Seattle took to the CenturyLink Field pitch Wednesday night against a much-changed LA Galaxy line up, looking for a first win against their local rivals on home soil, and the Sounders didn’t disappoint with a dominating performance.
The Sounders face the Philadelphia Union at home on Saturday, but they had to take care of LA first, which they did from the first whistle.
Seattle made one change from the team that won their 100th MLS match against Chicago, with Zach Scott regaining his place at the expense of Adam Johansson.
The game started off with both teams looking to take the early advantage, and it was the visitors who had the first change of the game with Seattle allowing Landon Donovan time and space to chest a cleared ball, and volley just wide of Gspurning’s post.
But it didn’t take long for Seattle to respond when a Rosales cross, found its way to the feet of Freddy Montero, who was looking to open his account for the season, but his turn and shot was denied by the feet of Gaudette.
From then on the Sounders turned up the gear and started to dominate the game, with chance after chance going begging. Montero must have thought that he was never going to open his account, when he missed what is known as a sitter. After a great driving run and great skill from Eddie Johnson, he broke into the box and fired in on goal only to be denied by a diving Gaudette, who parried the ball to the feet of Montero, who, with an empty net, managed to find the feet of Gaudette again, who after 20mins was LA Galaxy’s man of the match.
The battle between Montero and Gaudette waged on after a free kick found an unmarked Montero who save his header from point blank range, saved by Gaudette.
But the LA keeper was finally beat just before the half as a Rosales cross was not dealt with and gave Eddie Johnson his second goal in two games. With acres of space, Rosales whipped a lovely ball into the area that found Johnson, who had made himself a yard of space from DeLaGarza to get his header in on goal and send the Sounders into half time 1-0 up.
There was a big change at half time when Michael Gspurning didn’t come out for the second half because of a right hip injury, and gave back up Bryan Meredith his MLS debut.
When doubt may have been in the minds of some fans with the loss of Gspurning, it was far from the mind of Freddy Montero when he finally, finally, opened his account for the season and what a strike it was.
With the Galaxy allowing Montero to bring the ball forward, he decided he was close enough for an effort as he hit a screamer from 30 yards+ which flew into the top corner of the net, giving Gaudette no chance of getting his hand, or his feet, anywhere near the ball to deny him this time.
Brian Meredith must have had one of the easiest debuts ever as he never had to make a save in his 45 minutes. Apart from a full stretch dive from Mike Magee, he was never really tested by the Galaxy.
The Sounders managed to see out the game and win against the Galaxy at home, and with their games in hand, could see them hit the summit of the Western Conference.
Seattle will be hoping to carry this home form into the next game against the Union on Saturday, and show the rest of the league how much of a dominate force they are becoming this season. Plus with Montero finally opening his account, can we see more wonder goals like that in the near future?
(image courtesy of mlssoccer.com)
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