Sounders Take It on the Chin

With a 3-2 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps yesterday, the Seattle Sounders were swept in the Inaugural Cascadia Summit. It was a shocking turn of events and a weekend that left all Sounders fans very disappointed. On the way home from Starfire yesterday, I promised myself that I would not read any of the comment sections on Soccer by Ives knowing full well that they would only piss me off. Of course I was unable to stop myself when I got home. I had to go see what exactly was being said...it was nothing I didn't expect. Timbers and Whitecaps fans (and really any anti-Sounders fans) were eating it up. While they killed the team, the worst part of it was the openly mocking of our fans. Apparently my fellow supporters are minimizing the losses by reminding everyone it was pre-season or by creating excuses like "well, we controlled the play and the 'Caps/Timbers got lucky with their goals."

I know that their are not Whitecaps or Timbers fans reading this, but just in case their are, let me be as direct as possible. We lost. You won. You were the better team. Period. No excuses from me. We stunk. You were better.

Stepping back from my initial shock, I should have seen this coming. I mean, here we are, the mighty Seattle Sounders...holders of the best fans in the world. The largest crowds in the country. The best success for any expansion team. It's not like our fans don't tell everyone about it. I have to imagine that this eats on every Portland and Vancouver fan - after all, they also lay claim to the best fans in the world. So the fans came into the competition with a HUGE chip on their shoulders and this undoubtedly rubbed off on the players as well. I have seen numerous interviews with either John Spencer or Tom Soehn where the reporter asks about Seattle's success - they are always complimentary but you can just see that vein their forehead about ready to pop. They, like the rest of the country, are tired of Seattle. They came up here on a mission: beat Seattle...check that, embarrass Seattle on it's own turf. They did exactly that.

For all the Sounders fans who are brushing it off as pre-season, I offer this opinion: you may be right, but at the end of the day, these pre-season games are not like the pre-season game against Colorado on Wednesday. These were games that we all expected to win. These were games that we let the entire Northwest know we were going to win. At the end of the day, Portland and Vancouver wanted it more than the Sounders. Forget the terrible mistakes - yes, maybe they were lucky but it's not like we would have been sad about being given the same opportunity. Hell no, if Jay Nolly or Troy Perkins had made those mistakes we would be KILLING the Timbers and Whitecaps right now. So take your licks and hope that the boys in rave green can erase these memories and beat them in the regular season. The problem with hyping a pre-season tournament with your bitter rivals is if you lose, you have to eat shit.

So let's do that. Let's take it on the chin and rebound for next time.

******

Ok, now that that is out of the way, a few comments from yesterday's game.

• I'm not sure how many Portland fans there were on Friday night, but I counted only about 100 Vancouver fans yesterday afternoon. They were loud, but I was a little disappointed in the atmosphere from both sections.
• I was starting to really like our second unit at the end of the year, but boy do they seem to have taken a step back. Taylor Graham and Terry Boss were horrendous. There is no other way to put it. Graham is lucky in that they already dropped the center back they drafted, but Boss isn't that fortunate - Sigi still has both rookie keepers in camp and word is that he loves both of them.
• Out of the overall suckiness emerged two new favorites for The Wife, J-Will and I: Eric Friberg and Servando Carrasco. Friberg had a calmness on the ball that is sorely lacking with this team. I think he can play a major roll moving forward. Carrasco on the other hand has no such calmness, as he has the potential to be the next Ozzie Alonso for this team. He was every where yesterday and really impressed.
• Funniest moment of the day: in response to the Clapping Y chant thingy we do, the Vancouver supporters sang the YMCA.
• Major ups to J-Will for breaking his ankle. We got amazing front row seats and a spot in disabled parking. The players were so close we could have touched them (and then probably taken out by security but it would have been worth it).
• I was hoping for more from O'Brien White and Michael Tetteh, but I am not ready to write them off yet.
• Finally, thoughts going out to Mike Fucito who came up lame with what is being called an abductor strain. We had front row seats for when he pulled up...it was not a good scene.
  

We have one more pre-season game this week against Colorado before next Tuesday's season opener against the Gals on ESPN. Ultimately, if we lose to the Rapids but beat LA then this weekend's results will be a distant memory. But if we get spanked at home by LA and then on the road against the Red Bulls, this will stick in our memory as a preview of what was to come. I can only hope that we have gotten it out of our system because it was brutal.