South Couch Report : Seattle v Toronto

Old Seattle logo with new colours

Old Seattle logo with new colours

Missing ten starters, including six defenders.  3-4-3 formation.  Dempsey is healthy.  This will be an adventure in patience or a test of masochistic limitations.

On to the match :

1′ – Of course the wife calls.  10pm on a Saturday night.

6′ – GOAL – Well that’s probably the game winner. Dempsey pops the ball over all three defenders and sends Martins through to one on one with Konopka who was beaten cleanly.  I made sure I remembered it.
INVENTORS 1, ROBINS 0

23′ – Wife is at her first destination.  Hopefully something interesting happens before she calls back.

27′ – Williams runs Martins off the ball down the wing.  Well done there.

30′ – Alonzo for Seattle gets booked for embellishing contact on a slide tackle.  Replay looked close.

32′ – Undermanned backup defenders playing high in a new formation? Of course that is a great idea #student

40′ – Bullet dodged.  Martins has a long range blast that required Konopka to make a lunging save.  Big rebound finds Dempsey who has it stopped by the linesman as he was well offside.

45′ – Moore takes a half chance with the ball, turns around and gets a shot off that goes high.

Half Time Mood : should be worse.  Feels like we’re just waiting for the collapse to begin.

52′ – Gomez chokes up the ball and Martins has a run up the pitch who sends a nice ball through to Dempsey on the far post who fires it, Konopka making the stop.

55′ – the last 30 seconds should be burned out of any archives of league film.  Watching players slip and mishandle the ball, retreating backwards under minimal pressure. It was just bad football. The kind of terrible sequence that would be used as ammunition to show you how terrible ‘sawker’ is.

57′ – Marky, you should have shot it!  Passing it back to a marked Bradley was a poor idea.

59′ – GOAL – beautiful cross from Morgan and finds the unmarked head of Zavaleta who beats Frei at the near post.  First MLS goal for Eriq.
INVENTORS 1, ROBINS 1

62′ – Pressure is on from Seattle and after a Martins miss, subsequent corner and clearance has the swinging cross finding Marshall’s header  stopped by Konopka.

66′ – Oh Findley.  Useless.

68′ – YELLOW – Delgado gets booked for taking out Valdez about a yard from the penalty area.

73′ – SUB – Chapman comes in for Gomez.  And Findley still out there.

77′ – GOAL – Tragedy as Seattle didn’t deserve it, but got it anyways. Konopka stops a one on one with Martins but can’t hold onto the ball and Dempsey buries the mishandled stop.
INVENTORS 2, ROBINS 1

81′ – SUB – Jordan Hamilton for Simonin.

85′ – Oh Findley. Tie it up and I’ll make you man of the match and earn a score of 10.

3 mins of extra time

90+2′ – Martins with another marauding run.  Stopped by defenders and Konopka.

Full Time : Seattle 2, Toronto 1

Man of the Match : Konopka gets it.  Felt that Morgan had a solid match as well.

Goat of the Game : Findley.

Ref Rating : 4 out of 5.  What I learned tonight was that Unkel Ted must only hate home teams.

I Am Not The Gaffer But… : I’d celebrate like it was a draw.  Aside from your defenders playing a bit too high, well done Greg.

In Case You PVR’d It : Ewww…  maybe watch the goals.  Second half was better than the first.  I’d just read this.

To be fair, this was as thin as a back line this club has ever seen (omitting obvious jokes for previous defensive setups) with the amount of emergencies and backups used.  It is a good thing that Seattle were largely poor for much of the game, as that saved a complete embarrassment of Orlando proportions.  Based on what they had to work with, it could’ve been and should have been worse.  And it wasn’t.  I kinda feel Konopka should’ve had hung on to the ball just before the second goal went in, but he played very well. Against better, more fluid opposition, Toronto would’ve been absolutely slaughtered.

Perhaps it’s some weird conscience thing, but throwing this XI under the bus just feels wrong.  If we see this line up next week, New England is going to have so much fun with it, and then it’s bus throwing time.  Fair?

Player Ratings : Konopka 7.5, Zavaleta 7, Williams 6.5, Simonin 6.5 (Hamilton N/A), Delgado 5.5, Bradley 6.5, Osorio 6, Morgan 6.5, Gomez 6 (Chapman N/A), Moore 6, Findley 5

Author: Mark Hinkley

Mark is a full-time graphic designer, full-time smart ass and full-time logo, stadium and kit nerd. When he isn't writing ridiculous match reports or redesigning logos for his own amusement, he's salivating over the day that promotion and relegation occurs in MLS. You can follow him @kitnerdmark on the twitterz.

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2 Comments

  1. I’m digging the 3-5-3, it is exciting. The TFC defense is simply a problem no matter who is in it. Yes, these sort of things start in the midfield and and with a full house there, the team shape inevitably breaks down. As I have said in the past, the team must train had for this sort of on-field confusion. With the a tie served up should not the team setup for defense and a draw?

    As well as Delgado, Chapman needs to shoot. Sure looked like he opted for a pass back instead of a shot at the top of the box.

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    • Lost count – I mean 3-4-3. 🙂

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