Crew and Sounders 1

I'm not going to make any bones about this; I admire the Sounders. Their fan base is, and has been, large, loyal and thoughtful. Seattle showed a lot of class last night.

The pivotal point in the game was the penalty given on a corner in the second half. It's the kind of foul that happens often enough in soccer so I'm not going to make too much about it other then, well, it is there.

Watching the Crew now through 8 games I've come to realize that they are somewhat a team of two tactics. One built on the other. Defend and Defend / Attack. This is a good balance to have. I see some teams have either / or but not often mastering both. Philadelphia has Defend (and does it well). Salt Lake and New York have perhaps mastered the Defend / Attack tactic averaging 1.5 and 1.4 goals a game and letting in an astonishingly little in turn (.3 and .4 p/GM)

Columbus is right there with them on the Goals Against p/GM and if they showed anything last night, they may have the ability to get more goals even though none got through during the run of play. 17 shots got off and most were in the 2nd half when they went into their Defend / Attack mode.

The Crew played a better game this week then they did last week which may be a testament to what kind of season KC might be having verses the one Seattle is. Seattle is a far better team then Sporting KC. Had the Crew played this well last week the score would have been much different then the 2-1 line. That's neither her nor there though. Seattle did what they had to do to keep the Crew from taking 3 points.



Billy's Players of the Game (BPOTG this week):

- Mr. Gaven... again for me. I was happy to see the ball going to him more this week. While it took away from Robbie's runs down the side I do believe going to him created real chances. About bounce here or there on a rainy night would have changed The Crew's fortunes.

- Mr. Levesque for the Sounders. Really. Maybe a reach but the shoes he was trying to fill with Brad Evans out... I could go with all the Seattle defenders in the game but I saw Levesque in the back helping against the Crew attack and the 10 corners the Crew won. I liked the way he played.

- Kasey Keller. Solid.

Important to notes:
Ekpo coming off the bench for the Crew had a much improved game over last weekend as well. The Crew's defensive line was shaken in the first few minutes of the game with a heading goal by Montero and wasn't called on much in the 2nd half because the guys up front were busy pushing the issue.

As for the highly paid Mendoza? Perhaps I'll get to him later on. With the Players Union salary numbers out I have a lot to chew on in relationship to my player ratings. Preview: It ain't going to be pretty for him.