game reaction: mixed feelings
never does a loss feel “good”, and this falls into that category, but the way we dominated the second half, a man down, was very encouraging….
lets go to the bullet points shall we?
first half
- KC dominated the first 30 minutes. they were very dangerous down the right half and opened us up on many occasions. luckily for us, they never seemed to have the final pass/shot that would worry us.
- conversely, we were very poor. there wasn’t one thing that stuck out, but we just were not cohesive like we have been in the previous games. passes went everywhere but where they should.
- now onto the sending off. first of all, i don’t blame keller for coming out. but, his arms were up, the shot hit of his hand…. and it is a straight red every time. i appreciate kellers attempt to roll over in pain as if it was a very hard shot into his tummy, but replay after replay showed that he played that one up, and the referee got it right.
- le toux was sacrificed to bring in our 3rd string keeper, dragavon. if you know anything about dragovan, well then good on you. i don’t. i have never heard of him, and i don’t think many other people have either. heck, on the soundersfc official website, he doesn’t even have a profile….
- dragavon was immediately called into action and did well to snuff out a dangerous cross.
- the rest of the first half was actually a snore fest. KC was willing to look for the perfect opportunity, which really didn’t arise, and the sounders were more than willing to go into half time 0-0 given the circumstance… and indeed we did.
- whatever sigi said at half time… we need more of that. we DOMINATED them the second half. you would have absolutely thought KC was the team with the man down. we had 3 very good chances in the half. Fredy hit the cross bar from a free kick. he then hit it into a defender when you thought he would have buried it in a play that jaqua did really well to keep the ball alive. jaqua then had a free header which he put a few feet wide of the post.
- KC pretty much did nothing the whole half other than give the sounders haters something to cheer about in the 80th minute. davy arnaud had all the time in the world to size up the goal, move the ball into an even better position, and then hit a very good strike into the side netting. not sure if a better keeper would have saved it, but the fault must come down to the defense giving him that much time on the ball. if you were in a quiet room at the time, you could hear all the sounders fans hearts sink collectively.
- we clawed and scratched after that to try and get a meaningful attack going, but not much happened… game over, there goes our perfect start to the season.
overall, it was a bit of a cruel ending to the match given the hard work rate that our team put in a man down… but hanging on for a draw with only 1o men for 60+ minutes is a huge task for any team. over all, i am not as bummed at the result as i am sure some others are. we all knew that this day would come, but obviously we hoped it would be a few more weeks/months later. in a way, i am glad this happened. lets live and learn, stop talking about all this MLS Cup crap so dang early into the season, and keep on keeping on without the distractions of being a great expansion team. i just want to play great footy and continue to pick up 3 points as often as possible.
finally, i thought the ref had a TERRIBLE game. funny enough, i think the sending off was about the only big decision he got right. i love fred and fred, but they are quick to go down under some challenges i think, and the ref was buying all of it. if i was a wizards supporter, i would have lost my voice yelling at those two. on the other side of the ball, i felt that jewsbury was lucky to stay on the pitch. he had bad tackle after bad tackle.
oh and finally, this just in… the sky hasn’t fallen.
COME ON YOU SOUNDERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
