A frustrating 1-1 home draw against one of the league’s worst teams on Saturday night wasn’t just a missed opportunity for our Sounders, it actively shrunk the gap between us and the play-in game. To say nothing of the playoff line itself, should things really fall apart, our chances of earning a top-four spot in the West just took a major hit, and that’s just unacceptable. This draw came right after a tough road loss to FC Dallas on Wednesday, and with only four games left in the regular season, failing to claim all three points at Lumen Field could haunt us.
That First Half Was Just Unacceptable
Look, the second half showed what this team is capable of, and we even saw flashes in the unlucky 1-0 loss to Dallas and that dominant 3-0 win over New England. But that first half against CF Montreal? That was a completely different beast. We were fortunate to go into halftime only trailing by a single goal. Our own goalkeeper, Andrew Thomas, didn’t pull any punches after the match. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been more frustrated with a draw walking off the field,” Thomas said, and honestly, every single one of us in the Emerald City felt that. He knows what’s up, telling it like it is: “It’s a game we need to win. It’s a game we should win. Even though we played as badly as we did in the first half, we put ourselves in a position to win that game in the second half.”
The boos raining down from the crowd as the team headed to the locker room for the half? Thomas said they were “deserved.” How often do you hear a player say that? It hits different when it’s coming from inside the locker room. “We are here to entertain. We’re here to make the fans proud, and we did not do that in the first half,” he continued. “And you know, they absolutely should be holding us to a higher standard than that first half was…we definitely didn’t bring the intensity. Whether we were caught off guard by theirs or not, I think it’s more in our control than out of our control.”
Why The Intensity Was Gone
Thomas pinpointed the struggles of that opening 45 minutes, and it was a laundry list of issues. “It was technical breakdowns everywhere. We were sloppy with first touches. We didn’t win like any second balls. I felt like we were going to get countered every single time we lost possession. Everyone could see it, everyone could feel it.” It’s not the first time we’ve seen these kinds of mistakes this season. Over the last couple of months, even with improved performances, we’ve had those sloppy touches, failures to win second balls, misplayed passes, and the constant threat of a counter attack undoing our hard work. Usually, our team’s sheer quality and effort have been enough to outweigh those negatives. But on Saturday, especially in that disastrous first half, those mistakes were compounded, turning a winnable game into a disappointing draw.
The Sounders have been in holes before this season, and to their credit, they’ve often found a way to climb back out. But that doesn’t make the hole they dug in the first half against Montreal any less bad, or any less frustrating when the stakes are this high. With only four games left in the regular season, every single point is critical. We need to see that second-half fight for a full 90 minutes from here on out.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Sounder at Heart.
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