starting to secure the 3rd through 5th spot

for weeks, even months we have been 2, 3 and 4 games ahead of those that we were on equal points with in the table...

as the season starts to come to an end, we are starting to get on level terms as far as games played goes. so while we were hanging on to that 4th spot for a while, many of the other teams had a few games on us. well that is starting to change. and for the better. Atlanta lost on wed to keep them below us and charleston drew yesterday to see them even on points with us, but now only one game in hand.

so things are starting to settle for us. and as long as we don't pull a newcastle circa 1996 we should make the playoffs in a mid ranked spot.

finally, for the few of you that do come to read this every day, my apologies for the lack of posts lately. long weekends, prego wife and not much sounders stuff to talk about has kept me a little quiet of late.

keep checking back, i appreciate the kind words i have received.

have a good weekend.

members meeting set for september 11th

most of you would know this b/c most of you are sounders fc ticket holders, but in case you aren't, or in case someone else is holding your ticket for you, there is a members meeting set for september 11th to talk about supporters groups and general game day atmosphere. numbers are limited to the first 500 that respond and those that respond can say how many people they are bringing. so if you want to go, get in now.

i very much appreciate the effort bring put forth by the team in this area, but there is no doubt that it is a tough issue. i say that b/c there is no secret recipe to guaranteeing a good atmosphere. you can do things to improve it for sure, but you can't force it. and one thing is for sure, it only happens over time.

i have been to many games around the globe where teams try to pump music, put lyrics in the program and various other "atmosphere" improving tactics and it usually doesn't work.

so what is the formula? hell i don't know, but everyone agrees, it is important. so important, that if is sucks, it keeps people away. everyone talks about how great it is to hear the constant chanting/yelling that you hear from many of the european footy games. everyone wants it, but at the same time, few are willing to sit there and do it unless everyone else is.


anyway, i expect there to be a lot ideas, some good, and some not so good, but it should be lively for sure.

if you can't make it, i will be there and give you a recap via the blog the next day.

bits and bobs, as they say

every once in a while i come across totally trivial information that really isn't newsworthy or even blog worthy, but in a semi kinda "huh" kind of way, it is interesting.

the band

- they are informally calling themselves "the sound wave". i like it, a tad obvious, but in a good kinda way. it really works. better than "the drew carey band" which i guess was kicked around for a while.

- if you didn't know, securing instruments turned out to be a bit more of a pain than i think was expected. this seems to finally have come to a close and the sound wave will soon be practicing again.

costco

- thanks to mhcoker on the goalseattle boards... apparantly you can by a $100 gift card from costco right now to use in the seattle seahawks team store for only $80. yet to confirm that you can use it for sounders gear, but they sell it there and i have a very hard time believing that you couldn't use it to buy whatever you want. good stuff.


and now for something you won't care about at all. my life


footbloggeret and i are expecting child number two!!! yay, you say, b/c you have to say it. and of course i am excited... but guess the due date??? march 20th. only 9 days before the beggining of the season (well, it was march 29th in 08.

tune in to see how understanding the ol wifey is when i am off to the pub/games with two kids at home... one 10 days old.

like i said... bits and bobs. nothing important, but there you go.

monday is over.

big, high scoring win last night

we didn't HAVE to win. but if the team were to progress to my likings, which is beat the teams below you and hang in there with the teams above us. so building carolina last night was one of those "must wins" in order to relatively ensure playoff contention.

the 63rd and 65th minute goals from gardner and le toux brought us back from 3-2 to go ahead for good.

so a bit of a scare, but that is helpful sometimes. we must be on our toes.

in other relevant playoff news, montreal did us a favor by beating atlanta, which allowed us to stay ahead of them in the standings. and in a bit of a surprise, miami beat charleston 3-0. so two good results to help us keep up with the top.

here is to monday morning....

i will take that result

yes you want to win at home and yes you want to win against your northern rivals, but in the big scheme of things, taking a point off the team above you to keep yourself well in the thick of the playoff race is just fine.

not much to talk about the game although eyelander was very busy saving 7 shots to keep the 0-0 draw.

not paying attention, i didn't realize that our last 6 games (5 left now) are all at home. not only that, but there are a few 6 and 7 day rest periods.

this plays out nicely for us to finish our playoff spot run and hopefully get some of the sickies out of the training room and onto the field in time for the playoffs.

