welcome back freddie, welcome back 3 points, the beer report.

i actually wrote this last night, but didn’t hit “publish” and just noticed… let’s just say the synapses weren’t firing much late night, and even less so this morning. ugh… oh well, here we go.

i haven’t had the time for my last haircut to grow out, but here we go again… great clips here i come as the sounders put on a first half clinic and we took down NE 3-0. not to take the luster off a great game and great result, but i am a little afraid that it was a bit more of a case of NE being really crap vs us being really good. still, you have to take advantage of those games and we did.

i am the first to admit that i have been tired of freddies moaning of late, but i also have never undervalued what he can give to this club. while none of the 3 goals scored tonight had an FL10 assist to its name, i would say he was the man of the match. he had 6 crosses tonight that could/should have resulted in a goal. no, they didn’t, but i am not going to take away from his performance. it was top notch, and i loved it. if we were losing, there were some moments that would have likely turned into a huge moan, but you could see him physically trying to avoid it, and all credit to him on that. let’s just keep winning, and freddie will keep quiet. sound like a plan? i should be a head coach, really.

oh, and if there is a person out there that thinks that evans is best used as a striker, and not a center mid, well then i say to you, with confidence, you don’t know what you are talking about. evans had a great game at CM and it is what we need from him. the experiment at striker should end and let’s all agree that evans = midfielder, not striker. he showed that again around the 80th minute again if you weren’t sure.

tactics… we (i) don’t usually talk about them b/c well, i am usually too busy yelling, drinking and just having fun to try and break down the game or notice if a 4-3-1-2 would better than a 3-4-1-1-1. but yesterday, there seemed to be a pretty clear game plan from the beginning. PLAY DOWN THE LEFT WING.  the whole game seemed to be played over there.  all three goals came from the left and freddie was often left all alone, calling for the ball, on the right. freddie, whatever your opinion of him is of late, still commands a boatload of respect, and him sitting over on the right means they have to honor him with a few defenders staying home even though most of the action is on the other side of the pitch. i am not one to notice tactics as well as others, but this, for me, was a fantastic call by sigi and was fun to watch.

ok, what else.

- jeff parke. well done son. we have given you some crap, but we have short memories and and are  quick to forget. you were all over this pitch tonight and won every header and your effort was not missed on this fan.

- leo….. was this your best game. as a sounder. yes you got the goal, but you then played like you had a rush of blood to the head the whole rest of the game, and i loved it. that goal was sick. you will never score one like that again. but i love that you will try to.

- zak… fantastic goal you took it so well.

- and the final, 3rd goal, was montero. it wasn’t the prettiest of goals, and if the keeper had just decided to lie on the ground in a costanza pose, he would have saved it, but they all count. i also saw montero run much more than normal and i applaud him for that.

- finally, while i already spoke to it, i have to go back to FL10.  i know he doesn’t play with the talent of bergkamp, henry and pires  anymore, but, if he was, he would have had 5 assists last night. maybe that is a bit of a silly way to assess how good he was, but silly stats are the best aren’t they?

it seems like he also went to great clips last week and was sporting a bald mohawk. my sister put it best… “he has a landing strip on his head”. never seen anything like it to be honest. it looked died in the back but it was only due to that being where most of the hair still grows.

oh, and did anyone else catch his water bottle toss? it was hilarious. ianni was on the ground being tended to, freddie took a gatorade bottle for some water and walked out onto the pitch. after he was done he turned around and threw it pretty hard back to the bench… his face all of a sudden went “oh sh*t” just as the bottle hit sigi in what i thought was his upper chest. but then a minute later, sigi was being tended to by the trainers, and he had a bandage on his left forearm. not sure it if was related, but it was enjoyable.

so that is it. 3 points cures a lot eh? we win on thursday, which is almost a must, we go into the WC break on a decent little run. with RSL, SJ and Houston all dropping points yesterday, we are only a few good wins out of being in the thick of the pack again. i would rather start slow and finish strong so let’s hope that is how this season is going to play out eh?

ok, off to get some more coffee and advil.