Caledonia AIA play in Trinidad and Tobago’s TT Pro League
Seattle Sounders FC return to Champions League Thursday at CenturyLink Field. Starting their third consecutive campaign in our regions international tournament. The Sounders host the Caribbean Football Union’s Club Champion, Caledonia AIA of Trinidad and Tobago’s TT Pro League.
The Sounders have reached Champions League three consecutive years. Winning the US Open Cup the previous three seasons qualified them for CONCACAF Champions League.
Our international soccer (football) region is the wonky acronym, CONCACAF. (The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football). Fortunately their website is easier to remember than their name.
Sounders in Champions League 2010:
The Sounders first plunge into Champions League was in 2010. The major accomplishment in their first international campaign was qualifying for Champions League on their first attempt. Joining MLS in 2009, they won the US Open Cup in their inaugural season. That first Open Cup title punched their Champions League ticket.
If reaching international competition in their first attempt was their high, the disappointing low was failing to advance beyond the group stages. They went 2-wins, 3-losses, and 1-draw. Their first campaign could be summed up in one match.
A long way to Mexico. In the Sounders home match with Monterrey they lost 2-nil. In the away-leg in Mexico, Sounders sought revenge. They held a surprising 2-nil lead going into the 70th minute. No MLS club had won in Mexico. Monterrey scored in the 74th minute rattling the Sounders excited nerves. Seattle proceeded to allow two more goals in less than five minutes. Suffering a disappointing 3-2 loss. But it prepared them for 2011.
Monterrey went on to defeat Real Salt Lake to win the 2010 Champions League.
Sounders in Champions League 2011:
Group stage ready, the Sounders didn’t simply hope to do well. They made advancing from group stage a priority. The Sounders improved to 4-wins, 2-losses, and 1-draw. Again, the big moment came in Monterrey.
A week before Sounders played Monterrey, FC Dallas defeated Pumas to become the first MLS club to win in Mexico. Sounders didn’t waste any time being second.
Thirty-eight minutes into the away match, Alvaro Fernandez scored the decisive goal. This time the Sounders stood tall. Earning their most prominent international victory to date. They defeated the reigning CONCACAF Champion, halted their thirteen match Champions League undefeated streak, and did it in Mexico. More importantly, the win helped propel the Sounders to the quarterfinal knock-out round.
2011 Quarterfinals vs Santos Laguna:
Club Santos Laguna, Primera División, Mexico
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Advancing from group stages for the first time the Sounders again faced a formidable Mexican club in a two-leg, knockout quarterfinal.
For the first leg in Seattle, David Estrada wasted no time giving the Sounders fans a chilling, March-madness goal in the twelfth minute. Santos equalized in the sixty-first minute with a goal from US National Team’s striker, Hercules Gomez. On a free kick two minutes later, Mauro Rosales sent a soaring kick dangerously into the box, where Brad Evans headed the ball over Santos outstretched and airborne goalkeeper into the right corner of his net.
The two-leg series is aggregate. Sounders traveled to Santos one goal to the good (2-1).
The Sounders were always up against it. They knew defeating Santos would take more than a one goal advantage. But giving up two goals in the opening ten minutes was more than eloquent foreshadowing. Sounders got one goal back in the thirty-seventh minute. At halftime of the second leg the aggregate score sat knotted at 3-3. But Santos put away four second half goals. The Sounders took home their worse competitive loss to date 6-1 for the night, and 7-3 aggregate.
“Why so serious”? Joker asks Batman. With every MLS team struggling to keep players healthy without US Open Cup and Champions League matches, why take Champions League seriously? Doesn’t that potentially weaken your chances for winning an MLS Cup?
You can’t avoid answering “yes”. But stopping there, you’d never see one of the beautiful, unique aspects of the game. The best teams, and only the best teams play in multiple leagues at one time. Barcelona, Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, and AC Milan do this year in, year out.
These matches are not added to a clubs schedule for punishment. They add pedigree. They distinguish the elite champions from a regular list of the rest.
Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid took a moment recently and gave some good insight into the importance of playing in, and taking our regions Champions League so seriously.
“It’s important because it’s our international tournament. It’s our Champions League. It’s our opportunity to show how good we are within our region. It gives us the opportunity to go to the World Club Championship”.
“I think you look at last year when we played against Santos, certainly the win at home was a big confidence booster for us, and the game down there was a big learning experience for us as well. But if we could have gotten past that game, matched up with Toronto, got into the final, it would have been a huge thing for our club. So, this is the beginning of that journey, and being recognized within your region I think is very important for our league as well. Because it’s definitely, I can say it’s a power struggle between Mexico and the US, as to who’s the dominant country in our region. That power struggle gets played out at the national team level, and then it gets played out at the club level as well, and the only place it gets played at the club level is in the Champions League”.
The group stage format is revised for 2012. In previous years each group, like the World Cup, had four clubs. The top two advancing. This year each group has three clubs, with only one advancing.
Winning the first match becomes more critical. In the past, clubs had wiggle room. They could settle for a couple draws advancing to the second round without exercising their full effort to win their group. This format change forces clubs to compete from the start.
To make other clubs want to reach Champions League, the new format offers some advantages over past formats. Two fewer games, which means less travel. But having less wiggle room means if you want to be a champion you have to win, or go home.
© 2012 Sales on Sounders by Ryan J Sales
In 1994 an Italian guessed wrong in the World Cup. Chances are you don’t know his name. Baggio stepped up for his PK, (common name for Penalty Kicks) one of the brightest, high-profile Italian stars in European soccer, and his brightest moment was upon him. Italy and Brazil squared off in the Rose Bowl, in Passedena, for the 1994 World Cup Final. If Baggio hits his PK, Italy knocks out Brazil. Confidence is what Baggio is known for as much as any player on the pitch that day. His shot is confident and strong. A little too strong. His shot sails over the crossbar. Brazil win another World Cup. I was in Nak-Nek, Alaska working at a fish processing plant. I saw this Italian go down to the ground. I thought briefly, “ah too bad for him”, then I jumped up and down with everyone else enjoying the Samba Kings celebration. His star status shot from the sky. In the harsh world of soccer, he’s no big deal anymore. The less likely Brazilian hero, who made his shot, is Dunga, who is coaching the 2010 Brazilian team to another likely appearance in the South Africa final. When such an intense and grueling sport comes to guessing right, or guessing wrong, it’s fair to say, the outcome will always be unreasonably unfair to someone.
