I watched Toronto at Seattle last night. Sounders walked away with 3 points, but the game was expensive for everyone -- Frings and Rosales are both injured, and possibly out for a few games, and Alonso is walking a little funny too. Worst officiating I've ever seen out of Ricardo Salizar -- he's usually damn near flawless, but last night he was criminally inconsistent.

I should look up how many new forwards have scored a hat trick on their league debut. I doubt it happens often. All of Seattle's goals last night were David Estrada; finally one of Seattle's forwards communicates well enough with the midfield to be in position to strike when they arm him.

Other promising starts:
Edson Buddle is back in LA! This makes LA the scariest offensive team in MLS again, but their defense is still lacking -- Buddle took a cross from Beckham to catch RSL's goalie sleeping and score their only goal in the RSL game, then in the last 17 minutes, the LA defenders gave up three goals. To be fair, the ref was allowing very rough play, and RSL is better at that kind of thing. LA gets technical skill for their money, but few of their players can fight. If you watch the replay, you can see Donovan gradually get sick of this ref, up to the point where he starts roughing up RSL's goalie until the ref finally blows the whistle. That was LA's first home loss in over a year. RSL went on the next week to shut out New York 2-0.

Portland and KC scored three goals and won their first games, but they were playing Philadelphia and New England, so I don't know how big a deal that is. Last time I looked in on Philadelphia's lineup, it was LeToux and a bunch of thugs. Now they don't even have LeToux.

4 points for FC Dallas after week one! So far my impression is that we have a great 45-minute team, and then play kind of like shit the rest of the time. The two goals we've let in have been pretty weak keeper and defender mistakes, but so was one of the goals we got. Better than the rest of the starts under Hyndman though.

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I think Dallas is buying potential. You have a really young team, and they're all pretty light. A really physical game could screw them up, and Jewsbury likes it rough. (Giggity.) Portland is consistently ten pounds heavier per man, and most of them are still just as fast. Good for Perez that he's on the sheet early -- it looks like it was just handed to him in the Portland game, but it usually is; that's what midfielders do. I agree that the answering goal was weak keeper mojo, but I think his failure was that pathetic clear, not the block. Then against NY, he left a good position completely and met Cooper standing up. Not sure what his plan was for that moment. Hey, why is Villar on the bench, coming in only for injured people?

Yeah the clearance was surely what caused the goal, looked like KH wasn't prepared for the 30 mph wind that rolled in at halftime and didn't leave the rest of the night. Also he hit it on the side of his foot and way too high, boom goal.

Perez is going to be real good this year I think.

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Seattle 2, Houston 0. It's probably fair to call this Seattle 0, Houston -2; we didn't even have to be there!

We traded Mike Fucito and Lamar Neagle away to Montreal to get Eddie Johnson, who has not played one minute of MLS because he was injured before the season even began. So since we'd planned on Eddie being a starter, we had to reach into a back pocket -- and that's how we got David Estrada on the field, who has scored 4 out of 5 goals for the Sounders this season. For about an hour, MLS denied Estrada his goal tonight (from Seattle's first corner kick of the night), calling it an Own Goal for Jeff Cameron, because the deflection off Cameron looked like an intentional block. They reversed that decision before the game was even over.

Then four minutes later, Cameron was back in the spotlight -- he was way out of position, actually behind Patrick Ianni (who was facing Houston's goal), when Patrick went up for a scoring header and Cameron shoved him in the back. One-way ticket to the PK spot, where Brad Evans made it 2-0. It stayed that way for the rest of the game, despite very heavy pressure on both teams' defense at different points in the game.

So basically, both our teams had disorganized offense, but disciplined defenders -- but only Houston had Cameron.

EDIT: I forgot to mention tonight's downside for Seattle -- Alvaro Fernandez is either made of glass, or has started diving at every opportunity. This is bad news; Fernandez is a World Cup veteran. If we wanted to pay world-class money for a raging douchebag, we'd have signed Dennis Rodman.

Houston looks like they're going to be pretty bad this year. So far there has been nothing close to coherent attack, possession or defense out of the MLS Cup runners-up.

Good.

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Apparently Dallas played a pretty divey game tonight, which sucks. Also they lost. I didn't see it because I'm at work, but it seemed like they were controlling pretty well outside of set piece situations. I'm ok with dropping points to SKC though, they're probably going to go far this season.

