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Neagle hat-trick leads Sounders romp

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 NeagleFucito (ISIPhotos.com) 

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

By CALEB SONNELAND

The Seattle Sounders have never lost to the Columbus Crew, but they also never beat the Crew the way they did on Saturday.

Dominating from the earliest moments of the match, Seattle put on a clinic in dismantling a short-handed and overwhelmed Columbus Crew side, scoring four first-half goals on their way to a 6-2 mauling of the Crew on Saturday in Seattle.

Lamar Neagle led a sterling performance by the Sounders attack, delivering three goals while playmaker Mauro Rosales added a goal and assist.

The Seattle romp overshadowed a bit of history made on Saturday as Crew forward Jeff Cunningham scored a penalty kick to become the MLS career goal-scoring leader with his 134th MLS goal.

Columbus, missing Julius James through suspension, elected to replace the defender with Rich Balchan. The rookie was quickly exposed in his unnatural center back position as Lamar Neagle raced into the Columbus area, held Balchan off long enough to fizz a low shot at Will Hesmer.  Hesmer got a hand to it, but couldn't keep the ball out of the net as Seattle took an early 1-0 lead.

Neagle then bagged his second of the day in the 21st minute when James Riley whipped in a curling cross which Neagle volleyed home with a composed finish for his fourth goal of the season.

The early nightmare wasn't over for Balchan as the defender looked nearly helpless after a ball off Mike Fucito bounced up onto Balchan's hands for a penalty.  Replays showed that the ball looked to have hit his hands, however, there appeared to be little he could have done to avoid contact.  Mauro Rosales stepped up and made it 2-0 from the penalty spot.

Despite the game already looking dead and buried, Seattle continued to pile on the pressure going forward.  Fucito caught Columbus captain Chad Marshall napping in the area, beat the defender to ta cross and snapped a shot past Hesmer to open up his 2011 MLS goal-scoring account.

There was some small consolation for the visitors as Jeff Cunningham was on hand to break the MLS all-time scoring record with his 134th goal from the penalty spot to make it 4-1.  Emilio Renteria was caught by Jhon Kennedy Hurtado inside the Seattle area to set Cunningham up to break past Jaime Moreno in the all-time goal scoring table.

Goals continued to flow as Josh Gardner smashed a thunderbolt past Kasey Keller from a free kick to double his side's goal tally, but only seconds later Gardner redirected a Sounders cross into his own net for an own goal.

Comments

  1. I’m with asimismo. Whenever Fredy doesn’t score it’s pretty much guaranteed someone here will say he was lazy or invisible. Fact is, Montero was huge yesterday, especially in the 4-goal first half.

    (SBI-Sorry Jason, just didn’t see that at all. In fact, he seemed to slow down sequences more than contribute to them. It’s a good sign that the rest of the team is moving the ball so well, but on Saturday Montero was NOT one of the leaders in the romp. Rosales, Neagle, Fucito and even James Riley made more quality contributions to the goals than Montero. He’s still got tons of skill, but it sure does seem that unless the attack is going through him he’s not nearly as effective.)

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  2. Agreed 100%

    Both penalties extremely soft. By Toledo’s standards, he called an excellent game though haha

    Renteria doesn’t need to dive, flop, and throw hands up to stop long balls – he’s a good player.

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  4. I don’t understand the man crush thing for Montero. No one said he was rubbish or shite. I said he was invisible today. He’s the streakiest forward I’ve seen in MLS in awhile, and today he didn’t add much to the attack. I thought Ives was right on when he said Montero is where Seattle attacks go to die. My comment was that the score line might have looked a lot different if he had been on, so chill. Concerning the Pac12, Adam, that’s why they play the games. We’ll see.

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  7. I think even many non-DCU fans would agree with your sentiments regarding Moreno and Cunningham. But don’t worry too much about it, hell Bonds passed Aaron, too.

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  8. *sigh* The Montero is lazy rubbish again.

    Listen. He doesn’t have to get goals to do his job. Montero played a very good game today. He distributed well and by drawing defenders whenever he’s got the ball he clears up the field for the rest of the team. So often he manages to get the ball out of traffic in the middle to the wings. His team attitude has been great this season.

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  13. As a DCU fan, I hate to see Jaime Moreno surpassed by Cunningham, whom I’ve never really liked or respected. But I suppose it was going to happen eventually. Too bad it had to happen so soon.

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  15. Where does he state that Neagle is an academy product? Neagle is a local guy, who has in fact developed in the Sounders “system” i.e. reserves, training, etc.

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  16. Didn’t agree with either penalty at all. The columbus player had his hands in front of his chest and there was nothing he could do to avoid it. also hurtado didn’t even appear to touch renteria on replay. later renteria also got away with a deliberate handball that should have gotten a yellow. columbus were also fortunate not to finish with 10 people after the take down of neagle. a real dismantling by sounders though, a good result ahead of a big game in the midweek

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  17. hard to find a lot wrong with a 6-2 effort (if you’re a ssfc fan), but they have to find an answer for Montero. He was incredibly invisible today. No telling the score if he had showed up to play today.

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  24. He isn’t a Seattle academy product. He was in camp the past couple years as a trialist but until this year he hasn’t spent significant time playing for the sounders.

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