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Rooney, United steamroll Sounders in Seattle

UTD - Getty

By CALEB SONNELAND

In the second match of its preseason tour of the States, Manchester United made its dominance on the world soccer scene known with a demolition of the hosting Seattle Sounders ending at 7-0 in front of 67,052 attendees.

Despite only being on the field for 45 minutes, Wayne Rooney showed just why he is considered one of the premier strikers in the world, notching a hat trick and giving the Sounders back line a torrid night.

Rooney came on at the halftime break and it only took him six minutes to get off the mark. The Red Devil was found 10 yards out by Nani before taking a touch and smashing the ball into the roof of the net.  He fizzed a left-footed shot into the far post 18 minutes later, before wrapping up the hat trick in the 72nd to put an exclamation point on his 45-minute shift. 

"It was nice to score.  It was a good workout, so I liked the result," said Rooney.  "It's always a big thing to get your preseason under your belt, so that's the main thing."

Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid started a near identical lineup to the Starting XI that topped Colorado the week prior, a side which stood toe-to-toe with United up to halftime, earning a 0-1 difference. However, at the break, Schmid altered his squad almost completely, putting in fringe players to contest with the likes of Rooney and Park Ji-Sung.  The difference between the two Sounders lineups was starkly clear as United cruised to a 6-0 second-half performance.

"You ever heard the cliché 'a game of two halves'?  Hopefully, it's a learning experience, because we put some young guys out on the field in the second half.

"Everybody thinks they can play in the Premier League.  They think that if they got the break, or if this had worked out or if that had worked out, I could have made it.  Actually, no, you can't. You need to learn to figure it out."

The Premier League champions opened scoring early in the 15th minute when Michael nodded home an Ashley Young cross for his second goal of the preseason.  Young was thrown a heavy shoulder from James Riley inside the area but the winger got his cross off, and Owen was left unmarked at the back post for a free header to make it 1-0.

Owen's replacement, Mame Biram Diouf, made it 2-0 shortly after the break after a beautiful through ball from Nani allowed the striker in behind the Sounders back line.  Diouf controlled, rounded Terry Boss and cooly converted into the far side-netting in the 49th minute.

Other halftime substitutes Mame Biram Diouf, Park Ji-Sung and Gabriel Obertan registered goals in the steam rolling, with Nani and Obertan each notching two assists on the night.

"They're one of the best counter-attacking teams in the world, and we gave them all the space they needed to do what they're best at," said Keller after the game.

It wasn't all bad for Seattle, as it was able to welcome back long-time absentee O'Brian White back to action late in the game.  The striker came on late but got a few touches on the ball having been out since April with a serious blood clot injury.

Lamar Neagle, James Riley, Pat Noonann and trialist Mrisho Alfani Ngassa all had good efforts on goal, but none were able to convert as Seattle was condemned to a thumping at home.

Keller has been at the center of some controversy in the build up to the MLS All Star game on July 27th. After initially getting voted onto the Starting XI, Keller then found out he was omitted from the 22-man squad by the league.  However, everything has been settled and you can expect to see the shot stopper accounted for at the match.

""I'll be there," said Keller.  "It worked out in the end, let's just put it that way."

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What did you make of the game?  Who was your Man of the Match?  Is 7-0 an accurate reflection of the game?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Seattle played some of the best football I have ever seen from an American side in the 1st Half. Despite the goal, they outplayed MU. They do need some finishing help, because they should have had at least 3 goals.

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  2. No disrespect to the others, or Michael Owen, for that matter, but Rooney is clearly the star scorer (also in the absence of Chicharito).

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  3. The big stage? A zero point friendly? Keep being satisfied with results like that and its no wonder everyone in your crowd wore Manchester United jerseys.

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  4. The team the Sounders put on the field for the first half would have beaten the team they put on the field for the second half 6-0 too, period. Wayne Rooney against a bunch of guys not even on the traveling squad? Sitting there with 67,000 people was awesome, until I left in the 70th, embarrassed and bored.

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  5. If you’re a fan of Man U in the Northwest, it’s still a hell of a lot cheaper than flying to England in order to see them live at least once in your life. $60 for my one shot to see Rooney and Giggs ply their trade up close and personal? Money well spent. A lot of people aren’t content to enjoy life from their couch.

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  6. I think you’re missing his point. Which is that these guys think they can play in the EPL *now*, but really they need to keep learning the game, improving, and just flat out working their tails off to get that shot. Leaving out the “learn” part of the quote makes it sound like what you’re spinning.

