04.18.09: Sounders @ Chivas (Pre/In/Post)

Preki should be manager of the year so far with what he's done so far.

Got the tactics completely right against us... took away the short passing game in the attacking third, commit a lot of fouls to slow our attack down, given that we've not looked threatening at all on set pieces.

We really needed to play more direct at times given how organized Chivas were and that we couldn't get behind their defense, other than Montero's opportunity early that he should have buried. Would have been interesting to see if we could have opened them up a lot more with a goal lead, but alas...

No need to panic, Chivas are efficient if nothing else. No shame in losing this game at all.

Well done to the travelling support, looks like we had some good numbers down there and could hear ya from time to time

 

Plain and simple, they outplayed, out-coached, and out-muscled us. Chivas looked good. Klestjan was dangerous all night and Preki just out-subbed us all around the field. The ref this week very much let the play be phyiscal and Seattle laid on the ground a lot after heavy fouling. I think they were confused because the ref last week called every glancing touch as a foul (he was at the opposite spectrum of this ref - where is the MLS ref consistency). Anyway, they knew it was going to be physical, so that shouldn't have been a surprise. Ljundberg was muscled off the ball quite a bit. We gave up the ball too much - didn't keep possession well. The idea of trying to get the long ball or throw ins to Jacqua's head didn't work - good idea, poor execution. Montero was very lazy - no hustle like in the first game. Reading a bit too much of his own press. Even if the service to Jacqua had been better, there wouldn't have been any Montero to run on to the flick-on. I thougt our wing play was very poor. We only got dangerous crosses in when Nyassi came on. For my money, Nyassi is a starter. He's the fastest guy on the team, good with the ball at his feet, good in space, great crosser, not afraid to shoot. I figure that with Ljundberg and Alsonso, Le Toux and Evans through the middle, you'd see better midfield passing, but it just wasn't there. I think the midfield is where we need work. They aren't opening up the defenses like they should be.

 

Preki has been putting together that team with chewing gum and shoe laces and getting them into the playoffs each season. He is one of the better coaches in the league. If people can't see that then I don't know what they are looking at. It was unfortunate that Riley decided to put an upper V shot into our own net allowing Chivas to bunker down and kill the game. Eylander is a good keeper but probably shouldn't have started tonight. On the second goal he dove but didn't move. Perhaps he couldn't get a push off on the knee. That goal rally didn't matter because we didn't look like scoring in the second half anyway. We'll see what happens next week. I think having Kasey behind these guys gives them a lot of confidence.

 

.....

There's no need to get snarky, Chivas had easily 60 to 70% posession in the first half and while you guys look a lot more dangerous in the second half and had two or three really good chances, at the same time the solidity the midfield show in the first half was lost -hence the counter and the second goal- Dont take it so hard, the Cinderella run is over but the Sounders will be a contender.

And yes, English is my second language, and Im working on making italian my third (the wife and I are going to Venezia for our second honeymoon... )

 

You shouldn't be ashamed you lost to a pretty decent team, hey Artesian at least you haven't lost to the galaxy, maybe?

 

A few of my thoughts from watching the match:

- Le Toux looked terrible, I was happy when he got subbed out before the start of the second half. I like the guy but he just didn't look good at all out there.

-Montero's open goal chip miss early in the game was huge. Beautiful pass from Ljungberg though but Montero needs to hit those.

- The own goal by Riley was unfortunate, if he hadnt touched it Livingston (SIC?) would have been there to put it in so yeah not much he could do there unfortunately the ball bounce didnt go his way.

-Chijindu's goal IMO came from terrible defending. Nice little pass back to him though from Stepanovic.

- Like the KC game we had our chances but we didnt make anything out of them.

- I know he is coming of a injury but Eylander did not impress me at all, I was more impressed with Dragavon last week.

- So happy Keller comes back next week. He truly is the foundation of this team.

- hopefully the boys bounce back againts San Jose next week here at home.

 

Very cool to hear our group could actually be heard by those watching!

Being my first Sounders live match, it was cool meeting fellow Sounders fans from Washington, California, and even a few more from my state of Arizona. Alot of us had to learn the songs prior to the match.

