A bye week is supposed to bring rest, relaxation, recovery, and resolve. But, this past bye week for the Seattle Sounders has been anything but those things. The Sounders were already expecting to miss Clint Dempsey & Marco Pappa to international duty, but they weren’t expecting Deuce to pull his hamstring just hours after he got to Europe. There was hope that both Tyrone Mears and Ozzie Alonso would be back from their injuries, but it doesn’t sound like that’ll happen. Actually, it doesn’t sound like anything. Sigi Schmid & Co. has always been notoriously closed lipped about injuries. Also, has anyone seen Kenny Cooper lately? No, seriously… He might actually be missing. While this might be the most unknown match in recent memory for the Sounders, there isn’t need to panic just yet. Sigi seems very confident in the depth of his squad, and has even singled out the young players (Kovar, Fisher, Roldan, etc.) as players that have impressed him in training & against Tijuana on Tuesday. We could see as many as 3 players get their very first MLS start in this game. Ideally, this game would have been played last week, but for reasons not known to us, MLS still insists on playing during FIFA International breaks. Oh well. It’s absolutely paramount that Obafemi Martins’ has a good game if the Sounders want to be in this one.
THE OPPONENT
Through the first three weeks of the season there has not been a hotter team than the Dallas Burn FC Dallas. Starting off the season with 3 wins, while only conceding 1 goal in those games, is very impressive. But, even Dallas has a few questions about their squad. Their leading goal scorer Blas Perez & starting left back Moisés Hernádez are both out on international duty. FC Dallas head coach Oscar Pareja has become a bit of a master at shuffling his roster around. Injuries to their back line & to their #10 caused Pareja to shuffle his team quite a bit last season, and he still managed to take Dallas to the playoffs. Classically, Pareja’s teams have always been full of depth and have a ton of youth. With Perez & Hernádez out, expect to see David “Only Scores On The Sounders” Texiera & U-20 USMNT staple Kellyn Acosta to slide into the starting line up.
PREDICTIONS
Sounders Starting XI: Frei; Leo, Marshall, Evans, Fisher; Kovar, Pineda, Azira, Roldan; Neagle, Oba.
Score: 2-2 draw
