Sounders lose game, but advance on aggregate

FRISCO, Texas – In the same space where the Sounders mourned the end of their campaign last season, there was a different energy within the visitors’ locker room at Toyota Stadium on Sunday night.

They emerged from the second leg of their Western Conference semifinal series against top-seeded FC Dallas bruised, battered and beaten – on the night, at least.

Dallas won the game 2-1. At times, it even rocked the visitors back on their heels, with momentary doubt creeping in. But the 3-0 lead the Sounders carried over from the first leg was more than enough to get them over the line.

Seattle is bound for the Western Conference final for the third time in club history by virtue of a 4-2 aggregate victory over the regular-season MLS champions. It got revenge on the team that knocked them out of the playoffs on this very field in this same round a year ago.

The Sounders will play host to second-seeded Colorado on Nov. 22, at CenturyLink Field, with the second leg to follow that Sunday in Commerce City.

A quick glance around that visiting locker room at Toyota Stadium confirmed that the Sounders will cherish every moment of that long layoff. Afterward, there was the quiet pride of a job well done.

Jordan Morris moved gingerly about the room. The rookie forward was removed at halftime with a strained hamstring, the severity of which to be revealed in the coming days. There was also no word as to whether the injury will affect his call-up to the U.S. men’s national team for its crucial World Cup qualifier Friday against rival Mexico.

“It was a last-minute decision upon examination at halftime by our trainers,” Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer said. “We just felt that he couldn’t go. Jordan felt that he couldn’t go.

“It’s really early. He will be fully evaluated by our staff, by the U.S. staff, and we will go from there.”

Only goalkeeper Stefan Frei racked up more than Morris’ 2,856 regular-season minutes. Morris appeared in every of Seattle’s 34 league matches this year, starting all but two.

His durability is even more remarkable given when you consider that Morris hasn’t had a break since last summer.

Morris departed for a trial with German club Werder Bremen shortly after winning the national championship with Stanford and being named collegiate player of the year last December. He went straight from the USMNT’s January camp to the Sounders’ preseason in Tucson.

The Mercer Island, Washington, product has been almost omnipresent this season, his individual ebbs and flows often mirroring that of the campaign itself.

So his absence was a cause for concern even before fellow forward Nelson Valdez limped off shortly afterward, putting further strain on an already taxed attack corps.

Valdez sat next to Morris in the corner of the locker room, gingerly rubbing the left calf whose cramps forced his substitution midway through the second half.

By then, Seattle had netted the goal that took most of the pressure off. Nicolas Lodeiro tied the score at 1-1 on the night and effectively ended the series off a feed from Tyrone Mears, an away goal that meant Dallas now needed to score five in order to advance.

Up until that point, Dallas certainly made Seattle sweat.

It felt unlikely, given just how overwhelmed FCD was last weekend at CenturyLink – and just how devoid of attacking ideas there were without injured playmaker Mauro Diaz – that the hosts could genuinely make a series of it.

Yet Tesho Akindele’s opening goal in the 25th minute of match Sunday changed the game.

For the next 10 minutes or so, in front of a less-than-capacity but lively crowd of 14,878, Seattle looked genuinely rattled.

Second-year midfielder Cristian Roldan was yellow-carded for a high tackle, and for minutes afterward, he waved his arms at referee Hilario Grajeda, incensed. Both Walker Zimmerman and Michael Barrios wasted clean looks to double the lead.

“It wasn’t really ebb and flow,” Schmetzer said. “It was more of one-way traffic. We were really under the gun.”