Top Stories

U.S. Open Cup: Seattle Sounders vs. Portland Timbers (Your Running Commentary)

Seattle Sounders FC - JPEGTimbersLogo 

U.S. Open Cup matches don't generally have the heated rivalry factor, but the Portland Timbers-Seattle Sounders third-round match-up isn't your normal rivalry.

Forged from the days of the old NASL, and kept alive for decades in the A-League and USL, Timbers-Sounders is one of the most intense, and arguably the best rivalry in the United States.

That rivalry has been put on hold since the Sounders joined Major League Soccer, but the U.S. Open Cup has brought it back to life, with the Timbers playing host to the Sounders tonight (10pm).

If you will be watching tonight's match, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.

Enjoy the action.

Comments

  1. this was the worst showing by a home teams fans i ever seen. go ahead portland make it family. as if the mls gives a F*ck when u cant even put people in the seats.

    seattle sounders…28,000. we made u.

    Reply
  2. when the timbers fall in PGE park, do they make a sound?

    Posted by: Sammy the Sounder | July 02, 2009 at 12:29 AM

    Bad Pun…..

    Reply
  3. What a game, as a Sounder season ticket holder, I cant wait till you both join us. Well done Portland but we move on!

    Reply
  4. 16,3xx

    good crowd. fun time.

    To the sniper with the water bottle who nailed that diving bastard in the balls: You shouldn’t throw things, but that was such an amazing shot from 50+ yards out that I congratulate you, sir.

    Reply
  5. If the MLS actually wants to make money then they should move Dallas to Bellingham. We’re a little town right between Seattle and Vancouver, but I guarantee we’d have more people at our matches than 1/2 the league.

    Reply
  6. Zues, i agree but at the same time i understand. The MLS wants to make some money and i completely support that. Until we really start to get more and more quality players in and the economy becomes more stable, the MLS needs all the advantages it can get.

    Reply
  7. I wonder how expensive it would be for MLS to operate a site similar to USLlive.com? Seriously, we had to deal with stupid twitter updates to follow our (Chicago) loss last night. I’m starting to feel that the USL is a better run league, at least for the fans. Hey Garber, how about you spend some of those expansion dollars on a decent web site with some streaming coverage? I’m actually jealous of the USL.

    Reply
  8. Jon Jon I agree that the Pacific NW wasn’t included soon enough however…
    This could be an incorrect notion but I like the idea of including cities that are soccer hotbeds but may be small but also larger cities and cities in untapped regions that may not already support it as much. I like the idea of having a balance between making sure MLS thrives by having it in cities where the support is already big and growing the sport itself in America by growing the soccer love in other cities. This could get tricky with all the cities we have though..

    Reply
  9. chg, call our (Atlanta’s) Uncle Arthur. Once that dude commits, he’ll make it work at any cost. And the next opportunity to get a voice in on it, this Milan-America game.

    Reply
  10. Young Nimo looked very good when he came on. Good news for RSL for the future, unless they give him up like they did Sturgis (who also looked very good today).

    Reply
  11. The MF’er Suzuki seems to be looking too much to set up others. A couple of times I would’ve liked to see him try to get one on goal himself.

    Reply
  12. Best attended US Open Cup game since the Fusion-Fire final in 2000, according to a quick glance of Wikipedia attendance stats.

    Reply
  13. factor in that this is a midweek game and it makes the crowd that much more impressive.

    if the crowd is large and into the game it automatically makes the level on the field raise up a notch or two.

    Reply
  14. Is it one of the largest attendances for a USOC game (other than a Final, even those are sometimes sparsely attended)?
    It has to be for a game this early in the competition for sure.

    Reply
  15. Attendance tonight a sellout at 16,382. The capacity is listed as more but they limited the number of seats not because of demand but because PGE isn’t fully optimized for soccer (or baseball) and there are some bad seats.

    Reply
  16. AS expected the Timbers Army is in fine fettle. The stadium holds about 19,500 and they added about 400 standing room only, so there’s about 20k. When the stadium is remodeled there will be stands on the empty side that the camera shows. GO TIMBERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  17. Jon Jon – Need owners with money to be able to support the club. Relax.

    Timbers Army is… Awesome! Looking forward to them joining the league. Hope the Portland decision makers are watching/hearing about this.

    Reply
  18. why was the MLS so stupid to include the likes of Salt Lake, KC, Miami, Dallas, two LA teams before my beloved Sounders and even Portland. Soccer is huge here, what idiots. I don’t see this support anywhere else in the league… what were they thinking?

    Reply
  19. I really want an MLS team somewhere in the Southeast. I want to be a fan, but the only Southern team is Houston, and that’s just too far to get that excited about. The Carolinas would support MLS. I know it will never happen, but it would work in Charleston just because it would be the only ML team in town.

    Reply
  20. Seattle has about half of its regulars starting, including Keller, Hurtado, Jacqua, and LeToux. They are dealing with a number of injuries and Gold Cup call-ups.

    Reply
  21. Most attended US Open Cup match since at least the 2000 final. Don’t know what they capped capacity at, PGE Park can’t quite handle as many as they say it can – but that will be fixed in the upgrade.

    Reply
  22. Can’t wait for Portland to join MLS. A Sounders-Portland game is the type I’d go out of my way to attend–and I’m on the East Coast. Sign of things to come in MLS I think and hope

    Reply
  23. On the left tab where it says “Live Games”, you have to sign up to view the games though.

    Portland’s fans look good from what I can tell, which is basically a constant view of the supporters section.

    Reply
  24. usllive.com – you have to register first.

    their link for the houston-austin game wasn’t working, but the seattle-portland feed is working…i’m getting all the on air and off air commentary

    Reply

Leave a Comment