SEATTLE – It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t easy. But what counted was that the Seattle Sounders defense were not beaten by the Houston Dynamo, despite the team playing more than 30 minutes down a man.
“It was a workmanlike effort,” Seattle head coach Sigi Schmid said after the his team's 1-0 victory over the Dynamo. “And we’re never going to apologize for three points.”
Seattle’s 5-3-1 formation -- which Schmid switched to following Gonzalo Pineda’s 56th-minute red card for a high cleat to the chest of Houston’s Ricardo Clark -- ended up bending but never breaking, managing to turn away a flurry of crosses from the Dynamo as they scrambled to find a second-half equalizer that would never come.
Schmid explained the formational adjustment to reporters after the game, saying that he felt it gave his defenders the best chance to compete in the air against Houston’s attack with his team down a man.
“We decided to stay with the five in the back and allow [Tyrone] Mears and [Dylan] Remick to be able to push out wider when [Houston] sent their outside backs forward, so that was the idea behind [the 5-3-1],” Schmid said. “I thought it made us solid in the air when the crosses did come.”
The defensive stand was all the more impressive considering that two key contributors to Saturday’s victory were making their first start of the season for the Sounders. Midfielder Osvaldo Alonso played 73 minutes in his first action of the season since returning from a groin injury, while right back Remick also earned a strong review from Schmid after making his first start of the season on Seattle’s backline.
“I feel so happy. I can’t describe this moment for me,” Alonso said. “A little tired but it’s getting better over the week. I hope next week to play 90 minutes against the [LA] Galaxy.”
Remick said he wasn’t fazed by the red card or the subsequent formation change, even with the added pressure of having to deal with the adversity in his first start.
"It’s one of those things where you just take it as it comes,” Remick said. “Everyone’s played five at the back, three in the back, so it’s not that big of a deal. It doesn’t really change your role. We’re just trying to keep the ball out of our net, especially with 10 men.”
In the end, the Sounders left CenturyLink pleased with the result, even it was a more difficult path to the victory than they would have liked.
“It wasn’t the prettiest of games,” center back Chad Marshall said. “But we grinded and got three points at home -- which is all that we’ll remember.”
