Sounders Women Face Two in Colorado

This is a fantabulous female footy weekend. It starts Saturday morning with the USWNT facing Canada in a friendly at Rio Tinto in Sandy, Utah at 11:00am. This is the final game prior to the US team heading to the London Olympics. Rapinoe, Morgan, Solo and Leroux will be facing a team that they beat 4-0 in Vancouver this past winter. Canada will not go down easy, as they are gearing up to face a tough table in the Olympics. This game will be broadcast nationally on NBC starting at 10:30am.

The Sounders Women are on their first significant road trip of the season. They will be facing the Colorado Rapids at 5:30 on Saturday, and the Colorado Rush on Sunday at noon. SSW beat the Rapids at home 3-0. It was a bruising game, with Alex Morgan leading the charge with a goal and an assist. This is also the game that Stephanie Cox scored on a free kick in the second half. With Morgan out for National Team duties, it will fall to Veronica Perez and Lyndsey Patterson to fill in. We will also be missing Keelin Winters in the middle. She flies out to Germany on July 1, to start her professional career over there. She will be greatly missed in the middle. Smitty may make a return to the Sounders Women on these away games. I know the team was trying to arrange for her to catch up to the team from her new home in Utah.

The second match of the weekend is against the powerful Colorado Rush. This team’s size posed a problem for the Sounders in the last game. The SSW limped away with a 2-1 victory, but it could have easily been reversed. With goals from Manthey and Perez in that game, it would seem that we still have the pieces in place to win this game. We do, but the USWNT members drew the pressure, and set up the goals in that game. The Rush were particularly physical with Alex Morgan the entire game. I expect that pressure to transfer to our front line equally. Perhaps closing Veronica down.

These are winnable games for sure, if we can finish our chances. Every game has playoff implications, in such a compressed season, every match matters.

Our next home match is against the Victoria Highlanders on July 6th, at 7:00pm. You can purchase tickets at the Sounders Women site here. You can also find match day links to listen to the Colorado games there, and to find the home game video link on Friday. We will also be doing a game thread from the home match here at Sounder At Heart. All remaining games will be broadcast on Seattle’s 1150AM KKNW radio station. You can find the stream here if you are not in the Seattle area.