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  7. 1-0 at the half versus the Sounders starting XI isn’t exactly pissing themselves on the big stage. 6 of 7 goals by Rooney-Park-Obertan-Diouf against lesser MLS reserves means pretty much nothing in the grand scheme of things for either club or their respective leagues. But you’d have to know something about the game to understand that, I’d guess.

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  8. this truly was a tale of two halves. sounders put up a good fight in the 1st half. when man utd scored, it was their first shot. whereas sounders were already up to 6 or 7. and they were quality chances. i remember at half time turning it off and watching the madrid game. i thought to myself, there is no point watching the 2nd half because it’ll be all sounders subs and they’ll end up losing 3-0 or 4-0. needless to say, when i turned back 30 minutes later and saw 7-0, i laughed.

    also, wasn’t it evra who assisted on owen’s goal???

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  9. wayne rooney “it was a good workout” LMAO… Im a sounders fan but him to say that.SMH. A loss is a loss is a loss. 7-0 just makes it look bad, real bad.. like they played some team from Malaysia bad. if Chicharito had played problably would of hit 10-0.

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  10. Mikey, I was not intending this as a criticism of the Sounders (although it did come across that way.) I was merely trying to shoot down the logic that Man U > All Stars = Man U >>> Avg. MLS Team.

    Biscuit Boy’s remark seemed intended as a diss on MLS by saying our All-Stars can’t hang, but they don’t really have a fair chance given how thrown-together they are.

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  11. I also agree, but I’m at a loss as to what can be done about it. It seems that the league (MLS) and the individual teams, or at least their managers have different incentives here. The league must surely want to avoid these embarassing (at least in terms of rep) 7-0 score lines. While managers certainly don’t want their squads to get blown out either, they have to consider resting their top players and getting playing time for some reserves in games that won’t cost them points in the league. So, how can MLS “incentivize” the teams to play their top players for as long as possible?

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  12. Actually I thunk the Sounders B team is better than Galaxy’s B team. Sounders reserves undefeated (including beating LA reserve team. Twice)

    Sounders A-B team also beat LA’s A-B team in Open Cup semis the other week.

    The difference was Arena didn’t empty his entire bench and have forwards play as defenders against Real Madrid.

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  13. Well let’s be fair for a second. There is a HUGE difference between teams like Man United Barcelona Real Madrid and their respective leagues. Seattle might be able to hang against a Tottenham, Aston Villa, etc. if they were really on their game.

    That said, MJC you are totally right in that Seattle was not up to last night’s match.., they got wrecked. To say it wasn’t all bad is to say well at least no one died of a stroke.

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  14. Don’t the top two teams from each group go through?

    There’s hope yet! Unlucky that Seattle draws CONCACAF “group of death” both years.

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  15. Well I guess Seattle proved that MLS teams just aren’t up to the challange of EPL teams. Yeah I guess there just isn’t much hope for the MLS…well maybe a 10 man Sporting side that managed to beat them, but other than that no.

    And we were subjected to this piece of crap game watching Seattle piddle down their legs instead of watching a Sporting match against Newcastle that was far more interesting.

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  16. Excellent quote, I’m going to have to remember that one.

    First half: entertaining soccer. Second half: who the F is even out there, and embarassing.

    While I appreciate Sigi’s “let’s give everyone an opportunity to play against one of the world’s best” idea, it was a bad one in the end. Very bad.

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  17. Hilarious quote from Keller: “Everybody thinks they can play for the Premier League… Actually, no you can’t. You need to figure that out.” How’s that for encouraging your young teammates? What an embarrassment.

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  18. What is shows is the reserves on the EPL All-Star team is better than the fourth place team MLS reserves.

    Nothing to amazing there, what is amazing is 65,000+ would pay $50-100 to watch it.

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  19. For the 15 minutes or so that he played, I liked Ngassa–looked fast and pretty tenacious on the ball…

    We should sign him up so Seattle can become the best team in the world!

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  20. Not going to lie… it was sort of enjoyable to watch some smug Seattle fans shake their heads in disbelief after three goals in three minutes (not saying all Seattle fans are smug, btw). I know it was the second half scrubs for Sigi, etc, etc, etc.. but I have often found that Sounders fans have an inflated sense of just how good their team really is.

