By Will Martin
It seems whenever a team from North Texas makes the trek North by Northwest to play in the Emerald City, funny bounces and strange occurrences are the order of the day. Cowboy fans would prefer to not relive what happened in a playoff game there in 2007 much less the drubbing suffered at Qwest last September.
38,979 rabid fans would fill the CenturyLink in anticipation of seeing one streak extended and one ended. Sounders fans got their wish. It was a bit of a role reversal in that FC Dallas (7-2-3) would fall behind quickly in this match 2-0 on goals from Eddie Johnson (assisted by Osvaldo Alonso) in the 16th minute of play. Lamar Neagle tallied the second goal in the 30th minute (Brad Evans with that assist).
One constant that FC Dallas has been successful at all season has been using the set piece to make something happen. In the 30th that is exactly what would transpire when Kenny Cooper would use his head-literally-to blast a shot past Michael Gspurning off a Michael corner kick to cut Seattle’s lead in half at the 54th minute.
Seven minutes later at minute 61 once again FC Dallas would hit pay-dirt on the ever rare ‘Olimpico’ by Michael. That is when a corner kick has enough bend to find its way into the goal unassisted past the fully extended arms of Gspurning. FC Dallas appeared to be back in business in a 2-2 deadlock.
Alas, that momentum switch immediately swung like an angry pendulum in the opposite direction as FCD was caught out of position. Once again Eddie Johnson got behind the FC Dallas line of Jair Benitez, Zac Loyd, London Woodberry, and Matt Hedges after a great pass feed by Lamar Neagle to allow for an easy wraparound goal for Seattle.
Obafemi Martins would end the scoring in the 83rd minute to give the Sounders a 4-2 victory (4-3-3). It marked the second straight week they would score four goals in a game. With the win the unbeaten Sounders streak reaches six, having won three in a row. FC Dallas had its nine game unbeaten streak snapped since losing to Chivas USA back in March.
Hmm…Jimi Hendrix was a Seattle prodigy. He even had a song called ‘If 6 were 9’. What a perfect segue-way for Saturday night’s action in the Northwest. Things got a little bloody when Blas Perez had an elbow that would bloody the nose of Leo Gonzalez and gave Perez a red card.
The three game win streak the first for the Sounders since May 2012. Even with the defeat FC Dallas still has the best record in the MLS. Four points better Real Salt Lake, five ahead of the Portland Timbers in the Western Conference.
The seventh seeded San Jose Earthquakes will be the next opponent FC Dallas shall face off against. That shall commence this Saturday, May 25th at FC Dallas Park in Frisco. One of many things going on for Memorial Day Weekend.
Make a date to watch some FC Dallas soccer if you have nothing planned for that weekend. FC Dallas remains undefeated at home in 2013 (6-0-1). Curious to see what areas of play he places the focus on this week at practice.