Dave Kean

Last night was the Sounders first league game, another big night under the lights against a decent team. Midweek tonight’s opponents Toronto booked a place in the Champions League last four. They did this by doing something Seattle has yet to manage, beating LA at the Home Depot Center.

Coming off a 6-1 hammering in Mexico Wednesday night there were questions about what Seattle Sounders we would see. We need not have worried; this team was over the Champions League elimination and opened their league season in style.

Last week David Estrada scored against Santos, tonight he got his first league goal. And quickly followed that with two more tonight to complete the routing of Toronto 3-1. It was a very solid performance from Seattle.

The Alonso-Evans-Fernandez-Rosales midfield looked extremely confident and was in control all night. This team played a great game all over the field, at the back JKH was back to his usual steady self after a horrible game in Mexico.

It’s difficult to find any real issues, Montero was perhaps a little quiet and struggled to find space. With Zakuani and Eddie Johnson still to come back from injury, this team really could be special this year. I’m just not sure who moves aside to make way for them.

It was a very solid team performance, play like every week and there is no team they should be scared off. Next up is Houston Friday night.

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It all came to a halt last night and no one should have been surprised, after Saturday the odds of playing in the conference final Sunday were long.  And that’s no ones fault other than the players that put on the atrocious display in Salt Lake Saturday night.

In the past I’ve been impressed by Salt Lake, but after the last couple of games I think they have been shown to be typical MLS thugs. That’s not their problem, they play a style that works for MLS. It’s a league problem and Seattle has not built a team that’s equipped to play physical play-off football in that way.

The front office and coaching staff somewhere decided that they would build a team that played in the right way. They invested in young, talented players and put together a team that, when they are on, play about the prettiest football in the MLS. And that is something I can get behind. Read more…

Not a game for the ages, but tonight we saw some world class players show how effortless this game can be. We also saw the difference between victory and loss can be wafer thin.

This was the last game of the champions League group stage, Seattle were already through and Monterrey (the defending champions in this competition) came loaded and needed a result to ensure qualification for the knockout stages next spring.

Among the talent on show tonight (and Monterrey has plenty of it) was Humberto Suazo, a top class player who spent last season with Real Zaragoza in the Spanish top flight. He looked like he was going to do something special every time he got the ball. Add Argentinian Cesar Delgardo, Mexican Luis Perez and the rest of the international and this was an excellent team Seattle took on tonight.

Seattle fielded a side with seven changes from the squad that started Saturday against San Jose. This included Brian Meridith making his first start for the club in goal.

Monterrey needed a win tonight and opened the scoring three minutes in when Dario Carrena got onto the end of a lofted through ball from Suazo. A defensive breakdown when no one pressed the Suazo. It was a nicely taken ball and the keeper never really had much of a chance.

Read more…

It felt good to be back watching Sounders football live again, but before I go on about the Colorado game something slightly different.

Friday night saw Port Vale play in Everett. Vail are a side that plays in League-2 in the UK, level-4 in the football pyramid, they found sponsorship to have a four game North American tour. Vail is managed by Micky Adams, a defender I saw play quite a few times for Coventry City in the Premier League.

Not exactly a high profile tour like Manchester United, but it was an entertaining game Friday night at Goddard Stadium in Everett. Port Vail won 3-1 in their first pre-season game. The Everett Herald had a nice write up today.

Today was not the best game I’ve ever seen, but if anyone had expectations for the Rapids playing clean, flowing football then they have not been paying attention to how Colorado play the game. This Sounders team is doing what good teams do; they are finding ways to win against good sides. They are playing about the best football I’ve seen at Royal Brougham Park in the last three years.

In the last few weeks they have beaten the reigning MLS champions, the regular season league champions, made it to the last four in the cup, took the Timbers apart in their place and taken 16 of the last 18 points on offer. This is a side that is playing good, entertaining football with a lot of confidence. Oh yeah, they are playing Manchester United Wednesday and are just one point off the top of the league. Expectations are high for the Sounders, and they are delivering.