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  21. End these stupid mid-season friendlies MLS. there is no reason to have 3rd string mls rookies getting beat up by first string epl. it doesn’t look good for the league because all these morons who only look at the final score think it means something and it puts a team that is on great form out of form, just more stupid practices that make mls bush league.

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  22. Even with the argument that the Seattle starting 11 did well in the first half, United was playing it’s second game in preseason and certainly did not start with their starting 11. I seriously doubt they were playing with the same intensity they’d have in the middle of the EPL season. I’m pretty sure they would still pound Seattle’s best team into the ground if this wasn’t preseason. There’s no shame in it, United is one of the best teams in the world, and Seattle is from it. Anyway, it’s just a friendly, so this game doesn’t matter one bit…

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  23. Sounders didn’t own the first half. They were pressing hard while United was on cruise control. Sounders were scrambling to make something happen while United looked relaxed and allowed the Sounders to make their own mistakes. United owned the first half 1-0.

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  24. Love Keller’s quote…

    “Everybody thinks they can play in the Premier League. They think that if they got the break, or if this had worked out or if that had worked out, I could have made it. Actually, no, you can’t. You need to learn to figure it out.”

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  25. Totally agree with above posters. If MLS sides are going to play the top teams in Europe they need to stick with their starters for far longer than 45 minutes.

    It’s a stark reality that the depth past the 13-14th player on each MLS team is non-existent, however we don’t need Manchester United to so embarrassingly remind us of this.

    So far this tour it has been United 2 MLS First XI 0.

    Once the second half begins its like a college all star team vs. a Manchester United team that can bring on players that are literally better than any single MLS player. As a result, they have outscored College all stars 10-0. Big surprise

    If we are going to play these friendly’s do the fans and league a favor and don’t get embarrassed trying to get your scrubs “experience”.

    I can’t wait to see how badly Chicago gets destroyed on Saturday….

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  26. Chivas made a mistake taking out Hector reynoso an putting in magallon. Hector reynoso was a nightmare to cristiano Ronaldo in the 1 half. Anyways both teams were in preseason unlike galaxy losing 4-1 with there starters.

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  27. The key difference in that Man U game was the finishing. Seattle actually had plenty of chances–at least a good half dozen or so. They just didn’t put them away. Man U put everything away. The difference in quality in the finishing was striking.

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  28. But Seattle is the “class” of MLS.

    And these friendlies should only be awarded to such amazing MLS franchises.

    Who’d want to watch NE lose 4-1 when you can see Seattle lose 7-0?

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  29. and KC tried. Enough of getting romped by the bug Euro teams.

    If MLS cant play starters full game this turns into a VERY bad end result for the league.

    Whats the aggregate EPL – MLS score going to be after this 30 – 4?

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  30. Totally agree with you. Furthermore I think they’ll start to see a drop in attendance if they keep throwing out 2nd and 3rd stringers at the half for all these friendlies. People pay good money to come see these matches and expect 90 minutes of good football. Not 45 minutes and some sideshow circus globetrotters crap.

    Now I do realize it’s just a friendly so I’m not gonna get too effed off over it. But it would be nice to see my team give a whole 90 and get a respectable result.

    If it’s gonna be like this all the time though I just might not bother buying tickets. TV is free and beer is cheaper.

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  31. Manchester also didn’t have Rio, Vidic, Rooney, Evra, Carrick, Ji-Sung, or Owen for that SKC match, not to mention Anderson and Young. BIG dif in squads. Sounders starters can hold their heads up high. If left on for 75 minutes or so it would not have been 7-0. Sounders might of even pulled one out.

    The difference here was subs/reserves… Our reserves are pretty good for MLS. Not so much against top Euro sides. Man United’s reserves? They could top the table in MLS.

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  32. i am sorry that a bunch of guys who have been in a handful of MLS games in their entire careers and get paid 40,000$ a year cant keep rooney (whos hair transplant costs more than their annual wages) from scoring a hatrick. his hair transplant alone costed more than these guys make annually. keep calling seattle overrated. their ten game unbeatean streak suggests to me that a. they beat your team and b. youre fairly upset about it. theres a 97 percent chance that your team is under the sounders in the standings, so rather than say your team is overrated i will just assume they are rated fairly. as in they suck. thanks.

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  33. I went to the Chivas vs Real Madrid game tonight. It was kind of the same thing. Chivas played well in the first half. Then in the second half, Ronaldo had a hat trick in nine minutes.

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