Preview: New England, 6-6-6, 24pts, 5th in the Eastern Conference, 11th overall*

Sounders, 8-5-8, 3rd place in the Western Conference, 5th overall.*

Thursday, 7pm, Qwest Field.

It took two-thirds of the season to figure it out, but last week the Sounders finally figured out the key to victory: Blue Jerseys!

Yes, turns out our defense isn't jinxed, our offense really can come together, and we can win without Freddie, just as long as we're wearing BLUE JERSEYS!



I'm not sure if we'll have a controlled experiment on the blue theory tonight, but we will be testing the biggest question about the Sounders toinght: Consistency. The Sounders who beat  LA 2-0 were not the Sounders who flopped the week before to Salt Lake 0-1, and the week before that to San Jose 0-4.

Can we maintain the flow and win twice in a row? New England is the last team the Sounders are playing for the first time.  Statistically, they lie somewhere between San Jose and Salt Lake.  In their 13 years, they've only won one trophy, the Open Cup in 2007.  With a foreboding 6-6-6 record, they're essentially out of the play-off picture.

Like San Jose, New England's roster is void of big names, important people. Reading the histories of their capped players reads like their histories with championships: Close, but not quite. Taylor Twellman capped for the Nats from 2002-06, but was left off the WC roster that year, as was captain Steve Ralston and defender Chris Albright (though he and Twellman are both on the injured list for tonight).

The most important name on the team is Sainey Nyassi, twin brother of Sounder Sanna who started his MLS career two years earlier. Sanna's well deserves a position on the starting 11—as I called for last week ; starting him against his twin brother would foment whatever sibling rivalry exists between them.

We'll be repeating the LA match in some less-desirable regards: Ljungberg was dropped from the line-up last week after a sudden, mysterious illness that continue to linger .  We're also without a key defender, this week we're rotating Marshall with Hurtado on the ejection list.  For as good as those two are—and I think they are phenomenal—they now rarely play together. They started and played every minute of the first eleven games, but have only played together three times since .  The definition of "consistency" for the Sounders: Maintaining the back four of Marshall, Hurtado, Riley, and Gonzalez.

But unlike the matches against SJE and RSL, this one is at Qwest.  It's been a while since we've had a resounding victory, and the chanting home crowd is like blood on the pitch.