Sounders fall 2-1 in first leg of Champions League series against Santa Tecla

SANTA TECLA, El Salvador – The festivities began hours before kickoff as locals wearing the home side’s strikingly familiar shade of green arrived in beer-drinking, salsa dancing droves.

As a loudspeaker blared the region’s hottest dance tunes, children took turns kicking balls into a soccer net on a miniature indoor field set up adjacent the municipal Estadio Las Delicias. There isn’t much separating the Sounders from CONCACAF Champions League first round opponent Santa Tecla FC on the uniform front – both preferring green kits with blue trim – but most of the thousands filing in here on Thursday night had come to see what differences exist on the field.

And for much of the night, the two teams were pretty similar on that front as well, until second half goals eight minutes apart by American-born Santa Tecla captain Gerson Mayen sent the Sounders to a stunning 2-1 defeat.

It wasn’t the worst outcome for the Sounders, given they scored a road goal. But they’ll have to score at least once at home next Thursday in the return match at CenturyLink Field or they’ll fall well short of advancing deep into this tournament.

“We know we have to be tighter defensively,” Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldan said, adding the Santa Tecla attackers “were fantastic on the ball. They didn’t necessarily surprise me but I thought they played exceptionally well. A credit to them. They dealt with the field really well and that’s why they got the result.”

The rock-hard artificial turf, interspersed with gray patches from wear and tear, was just one of the unique challenges the Sounders faced. They also had to deal with a fired up crowd, seeking proof their favored squad can compete with North America’s best teams.

Early on, it seemed the locals were in for a long night when Nicolas Lodeiro opened the scoring. But the Santa Tecla side began taking over in the second half and equalized in the 67th minute when Mayen beat Stefan Frei from close range.

The frenzied crowd burst into Spanish chants of “Yes-We-Can!” An invigorated Santa Tecla team kept pouring it on and then – after a suspect penalty call in the box – Mayen beat a diving Frei with a shot low to his right to put the home side up for good.

“I just want to prove myself,” Los Angeles-native Mayen said after the game. “I want to prove that I can play in some of the top leagues.”

Once a Chivas USA prospect, where he played under current Sounders assistant coach Preki, Mayen has spent four years playing in El Salvador. He said the crowd was unusual in its size and intensity, clearly putting plenty of stock into the game as a measuring stick for where the team stands.

The Santa Tecla team only formed in 2007 and doesn’t yet have the devoted, decades-long following of rivals like Alianza in neighboring San Salvador. In fact, at a morning planning briefing, a CONCACAF official was said to have predicted only 2,000 fans would show up.

More than three times that number seemed to be in the stands at a stadium that can hold between 8,000 and 10,000 people.

The samba drums rolled continuously throughout as the “Infierno Verde” supporters in the far grandstands opposite the team benches danced and chanted in a sea of green. They were joined by the equally vocal “Locos del Cafeta” and kept the intensity high even after Lodeiro opened the scoring in the 15th minute on a mistake by Santa Tecla goalkeeper Joel Almeida.

The Mexican-born Almeida came too far out of his net as Lodeiro got hold of a loose ball and sent in over his head and in from 40 yards out.

That gave a group of about 20 Emerald City Supporters who’d trekked down from Seattle a rare chance to out-cheer the thousands of home team fanatics for a few seconds. The ECS fans were clustered in a fenced off section behind the Sounders bench, separated by a few feet from more than two dozen members of the Roldan family.

Roldan started in the defensive midfield, while his brother, Alex, came off the bench as a 59th minute substitute. Their mother, Ana, hails from El Salvador and had stayed with family in their hometown near the Guatemalan border since last week so she could watch her sons play together as professionals for the first time.

“I brought them all here with me,” she said, pointing to the relatives around her.

Between them, the ECS and the Roldans did their best to represent, the former drawing curious stares from the Santa Tecla fans nearby as they broke in to successive “Born in 1974” chants as the Sounders took the field in their road white uniforms.

Despite the early Lodeiro strike, the first half was evenly-played. The Sounders survived a late flurry and escaped to halftime with the lead, but Santa Tecla carried the late momentum into the second half.

Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer had entered the game already down injured regulars Kelvin Leerdam, Osvaldo Alonso, Roman Torres and Victor Rodriguez before losing Magnus Wolff Eikrem to a visa issue and opting to leave Clint Dempsey at home to rest.

A starting lineup that included newcomer Jordan McCrary and sparingly-used Jordy Delem, Henry Wingo and Tony Alfaro got as good a first-half result as Schmetzer could had hoped for. But they couldn’t maintain it.

“We gave up a couple of goals that we shouldn’t have,” Schmetzer said. “You have to give them credit. And give the fans credit. They made the team play better.”

And now, the Sounders need a home boost.

Santa Tecla has already reached one of its goals: winning its first Champions League match in three tries.

And as for the delirious fans filing out of the stadium happily into the night, they knew – for now, at least – their club had proved it belonged.