Wednesday night at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, WA a multitude of things happened for the Seattle Sounders against FC Dallas that hadn’t happened all year long. The Sounders scored their first goal at home in three games, scored three goals in an MLS game for the first time all year and they recorded their largest shutout in MLS play.
Goals from Clint Dempsey (6’), Andreas Ivanschitz (18’), Jordan Morris (22’), Joevin Jones (61’) and Cristian Roldan (73’) paved Seattle’s way to a 5-0 thrashing of Dallas.
Dallas trots out “B” team lineup
The Sounders fielded a first choice lineup while Dallas elected to go with a lesser lineup and Seattle made Oscar Pareja pay for his decision. With so many games in a short amount of time, Pareja elected to rest a majority of his normal starters.
“We needed to choose tonight. We have a game in three days at home,” Pareja said. “We just came from San Jose directly to Seattle. We have the Open Cup in the middle of [next] week – it’s an important tournament for us. Then after that, we have Colorado away.”
Some could view it as a lack of respect to Seattle and it seems as that is exactly how Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid viewed it; "I had two words for my team and I can't say them on the field, in regards to how they should look at that lineup."
Things start quickly for Seattle
Just four minutes into the game, FC Dallas player Maynor Figueroa was whistled for a handball in the box and shown a straight red by referee Ricardo Salazar. Dempsey calmly and cooling converted the penalty to give Seattle an early 1-0 lead. Seattle would double their lead 12 minutes later. Sounders midfielder Osvaldo Alonso played a lovely through ball in the air. Andreas Ivanschitz out-muscled a Dallas defender and was able to chip an onrushing Chris Seitz to give the Sounders a 2-0 lead.
Just four minutes later, Jordan Morris scored his seventh goal of the season to extended the Sounders lead to 3-0. Dempsey played Morris through the backline and Morris calmly fired a shot right past Seitz to all but put the game away just 22 minutes into the game.
Dempsey sees red
After being fouled several times by Juan Esteban Ortiz, Dempsey made contact to the face of Ortiz and was shown his first ever MLS red card in the 33rd minute. Ortiz went into the legs of Dempsey and in return, he swung his hands at Ortiz’s face and Ortiz went down like he had been punched by Mike Tyson. After conferring with the 4th official, Salazar gave Ortiz a yellow for persistent infringement and Dempsey a straight red for “violent conduct”.
Second half belongs to Seattle
With both teams now playing with ten men each, the game opened up a bit more. Even though Pareja brought on Michael Barrios at halftime and Fabian Castillo is the 61st minute, it did nothing to change the outcome. Joevin Jones scored his second goal of the season in the 61st minute after the ball took a deflection off of a defender and past the outstretched hands of Seitz.
Roldan put the icing on the cake in the 73rd minute when he scored his first ever MLS goal in his 39th appearance. Ivanschitz sent in a perfectly placed free kick and Roldan, all 5’8” of him, rose above the defense and headed home the ball to end the scoring.
What’s next
The Sounders travel South on I-5 to take on the Portland Timbers this Sunday. Dallas meanwhile will return home and host the Chicago Fire on Saturday night.