FC Dallas Vs. Seattle Sounders: Highlights, Statistics, Quotes

Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said it best, "Not big, he came up huge. He made a huge save at the end of the day for us." As happens sometimes, the highlights don't really do Keller's performance justice. It wasn't just his save on FC Dallas' Marvin Chavez or the two saves he made at the death. It was how he dealt with near constant pressure and helped organize a backline which, I'm pretty sure has never played together.

On days like this, it's hard to reconcile the fact that Keller plans to retire at the end of the year. I don't begrudge him that right, and there's a part of me that will enjoy seeing him go out on the top of his game, but this does not look like a player who's just counting the days until he can simply choose not to train.

Beyond Keller's performance, having the game boiled down into an easily consumable 7-minute clip also reminds us that the Sounders actually did a good job creating dangerous opportunities despite a pretty serious lack of possession. Fredy Montero, Mike Fucito, Brad Evans and, even thought it's not on the highlights, Alvaro Fernandez all had good chances.

This was most certainly not one of the Sounders' best performances of the year. Still, I think it's just another example of how much this team has improved over the year. We know this team is capable of playing possession football and impressing everyone with clean passes along the deck.

Today we say a different team, though. This was a team that wanted to survive and knew how to take advantage of opportunities. We saw far more long balls than we have in quite some time, most of them designed simply to create a longer field for FC Dallas. When you're trying to compete in three tournaments, sometimes this is the kind of game you need to win. I have no problem with that.

Seattle Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid

Thoughts on the game...

"I thought it was game where Dallas had more control of the game than we did but it was the same thing when we played in Seattle, we had more than they did. That was a game we were unfortunate to lose while tonight was a game we were fortunate to win. I thought we did well, we scored the opening goal, and we had some good chances early on and also later in the game. 

Talk about the play of Kasey Keller and how big did he come up tonight...

"Not big, he came up huge. He made a huge save at the end of the day for us. He also dealt a lot with the crosses and made sure we stayed marked up."

 Talk about the goal scored...

"It was a good play. Lamar [Neagle] got the ball on the left and looked inside for Fredy [Montero] and found him with the ball. Ugo [Ihemelu] may have got a little touch on it.  Fredy then drew in the defenders and found Mauro [Rosales] and he finished it home past Kevin [Hartman].

Seattle Sounders goalkeeper Kasey Keller

Thoughts on the game...

"For us, we haven't been used to the heat at all, Today in Seattle was the first day over 80 degrees. Coming in here having it be in the 100's it is a little bit much. It was a tough game. We didn't play as well as we should have. We scored a goal early and hung on for dear life. In the end if you're going to win games in the playoffs you need to win games like this. It was a good show for us today but we could have played better."

How big of a win is this with the MLS season coming to an end here in the next two months?

"It's nice that we can jump ahead of Dallas but we know there is a lot left to play in the season. It's more of a confidence thing where you know you can go in and win on the road against a team that is in good form. We know we can play better, but at the end of the day we know both teams are most likely going to be in the playoffs and that is when it really counts."