The ball moves rapidly through the midfield and out wide smoothly. Montero has scored four goals in the last week and is a threat every time he has the ball. Rosales, Alonso and Fernandez seem to be in the middle of everything. Fernandez was going past defenders for fun. He had an outstanding game against Colorado.

It’s a little worrying that the Sounders gave up three goals at home. The first was a defensive mistake (like both at Portland last weekend), the other two came when runners lost their markers in the box. All avoidable and Keller was rightfully angry with his defence on the third goal. The home team fell behind early, played some great football came back and made it interesting at the end by allowing it closer than it should have been. That part sounds a lot like last weeks game in Portland and it’s the sort of habit that ends good streaks.

After going 1-0 down in he second minute we did not have to wait long for the equalizer. A great finish gave Fernandez his fifth goal of the year after running past the right back and slotting the ball past the keeper. It was a  really good finish. Levesque got another goal with a nice finish.

Montero had a low header at the far post and is playing the sort of football right now we all hoped to see from him at the start of the year. He is playing the way I think most of us hoped he would when he signed the designated player contract at the beginning of the year. It was a smart move by the Sounders and I think was done to ensure they get compensated when he moves to a bigger league. If he continues to play like this it’s going to be sooner rather than later.

The final goal went to Mauro Rosales, he looked absolutely ecstatic to have scored. This put Seattle up 4-2 with 20 minutes left to play. They made the last few minutes exciting after giving up a soft goal.

It was not a clean game, Colorado play a very physical style of football that is unattractive, but tends to be rather effective in this league. The referee did not help, he did not have a good game. At one point he was in danger of loosing control and was inconsistent in calling fouls.

It was good to watch football being played on proper grass. Not surprisingly after the rain this morning the field played very slowly. I get why we have carpet, but this is how the game is supposed to be played. The freshly laid grass is clearly not rooted well yet; a lot of players were loosing their footing. Even the referee fell on his arse at one point to a rather loud cheer.

Through bitter experience I know this won’t last forever. We’ll see a game or two that get away, but gosh this run is fun to watch. United Wednesday does not count for much, but should be a great celebration of the game with the whole stadium opened up.

There was some big news (OK, maybe not big, but certainly important to some) yesterday. The Sounders have an official beer supplier! Yes, an official beer supplier, they have teamed up with RedHook.

This is a clear win/win/win (Redhook/Sounders/Me) situation and dare we dream of getting more good beer into RBP? I do look forward to a LongHammer or Copperhook to go with the game (ignoring the $7 a time), it can only improve the stadium experience further.

So what’s the chance of some beer inspired by the team? A Sounder Stout perhaps, how about a Sigi Pilsner or maybe a Montero Marzen would be good?

This evening I was doing a little work on the deck, so far this has been the wettest April since records were started. The sun finally came out this afternoon and the green-belt  is starting to live up to it’s name.

It seems like there should be a lot to be excited about for tonight’s game in New York. For Red Bull it’s the season opener in a stadium that only opened last year, for a team that won it’s conference (OK, a weak conference, but they still won) last year (and is hotly tipped to repeat that), has Thierry Henry and one of the brightest and most exciting young American strikers in Juan Agudelo.

Despite all this, the 25,000-seat stadium looks maybe 2/3 full. That’s not a good sign, especially as there are no other New York teams playing in the city tonight (NBA or NHL).

RB have a very nice passing game, Dane Richard has great pace and vision in his distribution, I think everything going forward for the Red Bull goes through him. The home team’s game is based on controlling the ball, passing from the back to the front and looking for openings. It’s an interesting contrast to the more open, faster Sounders game.

For most of the first half there were big periods of time where Seattle struggled to win possession and when they do get it, lack the imagination to really do much. Not sure if it’s the midfield missing something or NYRB doing a really good job at shutting them down.

When Seattle had the ball, and it happened more and more towards the end of the first half, they really started to open up the RB defence. Fernandez is having a good game and is happy to run with the ball and is doing a wonderful job at getting behind the RB defence.

