Chivas Knockout Seattle Sounders out of CCL With 3-0 Win

This match was all Chivas from the start. They came out attacking in waves from the first minute. Stefan Frei was forced to make several key saves early and often. Things got testy in the first half as Chad Marshall and Will Bruin went down with head injuries in the first half and were forced to be subbed out. That forced Kim Kee-Hee to make his Sounders debut. He had trouble managing gap control, but Seattle survived the half 0-0.

Everything came undone for Brian Schmetzer’s men in the second half. Oswaldo Alanís scored in the 50th minute on a beautifully taken free kick. From there, Chivas got a second wind on them, attacking in waves, making runs to overwhelm the Sounder back four. Five minutes later, Javier López beat the off-sides trap to walk in and beat Frei to take the advantage on aggregate.

José de Jesús Godínez added a goal in the 80th minute, as the Chivas supporters ole’-ed through to full time. The match ended 3-0, leading to to a 3-1 aggregate victory.

Three Things I Noticed:

Injury subs and adjusting on the fly: Early into this one, Sounder manager Brian Schmetzer had to make some moves. Will Bruin and Chad Marshall had to be subbed out in the first half after collisions in the air. Marshall even had a swollen eye, like a boxer. In their place, Lamar Neagle and Kim Kee-Hee (making his Sounders debut) performed admirably. They survived for the first half, but fell off in the second.

The pitch and the crowd: The crowd for a Chivas home game was a bit disappointing, even given their league form. The lower bowl wasn’t completely full and the club didn’t even open the upper deck. The pitch was poor quality given the tournament, which was a concern for Seattle. Estadio Akron has hosted a number of events recently, that had the pitch torn up even before the first whistle. It made footing difficult, especially for the Sounders defense in the first half.

The same script we’ve seen before: If it weren’t for the results for MLS teams on Tuesday in CCL, this match would be bringing back nightmares for MLS fans. How many times have we seen this before? An MLS team gets a decent but worrying result in the home leg then goes down to Mexico and gets demolished. Seattle made some adjustments defensively to delay the inevitable but even with the injuries, they did not look prepared to get a result tonight. It cost them, like so many MLS teams in CCL before them.