2012 Aug 25

Montero gets a hat trick at Chivas USA

Chivas USA  2 - 0  Seattle Sounders FC

Home Depot Center, Carson, CA

Goals:
10' SEA: Brad Evans (Fredy Montero)
27' SEA: Fredy Montero (Mauro Rosales)
34' SEA: Fredy Montero (Mauro Rosales)

38' CHV: Juan Agudelo (PK)
64' CHV: Miller Bolaņos (Tristan Bowen)
67' SEA: Fredy Montero (Mauro Rosales)
82' SEA: Sammy Ochoa (Christian Tiffert, Brad Evans)
90' SEA: Own goal (Jazic)

Chivas: Dan Kennedy; James Riley, Bobby Burling, John Valencia, Ante Jazic; Tristan Bowen (Jose Correa 69'), Shalrie Joseph, Nick LaBrocca, Miller Bolaņos; Casey Townsend (Juan Pablo Angel 86'), Juan Agudelo.
Substitutes not used: Tim Melia, Danny Califf, Ben Zemanski, Jorge Villafaņa, Alejandro Moreno.

Seattle: Michael Gspurning; Adam Johansson, Jeff Parke, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Leo Gonzalez; Mauro Rosales (Mario Martinez 78'), Osvaldo Alonso, Christian Tiffert (Steve Zakuani 83'), Brad Evans; Fredy Montero, Eddie Johnson (Sammy Ochoa 73').
Substitutes not used: Josh Ford, Zach Scott, Marc Burch, Alex Caskey.


Match report from Ron Stickney:

Fredy Montero scored his first hat trick for the Seattle Sounders FC as they ran up a 6-2 score at Chivas USA. Brad Evans got the Sounders started with a well-taken early goal.

Chivas had as many good chances as the Sounders, but the difference was in the finishing. Very early chances were for Chivas. Miller Bolaņos was served open on the left for a 10-yard shot, but he sent a slow shot right to goalkeeper Michael Gspurning at the near post. Juan Agudelo slightly redirected a cross and missed the far post by inches.

10' SEA: Evans (Montero). Eddie Johnson head-flicked Leo Gonzalez' throw-in to Montero, who found Evans running in on the left. Ex-Sounder James Riley stabbed at the pass and missed, leaving Evans alone against goalkeeper Dan Kennedy. Evans waited for Kennedy to commit, then beat him with a low shot to the far side, 1-0 Seattle.

Casey Townsend was next to miss a chance for Chivas, beating Jhon Kennedy Hurtado to a cross in front of goal but heading badly wide of the far post.

Kennedy nearly had one for the blooper reel, knocking Evans' cross towards goal, but Riley was there to clear the ball from the goal plane.

27' SEA: Montero (Rosales). A long run up the middle was honored by Christian Tiffert. Evans served a short pass to Mauro Rosales, who hit Montero on his diagonal run in front of goal for an 8-yard shot to the lower far corner. 2-0 Seattle.

Agudelo missed another good Chivas chance, heading hard on goal from close range from Riley's cross, but right at Gspurning's head. Gspurning made a reaction save to knock the ball up and over.

34' SEA: Montero (Rosales). Seattle attacked strongly after Johnson stole the ball in midfield in Chivas' end. Montero fell trying to control Evans' pass, but got up and managed to send a short square pass to Johnson, who dropped a short pass to Rosales. Again Rosales found Montero on the diagonal run in front of goal, and Montero chipped a shot over the charging Kennedy. 3-0 Seattle.

38' CHV: Agudelo (PK). Jeff Parke was unlucky to have the ball hit his hand near the spot on a cross. A penalty kick was given, and Agudelo converted it to the right as Gspurning went the other way. 3-1 Seattle.

Agudelo had the first chance of the second half, open in front of goal but heading the cross well wide. Tristan Bowen had a good chance from Riley's cross but headed it wide.

For Seattle, Tiffert's cross was just a bit to high for Montero, who was open on the far-post run and headed over the bar.

