Sounders fall 2-0 to Philadelphia

By Money Mike



The Seattle Sounders needed a win last night to keep any hope of winning the Supporters Shield alive, or at least a point to officially secure 2nd place in the West. Neither of that happened. The Philadelphia Union who were unbeaten in their last 6 matches have come to Seattle and shut out the Sounders 2-0 at CenturyLink Field. With the Win, the Union have taken over the top spot in a very tight Eastern Conference. For Seattle, the loss means that they'll have no chance of taking over first place in the West and that LA has clinched their second straight Supporters Shield. But here's the problem though, in 14 MLS seasons, only four teams that have won the Supporters Shield have gone on and won the MLS Cup. Only four teams. Seattle still looks like the stronger side heading into the playoffs despite the loss last night.

The game started off slow, with sloppy passing from both sides of the midfield. The best chance in the first half from either side came in the 35th minute from Brad Evans when he latched onto a pull-back from Lamar Neagle, but he got under the ball and skied it over the top of the goal. The Sounders were without their leading goalscorer Fredy Montero who was serving a one game suspension after Yellow Card accumulations. Mauro Rosales was also out with a Sprained MCL that he suffered about three weeks ago in a 3-0 win over D.C. United, there's a chance however the Sounders will get him back next Saturday when the San Jose Earthquakes come to town. Alvaro Fernandez was on the bench after passing a late fitness test after suffering a concussion Tuesday night in the U.S. Open Cup final, but he didn't see any action at all in this one. Pat Noonan and Nate Jaqua both played like crap yet again. Sammy Ochoa barely even had possession of the ball since coming in as a sub in the

The Sounders were forced to make a change defensively. Jeff Parke was taken out at halftime after picking up a head injury and was replaced by Patrick Ianni.

In the 60th minute, the Union broke the deadlock. Gabriel Farfan somehow beat James Riley to the ball before it even crossed the endline. Farfan pulled it back to Freddy Adu who buried it into the top corner.

The Union doubled their lead in the 72nd minute. After the Sounders started to put pressure on the Union back line, they end up getting caught on a counter attack. Brian Carroll sent former Sounder Sebastien Le Toux loose and off to the races. Carroll got the return pass from Le Toux off the outside of his boot, through the retreating Seattle defense. Carroll made a good run toward the endline and tucked the ball away beautifully into the far corner. And that was just about the last highlight of this one.

Next Saturday, the Sounders will host the San Jose Earthquakes at 7:30pm. This will also be Kasey Keller's final regular season home match of his career. Over 55,000 tickets have been sold for the home finale in the 2011 regular season and there are still more available. So if you want to catch him in person at least one last time, I would suggest you get your tickets.

Following this match, the Sounders will close out Champions League group play at home on October 18 against Monterrey as they look to clinch the top spot in the Group which would assure them home field advantage in the second leg of the Champions League Quarterfinal.


Scoring summary:

Philadelphia Union - Freddy Adu 2 (Gabriel Farfan 2) 60'

Philadelphia Union - Brian Carroll 1 (Sebastien Le Toux 9) 72'


Misconduct summary:

Seattle Sounders FC - Lamar Neagle (caution; Reckless foul) 63'


Lineups:

Philadelphia Union - Zac MacMath; Sheanon Williams, Carlos Valdes, Danny Califf, Gabriel Farfan; Michael Farfan, Brian Carroll, Justin Mapp (Jack McInerney 86'); Freddy Adu (Amobi Okugo 75'), Sebastien Le Toux, Veljko Paunovic (Stefani Miglioranzi 89')

Seattle Sounders FC - Kasey Keller; James Riley, Jeff Parke (Patrick Ianni 46'), Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Tyson Wahl; Brad Evans, Osvaldo Alonso, Erik Friberg, Lamar Neagle; Mike Fucito (Nate Jaqua 68'), Pat Noonan (Sammy Ochoa 62')

Sounders hold on for a historic win at Monterrey in the Champions League.

By Money Mike









The Seattle Sounders became the second MLS team to beat a Mexican team on Mexican soil in over a week. The Sounders upset defending CONCACAF Champions, Monterrey 1-0 to move into first place in the Group Stage. There were a couple of nervous moments in the second half when Monterrey came right at them, but the Sounders were able to hang on and get the full 3 points. People need to start taking this tournament seriously, especially with the Sounders off to a 2-0 start in Group play. I mean, winning the Champions League is as big as winning the MLS Cup. Even out of all of that, America is just too freakin stupid to understand that. If this wasn't a big win, I don't know what the hell is. Sigi Schmid left Kasey Keller, Mauro Rosales and Fredy Montero out of the 18 man squad and partnered Nate Jaqua up front with Pat Noonan. Terry Boss, as expected, got the start in goal. Josh Ford was on the squad as a backup goalkeeper behind Boss. And also, Amadou Sanyang made his Sounders debut, coming on in the 84th minute of the match.



The Sounders ceded most of the possession early opted to play counter attacking football and in the 38th minute, Seattle was on the move as Pat Noonan fed Alvaro Fernandez with a pinpoint ball. Flacco split defenders Darvin Chavez and Miguel Morales and calmly roofed the ball past Goalkeeper Jonathan Orozco to give Seattle a 1-0 lead.



In the second half, Monterrey came out strong. In the 66th minute, the Sounders dodged a huge bullet. Terry Boss lost the ball to Aldo de Nigris as he was trying to clear it. He then nearly took him down which would've resulted in a penalty and possibly a straight red card. de Nigris laid the ball back to Humberto Suazo who ripped the ball wide of goal. That would've been a disastrous moment for Terry Boss and the Seattle Sounders. Despite Monterrey finishing with 11 shots on goal, it was Seattle who came away with a full three points over the CONCACAF Champions.



