It’s been a painful season for the Seattle Sounders, who are tied with Colorado for last place in the Western Conference and have racked up as many losses (seven) as they have goals in their first 11 games of the year.
Center midfielder Cristian Roldan called his teammates out after their latest defeat, a 2-0 setback to Real Salt Lake on Saturday.
“Disappointing, lackluster. Just felt that there wasn’t a sense of bite within our team,” said the influential Roldan. “The morale of the team is obviously low right now, it’s down. But this is MLS. You win three games in a row, you’re right back in it.
Asserting that the Rave Green as a collective are “afraid to make a mistake” at present, Roldan said “showing up to games” has been a problem.
“If you don't show up to play, you practice as hard as you want during the week and you don't show up for the game, what's the point of practicing hard?” he said when asked where the Sounders go from here. “You have to put in that same effort – not saying that our team didn’t, but we lacked that creativity, that spark, that bit of brilliance that set us apart last year.”
Seattle certainly had their chances to take something away from Saturday’s physical clash at Rio Tinto Stadium, the second of back-to-back league meetings with RSL, but were profligate with their finishing.
According to Roldan, the Sounders were too hesitant to match the Utah side’s bruising mentality despite his own face-to-face confrontations with the hosts when the game was still in the balance at 1-0.
“You try to send a message,” he said. “We can't go out like this. We're 1-0 down and if you're 1-0 down and it seems like you're not fighting back, then why are we playing the game? … I try to get into some tackles, foul some people, do some things that RSL was doing to us. Credit to RSL, they had a game plan, they scored a goal, they defended well. We had a couple chances and next time, we bury them, it's a different story.”
