Can't hang with 'em, can't out kick 'em

When I was a real runner, we used to have a saying: "Can't hang with 'em, can't out kick 'em, what can ya do?" It was sort of a joke. There are times when you have to race against someone who's just better. Maybe not if you're Mo Farah, but for basically everyone else you'll have races where there doesn't seem to be any possible way you can win.

That's how it felt for the first 134 minutes of the Sounders-Tigres quarterfinal series of the CONCACAF Champions League. During the first leg of the series, stringing together five or six consecutive passes felt like an accomplishment for the Sounders. For 90 minutes, the top team in Mexico relentlessly pounded our back line with shot after shot after shot. Thanks to a few clutch saves and some sloppy finishing, we managed to escape with just a 0-1 loss. We couldn't hang with 'em, but at least we were within reach.

Then the second leg in Seattle started and despite a handful of opportunities, we just couldn't put the ball into the net. Seizing one of their few early opportunities, Tigres launched a quick counter attack, kicked Yedlin to the turf and scored an easy goal. Game over. With away goals being the first tie breaker, we'd need three goals to avoid being knocked out in the quarterfinals for the second year in a row. You could feel the stadium deflate. You could see it on the field too. The fire was all but extinguished and if not for another couple spectacular saves by Gspurning, the game could have gotten completely out of hand.

Then something strange happened. We caught a break. For a team that had more than our fair share of coin-flips go against us, it was nice to win one for a change. In the 45th minute, Manuel Viniegra, who was already on a yellow card for time wasting, drew another yellow. Maybe a bit of a soft yellow, but the ref who'd been liberal with the cards all night stayed consistent and sent him off. We went into halftime down 0-2 on aggregate, needing to score three goals in 45 minutes, but we were up a man. And more importantly, we had a little bit of a hope. And an underdog, who can't hang with you and can't out kick you, but somehow someway has a spark of home going into the last lap, is a very dangerous thing.

The second half began and the fire was back. Playing 11v10 helped for sure, but we were playing with a confidence and a desire that hadn't been there before. And in the 53rd minute it payed off. DeAndre Yedlin, the homegrown 19 year old right back, launched a long range volley that seemed to defy logic, space, and time. In just his 2nd professional start, he fired what will surely be one of the most memorable goals in Sounders history. I remember watching the ball sail, in what felt like slow motion, into the back of the net. It was one of the most beautiful goals I've ever seen. At least until fellow defender Djimi "The D is Silent" Traore blasted a golazo of his own a mere seven minutes later, sending Century-Link Field into an absolute frenzy. With his voice cracking from the excitement, Ross Fletcher said it best, "30 yards out, left foot rocket, cannoning off the underside of the cross-bar, no goal keeper in the universe will stop it. Seattle lead 2-1 and the dream is very much alive." It was magical. When every shot seemed to go just wide, or be safely covered by the Tigres keeper, it took a couple moments of brilliance from the least likely of sources to bring us roaring back with a vengeance. 

The "small" crowd of 20,000 erupted like packed and house and you could feel that we were experiencing history. It was all but inevitable when Eddie Johnson broke free down the left hand side and slipped a shot through the non-existent gap at the near post to give us the lead. We were beating the best team in Mexico. For the first time ever, an MLS team would knock out a Liga MX team in the elimination round of CCL. History, we just wrote it. Unbelievable.

It was hands-down the greatest comeback I've seen in person, the greatest win I've seen in person, and the greatest damn sporting event I've ever seen in person. In my pantheon of non-championship wins, I'm having a hard time remembering anything better than this. Because the Sounders showed how you beat someone when you can't hang with 'em, and you can't out kick 'em. You just keep fighting. No matter how impossible it seems, you don't give up and you don't give in. Because crazy shit happens. Maybe it's a 19 year old kid with crazy hair launching a ridiculous shot that he has no business taking, or 33 year-old defender scoring his 1st ever goal for a club team, but the impossible happens all the time in sports. It's only impossible until it happens.

Of course, the journey's not over yet. The goal was never just to make it to the semi-finals. But after watching history unfold right right in front of me, over the course of 45 minutes on a rainy Tuesday night in Seattle, I know that we'll keeping fighting. Because that's what we do. We are Sounders, mighty Sounders, we are Sounders from Brougham End.