Seattle Sounders FC vs. Portland Timbers
I have to admit - I was hopping for the full three points in this derby. Our back line and goal keeper fell asleep on one free kick, and that cost us the win.
No matter the result, the atmosphere was awesome and I can't wait to see this match on an annual basis. The crowd was jacked from the get go, with the major supporters groups stoking the flames throughout the match. Below are a few images and videos that do the best job of capturing the feeling, although nothing is quite like being there.
My hope is that MLS continues to grow and that teams genuinely create rivalries. I don't know how successful they will be at this given the geographic size of the US and the lack of history many clubs have. I just feel very lucky to be a supporter of a team who has such a storied history with a rival that we don't need to create the derby atmosphere - it existed long before MLS awarded our two cities our franchises.
Here's some tifo from the north end of the field. The upper right hand corner is the tifo from the 550 away supporters from the Timbers Army. There were many other Timbers supporters spread out throughout the stadium, a group of which were above us and routinely solicited "PORTLAND SUCKS!" chants from our end of the field.
Here's what the tifo on the south end of the field looked like. Truly epic! Grant Wahl referred to it as a "half acre" of tifo. Four Sounders legends plus Freddy Montero are in the lower bowl, "Decades of Dominance" with a sounder fist crushing a Timbers logo in the upper bowl, and the smiling face in the bottom left is Portland nemesis Roger Levesque. Tifo that is five sections wide and two bowls high - try and top that!
Here's a video of what the tifo looked like as it came out. It's too bad the video has some Bach music in the background - far more impressive was the "Welcome to the Jungle" that was played while those banners were flying. It may be a 25 year-old cliche sporting event song, but it added so much to the mood in the stadium.
More importantly, the videos below capture the scoring action. The scene after the Fernandez goal was simply electric.
While I was not happy about the equalizer from Portland, the video does a great job capturing 500+ supporters that made the trip up to Seattle and were packed in to the Northeast corner of the stadium.
In all, it was a wonderful derby weekend here in the Northwest, and I am sure we set a new standard for MLS rivalries. I just wanted those two extra points!
Seattle Sounders FC vs. Sporting Kansas City
In some way you have to feel for the players of Sporting KC. They've been on one heck of a road trip to begin this season, playing nearly three months on the road while their new stadium is completed in time for the June 9th inaugural match. The team is certainly investing for the long-run, but it may be doing so at the expense of the near term with a 1-6-1 record and four points to show for it. MySportsStats.com is showing they have a less than 20% chance of making the playoffs after last night's loss, although my Sounders had even lower chances at a much later stage of last season and still rallied to make the playoffs. Sporting KC will need something similar this season, and it's not impossible given the benefits of a second half schedule heavy on home matches.
More important to me than the three points was that this was the first Sounders match my older daughter has attended. She's been watching a number of the matches on TV for nearly a year, so I bought tickets to the match against the Union in July. This week that match was moved to October to accommodate the Union's friendly against Real Madrid, and I was none too pleased. I lucked out as I had a friend who had to get rid of tickets to this weekend's match, so I picked them up and my older daughter and I went to it. The pictures and videos below serve as highlights of a fun evening that I think maybe, just maybe, hooked my older daughter on the live experience.
Below are the two US Open Cups the Sounders have won since moving up to MLS. It's a bit blurry since the older daughter took it, but it was an awesome experience.
Below is my daughter enjoying the music from Sound Wave, our team's band that plays at every match.
Here's the stoppage time goal from Jeff Parke, who hadn't scored in seven years. It was an amazing experience - my daughter was picked up off her seat and went for a ride with me as we jumped up and down, high-fived a few people, and generally reveled in an additional two points earned by our boys.
These kinds of endings seem to be par for the course when Kansas City comes to town - they lost last year's match due to a Mike Fucito stoppage time goal.
Post-match, my daughter and I had a fun time leaving the stadium. On the way out the door we ran in to a guy who had a giant green foam Z for our fallen winger, Steve Zakuani. The Spirit of #11 lives as he rehabs from that horrific leg injury he has suffered.
At the end of the walk, we ran in to Sound Wave who was celebrating the win with a rendition of Muse's Knights of Cydonia. The guy with the giant Z makes another appearance here as well.
My daughter loved every minute of it. Of course, the match not ending in a nil-nil tie nor the drenched state of the Portland match were definitely plusses. She's a bit disappointed that she must wait until October for her next one, but I'm sure she'll get over it. It's all I could ask for with a seven year old - not absolute rejection, and a good interest in going to another match.
No comments:
Post a Comment