sounders

Quick reaction – Portland Timbers at Seattle Sounders

Tonight’s game against Portland was very disappointing. We were up one to nil for most of the game, and Portland tied it in the 90th minute to eek out a draw. I looked down and missed that last play. Our own goal was a nice play where Steve Zakuani anticipated a Portland pass, intercepted it, ran the length of the field, then placed a cross perfectly at the feet of Eddie Johnson for the score. I think Zak should have received the Man of the Match award, not Eddie.

Oba Martins entered the game around the 70th minute and played well despite almost no practice with the team. Zakuani is starting to look like the Zakuani of old. Andy Rose had a poor game, giving the ball away a lot and holding onto the ball for too many touches. And for god’s sake Sigi, please please please drill Eddie Johnson on getting his head back into the game quickly after a blown play. Blown plays happen. Eddie laying on the field in frustration or slowing walking back onside when the Sounders are mounting another attack is just not cool.

I had great company for the game too.

Oh hell yeah! Sounders advance over Tigres in Champions League!

Tonight the Sounders played Tigres UANL in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions League. My team started the game down 1 to 0 after losing the away match in Mexico. Then we went down 2 to 0 when Tigres got an early goal. While the Sounders didn’t play particularly poorly, play was overall pretty sloppy.

And then just before the half one of the Tigres players kicked the ball away to waste time on a Sounders free kick. He got a yellow, his second. Off he went. The Sounders moved to a 3-5-2 after that, and started tearing Tigres apart.

First goal, O’Dea High School graduate, DeAndre Yedlin knocks it in from 20 yards out.

Then new Sounder and former Liverpool defender Djimi Traore nails another long distance goal! Defenders don’t get goals from the run of play all that often, so this was especially awesome.

And then finally, with a shot that didn’t look as impressive, but was an extremely skilled shot from a tight angle to the near post of the keeper, Eddie Johnson scored what was the winner. As Darren put it, we need more skilled goals like that in MLS.

The best part was the Tigres fans sitting behind us. They were talking all sorts of smack when Tigres was up 2 to 0. It was so delicious yelling I can’t hear you now! at them. Well, and a few other things.

Quick reaction – Montreal Impact at Seattle Sounders

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.

Sounders vs. Earthquakes at Kezar

My brother called me last Monday and asked if I wanted to go to the Sounders vs. Earthquakes U.S. Open Cup match that was happening Tuesday. He kicked in some of his miles to make the trip happen. Dan lives about 8 blocks from Kezar stadium where the contest was to be performed. Flew down Tuesday morning on Southwest, which was an experience so much better than any other flying experience I’ve had in years. I picked up a Sounders jersey for my nephew Victor and also brought him one of my old season ticket holder scarves.

I tried to explain to Dan and Brenda about Seattle fans, particularly E.C.S., who made up the bulk of those supporting the Sounders side at the game. I don’t think she believed me when I said our fans have some mean chants. Her face contorted in different directions when E.C.S. started up a let him die! chant in response to an Earthquakes player who went down particularly easily. The you’re a bastard referee chant brought up some wide eyes too.

But the drama came when we sat down in the section next to E.C.S. instead of in the E.C.S. section. All the seats were G.A., but the stadium staff really didn’t want Sounders supporters spreading out. Three or four times the staff came up to us and asked or told us to move in with E.C.S. I refused because we had a 6 year old with us. He wouldn’t be able to see or hear the game in the midst of the jumping E.C.S faithful.

Eventually the guy gave me the line that it’s just that his supervisor told him and he was just following directions. I told him he needed to get his supervisor to come down and explain to the 6 year old that he’d have to stand behind the loud jumping people. Then about 30 other people (most with young kids) saw we weren’t budging and moved over themselves. About then the supervisor must have given up, because the staff guy just waved us into the section we were already in at that point.

Sounders vs. Seattle Pacific University (exhibition)

In addition to buying season tickets for the Sounders Men, this year I bought a season ticket for the Sounders Women. After they signed a bunch of women’s national team players, I figured it might be the only chance I get to see such great players regularly. The team is an amateur team, so it can’t normally get top flight players. But with the demise of the W.P.S., they want to play somewhere and apparently it’s for soccer-crazy Seattle. If WPS revives, we might not get a team simply because of travel costs.

Anyway, last night was the first match of the season. It was an exhibition against Seattle Pacific University. Seattle Pacific is out of season, so they didn’t have a lot of their players. Basically, we all expected a rout, and that’s pretty much what we got. SPU’s second half keeper was pretty good, and they had a forward whose play I liked as well. I didn’t catch either of their names. It was a chance for all of them to say they’d played against Hope Solo, Sydney Leroux, Alex Morgan, etc.

