Zach Scott's 63rd minute goal enough for the Sounders to walk away with a win

By Money Mike


The Sounders moved up to third place in the Western Conference earlier this afternoon as they defeated the Colorado Rapids by a score of 1-0. Zach Scott's goal in the 63rd minute snapped the Sounders 305 minute goalless streak. Seattle made a couple of changes to the lineup. Eddie Johnson and Alex Caskey both got their first start with the Rave Green who were still without Mauro Rosales and Adam Johansson. However both of them should make their return when the Sounders travel to Chicago to take on the Fire.

No surprise the Sounders came right at them early in this game. In the 5th minute, Colorado had lots of trouble clearing the ball away and they nearly paid the price. Marvell Wynne gave the ball straight to David Estrada, who quickly found Fredy Montero in the box. Montero then turned, escaped an attempted slide tackle from Drew Moor and went for the far corner but it was beaten away by Matt Pickens. Montero's first half performance was pretty good. Really starting to get in on the attack. However, he's still looking for his first goal of the season. Then again, he struggled in the early stages of 2010 and 2011.

In the 13th minute, a free kick from Alex Caskey found Zach Scott from point blank range, but he directed his header just wide. Scott is really good in the air in these situations. He scored eight goals with the Sounders USL franchise, and he nearly got one there but was inches wide of the left post.

Seconds later, Scott nearly got caught at the other end. After failing to control a high lofted ball from Brian Mullan, Scott lost out to Tony Cascio who tried to chip Michael Gspurning but instead, he fired high over the bar.

In the 33rd minute, the Rapids thought they scored the opening goal. After some poor ball control by Seattle, Tony Cascio chipped the ball forward for Omar Cummings on the far side of the pitch. Cummings made a nice cut to get around two Seattle defenders and fired a low right root drive on goal which forced a save from Michael Gspurning. Brian Mullan was there to pounce on the rebound and tap it in the goal, but the offside flag went up and the goal was waved off. Mullan in his first match in Seattle since the injury he cause to Steve Zakuani has been booed all match by the entire Sounder nation. The fans still haven't forgiven him for what he did to our no. 1 overall draft pick from 2009.

In the 53rd minute, the Sounders won a free kick in a dangerous area. Fredy Montero stepped up and curled it around the wall and just missed wide of Picken's right hand side. Despite his struggles, you can't deny that Fredy Montero is a threat in these situations. About nine minutes later, Montero tested the keeper again. This time forcing Pickens to palm his shot wide for a corner.

In the 63rd minute, first blood went to the Men in Rave Green. After a poor delivery off a corner kick from Alex Caskey about a few seconds ago, he had another chance to get this one right and he did. Caskey driven ball found Zack Scott at the near post and the veteran directed his header to the far post and in the back of the goal to snap the Sounders scoreless streak and even better, give the Sounders a 1-0 lead. It was Scott's first goal of his MLS career.

In the 89th minute, Fredy Montero worked a give and go with Leo Gonzalez. Montero caught Matt Pickens off his line and tried to chip him, but Pickens punched his effort over the bar. He had Sammy Ochoa up with him as well. I think he should poked the ball to Ochoa which would've led to an easy tap in. However one goal proved to be enough for Seattle.


Observations:

Fredy Montero and sort of an up and down performance in this match. I understand this guy wants to score goals, to help his team try to win and all that, but he needs to quit acting as a playmaker, get forward and test the backline. He's a good young player, but often times, he's been a little too cute on the ball and try to make plays all by himself which will never work in the game of soccer, unless you're Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, but Fredy is nowhere near their caliber. It's early in the season and he is way overdue for his first goal of the season, but this is a team game and his second half performance was somewhat disappointing. Hopefully after the bye week, Montero can turn things around on the road in Chicago and I think he'll step his game up. Like I said earlier, the early stages of the season is where he isn't really at his best, but then as the season rolls along, he starts to heat up.

The Sounders made a couple of lineup changes in this match. Alvaro Fernandez was left out of the lineup. Alex Caskey got the start in place of him. Eddie Johnson also made his first start and David Estrada was move to right midfield. Despite outshooting the Rapids 18-4, the Sounders weren't on the right page due to those lineup changes and they had only 40% of the possession all match. You need to be on the right page at all times.

It was a lot of fun catching another game in person. The problem though is I forgot my Camera so that shot from the upper deck was taken on my phone which is basically why it's not a great picture. I remember my very first Sounders game was that USL Championship game in 2005 and at that time, we didn't have this many fans. All the fans were on the east side of that picture. Since the Sounders became an MLS franchise I've been to five of their matches so far. Three of them were MLS matches, the U.S. Open Cup final last year and earlier this year, I saw their CONCACAF Champions League Quarterfinal match against Santos. So this match is the second I've gone to this year.

Despite all the terrible passing and the lack of possession and all that. This is a good win for the Sounders because they now move to third place in the Western Conference standings and are only five points behind Real Salt Lake with a couple of games in hand. RSL lost earlier to Sporting Kansas City 1-0 and this is no joke people, Sporting KC is 6-0 so far in this young season. Anyway, it was important that this team got back on track after failing to score the past couple of weeks.


Scoring summary:

Seattle Sounders FC - Zach Scott 1 (Alex Caskey 1) 63'


Misconduct summary:

Seattle Sounders FC - Eddie Johnson (caution; foul) 47'

Seattle Sounders FC - Zach Scott (caution; foul) 49'

Colorado Rapids - Brian Mullan (caution; foul) 87'

Seattle Sounders FC - Fredy Montero (caution; Dissent) 87'


Lineups:

Colorado Rapids - Matt Pickens; Kosuke Kimura, Marvell Wynne, Drew Moor, Luis Zepata; Brian Mullan, Martin Rivero, Jeff Larentowicz, Jaime Castrillon (Kamani Hill 69'), Tony Cascio (Andre Akpan 83'); Omar Cummings

Seattle Sounders FC - Michael Gspurning; Zach Scott, Jeff Parke, Patrick Ianni, Leo Gonzalez; David Estrada, Osvaldo Alonso, Brad Evans, Alex Caskey (Marc Burch 75'); Fredy Montero (Roger Levesque 91'+), Eddie Johnson (Sammy Ochoa 66')