Much of the focus on Obafemi Martins this season has been about his prolonged absence, followed by his form upon returning. Less conspicuous has been his scoring rate, which is remarkable.
In terms of goals per match, Martins is accumulating goals at an astonishing rate, the likes of which haven’t been seen in Seattle in 13 years. He reached 10 goals in just 14 games–faster than any previous player for Sounders FC (Clint Dempsey did it in 16 MLS appearances last season).
And so it’s come to this. Ten MLS matches remain for the Sounders to right themselves, reclaim their dignity and reach the playoffs.
Yet we Rave are a greedy fan base. Can’t help it; the Sounders made us this way. Six playoff berths plus five trophies in six seasons does that. This year, we were told, the objective was once again qualify for the postseason and then eliminate all in our path, an MLS Cup triumph making it truly a December to remember.
Technically, that plan’s still good to go. Seattle clings to the sixth and final playoff slot in the West. However, given a league-worst form of five straight losses and Houston’s game in hand, it’s hardly an iron grip. More like a fingernail dug into a ledge.
First we starved, then we feasted. Now it appears we’re pushing ourselves away from the table.
Perhaps Puget Sound’s appetite for watching professional soccer has sated, at least if the recent ambivalence toward the offering of extra courses is any indication.
Make no mistake, Seattle remains a North American attendance phenomenon, averaging about 6,000 more fans per game than the next-best crowd count in MLS. Sounders FC is currently pulling 40,236, and that number will only grow with CenturyLink Field’s full capacity available for four summer dates.
Continue reading Has Seattle Reached Soccer Market Saturation?
Every four years there’s an expectation that the United States will win the FIFA Women’s World Cup, and that’s no different in 2015, especially after America’s advancement to the final.
That expectation, that belief, is very much grounded in history and the U.S. National Team’s conquests early on. The reason we truly believe we will win is because, early on, we did.
In 1991 Anson Dorrance took a young team to China and promptly won the first World Cup. A few years later they won the first Olympic Games and in 1999, of course, the USWNT doubled their number of World Cup stars at the Rose Bowl.
Continue reading When National Team Was Made in Washington
After a couple trips back east and a bus ride to BC, the Sounders get to make themselves at home for the rest of May.
A three-match home stand featuring visits by Sporting KC, Colorado and the Red Bulls presents no rollovers as they are a combined 3-3-9 on the road. The low-riding Rapids are actually unbeaten (1-0-4) and miserly (2 GA) away. Go figure.
Of course fans will settle for nothing less than nine points, preferably with two of the games lighting the flames on multiple occasions. Historically, that’s not too much to ask.
Each of the past two seasons Seattle has taken all the points from three-match stands, scoring eight times a year ago against Colorado, Philly and Dallas. That started a string of six straight home wins and set the Rave on a course for the Supporters’ Shield.
For every 10 kids out there dreaming of the day they deliver the big game-winning goal, there’s one moppet visualizing the sensational dive that saves the day.
These Tim Howard and Hope Solo wannabes may see themselves flinging themselves from post to post, effectively serving as a force field denying balls entry to the ol’ onion bag.
Sometimes dreams come true, such as Kasey Keller’s signature performance versus Brazil in 1998. He saved everything, secured the shutout and the U.S. won, 1-0. But a busy day at the keeper’s office more often ends in defeat, such as Howard’s fate following his World Cup record 16 stops against Belgium.
So it should come no real surprise that in tying the Sounders FC record with 10 saves at Columbus, Stefan Frei was unable save the day. In fact, given that Frei’s made a total of 18 saves in the previous three matches, it’s a bit of a wonder that Seattle had won three straight.
There’s the underlying beat of disco and the images are grainy, but you get the picture. And that’s the bottom line. You’re watching America’s soccer heritage unfold in living color.
While it’s definitely not HiDef, videotapes from NASL broadcasts during the Seventies and early Eighties are in many ways more telling than any prose. If pictures are worth a thousand words, actual match footage is the closest anyone will get to a time machine.
Dave Brett Wasser has spent 20-plus years unearthing these forgotten volumes and now has amassed and converted to DVD more than 450 matches from the days when Sounders, Whitecaps and Timbers first roamed the turf.
It’s the most comprehensive collection of vintage soccer Americana anywhere. For a nominal fee ($12 per game; $10 each for five or more) Wasser has distributed worldwide copies of games featuring countless combinations, from the original, star-laden Cosmos to the short-lived, enigmatic Las Vegas Quicksilvers.
Where else would a 17-year-old, soccer-crazed kid find himself on a Saturday evening in spring but in the basement of his grandmother’s house.
If there was a party, it could wait. Besides, the good ones are just getting started around 10. That would provide ample time to arrive fashionably late. But enough about that and back to the basement.
I loved my Grandma Sadie dearly. Loved mowing and edging her expansive lawn and joining her for lunch afterward on Saturdays. However I must confess that when I returned for dinner later this particular night, it was mostly for the cable.
Yes, honestly cable TV was the attraction. It was 1977 and this new innovation that provided a clear picture and double the number of channels–like 10 altogether–was only available in Centralia’s downtown area, and not up on Seminary Hill where I lived. Located approximately halfway between Seattle and Portland on Interstate 5, Centralia was ideally situated to get both cities’ local affiliates via Craig McCaw’s (look him up) fledgling cable company. Up on the hill, our rabbit ears arrangement afforded only a grainy glimpse of the Seattle channels. Continue reading A Comeback for the Ages
Legends are made from exploits when matches matter most. Sometimes that’s the postseason, and sometimes those feats come in the context of a derby.
Leafing back through time, those who have constructed tifo-worthy Seattle careers have largely done so through earnest effort, tenacious battling, artful orchestration and as fearless saviors. But of course, the most golden of moments is when the ball billows the back of the twine, and the crowd goes wild. Glory beyond compare awaits those who score goals, and the bigger the occasion, the more splendid the finish and the more goals, the better.
Here, then, going into Sunday’s match with Portland, are Seattle’s golden boys of Cascadia, era by era, over the past 41 years:
NASL / Sounders, 1974-83
Cascadia goals: Peter Ward (6); John Rowlands (5), David Butler (5), Paul Crossley (5), Mark Peterson (5)
It’s probably a good thing that induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame is a byproduct of job well done rather than an objective from the outset. Otherwise, seeing what must be undertaken over years and years would seem overwhelming. Why, it would be enough for a coach to consider accounting.
In assessing the careers of Kasey Keller and Sigi Schmid it seems they should’ve locked-up an invitation to the Hall long ago. They appear to have what it takes in spades.
For Keller, he was tracking toward this day for more than 20 years,
beginning in 1989 when he shined at that U20 World Cup. By 2005 he’d been U.S. player of the year three times, made three World Cup rosters, broken new ground for Americans in Europe and blanked Brazil in a performance for the ages. Yet he kept on going for another six seasons, in the end coming home to remind those in MLS what we’d been missing all those years. Continue reading Soccer Hall Beckons (And There’s room For More)
