Real Salty: Seattle Sounders Supporters Are Too Thirsty.
Kickoff: You know when you’ve got that parent at your child’s soccer game who just won’t shut the hell up?
Yes, you know. You also watched [if you had 5G] Real Salt Lake not make complete fools of themselves while they were pitted against almighty Seattle who had:
Numerous DPs
Players, coaches and GM they took—later losing the GM to ATHAHAHAHA
Lower bowl with the most unimaginative chant ever [at least yall finally figured out you couldn’t fill the upper bowl]
This Just In: Our SG was not the problem Saturday night; it was a small faction filled with morons who think “SEA-ATLE…SOUND-ERS” is brilliant and has some chant leader who teaches Pre-K Montessori running that shitshow. Meanwhile, some other “leader” is handing out freaking yellow fan-caution cards like we’re in preschool.
Yeah, ‘bout as brilliant as the fact you call rain a “sea misMF IT’S RAIN, OKAY?—said I, in my Angry Brian all-caps. It comes down from the sky [Imma hol’ up on callin it heavens bc when it RAINS 365 DAYS A YEAR IT IS NOT HEAVEN IT IS IN FACT HELL] like rain—so it’s rain.
Rain.
IDK who pissed down the Sounders’ FO’s leg [at the dog park, like I said last week and the week before that] but they did. Perhaps it was that we didn’t give in quite like the Rapids and were willing to trade you a pound of your flesh per every goal you scored, in your 2-0 “win.”
You know how when you win you actually lose? That’s what the Sounders did; they got several yellow cards that I’m sure won’t bite them later.
Why Wasn’t Pablo Mastroeni Making Any Halftime Adjustments?
Maybe the coach needed some Jasper Loffelsend moment to set off this game in Seattle, which was basically and very literally a snoozer for the first 29 minutes in which RSL had NO SHOTS ON GOAL. Zero. Not. A. One.
Seattle limped into the dressing room like somebody just shot their favorite dog, with a 1-0 lead. This would have been a perfect time for RSL to have made several tactical adjustments—but they didn’t. Seattle grabbed another goal early in the second half to coast to a 2-0 dub.
Here’s Why That Was: stupid. STOOOOOPID.
Not that RSL was ever gonna give the Sounders 3.20 expected goals or whatever the hell kind of fairy magic dust potion snake oil bullshit that guy peddling the above is trying to sell ya—but yeah.
Three expected goals for Seattle on this night would be discounting a heroic performance from Zac MacMath, and from a backline that only fell asleep twice—and one was not the fault of the back line’s at all.
It Was A Night Of Championship Fights.
Not just on the field—but also in the middle of the freaking street in Seattle where a bunch of morons who no longer have a riot and a city center to take hold of apparently tried bumrushing some RSL supporters for fun. I keep going back to that scene when Ron Burgendy and the Channel 4 News Team were walking down the street minding their own business when out of nowhere comes some rival offshoot faction—but in this case it was some “group” claiming to be Sounders diehards.
Now back to the game.
In Sum: The Sounders basically said, fine. We'll play 3v2s and counterpress on your right side of the field and give you a 5v2 in the center of the park. What's more is we'll give you all of your left side of the field--because Bryan Oviedo is too old and can't possibly attack up that flank for a full 90 and Jefferson Savarino is too attack-minded to play box-to-box for that long. And ya know, that philosophy worked on both Seattle goals.
The Sounders took advantage of that weakness on our left side of the pitch, sending in two inswinger left-footed crosses, early. By the time RSL woke up like Rocky from the ROCKY 2 movie from both suckerpunches it was too late for the crying. You had freakin Oviedo yelling out for Adrian in the 50th minute because that’s how winning is done! You don’t win if you don’t man-mark on corner kicks or early crosses! Ask any of my former players what happened at practices when they didn’t man-mark touchtight [shirt-grab near the hip] on corners or early crosses. [They’re doing up-downs until we were walking up to take the next corner/early X.]
What: if we’d have put Diego Luna in to replace Braian Ojeda at the half and let Luna boss the midfield like he does with the US youth national teams and relieve Ojeda of his duties [instead of after the 2nd Seattle goal]? Then perhaps Luna creates a goal-scoring opportunity or even five. GAH! Alas, Ojeda is still getting used to Major League Soccer after *checks notes* more than six months here and dozens of misreads on 50-50 balls [!], lines of contention [!!] [zonally? man-to-man? IDK?!?] and general friggin holding midfielder etiquette. {!!!}
*throws clipboard but it bounces back because it’s an iPad with a bumper pad*
Jefferson Savarino has now accomplished next to nothing [aside from one goal on one shot on target] in two games on that left side of the field.
Can we please give that shit a rest already and send record signing Carlos Andres Gomez [I’m just gonna call this dude AG] over to the left side of the pitch—since that’s where he was playing when he went in, anyhow?!? My Gawd, I promise this shit isn’t that goddamned hard.
These “coaches” act like they’re reinventing fire. It reminds me of the time when a bunch of potbellied, sarcastic guys from Europe who had “A” coaching LICENSES which stood for “A$$HOL3S” were always teaching the same things year after year during the early 2000s under the guise of “SOCCER SCHOOLS” at your county rec centers, advertising their impending arrivals with loud fliers against some plaid background and Old English lettering. Seated in their lawnchairs, they’d badmouth Americans every chance they had—because they were born that way. They’ve all been through the match fixing, and hooliganism cycles, and also the year about some stupid media outlet [SKY, in their case] covering all of the games with a supposedly great, new way of doing this—but with a bad Internet connection [so they watched ‘em for free through their bookies who always had a GREAT connection].
In turn, the coaches in MLS are now taking these “pro” coaching courses from these same hucksters who can’t even be bothered to walk around with a clipboard stuffed into their tight Adidas shorts, dress socks and COPA turf shoes. They’ve now upgraded to tucked-out polos [to hide the beer bellies] and Copa indoors— advising while riding around on golf carts!
So I do find it surprising that anyone is surprised that two MLS teams shipped goals the same way to an ownership group that “refused” [and, I do mean refused] to install proper “airbags” in thousands of their vehicles for a time in the mid-to-late 00s. C’mon, man. They’ve got offices all over the world—Belfast included.
I wrap up the third segment by previewing the next opponent who literally had to fall into the opponent’s net to grab a late winner.
Next up: Vs. Austin FC, Saturday.
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Real Salty: Seattle Sounders Supporters Are Too Thirsty