When a team wins a game, lots of different fans choose to thank different people. Some thank their god, just as several athletes are wont to do. Some thank the athletes themselves, who are the ones who actually scored and put in the defense for the game. But then there are those who want to thank the coaches for dreaming up a strategy that ensures a win, and that is what some fans are doing right now in regards to the Seattle Sounders’ first victory of the season against Montreal last weekend.

The thing is, the changes that Schmid made were not that wide at all. While sometimes the tiniest change can yield a huge difference, we already knew that the Sounders were willing and able to carry the game up until the end. Indeed, most of the games this season appeared as if they were going to be victories for the Rave Green when they turned sour later on in the game. So did Schmid’s changes really result in the big win, or did the team, filled with new blood after last year’s big veteran cuts, finally simply find its footing?

Moving Ivanschitz in from the left and starting Dempsey off a bit differently than usual were the two small shifts that we saw during the beginning of the match. During the second half of the game, he changed it up further with Ivanschitz, with the player dominating more of the left midfield. He also gave Morris the go ahead to alternate with Dempsey as the main striker on the field, something that many fans have been calling for—while others have stated that the homegrown player should have to earn his time first instead. Could all of these changes have added up to the victory we saw last weekend?

Whether it did or didn’t, Schmid admits that it was a scrape of a win and that the team still needs more work before it’s ready to be a champion team again. “Sometimes when you’re in a little bit of a bad run like we were through the first three games and things aren’t going your way, sometimes the first one that goes your way is a little bit of a squeaky bum one. Certainly, we need to still get better. I think our ability to keep possession in the final third has gotten better from week to week but we need to get better in terms of finishing,” he said.

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