Game: Seattle Sounders FC vs FC Dallas Date: Sunday, August 12th Time: 9:00 PM [CST] Location: CenturyLink Field, Seattle, Washington, United States of America Weather Forecast: Sunny; H 77, L 58 Competition: Major League Soccer Last 5 For Opponent: W-W-W-W-D [All Competitions] Live TV: Fox Sports 1, Fox Deportes Radio: FCDallas.com/radio [English] | KFLC 1270 AM La Voz del Pueblo [Spanish] My expectations are understandably low considering our form in the Emerald City over the years. I'll happily take a draw. I hate Seattle, so I always dread this game.
They better put a good effort together. This is similar to last year where the team lost to San Jose then got blown out at Vancouver. Do that again and they will really start hearing about deja vu. Be nice to see our two new players.
Is it really happening again? This performance so far rivals any of the ones on the road during last year's meltdown.
I cannot stand Seattle. These hacks tried to injure Aranguiz the same way they injured Diaz, their striker headbutted Ziegler and yet it was Reto who got sent off, there was no soccer played in stoppage time yet the ref blew at exactly 4 minutes, and to top it all off, they scored the flukiest goal to win the game. Their team disgusts me more than the 2000s Houston Dynamo at this point and that's quite a feat. Anyways, the second half was better but still not good enough. Nice flashes from Pablo in the little time he got and good for Badji to get a debut goal, hopefully they can both contribute more the rest of the year because this attack desperately needs a boost.
Dear Lamah, Quit being a pansy. Either play the game and don't worry about the hacking and the talking, or break somebody's shin bone and eat the suspension. Don't just join in the yapping, especially on the road, because all you do is piss off the ref. -SK
MLS is a joke league with joke officiating but we've gotta get tougher in these situations. Seattle consistently bullies us around every F'n time we go to their plastic shit-heap. Enough is enough. Busca la forma con huevos.
Honestly, Ted Unkel's and Edvin Jurisevic's unwillingness to even review the Urruti penalty upsets me more than Reto's red card and Ruidiaz's non-punishment and the non-review of all of that. That was a stone-cold penalty. If you watch the replay, Alonzo brings his trailing foot around and whacks the back of Urruti's leg. Given that whack on the back of his leg, I don't think that what Urruti did post-tackle was way over-the-top. And if that was the reason why Unkel didn't call the penalty, and Jurisevic didn't deem it worthy of review, then they should both be suspended.
The officiating left a lot to be desired on Sunday. My theory is Jurisevic called in sick and Ted Unkel occasionally put his hand to his ear piece to cover for him. I like what little I've seen of Aranguiz so far. If he can get up to speed and integrated into the team, that should bode well for a playoff run. Of course, they need to avoid another end-of-season collapse, and the last two matches haven't quelled that fear. Next four games are against teams in the bottom four of the Western Division (Minnesota, Houston, San Jose, Houston). That's a chance to pick up a lot of points and cement their lead atop the table.
I thought that was one of our better performances in Seattle in recent history. I thought it was ironic that our game was delayed on FS1 by the DC - Orlando game that had 8 minutes of stoppage time, but played more, while our game had 4 minutes of stoppage time, but played less. Congrats to Ted Urkel for moving to top of the leader board as my new most hated MLS ref. Aranguiz looks like he might be something good. I was kind of impressed that as a new guy he was in the post-game fracas with everyone else. Carter Baum's write-up pointed out Pedroso's contributions to attack up the left wing. Hopefully he'll continue to improve. I won't start considering this a swoon unless we stink it up against MinU at home this weekend.
This is where I point out two things: 1. The "annual FCD end-of-season collapse" hasn't really been a thing under Óscar Pareja until last season: 2014 First 17 games: 22 points (6-7-4) Last 17 games: 32 points (10-5-2) 2015 First 17 games: 26 points (7-5-5) Last 17 games: 34 points (11-5-1) 2016 First 17 games: 28 points (8-5-4) Last 17 games: 32 points (9-3-5) 2017 First 17 games: 28 points (7-3-7) Last 17 games: 18 points (4-7-6) 2018 First 17 games: 35 points (10-2-5) Last 6 games: 7 points (2-3-1) Now, odds are pretty good that FCD will have a worse second half than first half again this season, but that's mostly a function of how good the first half was. (I suppose that it would be possible that 29 points in the final 11 games would be possible, but it's unlikely.) But say that they have 28 points in the second half of the season, which would be worse than the first half and would the second-worst second half that FCD has had since Pareja has been coach. Does that qualify as some sort of "swoon"? IMHO, no. 2. Man, John Strong was really beating that drum about FCD's horrific 2017 collapse. He was beating it awfully hard considering that Sunday night was FCD's second loss in a row. That's suboptimal, but head over to Wikipedia and see how ordinary that is for this team under Pareja. Hell, in both 2015 and 2016, this team had longer losing streaks than that. What killed them in 2017 wasn't an epic losing streak. It wasn't even losses, period. What killed them? They traded draws for wins. In 2015, they had a record of 18-10-6. In 2016, they had a record of 17-8-9. Both seasons, they finished with 60 points, the most in the league. In 2017, they finished 11-10-13. Note that there were only 10 losses, the same as 2015 and only two more than 2016. But look at the wins and look at the draws. Those wins in 2015 and 2016 turned into draws in 2017. Look at the big winless run in the second half: That's lot of draws interspersed win the losses. Turn four of them into wins, and this team finishes on top of the West again. (In fact, if you look at the first 19 games, there were a lot of draws there, too.) And let's not forget something really fundamental here: Last year's collapse was unprecedented. That means that it did not have precedent. Nothing like that had ever happened in 20+ years that this league's been around. Strong's obsession with last year's collapse while FCD was in the midst of a hard-fought second straight loss was a bit like wondering who's gonna get the house in the divorce just because you and your spouse had a little argument about some dirty laundry on the bedroom floor. So I can't blame El Profe for getting annoyed with people who want to keep asking about it. But in the end, as others have pointed out, the best way for people to STFU about it is for FCD to win. They've got a great opportunity to rack up some points in the next few weeks, so just win, baby.
None of these facts matter. A narrative has been created and that narrative has to be nailed home as often as possible, especially when the team hardly has any nationally televised games.