For Chivas, Bowen shot wide, then dropped in pain as Hurtado slid into his planted foot. Townsend knocked a cross on goal, but easily to Gspurning.

64' CHV: Bolaņos (Bowen). After taking a long pass from Bowen, Bolaņos ran at goal getting by Adam Johansson, then Parke, then beating Gspurning with a shot to the lower far corner. 3-2 Seattle.

67' SEA: Montero (Rosales). Rosales got a pass from Seattle's end and advanced the ball before yet again finding Montero on a diagonal run in front of goal. Montero drew the ball back to lose John Valencia, then hit the lower far corner with another clinical finish to earn his hat trick. 4-2 Seattle.

Chivas thought they had a goal at 75' after a quick throw-in by Bolaņos. Ante Jazic took the throw-in and crossed to Townsend, who put the ball in front of goal. Substitute Jose Correa's first shot from the doorstep was off the post and his put-back was saved by Gspurning, who left a sitter inches from the goal line. Agudelo dove on the ball but handled it. A Seattle defender knocked it into the goal, but Agudelo was whistled for the handling.

Townsend had another good chance from a Chivas corner kick play, heading it high on goal but within reach of Gspurning, who held it.

82' SEA: Ochoa (Tiffert). Evans found Tiffert wide open on the left for a well-aimed cross, and substitute Sammy Ochoa powered an impressive header inside the near post. 5-2 Seattle.

Osvaldo Alonso had his chance at 85', firing Johansson's cross hard on goal up the middle, but too close to Kennedy.

Chivas nearly had one at 89' when Gspurning had to push a corner kick to the side where substitute Juan Pablo Angel's shot on goal was deflected high by Parke.

90' SEA: Own goal (Jazic). Content with three goals, Montero elected to cross from the left and Jazic headed it into his own net to cap the scoring. 6-2 Seattle.


Statistics:
          CHV   SEA
Shots:     21    12
Saves:      2     5
Corners:    7     1
Fouls:     14    17
Offsides:   1     5

Misconduct:
54' SEA: Alonso cautioned for a tactical foul on Bowen
90' VAN: Bolaņos cautioned for a tactical foul on Gonzalez

Referees: Jose Carlos Rivero; Ian Anderson, Fabio Tovar; Baldomero Toledo

Attendance: 11,973


Post-Match Quotes

Seattle Sounders FC

Sigi Schmid - Head Coach

Thoughts on the match: "We knew it was going to be a strange game just because of where they are at on the standings. We knew that we would have to take some risks and go forward, and one thing we talked about was the desire to go forward; we knew it was going to present us opportunities, which it did. We were very fortunate that they didn't get more goals; we made some desperation saves. I thought that Michael came up with a couple of good reactions on crosses on clearing them."

On Fredy Montero: "He's playing well. I think the one goal that he made where he played the ball to Mauro, he got the ball back and just chipped it over Kennedy as he was coming out, I thought that was a quality goal, a quality finish. He's very sharp right now and very confident and obviously that's a good thing for our team."

On Chivas USA's offense: "It's the first time Chivas has played in a true 4-4-2; they really haven't played in a true 4-4-2 in a while, that caused us a little bit of surprise. Their forwards are young, they were busy, and they were active. Our guys didn't know that much about them and maybe weren't as mentally prepared as they should have been for them."

On Seattle Sounders' midfield: "It was good offensively, I thought their movement was good and popping up in different places was good. Defensively when we lost the ball we had way too many guys standing there. There were times when Chivas was attacking us seven against five or seven against six and we had four guys standing up front. It was a matter of getting back and recovering. The place-changing is something that we encourage, we allow them to do that, and the key to doing that and making that work is you have to keep the ball."

Fredy Montero

Thoughts on the ability of the team's midfield: "They are all really good with the ball, and obviously they are players who can defend. We are going to use that for the team because we need to go forward but at the same time we need to be compact in the back to keep the result."

