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MLS friendly rewind: Celtic top 10-man Seattle, San Jose ties Tottenham

Celtic Seattle 1 (Reuters)  

By FRANCO PANIZO

The Seattle Sounders can't catch a break even in friendlies.

The Sounders lost their high-profile friendly against Celtic, 2-1, on Sunday in front of 45,631 spectators at Quest Field. Goals from Georgios Samaras and Patrick McCourt outdid a second half strike from David Estrada, but it was the opening goal that marred the match.

Seattle goalkeeper Terry Boss tripped Samaras in the box in the 29th minute, and while the ball rolled into the back of the net, referee Paul Ward awarded a penalty kick and sent off Boss instead of playing the advantage much to the dismay of both teams.

Playing with a man down for an hour, Seattle was able to pull one back as Estrada netted against American goalkeeper Dominic Cervi.

The Seattle-Celtic match wasn't the only international friendly played this past weekend. The San Jose Earthquakes held Tottenham to a scoreless draw in front of a record capacity crowd of 10,712 at Buck Shaw Stadium.

Despite the game ending scoreless, there were 31 combined shots in an open affair that was easy on the eye.

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What did you think of the Seattle-Celtic match? Impressed by San Jose's draw?

Share your thoughts below. 

Comments

  1. I love the fact that Seattle-Timbers draws about 3-4x the number fans that Man U does.

    These friendlies are a bit of a joke.

    I am a little torn. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed seeing Barca and Chelsea last year. But that was enough and I would rather watch a MLS league game any day.

    Watching pretty close to zero starters for the Sounders against a team that has a great history, on Sunday made my $22 ticket over priced.

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  2. Its not MLS, but you did miss the fact that the Portland Timbers hosted Manchester City at Merlo Field (University of Portland) in front of a sold out capacity crowd of a bit over 5000 on Saturday. (Game couldn’t be played at Timber normal home PGE Park as it was already booked.) Pretty amazing to see such top flight talent that up close and personal and a very nice little field. Sadly my Timbers lost 3-0 but it was still fun.

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  3. All hail Seattle. We should all be so lucky to play on a plastic pitch.

    Lay off San Jose, which is building a nice SSS + training facility. Those that play on plastic shouldn’t throw rubber pellets.

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  4. Yeah, that San Jose-Tottenham match was easy on the eyes… as long as you remembered to gouge them both out beforehand! As a Spurs supporter, and general MLS booster, I was embarrassed. I’m sure the heat didn’t help, but that was no showcase for the beautiful game.

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  5. I was at the Tottenham / Quakes. First time Id visited the mighty venue known as Buck Shaw.

    Some thoughts.

    — Many generic EPL fans in attendance, as well as many spurs fans. Some good taunting going on between Arsenal and Spurs in the audience. One generic Irish gent and one authentic british Spurs fan almost got into it. Fun times had by all.

    — Lord what a dump. 5 porta potties for the entire western stand. 40 min queue for the loo.

    — rickety and sun/water damaged bleachers and plastic chairs.

    — Being able to be a part of the all time capacity of Buck Shaw at 10,712 is an honor I’ll tell my grandkids.

    — No bars at all near the stadium? Supposedly there was one near to the Starbucks, but we lost track of time and couldn’t find it. Miserable sterile abandoned edge of a campus and warehouse district with no walkable pre or post funk locations.

    We in Seattle need to sing thanks for how amazingly awesome we have it compared to this stand that frankly would be an embarrassment to some high schools. The pitch quality was good, but of course narrow. The “SJ Ultras” and their mighty 1 bedsheet tifo numbered what, 50? tops?

    Seattle we rule. Rejoice. On a bad day we are 10 times the awesome of some of these little dumps the MLS calls home.

    Why doesnt the MLS emulate Seattle more and get 40, 50,000 capacity rather than 10 – 20K that are being used or being built? Even portsc*m is going to be around 20K, which I totally do not understand.

    All that snarking aside, the fans in the stand were great, the beer was plentiful and somewhat cheap ($6 a micro) the match was OK, for watching a lot of up and down action but not much in the way of creativity for goals. Typical MLS I guess….

    Robbie Keane didn’t even drink all the beer.

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  6. Its not MLS, but you did miss the fact that the Portland Timbers hosted Manchester City at Merlo Field (University of Portland) in front of a sold out capacity crowd of a bit over 5000 on Saturday. (Game couldn’t be played at Timber normal home PGE Park as it was already booked.) Pretty amazing to see such top flight talent that up close and personal and a very nice little field. Sadly my Timbers lost 3-0 but it was still fun.

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  7. I saw Leitch in downtown Los Gatos yesterday – limping pretty badly. He said he heard something pop in his hip in the 12th minute but played the rest of the first half, that can’t be good…

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  8. Agree that the sending off was stupid. What was Cervi doing on that goal though? Throughout the game he looked overly cautious of saving shots that might be going out instead, maybe his wingspan at 6’6″ means he is worried about needlessly giving away CK’s. Still, he seemed to retract his arm from Estrada’s shot, allowing it in. Very weird stuff.

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  9. The Quakes looked pretty good. They had the better chances and combined well leading up to the attack. They need to capitalize on some of those chances though. As for the Sounders-Celtic game, that ref ruined it in my opinion. One, he should have gave the advantage to the Spurs, and let the goal stand. With maybe giving Boss a yellow for tripping up their striker. But giving him a straight red, and calling a PK was a foolish call for a friendly. It ruined the match for both teams. At that point Seattle had better chances. Also it meant the Celtic could not properly analyze it’s players as they were a man up for most of the match.

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  10. The San Jose – Spurs game was entertaining (as you say) and I was impressed by the Quakes. They played attractively and intelligently. Their downfall in the match was some naive final passes that really tried to force the ball into a crowded box (plus a couple poor midfeild give aways). TO me that was the difference – Spurs were much more pateint.

    Hernadez and Leetch for the Quakes were particualry good.

    (And yes, we know…preseason blah blah blah. Even in that context the Quakes did very well.)

    Reply

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