Ozzie Alonso looks solid, but not getting the time on the ball that he did on Tuesday against LA. His influence on the game is limited when he’s being closely taken out of the game like this.

Red Bull had a penalty awarded 10 minutes in when John Kennedy Hurtado miss times his tackle and took down Agudelo in the box. Henry put it to Keller’s right at just the right height. Keller guessed correctly and got a solid hand to the kick to turn it wide. There have been some questions about maybe this being a year too far for Keller asked on the blogs and forums over the last few days. The penalty stop was largely down to experience, and Keller has not lost that.

Both teams had chances, Red Bull perhaps the better (especially the penalty), but somehow it was 0-0 at half time in what had been a tremendously entertaining half.

The game was a little quieter after the break, but again both teams had chances to go ahead. It took a wonderful individual effort from Juan Agudelo to break the tie and put Red Bull 1-0 up with a little over 20 minutes to play. It’s his first goal in the MLS and he had to take on Gonzales and Hurtardo to score it. It’s the first time I’ve seen Agudelo play; he’s only 18, has a played for the full US national team and looked very impressive on the ball.

The final real chance of the game, and perhaps Seattles best chance of the night, was a free kick taken by Montero from maybe 30 yards out in stoppage time. It was a beautiful dipping shot that the keeper could only parry. There were three Seattle players in the box, the ball fell to Nagle who snatched at it and managed to put it over the bar from 6 yards out.

Ignoring the result, there were few negatives for Seattle.

Gonzales, the left back was beaten with ease at times. As he did Tuesday night he looked a step or two slower than last year. He had no issues with the physical side of the game (though he was physically beat on the goal), but he seems to struggle defending against speed.

Montero did a decent job of finding space, but the service to him was typically to feet rather than space. His style does not fit a classic center forward; he’s not a target man and seemed far more effective and found space better when playing just behind White

This game was being shown around the world in 50 countries, and was a great advert for the style of football played in the MLS. So far both Seattle games have been good, entertaining games. However, if Seattle wishes to be thought of as one of the elite teams this season, these are they game they need to win.

It could be argued that they have been slightly hard done by in the two games so far this year, certainly the schedule has not been kind. But the reality is they have not scored yet and that was always the worry going into the year. Loosing Nkufo is a blow there, and the team have until April 15^th to find a replacement, that’s when the MLS transfer window closes until the summer.

It’s another tough game next, this time against Houston at RBP on Friday night. I hope we see the first goal of the year to go along with three points.

This LA Galaxy bugbear is starting to get old. As is the “lots of chances, but unable to put it away” storyline that defined a lot of the sounders 2010 season. Don’t get me wrong last night was an entertaining game of football, obviously not happy with the result but Seattle played well enough to have won. For the Sounders there are way more positives than negatives to take out of tonights game.

One more thing, it felt good to be back in RBP. It was rather wonderful to spend a couple of hours in The Pyramid with friends, a couple of pints of really good IPA and a great burger. Then to the game. There are a few changes to what’s going on, biggest is the Ninkasi Total Domination IPA is on tap in Qwest Field this year (this is a big deal), if I’m going to spent $7 on beer it needs to be a good one.

Other than the beer situation, other big news was of the day broke just before the game when the Sounders announced they had agreed to end their association with veteran striker Blaise Nkufo. A big surprise as he looked effective last year. It seems there is a disagreement between himself and Sigi about how he should be used.

I do hope it’s not going to become a trend; Ljungberg had issues with Sigi last year. I think they were wider than just how he was being used, but it does cause me to maybe question how the organization is dealing with the higher priced, experienced designated players. If it really is a problem with the players rather than the leadership inside the team then perhaps they will think again before signing a mid 30’s European star in the last couple of years of their career.

Having said all that, even with hindsight I do think Ljungberg was the right player. He gave this team instant credibility when he chose Seattle over the Premier League. In that first year he did a lot of this team on and off the field. However his clear displeasure and frustrations at some of the younger players became more and more obvious.

To the game, as I said the result is disappointing, but it’s the start of a long year and the schedule for Seattle was not fair as they go to Red Bull Saturday.