I noticed two big differences between the teams. First, the Sounders were much faster. They could run rings around SPU. And did a couple of times. Second, SPU players were really indecisive. When a ball dropped somewhere, Sounders immediately moved. Some moved toward the ball to pick it up or challenge for it. Others immediately moved for the pass. Even though they haven’t played together much, their experience tells them what their role should be. Their execution wasn’t always crisp, but they knew what to do. SPU players took a half second to decide, and they frequently appeared to change their minds two steps after starting.

Final score was 5 to 0. Hope Solo had maybe one save, and she spent a fair amount of time wandering around the midfield. If SPU had the skill, they could have easily scored on her with one well placed kick from midfield. But the Sounders dominated so much that wasn’t going to happen. Things will be different when they start played the regular season. But first another couple of exhibitions, one on Friday.

Sounders at Santos Laguna

Wednesday night, in addition to being the second leg of the Sounders/Santos Laguna C.O.N.C.A.C.A.F. series, is also Taco Wednesday at the Roanoke Inn. $1 tacos and $3.50 taco salads, they’ll put the Sounders match on, and I usually have half a dozen friends who go there for tacos and alcohol. Since the Sounders match started at 5, I got there early.

First half wasn’t the best, but we kept up with Santos. I saw some troubling signs though. Second half we fell apart. Four unanswered goals by Santos. After Santos went up 4 to 1, I started paying more attention to my friends than to the match.

In the post-game comments, Sigi Schmid talked about not winning the 50/50 balls. Those are the long kicks and headers that are directed in the general direction of a few players, hopefully playing in the opponent’s half, that the team hopes someone from our team can come down with. For some reason that I don’t know, Sigi’s Sounders have played that style of football for years. If your team has a size advantage, it’s not the worst strategy. In M.L.S. we generally won’t have much of a size advantage. Mexican teams tend to play smaller players who utilize speed rather than size. However, we still lost a lot of those 50/50 balls.

Rather than pin the blame on the players who just didn’t do a great job of it, I think Sigi really needs to reconsider the strategy. A) You need a size advantage. B) Those balls are harder to control than other methods of advancing the ball. c) The ball winner needs a person to dump the ball off too who is in the right place. You see the Sounders employ this strategy even on throw-ins. Last season whenever James Riley or Leo Gonzalez would take a ball from out of bounds, inevitably they waited 5 to 10 seconds , few players would move, and then they would throw down the field into a mess of players. I’d much rather we used methods that emphasize possession.

I don’t have a problem with our offense. We had a number of chances where Sanchez improbably saved a goal. It’s getting the ball down the field that was killing us. That and some really lackadaisical defending. I don’t know where our defenders were. Travel killed them? The heat? I don’t know the altitude where Santos plays, but perhaps that? Thoroughly outplayed on defense.

To sum up: 6-1 in the match, 7-3 in the series.

Ouch.

2012 Sounders season ticket package arrives

On my way out of the door to the office (yes, I actually have an office now) this morning, my phone rang and the caller I.D. said it was from the lobby. I wasn’t expecting anyone, so that meant it was a package delivery and probably my Sounders tickets, and it was!

I opted for actual paper tickets this year instead of the new season ticket cards. I lose wallet sized cards way too often to make that a good option for me.

The new tickets themselves do not have pictures of Sounders players anymore. Instead, there’s a view of Seahawks Stadium with the crests of the Sounders and each of their opponents. I wonder if that has anything to do with the rescheduled match last year. Did people get too confused about which ticket was which?

The scarves this year are black and green. I really like the new look, which you can see in this photo from SoundersFC.com:

In other Sounders news, I still haven’t decided where I want to watch the Santos Laguna away match. I could watch online, but the CONCACAF announcers are awful. I could go wherever E.C.S. plans to be, but that’s usually too crowded for me. I can’t hear the announcers over the yelling, chanting, and singing from E.C.S. I’ve watched at Forza, but they’ll let whoever is there vote on what to watch and the students don’t seem to be particularly huge football fans.

Sounders vs. Santos Laguna

Went to the game tonight. The first competitive match of 2012. It’s the first leg of a home and away series with Santos Laguna of Mexico in the CONCACAF Champions League, with aggregate goals determining who moves on.

The Sounders played really well. None of my issues with the Sounders play last year cropped up in this game. The team passed well. They did not rely on the long ball. Every player worked their butt off.