we have carolina, miami, montreal, atlanta and then vancouver again over the next 4-5 weeks. the first three are the bottom three in the league. so take 9 points off them, and i wreckon that puts us in. however, we all know that we haven't done too well against the bottom teams this year. Montreal is probably the most important one b/c they have 3 games in hand on us but only 7 points behind.

anyway, it is a little too early to figure out all the mathematical combinations of what we need to happen. so lets just win and that will make it easy eh?

anyone watch that US game last night? what a scrappy piece of football that was. the pitch looked crazy heavy, the lighting was provided by handing out mini mag lites to the crowd and asking them to point it at the pitch, and the all round play wasn't anything to get excited over, but it was great to see the US pick up a win against the fouly, divey, cry baby guatamalans. boy were they flopping to ground. and that foul against eddie lewis was NASTY. Gustavo was nowhere close to getting the ball and seriously looked like he was coming in just to make a challange on lewis's head. I think he thought he got away with it too and the fake, bad soap opera look on his face when he saw the red card was pretty funny.

nice win for the national team.

that is all

the canucks are in town, without their leading scorer

a rather important game tonight i would say. game time is 7pm. the game isn't so much important to try and stay in the top part of the table (which is still true) but more so b/c we need to get used to winning again. we lost to PR, lost to minnesota and then lost in the cup to charelston. time to start winning again, especially since it is at home.

the team will surely be up for it thought, not just b/c it is vancouver, but as the coach rightly says...

After the game we had last Friday (3-0 loss to the Puerto Rico Islanders) the motivation is going to come from themselves and, really, the coaching is just setting the right lineup for the game.

well lets hope he gets the lineup right then eh?

vancouver is only 3 points off the top with a point in hand however, so they will have as much motivation as they possibly need to win the league.

one good thing is that vancouver is without Omar Juran, their leading scorer while he is suspended for a game following a second yellow in his last game.

we beat them in vancouver, now lets beat them at home.

bruce arena to coach galaxy. Phew. dodged that bullet

i have zero knowledge that joe, adrien etc would ever have considered bruce arena for the sounders FC head coaching position, but all i have to say is THANK YOU LORD.

the fact that he is now the galaxy head coach will remove him immediately from consideration.

i have always maintained that bruce arenas tactics were uninventive, predictable and frankly held back the growth of US soccer at a national level. Yes, i know he had some decent success with DC United back in the day, but that was much down to the talent that he was given vs his coaching ability imho. he kind of proved that with new york of late.

the us national teams really highlighted this for me, especially 2006. that team had talent, and every time we touched the ball, the predictable pass was made. every time we had a chance for a fast break, we didn't take it. the team looked like they had a divine right to beat ghana and gave a player that is known for his long distance shooting (rosicky) plenty of time on the ball. two great goals for sure, but you don't give players like rosicky, r. carlos, hitzelsburger (sp) or even lampard time on the ball from that kind of range.

anyway. to say i am opinionated on arena is an understatement...

let's just all be thankful we can't hire him even if we had the chance.

of course LA will go on a run now that i have had my rant won't they? tis the season

took the weekend off

The combination of leaving my computer at work on friday mixed with 90 degree heat, mixed with the opening weekend of EPL resulted in me not touching a computer and obviously not updating the blog.

not too much to say about the 3-0 loss to puerto rico. to be honest, at this point, PR is far enough ahead with 2 games in hand that it would take a major cock up by them to be caught by seattle. i don't want to not set our sights high, but if we are honest with ourselves, we aren't competing for first place anymore. we are competing for a high playoff seeding. So if we are going to lose, losing to the team already way head of us is better than losing to the team right on our heals. not a lot of great results for those teams around us either this weekend. so that is good.

Vancouver drew last night.
Charleston and HOTlanta drew on Saturday
and rochester beat minnesota (any result there was fine as it has someone dropping points below us)

so with 6 games left, including two against vancouver (which could be crucial) we are in decent position. like i said, not going to get first, but could make a last minute push for 3rd or so, but very likely not going to drop out of the playoffs. if we do, it would have been a major meltdown and i don't really want to even think about that right now.


the only other thing left to talk about, sounders related at least, was the extension of the membership council voting process. i heard somewhere along the line that they had hoped to have it all wrapped up back on 7/31, but that proved to be too soon. no word yet on how long it has been extended too, but i imagine it will be another month - 6 weeks before the voting ends.

well a happy monday to you. i hope your monday be as good as mondays can possibly be. and let's face it, that isn't that good.

a few keller tidbits

So i couldn't make it down yesterday but it doesn't sound like there was too much that was missed.

a few thoughts though. this bit in the
times surprised me a little bit...