I look forward to seeing the Sounders more times in California along with eventually every other MLS stadium.

As for the match, our crossing left alot to be desired. I am with many others in wondering how the match might have gone if Montero had finished off that sure goal.

 

We were tactically outplayed, by a thuggish team that grinds, tackles and punches its way into opportunities and then snatches the chance like a spider and scores.

This is the kind of team MLS tends to allow to thrive; it is pretty ugly soccer to watch, but in our league it works. It preys on the fact MLS officiating is all over the place. How on Earth did we wind up with more yellows than Chivas in that match for example? I don't say that to gripe, I admire how Chivas has founda a tactical methodology that works, we just need to find a way to compete against it. Skill teams have to thrive in MLS, in order for the league to grow, so lets find a way to make that happen.

Chivas is a blue collar, grinding team that stifles you, and then takes whatever you give them in return to score. Chivas will win a lot of 1-0 games this year and get a lot of 0-0 draws.


We haven't learned how to handle a team like this year - but we will.

I agree with EA, I thought Le Toux looked terrible; I thought he made several mistakes in the KC game too, so I think Sigi's frustration with him was an aggregate of the last two games.

I am not too keen on Sigi calling Le Toux out so blatantly on a TV interview half-way through the first half. Sure I was frustrated with Le Toux blowing several chances early, but calling him out like that on TV, isn't good. A little more class there, would have been nice. That said, I think Sigi has done an incredible job with us, and we're very lucky to have him.

I like what Zakuani brought to the team when he was brought in, but I thought the Nyassi move was a little too desperate, and we became a really stupid team in the last 15 minutes. There were throw ins and plays in the last 15 minutes that really made me wince.

Ljungberg had a really bad game - and our team seemed to lack the chemistry it displayed in earlier games. I noticed more bickering and finger-pointing from our team in this one.

Also Montero, has seemed distracted since the incident with the investigation. The Montero in game 1, doesn't miss that easy chance in the first half; and doesn't make such a dreadful free kick from just outside the box.

We've spent two games now squandering opportunities. We are displaying the lack of polish and finish that most expansion teams exhibit. We were spoiled in games 1, 2 and 3 - this is probably a lot closer to what we really are, given our talent.

The fun part now is watching them come back to a cohesive unit. Sometimes things need to break before you can rebuild them back stronger. If we don't rebound next week, we'll know we're in for a long haul.

I want to say I was very wrong about Tyrone Marshall. I hated the trade at first...but he's a gritty and useful defender. I thought, of all our players, he probably played the best last night.

 

The way San Jose is playing it should not be that difficult. Huckerby may not be back in the lineup by them, and our top defender, Jason Hernandez is still out with a calf injury. Quakes are still not playing like a team, the parts just aren't meshing yet.
Chivas is a tough team to play, West Seattle hit the nail on the head with his description of them.

 

Wow, dude , calling Chivas USA thuggish, lol. We are a very physical team, and your team got owned.

 

My observations in the form of player ratings:
Jaqua: not effective in the style of play we played but gave good effort.
Montero: He is playing like he still has a touch of the flu.
Ljungberg: He played good in spots and was a liability in spots. He obviously doesn't have his legs and lungs in shape enough to play the go-go style he did at Arsenal. I am sure he will get there.
Alonso: Great again.
LeToux: I am a huge LeToux fan but he had bad game. He was a turnover machine and his crosses and corners were lame. I was happy to see him go off.
Evans: He looked out of place again and didn't put any pressure on the left side of Chivas' defense.
Riley: Looked about like he always does: active but without a lot of great touches.
Hurtado: Looked pretty good. He is a tough dude.
Marshall: so-so. Pretty typical performance.
Scott: played his best game of the year.
Eylander: Looked fine. Good enough to win.
Nyassi and Zakuani: both looked active and pushed play. They both made us better.

Thank God Sigi doesn't listen to me as we wouldn't have seen this great game by Scott. What I hope we can fix is: one of the speedy wings needs to be in there at all times. Freddie L needs to continue to work into shape and get his timing with the other players. Montero needs to get his mojo back.