Nkufo was replaced by O’Brian White, starting his first game for the sounders after a move from Toronto and hopefully greener pastures. White had a busy night and had a couple of good chances, both set up by through balls from Zakuani. With 20 minutes left to play White put the best chance of the night wide when the Galaxy keeper (backup Josh Saunders) made one of his rare mistakes and was out of position.

Zakuani did not look at full speed all night and while the conditions were miserable and hardly conducive to good football, he did not look 100% when he had the ball. Of the other new boys Eric Freiberg looked good, he seemed to be everywhere and covered a lot of ground during the game. His touches forward were typically good and he had some quality linkups with Montero.

When he is playing well, Montero is electric to watch, but he does need to start putting balls in the back of the net to warrant the $800K he’s being paid as a DP this year.

It was a tight game and there was very little in it between the two teams. The midfield possession game was very close and fun to watch. Alonso and Freiberg were in the middle of everything for Seattle.

The defence is as solid as expected; JK Hurtardo and Jeff Parke may be the best center defence pairing in the league. Leo Gonzales and James Riley had license to move forward to fill in space as the midfielders supported the forwards. In all it looked like a well prepared team, it’s just the finishing that was missing.

For LA Beckham is clearly getting on a little, for a start the first 5 yard burst of speed is long gone and he does not scare defenders the way he used to. However the precision passes are still there and he still wants the ball for his specialty; set pieces. I’m sure his value to he team as a whole goes beyond his role on the field, but he is not what he was even a couple of years ago. 

I’m not a fan of Bruce Arena. He has a very well drilled team, they know what to do in any situation. Unfortunately that is shut the game down once they get ahead on the break. An LA is very good at that and that tactic was very evident at Quest.

Saturday is New York, two of the toughest games straight away for Seattle is a tough way to start the year. There are 33 games left in the year, lots of football left to go.

A big day for football news, first the local story. Sounders signed Fredy Montero as the club’s third designated player yesterday. There is no transparency on the contract, but if they have signed him as a designated player then we must assume he is in the long term plans of the team. This is good news for the side, ownership, Fredy and the fans.

It shows they are not afraid to spend money on the right young players and are adopting a notably different strategy to the other two sides with three designated players signed. LA and New York signed big name players who are mostly on the downside of their career (Landon Donovan excepted) and seem to be aimed at driving ticket sales. And I’m not saying that’s a bad idea.

Seattle has a slightly different approach. Montero is only 23 and joins Alvaro Fernandez and Blaise Nkufo as designated players. Nkufo is a little older and a solid experienced player, but like Montero, Fernandez is an exciting young player with huge upside and are the sort of players that a team build arA big day for football news, first the local story. Sounders signed Fredy Montero as the club’s third designated player yesterday. There is no transparency on the contract, but if they have signed him as a designated player then we must assume he is in the long term plans of the team. This is good news for the side, ownership, Fredy and the fans.

It shows they are not afraid to spend money on the right young players and are adopting a notably different strategy to the other two sides with three designated players signed. LA and New York signed big name players who are mostly on the downside of their career (Landon Donovan excepted) and seem to be aimed at driving ticket sales. And I’m not saying that’s a bad idea for the league, I just like Seattles model better for the long term.

Seattle has a slightly different approach. Montero is only 23 and joins Alvaro Fernandez and Blaise Nkufo as designated players. Nkufo is a little older and a solid experienced player, but like Montero, Fernandez is an exciting young player with huge upside and are the sort of players that a team build around and can be competitive year after year.

Real Salt Lake has done the same thing by signing Álvaro Saborío as a DP. He’s a younger (28 in his case) player that’s proven he can score and after scoring 12 times in 27 league games last year, like Fredy Montero deserves the money and recognition that comes with the DP tag.

I think this is a great move for the Sounders, a young, proven scorer who is going to be here for a while, allied with a creative midfielder with some good speed and a big tough target man up front. Next on my Christmas wish list is to keep the Zakuani here for another year or two.

