FC Dallas took a 1-0 win over New England at the Cotton Bowl tonight, setting up a good news/bad news situation for the Sounders.
The good news is that the Dallas win keeps the Revs behind the Sounders in the MLS standings.
The bad news is that suddenly hot Dallas will come to Seattle on Oct. 24 in the Sounders final — and perhaps decisive — game of the regular season.
Here’s tonight’s game report.
The expected has now become the official, and Toronto FC soon with have a natural-grass pitch at BMO Field.
Here’s a report from the Toronto Sun.
And with that taken care of, look for MLS’ other great expansion attendance success story to set its sites on getting more seats at their home stadium.
Here’s what Toronto senior director of business operations Paul Beirne told me when we were talking about BMO in advance of TFC’s visit to Seattle last month: “I’m confident in saying that we will expand in the future. If there’s one thing we would do differently …
Not much news coming out of Sounders training today … I mostly interviewed for stories we’ll run later in the week, since this was the club’s final local practice before flying out to Columbus tomorrow.
However, there remain a lot of items for fans to consider this week: the playoff race, the scoreboard watching, Sigi Schmid’s return to Columbus (as well as Brad Evans’ and Ezra Hendrickson’s), the need for points in a place where the home team rarely surrenders any.
In any case, any or all of that might be on the agenda at 6:07 p.m. today when …
The Sounders return to training at Starfire this morning, and I’ll drop back by with whatever news comes from that.
Until then, here’s my story from this morning, with the Sounders looking ahead to their Saturday visit to Columbus.
Here’s an MLSnet.com look at tonight’s New England-FC Dallas match. It’s part of a double-header in the Cotton Bowl. And the Revs draw even with the Sounders with a point, pull ahead with a win.
Update: The Columbus Crew gave up a goal in stoppage time tonight, ending with a 1-1 draw with Saprissa in CONCACAF Champions League action.
A win would have sent Columbus through to the quarterfinals, but the draw leaves them with work to do or scoreboards to watch.
But first comes, the Crew returns to league action Saturday against Seattle.
Previous: While the Sounders have turned their full attention to their visit to Columbus on Saturday, the Crew is preparing for Saprissa tonight, needing a win to advance to the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions …
The Sounders are off the Starfire pitch after their typically long Tuesday practices.
And when Sigi Schmid met the media, the first question asked tweaked the expected “How do you feel about returning to Columbus?” into “How do you think you’ll be received when you return to Columbus?”
“I imagine during the game that all the fans will support Columbus,” Schmid said. “They want Columbus to win, and Seattle is the enemy. I would hope that before the game that they won’t destroy me and that there’s at least some good feelings that still exist. The connection established between that …
Our soccer-loving friends over at Doyle’s Public House send the following heads-up regarding a couple of soccer films that will be showing at the Tacoma Film Festival, which runs Thursday through Oct. 8.
Thursday is the start of the Tacoma Film Festival and this year there are two movies with soccer themes. Winning Isn’t Everything is a must see for any aspiring player or coach. The second film should be interesting for all the soccer rats out there who are in continual search of a field with players.
If you are affiliated with any soccer groups or clubs
Quick reminder that the USA is in action at 9:45 this morning, meeting Cameroon in the u-20 World Cup.
The game will be shown on ESPN2.