Steve Zakuani Named MLS Player of the Week

Steve Zakuani was the first player selected by the new Seattle Sounders franchise from the Superdraft. From the beginning of his Sounders career, the Congo-born and London-raised Zakuani has demonstrated the promise of greatness.  Now the former Akron University All-American stands in the forefront of young under-25 soccer stars with 10 goals and six assists on a Sounders team that won the U.S. Open Cup for the second successive season and will be heading for the MLS playoff, also for the second time in a row. In Week 17, Zakuani was selected Player of the Week after scoring twice against the Colorado Rapids.He was selected for the honor also for the recently concluded Week 29.  Zakuani scored the game’s opening goal and add an assist in Friday night’s 2-1 victory over Chivas USA at Qwest Field.The MLS Player of the Week is selected each week of the regular season by a panel of journalists from The National Association of Soccer Reporters. The group consists of members of print, television, radio and online media. Read more MLS news on BleacherReport.com

Seattle Sounders Keep Hot Streak Going, Top Chivas USA 2-1

Friday night was the last Seattle Sounders MLS home match of the 2010 season.  It was also Fan Appreciation Night as the host team upended Chivas USA 2-1. The Sounders were intent on scoring their first goal and victory of their two-year history against the Los Angeles-based team, against which they were 0-2-2.  The sole Seattle win came in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup semifinal in Tukwila when the Sounders triumphed 3-1, enabling the team to advance to the finals and a 2-1 win over the Columbus Crew.Sounders FC is currently the hottest team in American soccer.  Friday‘s win enabled Seattle to advance to 14-9-6 and improve to 10-1-3 in its last 14 MLS matches.  The Rave Green is undefeated (8-0-2) at home in 10 MLS and Open Cup matches since June 10. With one game remaining in the regular season, Seattle surpassed last year's point total with 48 points on Friday.  An opportunity to soar past the 50 mark with 51 surfaces Oct. 23 in a road match against the Houston Dynamo.Meanwhile Chivas, a team accustomed to making the playoffs, will stay home this season.  Friday’s loss was Chivas’ fourth in its last five outings.  The Sounders, a team that had ...

Seattle Sounders Positioning for MLS Playoffs

The Seattle Sounders FC continues positioning for MLS playoff competition as the team wraps up the regular season with some challenging tests, beginning Friday against Chivas USA in league competition against a team that has posed past difficulties. While Seattle scored a win over Chivas in the semifinal round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup competition with a 3-1 win in Tukwila, enabling it to go on to the finals and defend its title, circumstances have been different in regular MLS action.  In the two seasons of the Sounders franchise the team is 0-2-2 against Chivas.  The Open Cup win marked the first match in which Seattle scored on the Los Angeles-based team.Following Seattle’s Thursday workout in Tukwila, coach Sigi Schmid, in discussing the current challenge against Chivas, compared the opposition’s possession-oriented style alongside the tactics of Latin teams.“Ball possession is a big part of their game,” Schmid related.  “It’s a big part of Chivas Guadalajara’s game as well. Certainly ball possession is more of a Latin element sometimes and sometimes European teams are too direct, unless you’re Spain, and sometimes teams in South America are too indirect, unless you are sometimes Brazil...They are similar a ...

Seattle Sounders FC Looks Impressive in 3-1 Win over Chivas Guadalajara

Two familiar names in recent Sounders FC activity have been on fire in recent games.  Tonight history repeated itself as one scored the first goal of the evening and the other netted the final score.Mike Fucito launched the scoring five minutes into the game while Sanna Nyassi, coming in as a substitute in the match’s final 10 minutes, tallied the last goal of the night. That goal capped a 3-1 Sounders triumph at the Xbox Pitch of Qwest Field before 41,047 in an international friendly against popular Mexican club Chivas Guadalajara.Massachusetts speedster Fucito can be counted on to move the action forward briskly.  This time he did it before a number of the fans had a chance to reach their seats. He drilled home a winner in the fifth minute on an assist from Roger Levesque to send the home faithful into hysterics and achieve a lead that the Sounders never relinquished. It would remain for Sanna Nyassi to score the final goal. After scoring the first goal of his MLS career a week ago Saturday against Toronto, he scored twice last Tuesday to lead his team to a 2-1 U.S. Open Cup victory over the Columbus Crew. He followed ...

With Playoff Berth Assured, Seattle Sounders Focus On Tasks at Hand

There was a celebration in Kansas City Saturday night as the Seattle Sounders secured a berth in the postseason MLS playoffs with a 2-1 win over the host Wizards.  Tuesday night champagne was uncorked and splashed in earlier celebration as the Sounders achieved their second Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup triumph in a row with a 2-1 victory over the Columbus Crew.While delighted with both achievements, Coach Sigi Schmid said after the Kansas City victory that, while happy about gaining a playoff spot in the franchise’s second season in existence, the focus had to be on performing well in the playoffs.  General Manager Adrian Hanauer echoed Schmidt’s sentiments in saying that he hoped that this year the team would fare better in playoff competition than it had one year earlier.Now Seattle Sounders FC moves into an important three game home stretch that will reveal if it will be going into playoff competition with the kind of momentum it has been establishing in the second half of the season.  An important test looms Tuesday at 7 p.m. PT with the opposition CD Chivas de Guadalajara, Mexico’s most popular team, at the Xbox Pitch of Qwest Field.After Monday’s workout in the ...

