Match Ten
SEATTLE 1 - 1 ATLANTA Atlanta wins shootout. Soeby (A) 22' (1st) Fry (S) 76' (2nd)One of the worst performances this year. The Sounders played poorly. It looked like one of the pre-season matches. No one had a good game except for maybe Hahnemann. He had alot of great saves. That first goal was pure crappy defense. The ball was cleared and the defense moved up. But when the ball popped back towards the goal no defenders were to be seen, only a lone Ruckus striker and Chewy.
The Sounders dominated the majority of the play, but never put it together. Farrell started in place of Chance Fry, but was injured in the first half and replaced by Heale. Fry came in for Hoggan in time to score his goal. Hattrup was not in form. He was back to dribbling up the side and then going nowhere. The cylinders just weren't firing on what was a beautiful, 80 degree evening.
I was hoping that the Ruckus would have been slowed down by a week of drinking local microbrew, but they hustled the whole game. Their offsides trap was in full effect but had mixed results. Not mixed enough for the Sounders though...
The play was chippy and grew worse as the match went on. At one point James Dunn got an elbow to the mouth from Murray (#4) and the two squared off in hockey fashion. No punches were thrown but it looked damn close. James would not back down, even after the ref spoke to both of them at length. As a result, they both wound up with yellow cards. During the shootout Marcus tackled Murray and left him limping. I don't know if the two incidences were related...
Fry's goal was pure beauty and was the result of what seemed like a dozen corners and free kicks. Finally one went in, but was too little, too late. I found myself forgetting there is a spector known as "the A-League shootout." The clock was ticking off it's last seconds and I was thinking: damn a tie. Just then my wife says to me, "I don't like shootouts. We need to score." Damn, I forgot about the damn shootout...
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