Seattle, WA – Seattle and San Jose enter Saturday's match at CenturyLink Field with little on the line as teams, but the Sounders still can secure second place in the Western Conference and the Earthquakes have another title in sight.
Seattle enters the game seven points behind the Los Angeles Galaxy for the top record in the West and Major League Soccer and hold a six-point advantage over third-place Real Salt Lake.
Since it cannot catch L.A., and is unlikely to be caught by RSL, Seattle could use its regular-season home finale to tune up for the postseason. Seattle lost its last match, 2-0 to the Philadelphia Union, to be eliminated for contention for the best regular-season record.
Although Sounders (16-7-9) coach Sigi Schmid admitted that mark would've been nice, it is not the ultimate goal for the three-time defending U.S. Open Cup champions.
"It always hurts. But at the end of the day what's most important is to win the MLS Cup," Schmid said. "You look at who won the MLS Cup last year, Colorado. Did they win the Supporters Shield? No. Who won MLS Cup the year before? Salt Lake. Did they win Supporters' Shield? No.
"So maybe winning the Supporters' Shield isn't all that necessary to win the MLS Cup and at the end of the day that's our goal."
Seattle should have Alvaro Fernandez available this week, as he has recovered from a concussion suffered in the U.S. Open Cup final win over Chicago. He was cleared to play against Philadelphia, but wasn't used.
San Jose (7-11-14) has been eliminated from postseason contention, but Chris Wondolowski is tied for the scoring lead in MLS with 14 goals. Red Bull New York's Thierry Henry and D.C. United's Dwayne De Rosario also have 14 goals.
Wondolowski could become the first player in league history to win consecutive outright scoring titles, one year after he led the league with 18 goals.
He has scored the last four goals for San Jose, including both in a 2-1 win at New England in the club's last game and has six goals in his last seven games. He scored 10 over the final eight games last season to win the Golden Boot.
"It's just what goalscoring does. It comes in streaks," Wondolowski said. "There's no rhyme or reason to it. It's just one of those things where sometimes you hit them and they go in, sometimes you hit them well and they don't go in. I went through a dry spell in the middle of the year and have just been fortunate in October the last two years.
"Hopefully I can pull it out."
San Jose coach Frank Yallop admitted it was hard to keep the club's spirits up in the second half of the season, as the Earthquakes won for just the seventh time all year last week.
"I think it's hard for the guys to keep lifting their spirits because we've played really well and we end up losing or tying," said Yallop. "We've tied a lot of games this year. We've only lost 11 ... That's the same as Real Salt Lake, but they've won more games than us.
"I think for us it's just a good feeling that we finally got three points and it was deserved."
Three more points at Seattle will help San Jose turn the page toward next year - and a boost in the Golden Boot for Wondolowski would be a nice bonus.
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