Dave Kean

It turned out to be a fun game to watch. Seattle was not outclassed and can feel a little unlucky to have come out of this one with nothing. Both teams had good spells; LA spent most of the evening with five across the midfield and did a good job at spoiling the through balls to the Seattle attackers.

Beckham

LA’s tactics in neutralizing Seattle were more effective than most other teams. They packed midfield and man-marked Alonso in the middle. This made it difficult to get onto any balls passed to the attackers on the outside.

The LA keeper Donovan Rickets had an outstanding game, very solid when Seattle managed to get the ball into the channels.

Seattle had the ball in the net in the first minute of play. Alonso let his marker with a cut back and got space for a shot. Zakuani got onto the rebound and put it away. Unfortunately Zakuani was offside and the flag went up.

Scarves up Seattle! For the last time this season.

Shortly before half time Edson Buddle turned Pat Ianni around and made a wonderful lob that gave Keller no chance. That was the only score of what was an entertaining game.

The ref had a poor night, he let the game get away from him somewhat and allowed some heavy tackles go unpunished, especially in the first half before tightening up after the break. Seattle has something of a history with Salazar and his calls. Most players want consistency from the ref and they did not get it this evening.

Despite all that LA probably deserved the win, certainly Rickets kept them in the game, but they had more control and the better chances.

Header from Nfuko

Interestingly Zakuani and Nyassi seemed to spend a lot of time on the opposite wing from where they normally play on. Not sure why they played so much out of position, it did not seem to create much but did give LA something they’ve not seen before.

There are some good signs for Seattle, they did OK in the final third of the field and got some good looks. The LA defence looks vulnerable and if they can find space in the middle of the field and win a few more of the 50/50 balls they have a chance to pull a surprise in LA next weekend. This tie is a long way from over, next Sunday should be a fun game.

Lastly, lets not forget this was Halloween and there were a lot of costumes on show (again, I don’t understand the dressing up part, but it makes for fun people watching). There was the cookie monster in the Pyramid brewery before the game, A Sounders green Kermit the Frog and a few seats along from me the Wicked Witch of the West.

Halloween at RBP

I agree with many, the current MLS play off structure does not make much sense; unquestionably the West is the far stronger conference compared the East. The seeding system obviously does not work with 6 teams from the west and only two from the East moving on to the post season.

This weekend Seattle plays the top-seeded Los Angeles Galaxy in the first round of the playoffs, even though the Sounders were the No. 6 seed (of the 8 sides that qualify).

So what would I do?

Nice of you to ask, but I think a single combined table is the way to go with the top 8 qualifying. Every team plays every other home and away in a balanced schedule. It’s going to be the same next year; my season ticket invoice says 17 league games so it’s staying as a balanced schedule despite the addition of Vancouver and Portland.

This year the top eight teams in the standing have qualified, so it’s worked in that respect, but I don’t understand the aversion to a single table rather than the East/West conference that the league insists on.

RBP, hosting the playoffs tomorrow.

So lets say we have a single table, with the teams seeded 1-8, the easy is 1v8, 2v7 and so on. A little predictable, but it works. A twist in the matchups is done in British Rugby League. The top seed picks who they want to play, then the second seed and so on.

Teams get to choose who they match up with, maybe the team that’s not playing well, or perhaps the team they’ve good history against and stay away from the teams that are playing really well or have historical issues with. I like this idea and certainly rewards consistency in a way the current system does not.

So what do I think of the LA-Seattle match up? LA was the team I wanted to Seattle to play, for a number of reasons.

First, we owe them after two thrashings this season (4-0 hammering at RBP and 3-1 at LA). That was not the same Seattle team that we’ve watched since that match in LA, they are playing some of the best football I’ve seen at RBP and the homer in me fancies them to beat anyone right now.

Secondly, if you want to win this thing you have to beat the best at some point and I want to see the Sounders take on the best. I think there is a better chance of a win over a two game home/away series that a one off game at their place.

Landycakes

Finally, and selfishly I want to watch the best players in the league. I want to see Beckham, Donovan, Buddle and Gomez play and see how good they really are.

It’s going to be a fun night under the lights and another highlight in a season full of them. Come on Sounders!

The MLS playoffs started this evening with Colorado hosting Columbus.

During the first half Columbus looked rather out of sorts, did not do a good job keeping their shape and the distribution of the final ball is poor. On the other side Colorado was playing some very, very nice football, have a nice passing game going on and are using that to really stretch Columbus down the sides. I think Colorado considered themselves unlucky to been only 1-0 up at half time.