This is a team that today took a step forward.

The second big news today was the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. They went to Russia and Qatar respectively. The decision process largely takes place behind closed doors. Some time ago the head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, made it clear who he wanted these world cups to go to, and by a strange coincidence, he got what he wanted.

There are two ways of looking at what happened this morning. Either it was a bold decision based on developing the game worldwide. Or the decision was made months ago and the technical reports, lobbying and presentations were just for show.

Both Qatar and Russia scored rather poorly in the technical evaluations. Qatar got marked down for having to build nearly everything, questionable facilities for training and the heat. The stadiums are planned to be air conditioned, but the training grounds are not.

Qatar had some nice touches to the legacy of the event; some of the stadiums will be taken apart and donated to the developing world. A very interesting concept, but does it make up for the 105 degree weather?

Russia had some similar issues around infrastructure, there is a lot of building to be done and the distances are listed as a potentially huge issue for both fans and teams.

Blatter leaves a huge legacy from his time as FIFA president in developing the game world wide. He wanted a tournament in Africa and with the local organizing committee put together a great tournament last summer. He wanted the same for South America and has that in Brazil in 2014. Once he got that part of the wish list sorted he abandoned the “rotation” system for giving out World cups.

Giving the tournaments to Russia and Qatar is big step in the world wide development of the game. However you get the feeling that it was all sorted some time ago and today was just the FIFA committee rubber stamping the bosses decisions.

There were clearly technically better bids than these two and a in the last few weeks two committee members have been barred form taking part after a bribery scandal.

It’s difficult to have a lot of faith in FIFA right now, there needs to be some accountability and transparency in the process of handing out arguably the biggest prize in sports. At the end of the day it’s 22 men sitting in a room and surrounded by controversy deciding this behind closed doors with little accountability. I think the game deserves better at the top.

Real Salt Lake has done the same thing by signing Álvaro Saborío as a DP. He’s a younger (28 in his case) player that’s proven he can score and after scoring 12 times in 27 league games last year, like Fredy Montero deserves the money and recognition that comes with the DP tag.

I think this is a great move for the Sounders, a young, proven scorer who is going to be here for a while, allied with a creative midfielder with some good speed and a big tough target man up front. Next on my Christmas wish list is to keep the Zakuani here for another year or two.

This is a team that today took a step forward.

The second big news today was the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. They went to Russia and Qatar respectively. The decision process largely takes place behind closed doors. Some time ago the head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, made it clear who he wanted these world cups to go to, and by a strange coincidence, he got what he wanted.

There are two ways of looking at what happened this morning. Either it was a bold decision based on developing the game worldwide. Or the decision was made months ago and the technical reports, lobbying and presentations were just for show.

Both Qatar and Russia scored rather poorly in the technical evaluations. Qatar got marked down for having to build nearly everything, questionable facilities for training and the heat. The stadiums are planned to be air conditioned, but the training grounds are not.

Qatar had some nice touches to the legacy of the event; some of the stadiums will be taken apart and donated to the developing world. A very interesting concept, but does it make up for the 105 degree weather? One last thing about Qatar, in places like England and Germany having a drink is part of the football culture. While Qatar is not totally dry, it’s difficult to get a casual drink and there is absolutely no alcohol outside the big hotel bars. It would be interesting to see what 25,000 sober England fans look like, let alone a dry Tartan Army should Scotland make it.

Russia had some similar issues around infrastructure, there is a lot of building to be done and the distances are listed as a potentially huge issue for both fans and teams.

Blatter leaves a huge legacy from his time as FIFA president in developing the game world wide. He wanted a tournament in Africa and with the local organizing committee put together a great tournament last summer. He wanted the same for South America and has that in Brazil in 2014. Once he got that part of the wish list sorted he abandoned the “rotation” system for giving out World cups.

Giving the tournaments to Russia and Qatar is big step in the world wide development of the game. However you get the feeling that it was all sorted some time ago and today was just the FIFA committee rubber stamping the bosses decisions.

