Seattle, WA (SportsNetwork.com) - The race for the Supporters' Shield comes down to the last week of the season as the Seattle Sounders welcome the Los Angeles Galaxy to CenturyLink Field on Saturday.
Seattle had led the Supporters' Shield race for most of the season, but the Galaxy have been scorching hot since the summer and the clubs enter the final match of the regular season tied with 61 points.
Through a moment of brilliance from the league schedule makers, the clubs squared off last week at StubHub Center and Seattle had the opportunity to win the Shield outright with a victory away from home.
Los Angeles entered last week's match needing two wins to claim the league best record, and things started well for the home side as The Galaxy jumped out to a 2-0 lead.
The hosts took the lead on the stroke of halftime thanks to some defensive miscommunication by Seattle as Brad Evans mis-hit his headed clearance and it fell to Baggio Husidic, who laced it into the bottom right corner.
It was 2-0 for the Galaxy five minutes into the second half when the second ball following a Galaxy corner kick fell to Husidic, who laid it off to Marcelo Sarvas to blast into the roof of the net.
The Galaxy looked poised to take all three points, but Seattle roared back with a pair of goals in a span of three minutes, starting in the 69th minute as DeAndre Yedlin got forward down the right flank and whipped a cross into the box that was touched toward the back post by Obafemi Martins for Clint Dempsey, and the U.S. captain blasted it home for his 15th goal of the season.
Three minutes later Seattle hit on the break for the equalizer as Martins collected the ball in the middle of the park and spotted the late run of Lamar Neagle on the right side of the pitch. Neagle took a quick touch and ripped it home.
The draw gives the Sounders the upper-hand in the race for the Shield coming home to what will surely be raucous crowd. Sigi Schmid's team needs just a point to claim their first ever Supporters' Shield.
"I think we showed character," Schmid said. "I thought we were unlucky. After the first 15, 20 minutes, I thought we created the better chances from then on. We were unlucky not to get a goal from Dempsey in the first half, and Oba had a couple of good looks.
"But then I was really proud of the character of our team, being able to come back, lock it up at 2-2, and be knocking on the door to take it away."
Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena was certainly disappointed with his team's second-half collapse.
"It was certainly a disappointing ending; we could have done a better job protecting a two goal lead, no question about that," Arena said.
Also making things more difficult for the Galaxy on Saturday is the loss of starting center back Omar Gonzalez, who was shown a second yellow card by referee Ismail Elfath last week and sent off, forcing him to miss this week's game.
Arena weighed in on that as well:
"A terrible call, just a poor piece of officiating, he said. "We all play without players, the next guy will step in, but we haven't made any decisions on what we are doing next week."
Playing against Seattle without Gonzalez creates a major hole along the back line that Arena will have to find a way to fill if his side is going to claim its fifth Supporters' Shield.