Seattle Sounders Reach MLS Playoffs with 2-1 Triumph in Kansas City

How many times do you have a chance for two gala celebrations the same week? This is the delightful circumstance in which the Seattle Sounders found themselves Saturday night in Kansas City following a tough and exciting 2-1 triumph over the host Wizards.  This was the identical score by which the team’s initial celebratory triumph was achieved Tuesday night in Seattle.On Tuesday evening the Sounders came from behind on two Sanna Nyassi goals to defeat the visiting Columbus Crew in the finals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Tournament.  Gambian star midfielder Nyassi had notched his first MLS goal in a 3-2 win over Toronto last Saturday.It had taken two years for Nyassi to notch his first MLS goal last week.  Now he is on a virtual tear with the two scores against Columbus Tuesday followed by his team’s first goal Saturday after the teams went into halftime scoreless.The fates were smiling on the Sounders for Nyassi to be available for action Saturday.  He had earlier been called into action by the Gambia National Team.  Eager to help his team in Seattle’s successful defense of the U.S. Open Cup title it won last season, he missed a an important preparation ...

Will Mike Fucito Drama Mark This Seattle Sounders-KC Wizards Match?

Turn back the clock to April 17 at the Xbox Pitch of Qwest Field. The Seattle Sounders, seeking an important home win to help set seasonal momentum, received a disappointment when a Brad Evans' goal was disallowed for offsides in a scoreless tie with the Kansas City Wizards.   Never mind what Mike Fucito was thinking. He had the opportunity to score a game winner. The Harvard University second year player who had been the Ivy League’s leading scorer his senior season had been inserted by Coach Sigi Schmid late in the action and gained a grand opportunity late in the injury time period.The same Brad Evans whose earlier goal had been disallowed tossed in a pass to Fucito, who then produced one of the magic moments in the Sounders’ two season history.  Fucito drilled the game’s only score into the net in the 92nd minute.The celebration was launched as Evans and then other teammates congratulated Fucito on the first goal of his MLS career. It was especially memorable in that only a tiny handful of players ever notched game winners in overtime for their first ever goals in MLS play.Kansas City battled to the end and almost tied the match ...

Sanna Nyassi’s Two Goals Lead Seattle Sounders to U.S. Open Cup Win

Saturday afternoon in an important match against Toronto FC at the Xbox Pitch of Qwest Field, Gambian midfielder Sanna Nyassi scored the first goal of his MLS career in helping lead his Seattle Sounders teammates to a 3-2 victory. After the match Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said tongue-in-cheek, “After congratulating Sanna I told him we don’t want to wait two years for another goal.”The two years involved the time that it took the 21-year-old to achieve his first goal.  With the scene moving forward to the same Qwest Field venue Tuesday night Nyassi was primed for more goals in the Sounders’ defense of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup they won last year.The talk all week in Seattle was that the championship match would set a tournament record and it did as 31,311 turned out to robustly root the home team to victory.  The  previous attendance record in the 97 years of the tournament was 21,583 for the 1929 game in Brooklyn.Nyassi scored both goals in a tough, intensely contested defensive struggle won by the Sounders 2-1 against the same Columbus Crew team that they dispatched impressively 4-0 September 18 on the Crew’s home pitch.   Schmid, who had coached at Columbus ...

Seattle Sounders Defend U.S. Open Cup Trophy Against Columbus Crew

Seattle Sounders FC achieved noteworthy significance in its first year of MLS existence in 2009 by achieving the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Trophy.One year later as the 2010 campaign moves toward its close and the playoffs, with the Sounders very much in the hunt for a wild card spot, it is time to defend that treasured trophy.Earlier in the run to the finals Coach Sigi Schmid said with relish, “It would be nice to be able to raise that trophy aloft before our home fans.”Tuesday that opportunity will become reality.  At 7 p.m. PT before another capacity crowd at the Xbox Pitch of Qwest Field the Sounders face the Eastern Conference’s first place team in the U.S. Open Cup finale.While the Sounders are motivated toward defending a prestigious cup won last season and the thrill of winning it a second time in succession before their home fans, Columbus is seeking payback for Seattle’s recent visit.  That occasion marked the Sounders scoring won of the premier wins and inflicting one of the biggest losses on Columbus in that storied franchise’s history.Another element of drama is that Sigi Schmid coached at Columbus prior to taking the Seattle job when the team ...

African Connection Leads Seattle Sounders To Victory

One of the most rewarding aspects of soccer is its strong international base.  The Seattle Sounders tapped into their own talented African connection to score an important 3-2 win over Toronto FC Saturday at the Xbox Pitch of Qwest Field in a match replete with potential MLS playoff implications. Blaise Nkufo and Steve Zakuani were both born in the Congo and grew up in Switzerland and England respectively.  Sanna Nyassi was born, raisded, and began his career in Gambia.  Saturday each player scored a goal in delighting another sellout Seattle crowd numbering 36,079.  The visitors, who had scored an earlier 2-0 home win over the Sounders, jumped out on top in the  16th minute on Dwayne De Rosario’s 13th goal of the campaign on an assist from Maicon Santos.Sounders FC equalized in the 21st minute. Osvaldo Alonso played a through ball down into the middle of the box. Zakuani took it and used his patent speed to elude onrushing goalkeeper Stefan Frei.  The site of the empty net was good news for Zakuani as he tallied his ninth goal of the season.It then remained for the player on the hot streak to give the Sounders the lead for the remainder of ...