Instant (Over)Reaction: Saprissa

This morning, for really the first time, Sounders fans are eating some humble pie. Look, we have been pretty blessed over the past year with our results. We have won a cup, made the playoffs and qualified for the CONCACAF Champions League. When you think about it, this is our first really big setback. Sure it sucks, but I think in the long run that it's probably a good thing for both Seattle and MLS.

I am not going to make any excuses - we went down to Central America and did just enough to lose the game. Missed chances, poor tackles and an overall sense of timidness ultimately doomed us. I think the sad part is that even though we are 0-3, I don't think we are that bad of a team. The front office has said from day 1 that they want to win every competition they are and Sigi has definitely approached every game that way. This team wanted to win the Champions League. Some may say that we fielded our B-team last night, but the fact remains that we still had over half of our normal starters in the game. They were playing to win. Ultimately they fell short.

So what does this mean? Well, on the Sounders front, it has to signal the end to our initial CCL run. I'm sure it sucks to admit to the fan base that the two remaining home games against Saprissa and Marathon don't mean a thing, but I think real fans will understand the situation. The team is stretched thin right now. Focusing on a competition that we cannot win should not be a priority when we still have the US Open Cup Final and MLS Playoff chase staring us in the face. If anything, starting some reserves (ie-Fucito, Montano, Seamon, Boss) will be a good thing as it never hurts to get young players quality minutes in competitive games.

As for the MLS, I know that the Sounders bowing out of the competition shouldn't solely be the reason for change (I'm not that egotistic), but I think it just adds to the growing list of evidence of what needs to be changed. For me, there are three biggies:

First, MLS needs to expand the roster size to allow teams to navigate the overloaded schedule a little easier. With our current team, we have enough guys to cover for defense and outside midfielders, but we have no one to play central midfield and with Jaqua and Nkufo being banged up, no one to play forward. Even if Sigi wanted to sit some guys, he had no choice but to play the starters. Allowing each team in the CCL to have 2-3 additional players who only count for CCL games would give them the opportunity to keep their other guys fresh for league games while not giving them an unfair advantage. When J-Will proposed this idea, my first reaction was to ask who would be willing to be on a team but only be eligible for 2-3 games max? I think it's a fair question, but I'll tell ya what, I bet there are actually a lot of guys playing the USL who would love to be given that opportunity. I want hungry guys competing for my team and they don't get any hungrier than young guys trying to make a name for themselves. And if MLS and USL could make an agreement so that they could be full-time USL players who get called up for CCL games, then it could benefit both leagues.

Second, MLS needs to change their rules in regards to what they deem special perks. Did you know that MLS teams can not fly privately more than twice a year? Apparently MLS thinks that only teams with a lot of money would be more willing to fly their personnel on private charters and that somehow this creates a competitive balance. Maybe it does, I don't know. But what I do know is that it is crazy to ask the teams to fly to and from Central America with the rest of us schmucks and expect them to be successful. Speaking again in terms of the Sounders, we have a road trip over a two week stretch that goes Costa Rica--Columbus--Monterrey, Mexico--Chicago--Seattle. I know this is not unique to the Sounders. I know the other CCL teams have to face similar situations. Let the guys have some perks and they will respond better.

Finally, something needs to change with the schedule. I don't know if I have a solution, but Ijust read how the Russian Premier League is changing their schedule to go Fall-Winter-Spring. The long standing arguement against MLS adopting this calendar is that it would be impossible to play soccer in Toronto, NY, NE, Columbus and Colorado during the winter months. I'm not saying that we need to follow Russia, but I think MLS needs to start thinking creatively as to how to solve the problem of match congestion. Next year the MLS schedule is jumping to 34 games. Add in the potential for 4 games in the US Open Cup, a minimum of 8 in Champions League, meaningless friendlies, the MLS All-Star Game and 5 games in the MLS playoffs and some teams will be approaching 50 games over the course of 7 months. This isn't baseball - there is more running involved. Guys can't go every day.


Again, I would like to say that the above are not intended to be excuses as to why we lost. We lost because the other teams took advantage of our mistakes and really showed us what it is like to compete internationally. All teams need to go through this. For the first time, we should all feel humbled because we were outclassed.