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Can't wait for Dallas to play well for 30 minutes at a time tonight and lose in hilarious fashion to New England. Ugh.

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Yeah... Sorry, but Dallas is not bringing their A game so far this year. This last week, Seattle was just flat outplayed by San Jose. Even without the completely imaginary Lenhart penalty, we weren't going to beat that team.

New England got robbed tonight even though they played mostly around three guys. Still, as a Dallas fan, I don't give a single fuck.

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Reis earned the win, too -- he was brilliant for the rest of the game. The only no-chance shot of the game, an outright gift from NE defense. Hartman had practically nothing to do all night.

We might win against Montreal tonight because they're bad but who fucking knows.

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Sorry, I haven't really been covering this for a couple of personal reasons. I'll get back on it; it's a fulfilling hobby. I could use one of those this week.

I'm surprised how bad the LA Galaxy has started their new season. I'm hoping they turn things around soon

Blas Perez, basically Dallas's only playmaker this year, is out tonight against the best team in the league (Salt Lake). This is going to suck.

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1-1 draw thanks to an incredibly questionable Shea penalty, I'll take it.

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When I checked the score line at 92' last night, I told my wife FC Dallas was about to win. I just had to say something.

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In purely technical terms, Shea can't strike that ball until Salizar blows the whistle, but he's allowed to start moving at any time. There wasn't anything illegal about the penalty shot, but you could make an argument for bias on Salizar's part if you can demonstrate that he saw Shea moving and then blew the whistle rather than waiting for Shea to finish his little practice run and get back into position. It'd be 2-1 LA if Keane hadn't blown the penalty kick earlier, but then that call was bullshit in the first place -- Lopez tripped Arnaud, not vice versa.

Couldn't help but notice that LA's single point was scored by a guy they got from the Sounders.

Portland/Columbus: Meh. The most newsworthy moment is that Jewsbury has sucked so hard lately that he's not even starting now. There's nothing else to see here.

Real Salt Lake/New England: Holy effing Saborio. Touches in both goals for the night -- to his credit, not in the tensest moments of the game. NE Defense does extremely well when given time (Espindola), but Saborio is master of the snapshot, so they get hosed 2-1. Feilhaber pulls ahead early with a beautiful turn-and-strike, but the rest of his team can't follow up.

Montreal/Sporting KC: One expects an expansion team to play with a certain amount of fear. That didn't work out. Montreal's first road-win was all about Donovan Ricketts' amazing goalkeeping. Both teams were lacking in defense, allowing a rich selection of attack angles on both ends of the field -- but Ricketts is one of the top three goalkeepers in all of MLS, and Nielsen is not. Felipe's goal is a GK error, granted; Nielsen should have had that even half awake, and he screwed up. To be fair, Felipe's shot was fast enough to cost you skin -- but he had a mile of open space and about five seconds to line up that shot. Whose fault is that?

Los Angeles/New York: Aw man, where to start. Thierry Henry is out, so the whole team should be at the mercy of Donovan, Beckham, Buddle, McGee, Keane -- and yet, nothing from any of them. This is partially because of great GK work from Meara, but he's young and gets lucky a few times; I don't get why LA is playing such a terrible year, but this is just more of the same.

Vancouver/San Jose: SJ pulls ahead early because Wondolowski, and they really should be able to keep the lead from there, but they got greedy. Lax defense and a few mistakes from Jon Busch, and Vancouver walks off with a win and barely any scratches.

Seattle/Philadelphia: Maybe LeToux took their soul away with him. MacMath gets his first touch at 7 seconds, and that's the spririt of the game from then on -- Montero would have scored in minute 8 if another defender hadn't taken the other half of the goal. Rose, on his first MLS game, is incredibly lucky not to be sent off with two yellows -- we may not see him again this year. Caskey gets plenty of long-distance shots to keep the GK nervous, but really he's just a distraction while Rosales comes in underneath form 45 degrees over. 1-0, and so it stays from 62' on.

Toronto/DC: Honestly, neither of these teams fielded anyone I'm really watching. Toronto lost this game more than DC won it -- if their defense had been awake at all, this wouldn't have been 2-0 DC.

