The month of June has been good to the Seattle Sounders.
They’ll try to cap it off with another victory Wednesday night as they host CF Montreal at Lumen Field.
The Sounders (7-6-2, 23 points) have moved into playoff positioning in the Western Conference with five wins in their past seven matches, during which they’ve allowed only four goals. Wednesday’s match will wrap up a five-game homestand in which they’re 3-0-1 thus far, the lone blemish a 1-1 draw with league-leading Los Angeles FC.
Seattle is coming off a 3-0 victory Saturday against Sporting Kansas City despite the absence of leading scorer Raul Ruidiaz because of a hamstring injury. Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan each had a goal and an assist.
Goalkeeper Stefan Frei, making his 300th career appearance for the club in all competitions, was forced to make just one save.
“When I say ‘Defense wins championships but it’s handy to have good attacking players,’ a day like (Saturday) certainly shows that,” Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer said. “We’re always going to be good enough with our team, the depth of our roster.”
Montreal (8-6-2, 26 points) is tied for third place in the East, three points back of conference-leading Philadelphia.
Montreal returns to the road in a league match for the first time since May 18. It went 2-2-0 on its just-completed four-game homestand, wrapping it up with a 2-1 victory Saturday against expansion side Charlotte FC.
Montreal will likely be without midfielder Djordje Mihailovic, who has been out since May 28 with an ankle injury. Mihailovic had seven goals and four assists in 14 matches before going down.
Because of scheduling restraints during the coronavirus pandemic, this will be the first meeting between the teams since June 5, 2019.
“It’s a great challenge. We like it,” Montreal coach Wilfried Nancy said. “We like rubbing shoulders with teams that we don’t see often. We’re going to do what we usually do. No matter the opponent, we play the same way.”
Montreal is 5-2-1 in eight matches against Seattle, making it the only team to win more than half its games among opponents the Sounders have played more than five times.
–Field Level Media
