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New York Red Bulls vs. Seattle Sounders (Match Night Commentary)

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The New York Red Bulls put their unbeaten home record on the line tonight when they take on the struggling Seattle Sounders.

Seattle come in off a 4-0 drubbing against Los Angeles that dropped the Sounders to last place in the Western Conference. They face the same New York team that beat them at Qwest Field earlier in the season.

New York will look to regroup from its own 4-0 loss, a blowout defeat against San Jose that came, at least in part, because of an early red card.

I will be providing commentary on tonight's match so please feel free to follow along here. As always, you are welcome to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.

Enjoy the action (Tonight's commentary is after the jump):

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FINAL– Thanks for following tonight and be sure to follow SBI all weekend for updates on today's MLS action.

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FINAL– Sounders 1, Red Bulls 0. It was a pretty even match the whole night until Fredy Montero came off the bench and delivered some magic to give the Sounders a vital win. Their first in four matches.

The loss is the Red Bulls' first at Red Bull Arena.

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87th minute– A great ball in from Evans on the Montero goal. He chested it with Petke on him, took a touch and hit it quickly under an on-rushing Coundoul. Montero beats Petke yet again.

Tony Tchani is on for Carl Robinson, Pat Noonan is also coming into the match.

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85th minute- GOAL SOUNDERS!!! And it's Fredy Montero with the slick finish. Nice goal. He chests it, touches it and slides it under Coundoul. Sounders 1, Red Bulls 0.

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81st Minute– Montero sliides at Coundoul and nearly beats him to a cross, but Coundoul is on it. Montero caught Coundoul in the head with his shin, but Coundoul didn't sell it as a serious blow.

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78th minute– Montero is on for Nyassi.

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74th minute– Still no Fredy Montero in this match. Interesting. He's waiting on the side, hands on hips.

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71st Minute– Stammler and Marshall both get yellow cards for handbags following a Joel Lindpere dive in the area that got no call.

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69th minute– Hall with a foul that gives Seattle a free kick from about 35 yards out.

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64th minute– Nielsen with a hard shot right at Keller. Nice look, but Keller was all over it.

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63rd minute– Nathan Sturgis is set to come in for Peter Vagenas.

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61st minute– If we were doing drinking games tonight then Bouna Coundoul passing midfield with a goal kick would be worth a Jaeger Bomb.

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56th minute– Sinisa Ubiparipovic is in for Richards.

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55th minute– Borman saved Coundoul's hide that time. Coundoul has looked shaky tonight. WIll that be his only brain cramp?

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53rd minute– WOW, SAVE BORMAN. Coundoul runs out of the area and gets caught, Nyassi sends a shot at the open net but Borman races to the net to clear it away just in time.

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53rd minute– Nielsen is on for Ibrahim. He's lining up as a forward

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52nd minute– Brian Nielsen looks set to come on. He can play as a second striker so he could be in for Ibrahim.

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50th minute– Sounders fans could counter with the following chant for Coundoul, "Take Your Goal Kicks!"

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49th minute– Red Bulls fans with the best chant of the night, aimed at Kasey Keller: "Friedel's Back-Up!!" Ouch.

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48th minute– Nyassi with a shot from 28 yards out that goes wide from the top of the box.

Salou Ibrahim is cramping up. Jozy Altidore is warming up (Just kidding. Sorry Red Bulls fans).

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47th minute– We're back. No subs yet.

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HALFTIME– Jozy Altidore just spoke at halftime on the field. Funniest moment of the day was Juan Pablo Angel walking by Altidore and grabbing him by the arm as if to try and drag him into the match. Red Bulls could use him tonight.

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HALFTIME– New York has had some decent spells of possession, but still struggle with the final pass. Dane Richards hasn't really put his stamp on this match and neither has Lindpere. It will be interesting to see if Hans Backe inserts Brian Nielsen to give the attack a boost.

For Seattle, the question is when will Fredy Montero enter the match. Actually, the bigger question is which Montero will show up, an angry and motivated Montero, or the lax Montero that has been sleepwalking through matches lately.

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HALFTIME– The Harrison PATH station has, in fact, been shut down after a suspicious package was found. Police are investigating. Quite a few fans have been left stranded with no way to get to the match.

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HALFTIME– Red Bulls 0, Sounders 0. Not many truly great chances in an even game.

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39th minute– Borman with a yellow card for a foul on Ljungberg. Seattle with a long free kick.

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36th minute– Zakuani goes close with a chance that goes wide.

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35th minute– Soft yellow card on Jeremy Hall.