His contract has options to extend beyond the two years

. i know that keepers can still be effective into their early 40's but i have always kind of seen this move for keller as a 1-2 year deal tops. not sure why. maybe it is b/c although keller was a very good keeper at his prime, i do feel that his prime has come and gone. anyway, it is only an option. obviously, if the sounders pick it up, then keller must have proved his worth. so nothing to get worked up over (not that you are, i am talking to myself), but it was just a surprise to me. that is all.

we made front page news of soccernet too. and not in that dumb little 3 link section called MLS Headlines, but in the actual normal headline area.

well, not sure what else there is to say about keller. his career speaks for itself. while never really being considered a top top top tier keeper, he was certainly well respected, and while playing at clubs like leicster and fulham, he sure got a lot of practice saving the ball. and finally, having met keller myself many years ago, i can attest that he is a strong willed competative man who is not afraid to speak his mind in the least. if a defender is not doing his job, boy will keller have a go at him. and while it may not be the type of personality you would want in your hairdresser, it certainly is the one you want in your keeper. so with that. the keller buzz ends (for me at least).


oh, it wouldn't feel right if i didn't make some comment about the EPL season which starts tomorrow. could i be more excited? the answer is no. EVERY FLIPPING GAME is on tv (if you have FSC and Setanta that is). you can catch every game at the G&D or the Dray in ballard. they don't have their schedule up yet, but the owner says they are sorting that out. but i do know they are playing every game starting at 9am Sat and Sun.

here is to the weekend. stay cool. "cool" meaning in the temperature kind of way, not your high school personality kind of way...I could care less how cool for school you are.

well i won't make it tomorrow for the unveiling of keller

so for the first time i won't be able to make it to one of the announcements for the sounders fc, but at least we all know what is going to happen. 2 weeks ago it was speculation, a week ago it was a pretty good rumour, earlier this week, people that surely know were 'leaking' it on the forums, but by today we all surely know this as fact that keller will be unveiled tomorrow. likely with eyelander as well it seems.

i won't be there, but i don't think i will miss too much. for once i have to be at work. dang that work why does it have me by the you know whats.... oh so lame. it is as if i have to make money for the family or something.

anyway, plenty to talk about for a while until the next big announcement and it does take the sting out of that loss last night, well a little bit at least.


if anyone that can go wants to send me pix, i will post them on friday.

cheers

well that sucked

keeping it short b/c i hate writing about games that we lose right after it happens. just two quick thoughts.

- penalties suck to win or lose on, i don't care what anyone says

- even in our loss, you have to notice the irony in our only MLS player missing his penalty

sigh, more tomorrow if i feel like it. i really thought we were going to host the final and i had my hopes up for it.

we must finish strong in the league now to get this bitter taste out of my mouth. yes, mine. it is all for me.

who is going to be announced thursday? the forums seem to think they know

Fact, the Sounders FC have done a fantastic job running the club thus far - team name/sponsor/calabro to name a few.

Fact, the Sounders FC are very good at holding on to their secrets.

I, and most people that care to pay attention, heard about the sounders being the team name and xbox being the sponsor, before it was officially announced. Heck even the color of the jersey was known before it was announced.

what does this have to do with the announcement thursday? well if you read the same forums that i do, you will see 2 names coming up time and time again. some people are speculating and perpetuating what other people have said, but some people just know what is going on. how do i know? i don't, but "the masses" have been 3 for 3 and i am betting that they are going to be 4 for 4. these players were also "speculated" on goalseattle last week. what a coincidence.

that being said, if my theory is correct, then we are about to announce kasey keller and chris eyelander as our next two players signed for the sounders FC.

i don't need to rehash my thoughts about it (99% positive) as i have already talked about kasey last week in response to goalseattle's blog, and then way back when in one of my first few posts on this blog. the only thing i will emphasize is that it cannot and should not be our designated player slot and i don't think it will be. our DP role should be for a big name play maker. 39 year olds are not big name play makers, and to be honest, with all due respect to kasey, this signing wouldn't have happened if he wasn't a local boy. i am sure kasey still has spring in his step, i am not suggesting he can't do the job for sure. it is just that seattle (well lacey) being his home town makes this all come together for him to play 1, MAYBE 2 years.

now lets sit and wait.