Dallas/Colorado: Sorry, Bartlet, but Jesus -- Dallas did not bring their A game, or their B or C game. The first in the season to earn two red cards in the same five minutes, they can't muster the manpower thereafter to defend themselves against a really calm, clinical offense that takes simple advantage of greater numbers and comes away 2-0. If Daniel Hernandez hadn't squared off on the referee at 25', the next foul would have only been a yellow, and who knows what would have been? And then Perez, of all people, gets a straight red for a studs-up challenge any high-school student would know is wrong.

East
Sporting KC
DC United
NY Red Bulls
Chicago Fire

West
SJ Earthquakes
Real Salt Lake
Seattle Sounders FC
Vancouver Whitecaps FC

LA still sucking, and I don't have high hopes for the rest of the season too

I watched the Houston Dynamo game today and it was a good one! Their new stadium is pretty sweet as well

Yeah the stadium is pretty cool. Too bad it's a) in Houston and b) for the Dynamo. Also Too Bad is FC Dallas currently. Yikes.

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Real Salt Lake broke Seattle's winning streak. Well, it wasn't going to last all year. At least we lost to a good team.

Montreal and LA -- Ricketts against his old team, with which he kicked so much ass. Arnaud gets out alone early, Ricketts doesn't really have a chance, and then Beckham goes on being Beckham.

Chicago and KC isn't too surprising -- but damn, Espinoza knows better. That flying elbow deserved the ejection it got.

Columbus and Dallas -- That Dallas goal was a gift. Not one of the Crew did his job correctly the whole first half. In the second half, it looked like Dallas defenders didn't feel like they really had to cover Columbus strikers until they'd come within the penalty area -- and they paid for it. Who scores with a 20-yard header?

NY and Philadelphia -- Okay, that first PHI header was really misleading. But where the hell are NY's defenders during the first half? Why do they constantly find themselves in a footrace with an active forward? Given all that, how and why would Adu screw it up by diving? (Watch his hips; he prepares himself to fall right before putting his foot sideways and hitting the deck. It's a dive.) In the second half, PHI comes out way better; their early 2nd goal wasn't well defended, but took effort (and an early deflection before the shot). Most of the points are defensive mistakes, or set pieces (which are always dangerous); no one does anything especially shiny. When Cooper settles the issue, he's alone in the 6. Under the circumstances he stumbles into, not scoring should be a suspension.

*spoilers changed or removed

Haha not a fan of Houston are ya man

Houston over the last several years has played like shit and gotten incredibly lucky to have any kind of success. And their fans are perenially the most classless group of idiots in the league. At least Seattle's rotating group of glory chasers are somewhat respectful.

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Gonna be like that, eh? By "Rotating group of glory chasers", do you mean the players or the fans?

Fans, and that's not especially a dig at you (mostly because you aren't especially arrogant about Seattle like you've been there the whole time), who boast about attendance and TV numbers (which exist largely because there are no summer sports in Seattle anyone gives a shit about), the three consecutive US Open Cups they've won (under the former shady-ass system where they could literally BUY home field advantage), but never acknowledge the absolute irrelevance they've had in Supporters' Shield, MLS Cup and CONCACAF Champions League in their existence.

These Seattle fans exist mostly on the internet (trolling other teams' SBNation blogs and in MLS Live chatrooms). The Seattle fans I've met at games have been pleasant individuals, and not the idiots online who spew shit from both ends, with no sense of memory. Seattle's a great soccer city, and the marketing team did a fantastic job of striking while the NBA-Just-Left-Town iron was hot, but they have a LOT of asshole fans on the internet.

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This isn't about the MLS, but the EPL stuff from yesterday was awesome.

Background: Manchester City and Manchester United were tied with 1 game left in the season. If they both won, or both lost, or both tied, Manchester City would have won the EPL Championship for the first time in 44 years due to goal differential. What happened was beyond incredible.

ps: classless fans in soccer? say it ain't so!

Yeah this shit was pretty awesome. United had the title for about 30 seconds.