Columbus seemed to work out what was the problem was and did a far better job in the second half. Colorado were limited to one or two chances, while Columbus were the more creative side and brought a couple of really good saves from goalkeeper Matt Pickens late in the game.

Colorado lead the series 1-0, it’s not much of a lead to take to Crew Stadium next week. It’s a very open series and Columbus is very much in it.

Perhaps most notable was the mostly empty stadium. I get that I’m spoilt in Seattle with the game day atmosphere and 31 sold out league games in a row.

Having said that I’ve been in Qwest with fewer than 3,000 when the Sounders were in the USL. Just a couple of years later I was sitting in the same stadium with almost 67,000 and watching Barcelona walk out onto the field. It’s quite incredible what we have in Seattle.

When a club that’s been playing some decent football during the regular season had maybe 10,000 for a home playoff game that’s not a good sign for the side or the league.

OK, I got a couple of questions about the format of the playoffs. In the quarterfinal round, teams play a two-game home-and-away series. The team with the most goals over the two games advances to the next round. Should the teams be tied at the end of the second game a 30-minute extra time will be played and if it’s still level then it goes to penalties.

The semifinal games are a single game hosted by the higher seed. If it’s level after 90 minutes then it’s another 30-minute overtime followed by penalties if required.

The winners of the semi finals meet in the final in Toronto on November 21^st.

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

I missed Saturdays win over Chicago, but it sounded like a fun game with Montero scoring the winner in injury time.

This was a huge game for both sides, and not because of Freddie’s return, but because of the points on the table and the two sides battling out for the final playoff places.

This is the combined MLS table, if the season were to finish today Seattle would be in as 4^th seed in the west and would get a first round game against the fading LA Galaxy. Recent form shows LA are not nearly as fearsome as they were in July when they took Seattle apart at the HDC.

However this only shows part of the story and can be safely ignored for now as there are a lot of teams with games in hand (GIH) over Seattle. If these teams win out (impossible I know as they play each other, but it’s worst case we are looking at here) the picture for the Sounders is a little less cut and dried.

Today Seattle has 32 points and Chicago has 24 points, at first glance a healthy lead for Seattle. However Chicago have played three games less than Seattle. This means 9 points to Chicago if they win those games.

That would move Chicago to 33 points, one ahead of Seattle and drop Seattle to 9^th in the second combined table that assumes teams win those games in hand (GIH). This pushes Seattle out of the play-offs by one point.

To give the short version of events, the game in Chicago on September 26^th has become a very important game. Win there and Seattle controls their own destiny into the post season. Loose and the road to the play offs requires the Sounder Nation to concern ourselves with other peoples results.

Freddie on the Houston game.

Mandatory gratuitous Ljungberg ab shot for Heather…

Nil-nil in a very tense game. It was interesting to see two sides so determined not to give anything away. The pace was frantic at time and a lot of players looked nervous.

The crowd was awesome, a great atmosphere and today I can hardly speak I’m so hoarse. It was a fantastic night and I’m slowly working my way through the beer list at Elysian Fields pregame.

Ljungberg had a great game and everything that went well ran through him. Unfortunately Montero looked a little out of sorts, the couple of chances that came to him he took very well, the best was in the second half when he made the best of a very good half chance off a precise through ball from Ljungberg. Alonso, Ianni and Jaqua all stepped up and had their best games for a while. Ianni had a great game and was effective at both ends of the pitch.

Once again there will be complaints about the officiating, with some justification. It was a very physical game and the man in the middle seemed to loose some control of the game mid way through the first half. He was inconsistent and that made it hard to have a flowing game. For example: the ref had been playing advantage and allowing the game to flow all night, untill Nate Jaqua was bearing down on goal after a great pass through the defence that was called back.

Having watched the replay it’s difficult to see how Onstad got off with just a yellow. It’s hard to see how that’s not a red, I assume Montero’s yellow was for simulation, but it seems disproportionate.

Houston played a very conservative game, happy to maintain possession and try to hit on the break. This will certainly change in Houston where the home team has a perceived advantage and they need to be more positive in looking for a result.

The Sounders have done well against this style of play (Columbus, DC, Galaxy and Toronto come to mind) and are very capable of taking the tie in Houston.

Now it’s all down to a one game playoff in Houston. The Sounders away form has been nothing short of superb during the second half of the season. After yesterdays game where neither side was able to really control the game shows the predictions of this series being to close to call were correct. It’s just going to take a single mistake to decide who is going through to the semi final.

It started going right shortly after the franchise was awarded, this was a different type of ownership group because they listened to the fans when they announced the name of the team.  This was followed up with the signing of Schmit, Ljungberg and Keller.