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32nd minute– The fans are getting into it. Loud chant of Let's Go Red Bulls is ringing out. Great atmosphere, and that's with a half-full stadium where a good number of fans have yet to arrive due to a closed down PATH Station.

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30th minute– Petke with aheader that's blocked away.

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29th minute– Red Bulls starting to do better with the ball, putting more pressure on Seattle's defense.

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24th minute– Lindpere draws a free kick from a pretty good spot, 28 yards out.

ANGEL GOES CLOSE!! But his kick is just over the bar. Keller looked to have it covered.

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21st minute– Coundoul has gotten a lot of flack for his not taking his own goal kicks. After seeing him kick tonight you can understand why it's done. He's a serious liability kicking the ball.

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17th minute– No real rhythm to the match yet. New York hasn't put anything dangerous together yet.

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14th minute– Red Bulls fans are holding up signs with number 14 and Vide on them in honor of former midfielder Joe Vide, who is battling cancer.

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12th minute– Canadian referee Silviu Petrescu wasn't going for Freddie Ljungberg's dive attempt.

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10th minute– Some good energy from both teams early on.

Red Bulls fans are in full voice, though the stadium is only half-full at this point. Seattle has a nice contingent of fans here tonight. SOmewhere between 60 to 100 fans are in the upper deck in rave green.

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9th minute– Ream with a great intervention in the area to stop Nyassi. He looks ready to get back to his earlier form.

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8th minute– The Juan Pablo Angel-Jhon Kennedy Hurtado match-up is a fun one to watch. The Colombian standouts are two of the best in the league.

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6th minute– Tim Ream is coming off his first truly bad game of the season. Will he respond tonight? Nervous touch early for the rookie.

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2nd Minute– Nervous moments for New York already as Coundoul gets whistled for touching the ball outside4 the area. Seattle has good energy early. Will New York be able to deal with Seattle's speedy flank players?

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1st Minute– We are under way.

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PRE-GAME– Here is the Red Bulls starting lineup:

————–Angel———Ibrahim—————–

Stammler—-Lindpere—Robinson———Richards

Borman—–Ream——–Petke—————-Hall

———————-Coundoul————————

BENCH- Sutton, Mendes, Miller, Ubiparipovic, Tchani, Nielsen, Chinn.

Chris Albright did not dress and Roy Miller is carrying an injury so Borman gets the start.

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PRE-GAME– Freddy Montero has been benched for tonight's match. Seattle is going with a 4-3-3 with no pure forwards. Here's their lineup:

—–Zakuani———————-Nyassi———

———————–Evans———————–

———————Ljungberg ——————–

————–Vagenas——Ianni——————-

Gonzalez—-Hurtado—-Marshall———-Riley

——————–Keller————————–

BENCH– Boss, Sturgis, Wahl, Scott, Levesque, Montero, Noonan

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PRE-GAME– Jozy Altidore just spoke to the media. I asked him if he was coming here in 2022. He asked how old he would be then. When told he'd be 32, Altidore responded, "That's too old. I'll be here before that."

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PRE-GAME– Jozy Altidore is in the building. The former Red Bulls striker is in town for the upcoming U.S. national team pre-World Cup camp. He's also here to see the building he'll call home in 2022.

Comments

  1. To SBI:

    I think the issue, however childishly stated, was that you seem too quick to accuse Ljungberg of diving. From the t.v. it wasn’t clear that the defender did or did not contact the ball, but it was clear that contact took Ljungberg down.

    So, while Seattle fans (myself included) will be hard put to be objective…your comment during the run of play felt more like opinion than reportage. If that is your style, so be it, but it didn’t appear objective.

    Keep up the good work (with all sincerity).

    Reply
  2. How is any other city going to criticize Seattle Sounder fans? There were 17,000 at Red Bull Arena, there are 30,000+ at every Sounders match in Seattle.

    We may be annoying, but at least the logo in our stands doesn’t show.

    Reply
  3. That was almost as shocking as Lindpere not getting cautioned for his yellow. I can understand giving the caution to Marshall but it doesn’t forgive diving.

    Reply
  4. Not the best match for entertainment value, but I really don’t see how this can be sold as an even match.

    Seattle almost put twice as many shots in as NYRB (15-8), had a shots-on-goal advantage (4-1), and twice as many corner kicks. And the Sounders did all of this while basically shutting down the NYRB offense.

    Reply
  5. Everyone needs to shut up and stop whining about the PATH station being closed. Would you rather that “suspicious package” be a real bomb and kill people? I think not! The police did their job and did it well.

    Reply

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