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Tie Goes to the Winner
[Editor's note: This is not Josh. This is SoundersNerd. He'll have his own byline shortly.]
Steve Zakuani summed it up best in his post-game interview, "Last week was a bad tie, this week was a good tie".
American sports fans are puzzled. Ties are for sissies. The typical response: "Why not just play until someone wins?" The answer: Because 90 minutes is already a long time to run around. In soccer, you don't get to stand around like you do all game in football and baseball.
Fairer question (and I'll explain the answer) is: Why should Zakuani be excited about a tie?
Cause the brutal honesty is sometimes you can't win, the odds are against you. Like they were in Colorado.
For me, this early in the season, games are more about flushing out the other team than winning. My goal for last Saturday’s game against Colorado wasn’t to win. Face it, the scenario wasn’t good (the Sounders are plagued with injuries, most notably Freddy Ljungberg and his mysterious “migraines;” Colorado is a much better team than Dallas, including US Nationals Pablo Mastroeni and Conor Casey; and we were on their hometurf, a mile high up, which means the guys might as well be running around in lead shoes while chain smoking.) My goal was: We should experiment: Play our rookies, find out what works and what doesn’t now so we can come on strong late in the season (when it matters) even if it means losing or, gasp, tying. As we did. Excellent.
Latino Sportsmen of the Year, Colorado's Schelotto
Which sets up a nice stage for this week when Columbus Crew come to town. Even though they're in fourth place, don't be fooled. Columbus won the MLS championship last year. And they've got Guillermo Barros Schelotto, the former Argentina national whose credits include, among others, Sports Illustrated Latino's Sportsman of the Year. Columbus' captain is US National Frankie Hejduk, who was amazing to watch back in March when he scored and assisted a in a World Cup qualifier tie in El Salvador—one of those places where if you beat the hosts, people may be killed. (That was a good tie, too). It'll be a good game, even if we tie.
Steve Zakuani summed it up best in his post-game interview, "Last week was a bad tie, this week was a good tie".
American sports fans are puzzled. Ties are for sissies. The typical response: "Why not just play until someone wins?" The answer: Because 90 minutes is already a long time to run around. In soccer, you don't get to stand around like you do all game in football and baseball.
Fairer question (and I'll explain the answer) is: Why should Zakuani be excited about a tie?
Cause the brutal honesty is sometimes you can't win, the odds are against you. Like they were in Colorado.
For me, this early in the season, games are more about flushing out the other team than winning. My goal for last Saturday’s game against Colorado wasn’t to win. Face it, the scenario wasn’t good (the Sounders are plagued with injuries, most notably Freddy Ljungberg and his mysterious “migraines;” Colorado is a much better team than Dallas, including US Nationals Pablo Mastroeni and Conor Casey; and we were on their hometurf, a mile high up, which means the guys might as well be running around in lead shoes while chain smoking.) My goal was: We should experiment: Play our rookies, find out what works and what doesn’t now so we can come on strong late in the season (when it matters) even if it means losing or, gasp, tying. As we did. Excellent.
Latino Sportsmen of the Year, Colorado's Schelotto
Which sets up a nice stage for this week when Columbus Crew come to town. Even though they're in fourth place, don't be fooled. Columbus won the MLS championship last year. And they've got Guillermo Barros Schelotto, the former Argentina national whose credits include, among others, Sports Illustrated Latino's Sportsman of the Year. Columbus' captain is US National Frankie Hejduk, who was amazing to watch back in March when he scored and assisted a in a World Cup qualifier tie in El Salvador—one of those places where if you beat the hosts, people may be killed. (That was a good tie, too). It'll be a good game, even if we tie.
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