The fans responded by buying 22,000 season tickets.

A good foundation, but as the national media kept reminding us we were an expansion team whose stadium will be filled with latte sipping soccer mums.

I think we kinda disproved those theories during the opening game against New York… The atmosphere was incredible and the win convincing.

There were some high points. We won the cup, we saw Barcelona come to town and put on a clinic, we showed we can come from behind to get points when it mattered and ended the year the way we started it, with three wins.

The team matured in front of us and it kept getting better and better. There were a few down moments, the game at San Jose was just atrocious, giving three goals up against DC at home was another. As a fan you suffer through these moments, they give

Tonight is the first playoff game. And it happens at home in a sold out stadium, under the lights on national TV, against a very good team that we’ve beaten twice this year already.

As a sounders supporter these are the nights that are important, win or loose this where our team history is written. This is why we buy season tickets.

A quick read through the ECS forum shows a lot of pumped up people. This is going to be fun, it’s going to be loud and I will be giving my full 90.

1) Seattle wins at Kansas City – they are in, does not matter what anyone else does (and guess whose been playing with logic circuits this morning).

Seattle in playoffs= TRUE if SEA>KC

2) Sounders get a point Saturday then they are still in if Columbus beats DC, and Colorado wins or draws against DC, and Salt lake or Toronto drop points (and they play each other Saturday at 12:30 so someone is dropping points).

Seattle in playoffs=TRUE if Columbus>DC AND Rapids => Dallas AND (NY=>RSL AND RSL =>TOR)

3) Seattle loose they will still be in if DC and Dallas loose and Salt Lake or Toronto draw.

Seattle in playoffs=TRUE if Columbus=>DC AND Rapids => Dallas AND ((NY=>RSL AND RSL=>TOR) OR (NY=RSL AND RSL=TOR)

NY host RSL Wednesday, RSL are eliminated of they loose. RSL host Toronto Saturday afternoon (assuming RSL beat NY Wednesday) the looser is eliminated (or potentially both if they draw). Even ignoring the playoff implications this is a decent looking game played by two of the more entertaining teams in the league.

Colorado host Dallas Saturday – Dallas are eliminated of they loose and RSL or Toronto win. A draw in the RSL/TOR along with Dallas dropping points means everything to play for in the final week.

At this point it gets complex (and I do not have that much time), bottom line is Seattle controls their own destiny and only needs two points in the last two games to make everything else immaterial.

Win at Kansas City Saturday, get it over with and look forward to celebrating when Dallas come into RBP for the loudest game since the opener.

At the beginning of the year I was not a fan of play offs, however after thinking about it a little more I’ve come to like it. It makes the end of season games mean something for more sides and gives the MLS a particularly American flavour at the end of the season. I’m not saying it’s going to work for every league, but any team that hits form can win the championship, having that hope heading into the play offs is rather fun.

In football there is an oft repeated saying that luck evens itself out over the course of a season. There will be points dropped that shouldn’t have been, and points won that were not deserved.

The sounders have had their fair share of bad calls that have cost them points (LA, Chivas and maybe RSL), last night went a long way to balancing out the ledger.

Last night falls squarely into the lucky column, and it was a good night for it happen as games don’t get much bigger than this.

Going into the weekend the play off picture was incredibly tight, 6 or 7 teams chasing the last 4 play off spots. Seattle have had trouble scoring, were travelling cross country to play the defending champions, who happen to have a 22 game unbeaten home streak and Sigi managed them to that championship.

Seattle did not play their best, but winning when you are not playing well is one of the ways to tell a good side from the rest.

Seattle’s defence was solid with a few mistakes (Marshall penalty excepted). The back four were under the gun all night, Keller pulled off a couple of great saves, Schelotto missed a penalty, the woodwork got rattled a couple of times and Marshall acrobatically cleared a shot off the line.

Seattle had few clear chances. The goal was made by Ljundberg battling through two defenders, gave the ball to Evans. Who set up Montero with a very nice through ball. The keeper came off is line to play the angle on Montero and was totally out of position when the ball came to Levesque to put away.

It was a nicely worked goal, and very much against the run of play.

With the other results this week the 41 points they have are probably enough to ensure the play offs. DC, Dallas, RSL and Toronto have to win all their remaining games to push the Sounders out the top 8. One more point is enough to make it mathematically certain that we will see playoff football at Quest Field this year and the Dallas game will be an awesome celebration.

In March the ECS said “Tonight our history becomes legend”, last nights 1-0 win over the defending champions is going to be a large part of the story.

Tonight our history becomes legend – ECS