Who: Seattle Sounders vs CSD Comunicaciones Where: CentureyLink Field, Seattle, WA When: 7PM, Tuesday, 8/16 Watch: FSC Listen: KIRO 97.3 Internet: Justin TV, Channel Surfing, Veetle This is the second game in a 6 game stretch where the Sounders will be playing every 3-4 days and the first game of CCL Group D. The Sounders qualified as the 2010 USOC Champions and by defeating San Francisco FC. Comunicaciones qualified by being the 2010 Apertura and 2011 Clausura champions in Guatemala's Liga Nacional de Futbol. Comunicaciones has played 6 games in their 2011 Apertura tournament and have a record of 3W-1D-1L and last had a game on 8/13. For those of you with math skills, you probably noticed that I said 6 games but their record doesn't add up to 6, that's because I haven't been able to find their results from the 8/13 game. This is Comunicaciones second appearance in CCL. In 2009/2010, they also played in Group D and advanced into the Quarterfinals with a 3W-0D-3L record where they ran into Pachuca, who defeated Comunicaciones with a 2-3 aggregate. This is also the second appearance for the Sounders in CCL. In 2010/2011, they had the misfortune of landing in the group of death where they went 1W-0D-5L.
It's predicted line-up time and with this being an early game in the long stretch of games, I'm predicting a mostly starter line-up. Wild stab is that the starters will be getting a rest down in Monterrey next week. [LINEUP-4-4-2]Levesque, Montero, Fernandez, Friberg, Carrasco, Rosales, Gonzalez, Ianni, Hurtado, Riley, Keller[/LINEUP-4-4-2] I figure if I put Hurtado in as a starter enough times, at some point I'm going to be right. We might see Evans in for Friberg and Neagle in for Montero or Fernandez. Edit: Alonso is suspended due two yellows in prelims.
Not that any of you are experts of the Guatemalan Football League, but how is Communicationes in terms of the Sounders's chances of beating them. Relatively, how tough are they compared to teams of the Championship League past, such as the weak, beatable teams like San Francisco and Metapan, or the Goliaths like Monterrey and Saprissa. Is Communicaciones a middle-of-the-pack team like Marathón, per chance?
Well those teams couldn't have been that weak since we barely even beat them to qualify to the group stages. So I honestly do not think outside of playing some Carribean team which we havent, the Sounders have faced anyone "weak" in our short CCL history. Communicaciones has done fairly decent in this competition before as stated by Yoshou in the first post so they will tough(they were also runner ups in the 1991 edition of the CONCACAF Champions Cup the pre-Champions League tournament). The good thing is that we have them at home first so its a chance for us to try and get some points to gain some momentum as the competition starts we need to take that advantage of opening up at home and make the most of it. I would would prolly rate them higher then San Fran and Metapan for sure but not in the Saprissa range I think a fair comparison might be with Marathon from our group last year to be honest but I am also not an expert in Guatemalan Football though I have seen them play a couple times in this tournament. In short yes they are beatable but it won't be easy thats for sure.
Weekly Club Notes: http://goalwa.wordpress.com/2011/08...f-champions-league-before-battling-fc-dallas/ A Short Trip (by CCL Standards) Already one of the top three most-traveled teams in MLS, Sounders FC find themselves with some truly lengthy trips with the addition of CONCACAF Champions League away dates. Actually this Seattle-Dallas-Monterrey excursion will be the shortest with an estimated round-trip air mileage of 4500 miles. Last month there was the 7300-mile venture of Seattle-Panama-Houston and September offers two doozies: Seattle-San Jose, Costa Rica is 6,942 miles and Seattle-Guatemala City-Boston is 8,325 miles round trip. In league play alone, Sounders FC will travel an estimated 50,582 miles. They are 16-14-13 all-time on the road, and have snapped the two longest home unbeaten streaks in MLS history, at Columbus in 2009 and Real Salt Lake earlier this season. During the peak of summer the Rave Green are visiting hot spots such as Houston (90 degrees at first kick), Kansas City (94 degrees) and Frisco (102 degrees for its last home date, on July 31). Forecasts call for a high of 101 on matchday in Frisco and 99 in Monterrey.
Thank you for your post, EAB206BLUES. In hindsight, maybe I wasn't being fair to the teams the Sounders have faced in the preliminary stage, but with the last year's cataclysmic plight in the Group Stage play, any team the Sounders have a remote shot at beating seems to be a weak team. No offense to those teams, but the CONCACAF Champions League seems to be loaded with great teams. The Sounders pulled off a great effort against Marathón, despite having nothing to play for except for the great fans that came to watch them that day. The Sounders are a better team than last year team, so we can absolutely beat Marathón's equal in the first game of Group Play.
Great. Comcast has a service outage in my neck of the woods. Channels 1-100 are coming through but nothing else, so obviously Fox Soccer is out. Sucks that CONCACAF is only streaming some of the games live. Unless Comcast gets their poop in a group in the next 20 minutes (unlikely) I'll be relying on the message boards for updates.
So I assume we don't care about Champions League at all? Judging from the starting lineup. And goal to the away team already.
it looks like we were betting on commuications not caring, and played a conservative team.... looks like we lost that bet
A stupid bet to make, the first game is an important game no matter who you are playing or where you are playing them at.
Are Sigi and the front office on the same page in terms of the importance they place on CCL? The FO talks about doing well in these competitions and then Sigi sits Keller, by far the best keeper on the team and the vocal leader, in order to start the horrible Boss in the FIRST group match. Strange, strange move.