The schedule looked ever so daunting when it first came out: front-loaded with home games and littered with long road trips at the end because of stadium conflicts with the NFL’s Seahawks.
But now might be the best time of the season for Sounders FC to embark on a three-game road swing. The Rave Green has transformed into a road warrior, with three wins and a draw and seven goals scored in its past four away matches, including the U.S. Open Cup final.
From April 5 to Aug. 14, Sounders FC went winless on the road with four losses and four draws. Then came a 2-0 victory against the Los Angeles Galaxy at the Home Depot Center and more success followed. Perhaps even more impressive, Seattle hasn’t lost a game (3-0-1) in the Eastern time zone this season despite the roughly five-hour flights to get to Toronto, Washington, D.C. (twice), and Newark, N.J.
“We’ve always believed we could win on the road, and so we still believe the same thing,” said coach Sigi Schmid, whose team plays today against the New England Revolution in Foxborough, Mass. “Having won on the road, we’re not talking about something that we might be able to do, we’re talking about something that we have done. That adds to the team’s confidence level … and allows them to go into road games with the confidence that we can do this again.”
It’s quite a scene when Seattle gets a road victory. The players file into the visiting locker room to sing their traditional road win song to the tune “Jingle Bells.” But instead of “Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh,” the words are changed to “Oh what fun it is to see the Sounders win away, heyyy!!!”
Winning away would be tons of fun at this point of the regular season with four games to play — at New England today; at Columbus next Saturday; at Kansas City Oct. 17; and at home against FC Dallas in the season finale Oct. 24 — and the playoffs within reach. Typically, a team would prefer to control its own postseason fate at home; Sounders FC will have to pick up needed points on the road to get into the top eight in the league by the time the season ends.
Seattle has made its position more difficult by losing once and tying twice in the past three home matches, though it continues to generate scoring chances. The loss came against the Revolution on Aug. 20.
Sounders FC now has the No. 3 seed in the West with 38 points and sits atop the wild-card standings. New England is two points out of the eighth and final spot with 34 points, but has played two fewer games than most teams above it.
