Today was the first game of the 2013 season for the Sounders. My team lost, one to nothing. Unlike a lot of my friends, I thought the Sounders played pretty well. They frequently moved the ball forward without resorting to the long ball and did not get stymied in the midfield. They created a lot of chances on goal, and had a lot of corner kicks. Deandre Yedlin showed much promise, though he really needs to work on his crosses. Andy Rose had a great game. The bad though? Sigi Schmidt’s defense was vulnerable to the counter-attack, and I thought Michael Gspurning made a bad call coming off his line and then watching the ball go over where he couldn’t get a hand on it. And the Sounders finishing was awful. Two shots hit the goal posts, and the rest were right at Troy Perkins. I’m generally a fan of peppering the goal with shots and taking advantage of mishandled rebounds. But to work, those shots really can’t be right at the keeper’s torso. It was a good enough showing that I am hopeful for the season.
I was not thrilled with the new operator of stadium services. It certainly wasn’t worse than last year, but it wasn’t any better. The pro shop was closed for something, as they are constructing something in that space. But the substitute locations had undertrained staff and were understaffed as well. After waiting in line for 20 minutes, the woman working the cash register announced they were out of ponchos and we should all go over to the other location, which had an even longer line. I decided to skip it, and was walking back by the other place, and someone had brought them another couple boxes of ponchos, but now we lost our place in line. Thankfully, one of the fellows in line bought ponchos for me and we were on our way. The food vendor didn’t know how to run a credit card that wouldn’t swipe electronically. I think they were attached to a non-profit that gets a cut for providing volunteers. Which I think is a stupid way to operate stadium services. Get people in there, train them, and pay them.