RSL vs Seattle: What we learned

Over the past weeks I’ve put much of RSL’s poor play on the shoulders of the coach. I put tonight’s performance squarely on Petke’s shoulders, too.

This was absolutely a well-executed game plan and my hat’s off to Petke and his coaching staff for bringing this together. The personnel choices worked great and the team played the game their way.

No shots the first half. I was worried. I can’t harp on finishing if there isn’t anything to finish. But it was obvious that this was entirely the idea: hold the Sounders off and get into the half with a clean scoreline. It’s exactly what they did.

With the Sounders accustomed to us absorbing and possessing outside of our final third, we switched gears and attacked. What was a lackluster attack turned into great pressure which culminated in that spectacular first goal for Bofo Saucedo. He’s got ahold of this chance and he’s wringing everything he can out of it. Kid’s doing great.

Today was swell.

Some things

Sunny turned the ball over far too much for my comfort; however, he put in a great defensive effort and you could feel his defensive contributions in the way the team performed.

Connected to that was Kreilach playing higher up the field when he came in. I like it. A lot. I want to see more.

I would really like to see us break faster than we are while continuing to maintain our possession. We had some great chances to push the attack into the final third with numbers, but it felt like we transitioned too slowly or just banged a long ball and crossed fingers.

It’s really nice to see Danny Acosta out there doing great again. It’s also excellent to see a left back playing left back. Someone must have doled out a great pep talk. It wasn’t me.

I really hope this turns into positive momentum for RSL. This could be a spectacular week.

Overreactions

Does anyone else look for Deadpool to pop out any time Francis’s name is called?

I didn’t see the red card handed out. Was it handed out? We only play like this when other teams get a red card, so it had to have happened, right? Red card?

We need to establish a “saved with the face” competition between Rimando and Sauerbrunn. Does Vegas have odds on this?