There were clearly technically better bids than these two and a in the last few weeks two committee members have been barred form taking part after a bribery scandal.

It’s difficult to have a lot of faith in FIFA right now, there needs to be some accountability and transparency in the process of handing out arguably the biggest prize in sports. At the end of the day it’s 22 men sitting in a room and surrounded by controversy deciding this behind closed doors with little accountability. I think the game deserves better at the top.

Sunday was a disappointing defeat and not the way we hoped the season would. Bottom line is Seattle just were not as good as LA over the two games. Galaxy did a great job of controlling the midfield and forcing Zakuani inside and taking away the speed down the outside that has worked so well over the last couple of months.

Seattle were beaten by the best team in the league this year, both sides had chances; the difference was LA put them away. LA were aided by some poor defending on set pieces, Beckhams precision deliveries and as is typical with any Bruce Arena coached teams, they were a very disciplined and well drilled team. The Seattle back four seemed to struggle adjusting to players with speed coming across the penalty area, I think the loss of Parke was felt, especially by Ilani

It’s been a great season no matter how you look at it. Qualifying for the group stage of the CONCACAF Champions League, retaining the Open Cup (best moment of the year for me), beating last years points total and of course the others that have made the atmosphere in RBP second to none in this league.

Most supporters get this is a business for those in change, but fans don’t support businesses. They support clubs and the ownership has done the right things to make it a feel like a club that the fans are an organic part of.

The first half of the year was a little rough (the World Cup and Englands performance did not help me feeling positive either), but Sigi and the owners did what they had to do to make this team competitive in the second half. Ownership has set clear expectations for performance on the pitch and I believe that if the right player were to come along (or Montero, or perhaps Zakuani) the money would be available to bring them in as the third DP.

There are two big questions hanging over this club and the current squad. First is the expansion draft in a couple of weeks. The team gets to protect 10 players and a further player should they loose one to either of the two expansion team. Last year there was something of an outcry as James Riley was left unprotected, but Philadelphia went with Seb La Toux, who had a great year in their system and really showed the quality we’d seen at the USL level in 07 and 08.

So in the expansion draft the team is going to loose at least one, possibly two players as Portland and Vancouver build their squads.

Zakuani puts it wide against Toronto

Second is the status of the top players. Montero and Zakuani are both on the radar screen of European clubs and I’d not be surprised if at least one is gone in the transfer window in January.

There is a not a lot of transparency around contracts in this league, I don’t think anyone on the outside really knows Montero’s contract status, there are a couple of groups that own his rights, including (I believe) the Sounders in some way. I’ve said before and still think he’s got the potential to be a superstar in this game. That means Europe, and probably January, next summer at the latest.

Montero has been vague and made no commitments to next year with Seattle. Zakuani has made similar “wait and see what happens” noises.

Zakuani has a huge upside, there are is a dearth of fast left-sided players in England right now and his speed would give him a lot of value there. He’s made a good name for himself and the British press has mentioned him a couple of times, even once linking him to Capello and the national squad.

Loosing both these players would be a huge blow for Seattle, it may mean letting one go and offering the other enough money through the third DP tag (assuming Fernandez is a DP next year rather than just a squad player, again little transparency on the contract thing).

Kasey clapclap Keller

On the bright side Keller has been clear he wants to be back for one more year, I assume that can be done fairly easily.  I think both Nfuko and Fernandez are under contract to the sounders for next year.

Lastly for today, Sigi, mid year one or two lone voices were calling for his replacement, he has proven to be one of the best coaches in the league. He said last week “I love it here,” he said. “I love the city. I love the team. I love my ownership group. I love the fans. I don’t mean to be redundant, but that’s how I feel. For me this is a place to stay and finish and coach for a long, long time.”

Thanks for a fun year at RBP, it’s been awesome.

LA Galaxy, with Beckham, Donovan, Buddle, Gomes and so on at Quest next Sunday. This is why we watch the game, going to be a huge night and after traveling to LA to watch Seattle get hammered 3-1 in July, I think it’s time for revenge.

Seattle at LA, from the 3-1 loss in July