David Estrada continues to impress me. I don’t know if he’s really ready to be the starter all the time, but I am not going to be pissed when he does get starts. He’s way better than Pat Noonan. My only concern is that he got pushed off the ball a few times on the left, but so did Alvaro Fernandez. The Sounders seemed to get more crosses from the right.

Eddie Johnson substituted in for the final 10 minutes or so. I liked his performance as well. It’s still too early to tell if the Sounders overpaid for him, but I’m somewhat less concerned about how he’ll turn out now.

Johanson continues to move forward to create attacks. Fredy Montero created all sorts of opportunities too. Even Leo Gonzalez was pushing forward more frequently too.

And despite all the attacking, I never once felt like our defense fell apart, even when Santos scored. Santos had so many attacks fall apart against smart defending.

I was jazzed about the season before. Now I really am.

Cascadia Summit – Sounders vs. Whitecaps

The match today was a lot more entertaining than Friday’s match. The Sounders started their second string guys. Unlike the first string guys, they controlled the ball a lot better. On Friday it felt like we would inevitably turn the ball over before we could get down the field. We had a lot of chances then, but they came from our mids taking the ball away. Today, Friberg had some really good passes and through balls. He worked really well with Michael Tetteh on the left side. Both of them really impressed me. As for the other new guys, Servando Carrasco played solidly, though not spectacularly. O’Brian White on the other hand, seemed like he was really out of step. His timing was really off. He was not in the right place for winning headers. He missed passes from the wing that were as if they expected him to be somewhere else.

What was bad though, shockingly, was our defense. Supposedly that’s our deepest area. For the most part they played well. I wasn’t cringing every time the Whitecaps attacked. I knew they could handle them and they did. But they had three unforced errors that led to goals for the Whitecaps. Tyson Wahl inexplicably didn’t handle a back pass and it dropped onto the feet of the other team. The guys sitting behind me thought it was Boss’ fault there for not coming out. I don’t think he had a chance though. Two on the goal keeper means he’s gonna lose no matter what he does. The second he mishandled what should have been a clean snatch. The third Ianni failed to clear the ball.

I love Montano’s enthusiasm. I really hope they keep him over Pat Noonan. Noonan doesn’t add a lot to the team skill wise anymore. I think he’s actually somewhat better than Montano at this point, but he has no upside. Montano has a huge upside, and obviously loves to play.

I wish we could have seen Mauro Rosales play. I’d like to see for myself if he’s any good.

Cascadia Summit – Sounders vs. Timbers

I went to the preseason Cascadia Summit match between the Sounders and the Timbers last night. Thank you to Calissa for accompanying me. I’m really anticipating the season, although unfortunately I won’t make the opener versus the Galaxy on the 15th. Would have been nice to see all three of Juan Pablo Angel, David Beckham, and Landon Donovan.

The match last night? No so pretty. My impression from the stands was that the Sounders have not improved on their problems from last year.

Passing. The Sounders couldn’t pass to save their lives. Even simple passes kept being sent too far in front of or too far behind their intended recipients. Long passes were invariably intercepted. That might be the result of playing on a small pitch where there isn’t a lot of separation in space. However, the Timbers got some long passes in just fine. Short passes were often directly to the feet of the Timbers. I think the longest passing sequence was maybe 6 or 7 touches.
Ball control. Also awful. When passes were on target, the recipient couldn’t control it, a Timber would swoop in and take it away. When our center backs knocks balls in the air down, the ball wouldn’t fall to us. They couldn’t get it out of the final third, and they couldn’t get it to a Sounder.
Finishing. The shots taken were rarely on frame unless they were softly hit. Fernandez somehow managed to take a shot from 4 yards out that went 10 feet over the top of the goal. There had already been a foul called, so it wouldn’t have counted. You can have a shot defended from that range, but you really shouldn’t miss over the top. I’m a big fan of testing the keeper. If you don’t have an open shot, hit it hard on frame and make the keeper work. Then someone can swoop in and get rebound shots or get a corner. We had a lot of corner kicks in the match, but not from saved shots.

On the plus side, our defense was actually pretty good despite giving up two goals. Portland’s Kenny Cooper looks really pretty good, but Parke and Hurtado were up to the task. Alonso was a hustling monster as always. Montero worked his butt off too. That’s an improvement over his first year or so when he didn’t always keep playing when he lost the ball.

I have tickets to the Whitecaps match on Sunday. I’m looking forward to that. The games are fun even when we don’t play well. (Well, except for that Galaxy game last year where the Sounders just gave up.)

Opinions and analysis are the product of armchair coaching by an unqualified amateur. This is worth exactly how much you paid for it.