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Well...
- I have been here the whole time, including when the Sounders were a USL team...
- I am damned proud that my city supports the Sounders this well...
- (And it's not because my company sponsors them -- I don't even know who controls that crap)
- I agree that there are no other summer sports worth caring about in Seattle, but that doesn't mean the Sounders are automatically not exciting in their own right...
- Three US Open Cups is a neat trick even (especially) with a corrupt system, since LA, RSL and NY all have way more money than we do...
- Not sure why we're bringing Supporter's Shield into this, explain that please...
- Irrelevance in MLS Cup isn't fair -- we've finished very high in every regular season, then lost in playoffs -- the Sounders have never not been a playoff team for any year they've existed in MLS...
- CONCACAF irrelevance is hard to demonstrate too, since the Sounders were the first team last year to clinch a quarterfinals berth...

The marketing team got lucky -- they'd picked their timing before the Sonics got on the bus.
Everyone has asshole fans on the Internet. That doesn't make the Sounders special.
Absolutely no one else has a perfect three-year record selling out their stadium every home game. You can find all kinds of reasons not to recognize that if you like, but it's still there when we're done talking. Whatever evil magical voodoo formula we've bribed or threatened or drugged people into, it must be working, because it fills 40,000 seats that no one uses.

(Before anyone pounces: Only 32,000, then 36,000, seats were open in the first few years. The guys at Qwest (now CenturyLink) Field have been slow to realize demand. If you go back and look at figures and you don't see anything near 40k, that's why.)

As I said before, I wasn't digging at you, and there are certainly a host of reasons Seattle fans should be proud to be Seattle fans. But Seattle has more asshole fans per capita that I've encountered than any other club in the league.

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Fervor has side effects.

I wanna see some figures on assholes per capita, though. I'll proudly admit our fans are more driven, but look at our ability to police our own:

When Ljungberg shoved a Fire forward and got a yellow card for it, his own crowd boo'd him because it was bad form.

When Tyrone Marshall got a yellow card for threatening a Columbus player after that guy had slid into a ridiculously dangerous challenge against Kasey Keller, we cheered him on. Marshall was right, and the ref backed him up (after backing him off).

We have loose cannons some years. I'm glad Ljungberg is gone, because he had a terrible attitude and he hurt us all. I miss Tyrone Marshall, but we had so many great players a few years back that we couldn't protect everyone from expansion drafts. I miss LeToux for the same reason, but at least he got the hell away from Philadelphia as fast as he could.

The big controversy going forward, for us, will be Osvaldo Alonso. He's amazing, he's the most dependable player we've got, he's midfield -- and all of that means he's yellow-card bait. He's doing better about avoiding reckless challenges, but I'll bet his name is a thing of evil from a lot of different cities' perspectives about now.

More than a month now since FC Dallas has won a game. They're in a real bad way right now.

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SJ/LA: That went better for LA than I expected, which just goes to show that I've finally lowered my standards for LA in this season. The officials were even so sure of this game that when Jimenez scored in minute 3, they actually awarded the point to San Jose for just a second. And why not? It was damn near an own-goal for the GK. The first half was everything we've come to expect from LA in previous years, and the second half was everything we've come to expect from LA in this year.

SEA/CLB: Damn, not for lack of trying. 21 shots on goal, but Gruenebaum... damn.

CHI/DAL: Perez up high, damn right -- but he's not Oduro. The only Dallas point here was a rebound that happened to fall just right when the goalie didn't have the confidence to take the capture. Two different situations where forwards were defending and got stupid, and committed PK fouls. Chicago saved it fairly, but the point against Dallas was illegal as hell -- Pappa was inside the box when Grazzini took the kick, and the ref screwed up not calling it. This game should have been a tie.

TOR/VAN: What the hell, guys. A fistfight, really? Canada.
EDIT: I feel better that Le Toux's red card was only a second yellow, for shoving, in defense of a teammate who had just been punched. Still, involving at all was impulsive.

NY/CHV: Jesus, these guys were both in great form. No over-reliance on star forwards or the GK, and all the actual goals in this game took real skill. No errors turning into gift goals, and no dirty fouls turning into points. We even have defenders blocking shots on goal without using their hands, a favorite foul this year.

Alonso got a two-game suspension for that two-footed, studs-exposed challenge in the Columbus game. It should have been an automatic red, but the ref didn't even call it a foul. No word on whether there's ever going to be a penalty for being a bad ref.

Los Angeles still sucks!!! Take about Championship hangover haha

We've gone two months without a win, fuck your championship hangover.

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