MLS gossip.... Gullit and Lalas gone from galaxy

Gullit resigned of the not so hot Galaxy today for "personal reasons". now i have no idea if there are real reasons behind this, and there very well may be, but doesn't it seem like there are far too many coaches that decide to do this?

remember santini at tottenham a few years back. he had personal reasons within a few months if i remember correctly. yeah, like you don't like british food or weather.

well gullits departure snowballed into a lalas dismissal. his contract was up at the end of the season so why not do what they were already going to do.

the galaxy have not played in the playoffs for a few years and haven't won in 7 games.

to top of this american soccer drama, cobi jones is going to take over as the coach in an interim basis.

anywho, nothing to do with the sounders, but some decent fodder for MLS geeks.

ok, there is a really loose wafer thin connection. the galaxy "investor/operator" is a tim leiweke. i have to assume that this must be tod's brother? anyone confirm/deny?

sounders lose, could host US open cup final at qwest

so in a game that frankly i know nothing about other than what it says on the website, we lost 3-1 to minnesota. you probably know everything that i know about this, but the story is here if you want to read up on it.

did the coach or players have one eye on tomorrows game against charleston in the cup? of course they will say no, but you can't help but do it at times. we are at that point where we have come to far and defeat would be harsh. if we beat them tomorrow then it looks like we will host the final at qwest field. that is pretty sweet and i would expect a big turnout, especially since the opposition would be either DC united or newengland rev. two of our opponents next year. that would be quite a game b/c even though the MLS teams may not care that much about this trophy, not unlike the carling cup in england, when you get to the final, you want to win it and you put out your strongest team. more about that story here.

you can watch the game tomorrow at 4:30 pst by clicking here. don't know if you have ever watched a game via this feed, but it is very good quality and almost no buffering on my home cable internet.

i will be watching with great anticipation.

cheers.

seattle wins 1-0. not the greatest game.

just a few things to talk about.

around 33 minutes, thompson for the timbers got sent off. to be honest, it wasn't a red card. it was a late clumsy challange for sure. a yellow for sure. but really, it wasn't a red card. portland can feel hard done by on that one.

at the 70th minute, they announced a crowd of 12,000+ at the game. please please please do not read into what i am going to say next. i love seattle. i love the sounders. the timbers are our biggest rival.... but damn, you really have to respect the 12k that they can get out for a USL game. yes, it has to do with the fact that portland doesn't have an MLB or an NFL team, i really believe that, but stil, you really have to respect that. i hope it shows the MLS that portland is a team that deserves an MLS team. and hate that team i will, but yes, you deserve it.


final score 1-0 seattle. i am very pleased with a win against portland for many reasons.

- it was the last time EVER we will play them in the USL.
- we were on the road
- it really propels us to a playoff spot
- it really hurts portlands chance of a playoff spot, although there is still a long way to go for sure.

not the prettiest game for sure. the timbers sending off really ruined the game in general, but take not credit away from the sounders. we did what we needed to do and i am more than pleased.

trivia question: who was the last team to win between seattle and portland in the USL.

SOUNDERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSssss


ha ha ha ha ah ha hah a aha ah a a ah

bed

night

1-0 to the sounders

fantastic goal. obrien with a great cross, besagno did quite will to take it down and then did VERY well to get a shot on goal from the ground... hitting it off the post and then le toux, like good strikers do, found himself in a clean up position to put the goal away.

i soooooooooooooooooo want to win this game.

i am going to keep track of the rest of the game sans computer and write up the review later.


COMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMME ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU SOUNDERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

keller to seattle?

dave over at goal seattle brought this up in his blog. all the signs do point to this being a very good idea IF and that is a very important IF, keller isn't used as our DP. i don't see that happening though so i would welcom keller to the team.

eyelander is a very good keeper, but it is a tall order to ask a rookie keeper to lead out a first year MLS team. riding the pine and coming in late in some games to get experience behind a former US national keeper wouldn't be a bad gig if you ask me.

well there you have it, i am the first to get on the membership council

so i tend to be a pretty private person in general, and don't really like to have my name scattered about here and there over the internet, hence the "footblogger" sign offs etc. anywho, i can't help but be a quite happy (chuffed as my canadian friends might say) to be the first fan to be voted on to the Sounders FC Membership Council. like i said in my interview with Frank (although he kinda cut off some of what I said in order to save space), i am now the answer to a trivia question, albeit only one that i might care about. le toux, first sounder fc player, easy. but who was the first member of the council? well i know ;-). but seriously, i am very proud to be the first to be voted in. nothing can change the fact that i was that guy, not matter how much other people might not care ;-)

full story here.

so to be honest, this blog had a lot to do with it. i don't feel like i would be able to give a full opinion or story of what i thought was going on without getting on that council and hearing it for myself while fighting for what i, and those that i represent, believe in. it was quite hard to get 25 votes, especially since it was account holders, not the number of tickets that they represented. but as the wife can attest, i am stubborn and driven when i want to be. and footy is one of those reasons.

so anywho, i hope that this opportunity will help me provide even more insight to you through this blog, albeit it will be communicated through the novice prose that i try to pass as some sort of journalism. he he.

so a thank you to those that voted for me. as for those that tend to visit my blog frequently, i hope i can provide you with the insight that you are looking for. if anyone has any questions/concerns for me to address with the front office, please leave them in the comments or email me via the link and i promise that i will consolidate and address.

now... off to bug the few contacts that i have to try and get me an interview with adrian and/or drew, even though we all know that joe would be the guy you want to sit down and have a beer with.

i am the first member of the council you know? gandalf and frodo are at my beck and call.

Portland are starting to flounder, a sounder win might put them in trouble

portland have been having a simlar type of season to the sounders this year. their league position hasn't been terrible, but, like seattle, they have usually played 2-3more games than most other teams. they have also an equal amount of draws as us. but after starting the seaton 3-0-4 portland has only put up 4 more wins, 10 losses and 5 more draws. and 2 of those 4 wins were against juventus primaver and unal tigres. and finally, they have only won once in their last 8 games. so like seattle the draws have been keeping them 'afloat' but they are a few losses away from getting seriously mired down in that danger zone of not making the playoffs.

a loss on thursday would do as much damage to the timbers as it would do good for the sounders. we are 4-4-0 in our last 8 matches so while you would like to trade a few losses for draws, it is decent enough to keep us hanging around the top of the table. add another win to that and we would sit in second (by todays standings) albeit still with a few games in hand and see us 9 points clear of our portland rivals.

finally, table aside, winning in portland in what could be the last meaningful game between the two sides for a few years would just feel so so so so so nice. truth be told, if you really pressed me, i would tell you that a draw would be 'ok'. but loss. ugh. imagine the timbers fans holding on to that result for the rest of their lives.

who is making the trip then?

great win tonight. ending puerto rico 5 game win streak

sebastian le toux hasn't gone on a scoring tear where he has put 3 or 4 away in a night, but better than that, he seems to be scoring almost ever single game. no in fact that isn't true, he is just on his 9th out of 20 games or so, but that isn't a terrible return to be honest. and in my opinion, it is much better to spread your goals out then to score 4 against a lesser opponent. rarely do you need 3 or 4 goals to win a game so as fun as those are to watch, rarely they are efficient.

so anyway, letoux was on the score sheet tonight again before PR tied up the game. gardner put away the winner in the 60th minute and that was enough for the win.

i will put my hand up and say.... i didn't know that USL paused matches for heavy rain, but indeed today they did. in about the 70th minute, the game was halted for about 30 minutes due to heavy rain. not a fan of that rule to be honest. footy should play in all weather other than fog so thick that you can't see the other side of the pitch, or snow so thick that you can't see the lines on the pitch... other than that, it should be played... IMHO

anywho. great win.

if you are a frequent reader of my blog, you know that i have been a bit critical of the team lately. i feel that they have been playing down to their level of late. tonight they did not do that, and with a win against portland next week and then at minnesota, that would really change things away in the minds of the players as well as the table


here is to your weekend and here is to the fine people at reininger winery that have given me a nice happy place this evening