Sounders Fan Insider: victory against Columbus perhaps biggest league win this year

Levesque - SFI By Greg Roth

The  2008 MLS Cup Champions and Supporters Shield winners, Columbus Crew had a 22 home game winning streak going in to today’s match up with Sounders FC. With 46 points, a playoff spot secure and 5 point lead in the East, Columbus is clearly the team to beat again this year. Seattle desperately needing a win, went into the Columbus Crew fortress and grinded out a 1-0 win to come away with 3 valuable and precious points. Former USL Sounder and current Sounders FC fan favorite (pictured), scored what turned out to be the winning goal against The Crew.

The win was not pretty. A missed penalty kick, (ala Freddie Ljungberg who missed one earlier this year), Barros Schelotto missed an almost certain equalizer by shooting his penalty kick wide of the net as Seattle was able to hang on for the victory. Points are points and at this stage of the 2009 MLS season, style points are irrelevant.

With The LA Galaxy winning this past Friday, and Chivas victory over DC United earlier today, a tie and one point simply would not have been enough. At this point in the season and with MLS parity being at an all time high, every match and every point matters. A bounce here or a bounce there could be the difference in determining who sits in November and who continues on the “Qwest” (pun intended) toward MLS Cup 2009.

If the Season were to end today, we would be in the playoffs, albeit in the East. There are two matches left. The Sounders have a nice break between now and October 17th, when they go on the road to face a club that defeated them at home earlier this year in the KC Wizards 1-0. A week later the club wraps up it’s regular season against FC Dallas, a club that is almost for certain out of the playoff hunt but can play the spoiler. Dallas stole a tie from the Sounders at home earlier this year, in a match they clearly should have won.

From here on in, every match has playoff implications. Given those implications, today’s win against Columbus was (pardon the expression Crew fans) truly massive. If one looks at the below MLS West table, one cannot deny how important this victory was, not necessarily from a moral stand point but simply from a practical numbers standpoint. The Sounders had to win and win the did against arguably, the strongest club in MLS, in their house no less. If the club were ever to have one of their biggest league match wins of the year, today was the day to do it.

Eastern Standings

home away
club gp w l t pts gf ga +/- w l t gf ga w l t gf ga
x – Columbus 26 12 4 10 46 40 28 12 9 0 4 25 13 3 4 6 15 15
Chicago 28 10 7 11 41 38 34 4 4 4 6 15 17 6 3 5 23 17
New England 26 10 9 7 37 31 35 -4 7 3 3 22 15 3 6 4 9 20
D.C. United 27 8 7 12 36 40 40 0 6 2 5 18 12 2 5 7 22 28
Toronto FC 27 9 10 8 35 35 40 -5 7 3 3 18 13 2 7 5 17 27
Kansas City 26 8 11 7 31 28 34 -6 4 5 4 14 15 4 6 3 14 19
New York 27 4 17 6 18 22 44 -22 4 6 4 19 20 0 11 2 3 24

Western Standings

club gp w l t pts gf ga +/- w l t gf ga w l t gf ga
Los Angeles 28 11 6 11 44 34 31 3 6 4 4 16 17 5 2 7 18 14
Houston 27 12 8 7 43 35 26 9 8 1 4 22 12 4 7 3 13 14
Colorado 27 10 8 9 39 40 32 8 8 2 4 24 9 2 6 5 16 23
Chivas USA 25 11 9 5 38 26 25 1 8 2 2 19 9 3 7 3 7 16
Seattle 27 9 7 11 38 32 26 6 6 2 6 19 9 3 5 5 13 17
Real Salt Lake 27 9 11 7 34 38 34 4 7 1 5 29 11 2 10 2 9 23
FC Dallas 27 9 12 6 33 45 43 2 7 3 4 26 18 2 9 2 19 25
San Jose 25 6 12 7 25 31 43 -12 5 4 4 20 19 1 8 3 11 24

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October 3, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Sounders FC 360 News Coverage