One to forget at Starfire

O'brien's goal: one moment to remember. (David Falk)

GOALSeattle.com Photo Gallery by Jenni Conner

The Sounders lost 3-1 last night at Starfire to the Rochester Rhinos.

At least I think they did. You see, I am already in the process of forgetting the club's most listless performance on the season. Soon enough I'll erase from my memory the awkward play of the make-shift back line. I'll file away the midfield's inability to string passes together. Gone will be the sight of a lone Sebastien Le Toux at striker trying to make it work up top with absolutely no success.

Before this clunker of a performance fades from my brain cells forever, I guess I'll use this blog to capture the frustrations of the evening.

With Taylor Graham nursing an injury the back line looked more than beatable, and they were. With Roger Levesque still out, the front was missing an attacker so Brian Schmetzer decided at a home match to simply not play another one. A 4-5-1 line-up was used not by the away side looking for a point, but rather the defending league champions apparently trying to hang on in a venue they had never before lost a regular season match.

Need I say that it didn't work?

It was also surprising that the players came out so listless and unfocused. One might have thought that after their only real rest of the month they'd be re-energized. Not last night.

So we ended up with a match in which Seattle's lone highlight was a nifty goal by Leighton O'Brien that leveled things before the 20 minute mark. We ended up with a match in which former Sounder Andrew Gregor scored the winner before halftime. We ended up with our first-ever regular season loss at Starfire. We ended up with late game offensive subs (Cascio, Schmid) who created chances and should have seen time sooner.

We ended up with a dud.

By Sunday I'll bet I couldn't even tell you the score.

Match Reports (you seriously want to read more?) :
The Seattle Pitch
Seattle Times
Seattle P-I
Seattle Sounders