The last time these two teams met in Denver, Brian Mullan broke Steve Zakuani's leg and Seattle eeked out a 1-0 win. Mullan's suspension is over, but the Rapids decided against bringing him to Seattle. I bet the Sounders fans were bummed, and I can't blame them in the slightest.
So, there's bad blood between these two teams, to be sure. The match really reflected that. The Rapids got a dream start though, as Wells Thompson took advantage of a poor Sounders clearance and slotted the ball past Kasey Keller to give the Rapids a 0-1 lead. It looked like the Champs had come to play.
Seattle is never out of a game though, and they responded very quickly. Uruguay man Alvaro Fernandez took a ball from Alonsoin the 7th minute and easily beat Matt Pickens to equalize the match at 1-1.
After that, the physical nature of the match took over. Crapids Captain Mastroeni picked up a yellow in the 18th, and then was extremely lucky to avoid being sent off after an altercation with Friberg a few minutes later. Conor Casey went down on his own in the 38th minute and left the match. Reports are it's an Achilles injury, which is probably really bad news for Baldy. After that, Larentowicz put in a goal far post to give the Rapids a 1-2 lead at the half.
There were more goals and more fireworks in the second half. In the 48th minute, Levesque got the Sounders off to a solid start by scoring off a cross and leveling the match at 2-2.
But wait, there's more!
The two sides battled their way through a rough and tumble second half but remained level until the 82nd minute, when Fredy Montero tipped in a goal off a Pickens rebound to give the Sounders a 3-2 lead. In the next minute Rosales took advantage of a bonehead touch from Moor and beat Pickens to make it 4-2. Caleb Folan, in for Casey, added a goal in the 89th for the Crapids, but Seattle held on to a 4-3 win.
Safe to say the team that looked more likely to win the MLS Cup this year was NOT the defending champs, who found once again that cheap play and rough tackles aren't what they used to be in MLS.
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