The Sounders return home to Seattle as they get set to host the Columbus Crew on Saturday at CenturyLink Field. Then they host FC Dallas in the semifinals of the U.S. Open Cup next Tuesday at the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila.





Scoring summary:



Seattle Sounders FC - Alvaro Fernandez (Pat Noonan) 38'





Misconduct summary:



Seattle Sounders FC - Nate Jaqua (caution; Reckless tackle) 48'





Lineups:



Seattle Sounders FC - Terry Boss; James Riley, Zach Scott, Jeff Parke, Tyson Wahl; Roger Levesque (Amadou Sanyang 84'), Brad Evans, Servando Carrasco, Alvaro Fernandez (Leonardo Gonzalez 76'); Nate Jaqua (Osvaldo Alonso 65'), Pat Noonan



Monterrey - Jonathan Orozco; Darvin Chavez, Hiram Mier, Severo Meza (Ricardo Osorio 83'); Jesus Manuel Corona (Abraham Carreno 73'), Neri Cardozo, Luis Ernesto Perez, Hector Morales (Walter Ayovi 62'); Aldo de Nigris, Jesus Eduardo Zavala, Humberto Suazo





Now here's a look at the highlights:

Sounders strike twice in the final minutes to defeat Sporting KC 2-1 and give Sigi Schmid his 150th career win.

By Money Mike

The Seattle Sounders played a terrible game against Sporting KC, but terrible as it was, the Sounders stormed back with a 90th minute equalizer by Mauro Rosales and a stoppage time goal by Lamar Neagle to steal all three points from Kansas City, snap their 14 game unbeaten streak and give head coach Sigi Schmid his 150th career win in Major League Soccer. What a big win it was for the Sounders, when it looked like they were gonna go down for the 2nd match in a row, they find a way to pull it off.

Sporting got on the board first in the 20th minute. Matt Besler just like he did on Wednesday whipped in another good long throw into the danger zone and found Kei Kamara unmarked and Kamara headed the ball into the net before Kasey Keller could claim the ball and Sporting KC prooving to be a different team now than it was earlier in the year took an early 1-0 lead over the Men in Rave Green.

In the 55th minute, Sigi made a double change, taking off Fredy Montero and Alvaro Fernandez and bringing on Mike Fucito and Pat Noonan for tactical reasons. Fernandez and Montero, both Designated Players, were ineffective in this match.

Four minutes later, this turned out to be the game changer. Omar Bravo came in with a two footed challenge on Pat Noonan with his studs showing and referee Jair Marrufo make no hesitation to reach into his back pocket and show the Mexican international a straight Red Card.

With Kansas City down to 10 men, coach Peter Vermes took out C.J. Sapong and replaced him with Canadian born-U.S. international Teal Bunbury. Bunbury had a couple scoring opportunities since coming on including a long range effort in the 88th minute that went wide of Kasey Keller.

The Sounders began to threaten in the last 20-25 minutes of the game. In the 69th minute, Mike Fucito created space for himself but his left footed area from 19-yards out was saved by Jimmy Nielsen. Lamar Neagle stepped to put in the rebound, but Nielsen made a huge kick save.

In the 90th minute, the Sounders finally came through. Servando Carrasco played in a good ball to Mauro Rosales who beat two KC defenders and slotted the ball past Jimmy Nielsen to steal a Victory from Sporting Kansas City. As a matter of fact, they would steal all 3 points. In the 2nd minute of stoppage time, Mike Fucito was able to push the ball to Lamar Neagle who quickly struck the ball first time off the hands of Nielsen and that was the match winner. With the win, Seattle now improves to 11-5-8 with adds up to 41 points so far. Kansas City now drops to 7-7-9 with the loss. Seattle returns home next Saturday to take on Chivas USA and then they open up Group play in the Champions League on August 16th at home.


Scoring summary:

Sporting Kansas City - Kei Kamara 6 (Matt Besler 2) 20'

Seattle Sounders FC - Mauro Rosales 3 (unassisted) 90'

Seattle Sounders FC - Lamar Neagle 2 (Mike Fucito 1) 92+'


Misconduct summary:

Sporting Kansas City - Birahim Diop (caution; Reckless foul) 37'

Sporting Kansas City - Omar Bravo (ejection; Serious foul play) 59'


Lineups:

Seattle Sounders FC - Kasey Keller; James Riley, Jeff Parke, Zach Scott, Tyson Wahl; Mauro Rosales, Osvaldo Alonso, Servando Carassco, Alvaro Fernandez (Pat Noonan 55'); Roger Levesque (Lamar Neagle 67'), Fredy Montero (Mike Fucito 55')

Sporting Kansas City - Jimmy Nielsen; Michael Harrington, Julio Cesar, Matt Besler, Seth Sinovic; Jeferson (Luke Sassano 39'), Birahim Diop, Graham Zusi; Kei Kamara (Chance Myers 82'), C.J. Sapong (Teal Bunbury 65'), Omar Bravo


Omar Bravo's red card/dumbass behavior:

Now back to that red card on Omar Bravo. So look people, you may think was a bad call because Bravo got the ball first, but he came in two footed with his studs showing on Pat Noonan, so that is definitely a red card. The decision made by the referee was correct. But after the red card, Bravo, rather than getting off the pitch, decides to go after Pat Noonan. Noonan reacted and then Bravo just falls to the ground like he was headbutted. Arlo White was spot on, he let Sporting Kansas City down. He should not be allowed to antagonize a player after being sent off and as a veteran, he should know that. MLS has to take action for this bullshit.

Congratulations Omar Bravo, you're the new public enemy #1.

I mean look what this stupid fuck is doing.....