Rapids-Sounders: Confidence vs. increasing confidence

Here’s some of what Seattle coach Sigi Schmid had to say Thursday after the Sounders continued training for their Saturday night match at Colorado:

On Thursday training: We wanted to work on a few things today in anticipation of what we expect their lineup to be. Yesterday we worked a lot on defense, and today we worked more on offensive things.

On the Rapids: They’re very confident right now because obviously they’ve won games. They’ve gotten good results. So they’ve got a little bit of a swagger to them. Their midfield defensively has played well. Micheal Azira has played well for them, along with (Sam) Cronin. Up front (Luis) Solignac has started to come into his game, so that’s been powerful for them. Jermaine Jones had a good introductory game, so we’ll see how he does in Week Two. They’ve just been a pretty consistent team. They’ve got some size obviously when they come forward with set pieces with (6-foot-5 Bobby) Burling and that. They’re just a team right now that’s very confident.

On Sounders confidence: Obviously much better after the last three games. So we’ve just got to continue to do that. We want to possess the ball, but we also want to make sure that we penetrate at the right times. Our team I think has that confidence. They know they can score some goals now, and we’ve just got to continue to do that.

On Jordan Morris after first goal: He continues to work hard. He continues to put the effort in in training. It’s more a situation when you get into the next game you feel like, ‘OK, I’ve done this now; it’s not new, I’ll get it done.’

On defending Jermaine Jones: You have to be aware of him. He’s not somebody who you’re saying, ‘OK, he’s going to be the playmaker, he’s going to be underneath the forward all the time.’ Sometimes he’ll be deeper in midfield, sometimes he’ll be up higher. You just have to be aware of him. You’ve got to defend him in terms of trying to make him play the pass as simply as possible. You probably want to avoid physical duels because he’s a strong guy and he’s going to win some of those.

On Sounders’ health: We feel better about Friberg. (Friday) will be obviously the final indicator on him, but he go through all of practice today, so we’ll see how he feels.

The club will train at Starfire again Friday morning before flying to Denver.

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 5:36 PM with the headline "Rapids-Sounders: Confidence vs. increasing confidence."