also traded top midfielder Marcelo Sarvas. But Arena famously sandbags the early part of the long MLS season, exchanging possible points early on for health and success in the playoffs. And in July, longtime Liverpool star Steven Gerrard joins the Galaxy. Once again, nothing that happens during the regular season will seem pertinent, and Sounders fans will enter the playoffs with a well-earned sense of foreboding.
Says Clark: “Part of being a Seattle sports fan is having really good teams that don’t win it all.”
sportsball@seattleweekly.com
The Sounders play the Galaxy away April 12 and August 9 and at home on October 4.