We looked like an expansion team but Chiva looked good. I think we will be ok.

 

A few thoughts.

I thought Jaqua would be able to handle himself against a physical defense but he struggled. The Chivas midfield clogged a lot of our passing lanes and that caused us to resort to the long ball a lot. That would have been fine if Jaqua have been able to hold on to those long balls for more than two touches. With Jaqua's size, he should easily be able to compete with physical defenses but he's got to be physical himself.

Speaking of the midfield, I didn't think Ljungberg played horribly but he's going to have to get used to the physicality in MLS. He took a lot of hits running right at people and he seemed to want a penalty called almost every time he was stripped or taken down. I think Ljungberg will eventually learn that we will get more chances if he gets the ball past players than we will if he goes straight at players and hopes he gets fouled.

Now, I say Ljungberg didn't play horribly because, at least in the first half, he was about the only person making plays. Le Toux wasn't doing anything in the run of play and Evans was nowhere to be found. In the middle of the first half, I recall Ljungberg creating chances on the left and right flanks on two successive possessions. Maybe Ljungberg is a ballhog but it seemed to me that Evans and Le Toux just weren't with it yesterday. Our play definitely picked up when Zakuani came on.

 

Now that sounds like a good time!

 

They are thuggish. The ref was a joke for allowing it.

 

And Chivas did outplay us - there's no doubt...their tactics worked. They were the better team. But, yeah, they are pretty choppy and thuggish...but like I said...that style of play is very successful in MLS.

 

I'm not sure if it's just me but at the end of the match Jaqua could have easily put one in with his left foot but decided to do some little spin move and lost the ball. It looked like he had plenty of the room from the defender and Thornton wasn't in position. Anyone else besides my buddy and I see that?

 

Yeah, I saw that, too. I'm sure this isn't the case, but putting forth the extra effort to spin and take the shot with his right foot made it look like he has no left foot. Yet he assisted Ljungberg in the Toronto game with a strong pass from his left foot.

 

Its just plain and simple, Chivas was by far the better team on Saturday. Their style of play was just too much for us and we will def have to adjust before the next meeting (which is not too far away). The Sounders had their chances but could not complete them and you are never going to win if you dont. Big up to Chivas they won the game all we can do is regroup and play better and make those opportunities count at home vs San Jose.

 

Big ups to Seattle as an organization and bigger ups to the supporters that made their way down to L.A on saturday, you guys seem like classy people
Hope you enjoyed the Chivas uSA experience at the HDC

 

Take your tin foil hat, FoxNews, build a fence around the country political dialogue to the appropriate thread.

 

Chivas deserved the win. Yeah, they play a punishing physical game (damn, Attiba!) but they broke us down with some beautiful technical passing - a killer combo. I haven't seen Chicago yet but the goats look to be the team to beat in MLS this year. This team was forged by debilitating injuries last year. They've still got injury problems but Preki has his bench playing at a high level.

 

My turn to chime in.

Honestly, I thought Seattle battled all game. I thought Freddy M. was well-marked. Even so, he was always dangerous. He's definately going to be a star in this league. Speaking of Jaqua, he tends to lose control a bit if he's frustrated, but Ljunberg and Alonso kept the attack going forward.

This game was intense and I have nothing but proper respect to all the Seattle fans who came down for this game. Their spirit and support were we're heard by many. We hope you come again.

A special thanks to the family from Seattle who came to our tailgate and had "Camarones a la borracha". I hope they drank enough water. LOL!!

Last, on behalf of the Union Ultras, we would like to extend an apology to the Seattle fan that was sucker punched at the game. We hope in the future that this type bullsh*t is resolved and never happens again.

However, given the joke that is Home Depot Security, I wouldn't count on it.

Nevertheless, please contact your ticket rep at ChivasUSA (Dina?) and report the incident. The league office needs to know about these incidents so that they can expel or ban the individuals reponsible.


Good luck this season, Sounders. You guys are a good team and fun to watch.

ELAC

 

Somebody got sucked punched at the game? What happened?

Good thing you guys had the badges.