Thoughts on goal opportunities: "[Chivas USA] was going forward and left a space behind the defense. We tried to use those, and it was good for us to come in those spaces to score the first goal. After that we saw that we could use that again to keep scoring more goals."

Thoughts on the teams performance: "I'm just happy to keep it up. We know that it is not the end; we have nine more games where we have to make as many plays as we can. We have a really good team. We have players who are ready for the opportunity to come in and perform well."

Mauro Rosales

On his team's performance: "I think we did great offensively, and making many situations for goals. For the strikers, they were very effective and very calm with the ball. Almost every time that we could make a good pass or a good pass through to them, they did very well and we are very happy that the production of the team was very good. We are very happy about how the game finished."

Thoughts on his position: "We have the freedom with (Christian Tiffert) to change every time, when we think the game is going to work out. When we see the space we try to occupy the space. We are trying to keep the ball, it's a good thing to not have to defend. If we keep the ball, and keep possession it's something that we have to work on."

On the team's confidence: "We have other guys that are fresh and they want to play also, and we have a team that we can play down in Trinidad and back in Dallas, and we are all trying to do our best. We want to keep this mentality and the whole team has to be in a high mentality. The guys that didn't play today have to know that they will have their chance in the same level. Every day we work together, we have enough players to face the other teams."

Chivas USA

Robin Fraser - Head Coach

Thoughts of the game: "The attacking side was really, really good tonight. I thought we created a ton of opportunities, we could have scored a number of goals. The defending group did not play very well, a lot of individual mistakes or collectively not dealing with counter attacks well enough, but that's what happens when you play against a good team -- you give them opportunities and they are going to score goals. The other side of that is we were extremely dynamic on the attacking end and created a number of chances. This game could have ended a lot to a lot. Obviously disappointed how we defended and pleased with the attacking group."

Thoughts on the six goals: "You look at how the game went and how we played going forward. It was the best attacking night we have had certainly all year, coming out of that I don't know if you would call it an embarrassment. Anytime you give up six goals or six goals at home is not what you are certainly looking for. I keep referencing the attacking side and how good I think it was, just defensively we were extremely poor."

On Tristan Bowen's performance: "Tristan was good, he had a good night -- very, very attack-minded, running at the defender all night long. He had a good showing and it's only the second game in a long time and he is going to get better week in and week out if he continues to play with that confidence. Tristan has matured a lot in the last year and his time away with the Belgium team. He has come back with a renewed vigor. He is a good story of someone who has worked well in the reserves games and as a result has gotten the opportunity with the first team. He obviously did well last week and he earned a start tonight and did well with it. He certainly was a bright spot tonight."

Tristan Bowen

Thoughts on the match: "It was a tough game; I think we made some strides offensively in creating more chances and actually putting more than one goal in the net. We were soft defensively and gave up too many easy goals, it was tough. We took one step forward and almost two steps back."

On the several goal opportunities for Chivas USA: "The team as a whole is moving forward in terms of offensive movement and being more aggressive, and I think everyone saw that today. We just have to be sharper in front of the goal and have that killer instinct in and around the box. Defensively, as a unit we all need to work harder and make sure we don't give away easy goals and keep ourselves in the game. We had a few moments in the game where we were down by maybe one and we let some easy goals in, so that killed us."

Thoughts on playoffs: "It's still a possibility, it's a lot of work to do but it's not impossible. We are going to move forward as a group and hopefully we'll get in."

Dan Kennedy

Thoughts on the match: "We've had some games where we've been up a lot and haven't necessarily been punished for it. Tonight we faced a hot striker in Fredy Montero and his chances were just golden and he buried them."

On Chivas USA offense: "We were real dynamic, Tristan was real dynamic and buzzing around. We had our opportunities that could have tied them six-to-six. With that being said, the defense was just not good enough and I take responsibility for that too."

Thoughts on playoffs: "We need every game, we've needed every game ever since the SuperClasico and now it's just about pride, it's all about pride. Every week going out there and playing for the team, playing for yourself and giving everything you've got."