Quick Thoughts: Sounders Smash Union 2-0

I’m so glad to see the boys back after what I saw against Portland. My quick thoughts:

On Seattle:
Riley – Missed him while Scott was getting his footing. Was not missing him after he got things settled
Nyassi – Forgot how solid this guy is. Made a couple dumb mistakes trying to fake people out and got the ball taken away, but otherwise was an incredible sub
Hurtado – Awesome
Alonso – Awesome
Levesque – Effective. Wish he could’ve kept that one down
Montero – Had moments of genius and total failure. The diving header was incredible. I need to see replays of that again
Evans – I hate on this guy so much, but he played really well finally. Reminds me of the first 5-6 games of last season before his callup. I hope he keeps this going

Overall, I thought we played good, solid, and organized. I’d have liked to see what the score would’ve been without the rain. I feel like the rain messes with some of our ball control. Everybody seemed to look like they were back in the swing of things, although it looked like they were a little rusty and needed to get their nerves, playing for the first time since 2009 in front of the full crowd.

On Philly:
I thought Le Toux played better than I’d ever seen him play while with us. I was glad to see him in a starter position. He was all over the place as usual. Philly in general was a pretty dirty team. We watched Nyassi get plowed towards the end of the game in the box by an arm to his face with no call. Stahl gets ejected, rightfully so. The short little guy Roger Torres also rightfully got his yellow. And I was ecstatic to see Moreno get one. I hate that guy. Overally I think Philly played decently for an expansion team. They had some decent attacking opportunities. I was surprised to see Mwanga taken out at the half. He seemed mostly non-threatening though.

I was impressed by what little we saw of Fucito. He seemed to find the right spaces and got a couple good shots off. Unfortunate that the one shot didn’t get called for a handball…

Nyassi looked pretty good technically beating players but he almost seems the new Montero trying to do everything himself when he should be looking for a pass.

I was really impressed with Montero’s performance out there last night. He did almost everything the way he should. Holding up the ball, looking for the pass, and got that opportunistic goal. He also did some hustling back to help defend. I hope we see a lot more of this from him during the rest of the season… it’ll help the Sounders score a lot more.

It’s too bad Levesque didn’t put those two pretty easy chances away… or at least on net. I think he did ok for the most part. I’m not sure who would replace him right now. I guess Estrada is a possibility, but you know Levesque is going to work and he did a decent job I general.

It will be awesome to see what happens when Nkufo gets here though.

but mark me as someone who likes their squad after watching the opener. First off your fans are simply fucking amazing, such a cool atmosphere and it’s obvious that the league has a fanbase to be the face of the league now which is really cool.

Although it was a sloppy game, especially after watching EPL and Champions League action for months now, Seattle provided good moments throughout the game. I really like watching Montero play too.

I’m in the KC area so I’ll be supporting the Wizards but it’s easy to root for this Seattle squad as well, especially since they look like they’ll be near the top of the standings. Good luck this year!