Brian Schmetzer, Sigi Schmid are the Sounders-Crew link for Saturday’s MLS Cup in Columbus
Brian Schmetzer’s smile was so wide, his blue, Sounders, COVID-19 mask couldn’t hide the joy.
His mask moved like Seattle’s MLS fortunes this time just about every MLS postseason: way up
“I love talking about Sig,” Schmetzer said.
The first question the Sounders FC coach was asked upon his team landing in Ohio Wednesday night for Saturday’s MLS Cup championship match against the Columbus Crew was about Sigi Schmid.
Of course it was.
Schmid, the German-American who won more games than any other coach in league history, coached Columbus to the championship of Major League Soccer in 2008. Months later, Seattle hired him to lead the reincarnation of the Sounders into MLS as an expansion club, from Seattle’s old North American Soccer League and United Soccer League versions.
Schmetzer had been a candidate for that Sounders expansion job Schmid got. Schmetzer is a Seattle native. He and his family has been a part of Seattle’s soccer scene for decades. He played in youth leagues in Lake City. He graduated from Nathan Hale High School. He was the coach of the Sounders during their USL days in the early 2000s.
Schmid had Schmetzer as his top assistant on that first 2009 Sounders MLS team. They led Seattle to what Schmetzer had won with the USL Sounders years earlier, the U.S. Open Cup title.
Schmid and Schmetzer also coached Sounders FC into the playoffs in that inaugural season, becoming the first MLS expansion club to qualify for the postseason since the 1998 Chicago Fire. The Sounders won the U.S. Open Cup four times during Schmid’s tenure, which ended in 2016.
Schmetzer succeeded Schmid as the Sounders coach in the summer of 2016. Months later Schmetzer did what Schmid did in Columbus, but never did in Seattle: he led the Sounders to their first MLS Cup.
Schmid died on Christmas Day 2018, weeks after being hospitalized in Los Angeles with a heart-related condition.
In November 2019, Schmetzer’s Sounders beat Toronto at CenturyLink Field for Seattle’s second MLS title.
Saturday night’s title match will tie together that Schmid-Schmetzer, Columbus-Seattle thread—on U.S. professional soccer’s grandest stage.
“He talked about how he came in (to Columbus), he had a rebuilding project, it took him a couple years to get going,” Schmetzer said Wednesday. “And that last year (with the Crew) everything came together, in ‘08.
“It was a great way to send him our direction, and have him start our franchise after the success he had in Columbus.
“I had a long seven years (as Schmid’s assistant), studying what he did. I did ask him questions. He always had fond memories of Columbus. Always liked coming back here. Made friends here, had friends here. It was a good time in his career.
“I love that he’s been a part of both franchises. It’s sad that he’s not here to witness this.”
This, Saturday, is the Sounders’ reward for rallying from 2-0 down to Minnesota in the 75th of 90 minutes of the Western Conference finals Monday in Seattle. The Sounders staged the most dramatic and important comeback in their storied history: three goals in the final 19 minutes to win, 3-2.
The winning goal came in extra, stoppage time when defender Gustav Svensson headed a redirected corner kick from Nicolas Lodeiro into the corner of the net.
“God I wish our fans were in that stadium,” Schmetzer said amid Monday’s euphoria inside Lumen Field, which again couldn’t host spectators because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“That was unbelievable. In our Sounders history, this is gonna go down as one of the best games ever.”
Svensson is one month removed from testing positive for COVID-19. He missed Seattle’s first two playoff matches last month while in asymptomatic quarantine.
“I didn’t want this year to end with me just on the sideline, watching from the TV,” he said.
Schmetzer, during the postmatch celebration Monday night, said: “I don’t know how we did it. I’m just telling you, I don’t know how we did it.”
How they did it was from another brilliant stroke by Schmetzer, whose uncanny knack for pushing all the right Sounders buttons the last few years continued. Schmid’s former top assistant had substituted Svensson into the conference final in the 77th minute, just as Seattle’s historic rally was beginning.
That’s how Schmetzer and the Sounders are in their fourth MLS Cup final in five years.
The Sounders have qualified for the playoffs in every one of their 12 seasons in MLS. That spans Schmid’s and Schmetzer’s tenures as Seattle’s head coach.
But Schmetzer, the 58-year-old Seattle man, knows better than to call his team a dynasty.
He reserves that title for the Seattle team that in October won its fourth professional championship, in the Women’s National Basketball Association.
“As far as the ‘D’ word, the ‘dynasty’ word, folks have asked me about that,” Schmetzer said.
“The Storm, the women’s basketball team, has won four. The Seahawks have won one (Super Bowl, in 2015). We have won a couple.
“I wouldn’t quite put us in that dynasty category yet, until there’s a couple more.
“We are Storm chasers.”
Columbus is in the Sounders’ way. It is trying to win its second MLS Cup; Schmid’s title a dozen years ago remains the Crew’s only one.
Columbus has won five of its last six matches. Its leading scorer is Gyasi Zardes, a 6-foot-2 threat to Seattle’s back-line defense. The U.S. national team forward has 14 goals and 25 points this season. He’s scored goals in three of the last four games. The exception is the Crew’s 1-0 win over New England last weekend in the conference final.
It wasn’t as if Zardes wasn’t aggressive or a factor in that match, too. He took five shots at the Revolution.
The Crew is coached by Tacoma native Caleb Porter. Schmetzer knows him well from Porter’s days coaching the Sounders’ Cascadia Cup archrival Portland Timbers from 2013-17.
Porter, 45, left Tacoma as a kid. He went to high school in Michigan. He played at Indiana University and briefly in MLS. He is in his second season managing the Crew.
“In the beginning, Caleb and I might have butted heads,” Schmetzer said, pushing his fists together. “But as the years have progressed, I mean, we’ve softened up in our—I’ve softened up in my old age.
“Caleb is a very competitive, good coach. He’s done a great job getting Columbus to host MLS Cup. He has done a lot of work in a short amount of time.
“It’s going to be a good, entertaining final.”
Corner kicks
- Saturday’s clutch Sounder for the title match? Raul Ruidiaz. He has nine goals and six assists in his last nine playoff matches. His goal from point-blank range in the 90th minute, off another Lodeiro corner kick that got away from Minnesota, tied the conference final at 2 and set up Svensson’s winner minutes later.
- The Sounders and Crew played to a 1-1 draw in the regular season, in March. Zardes scored early, in the 33rd minute. Ruizdiaz’s penalty kick in the 79th salvaged the point for Seattle.
- His corner kick Monday that Svensson put in for the conference-title winner tied Lodeiro with Carlos Ruiz for the MLS playoffs record with a point or assist in eight consecutive postseason matches.
- The Crew announced Wednesday it had another player test positive for COVID-19. Seven Columbus players who previously tested positive with the coronavirus have resumed training this week. The Crew has had at least one positive test for a player in three consecutive weeks. Seven players were positive before Columbus’ Eastern Conference semifinal win over Nashville. One additional player tested positive before last weekend’s conference final against New England. Columbus canceled four training sessions in the last three weeks.
- Columbus and Franklin County remain in Level 3, the second-highest, of Ohio’s four-level COVID-19 restriction system. Level 3 in Ohio represents very high exposure and spread of the coronavirus. Yet Crew once again will allow 1,500 fans permitted into MAPFRE Stadium for Saturday’s 5 p.m. title match.
This story was originally published December 10, 2020 at 12:54 PM.
