{"id":35950,"date":"2021-08-11T16:02:37","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T20:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/?p=35950"},"modified":"2021-08-12T14:09:22","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T18:09:22","slug":"sounders-tigres-sporting-leagues-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2021\/08\/11\/sounders-tigres-sporting-leagues-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Leagues Cup: Sounders knock off Tigres; Sporting crumbles to Club Le\u00f3n"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>KANSAS CITY &#8212;<\/strong> Sporting KC looked like they were going to get back into the match after scoring to make it 3-1. Then Leon turned on the afterburners and put up another three goals, giving them a 6-1 win.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the Seattle Sounders took down Tigres, 3-0, and will advance to the Leagues Cup semifinal. The return of Nicolas Lodeiro did not disappoint for the Sounders.<\/p>\n<h2>Sounders top Tigres, 3-0, for surprise victory<\/h2>\n<p>The Seattle Sounders are known as one of the top teams in MLS with plenty of experience in big-game moments. Whatever you think of the Leagues Cup, a tilt against Tigres is certainly known as a big name. Tigres is a powerhouse in Mexico in both the men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s league.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/category\/mls\/sounders\/\" target=\"_self\">Sounders<\/a> celebrated the return of Nicolas Lodeiro to the starting lineup. Lodeiro returned to the pitch as a substitute on Wednesday, Aug. 4, against FC Dallas. Lodeiro scored an absolute stunner in the 70th minute, the final goal of the match, shooting from about 30-35 yards out and over the goalkeeper.<\/p>\n<p>Raul Ruidiaz put up the first goal after a penalty against Cristian Roldan was given up by Tigres. The Peruvian buried the penalty kick, and Fredy Montero scored the second goal in the second half.<\/p>\n<p>After the match, Lodeiro said, &#8220;We represent I think the best team in MLS. When you\u2019re playing, you need to play like a final because we know we represent a big club, big fans. And tonight, we played like it was a final.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Seattle will take on the winner of Thursday night&#8217;s Santos Laguna and Orlando City SC match.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"pt\" dir=\"ltr\">Nico Lodeiro is BACK\u203c<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SoundersMatchday?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SoundersMatchday<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SEAvTIG?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SEAvTIG<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KgfZuPP27q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/KgfZuPP27q<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Seattle Sounders FC (@SoundersFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SoundersFC\/status\/1425301214040784901?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 11, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Rachael Kriger<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Sporting KC, dumped out of Leagues Cup<\/h2>\n<h3>From Kansas City&#8230;<\/h3>\n<p>Sporting KC fielded a largely second-choice side sprinkled with two starters and two normal bench players. Alan Pulido suited up but didn&#8217;t feature, and Johnny Russell wasn&#8217;t on the team sheet. A mix of academy players got hung out to dry in the heat, as Leon fans were ol\u00e9-ing Sporting by the 30th minute.<\/p>\n<p>To be fair to Sporting KC, this was their third game in 6 days, in their third different city. They are currently in the middle of a 7 game stretch over 22 days. They will play their fourth game in 11 days, in four different cities on Saturday. With an unkind schedule, it makes sense to rotate a squad this heavily in a match that doesn&#8217;t mean anything in terms of their league positioning, nor does it qualify them for the champions league yet.<\/p>\n<p>Leon were dominant, and fielded a lineup that was going to be dominant. The end result is frankly not surprising. Omar Fernandez scored twice, and a host of other Leon players tacked on as the game went on. Grayson Barber assisted Cameron Duke for the lone Sporting KC goal.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u00a0<em>Daniel Sperry<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Photo: Mike Fiechtner\/Seattle Sounders FC Communications.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To kick off the Leagues Cup quarterfinals, the Seattle Sounders took down Tigres while Sporting Kansas City crumbled to Club Le\u00f3n.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1788,"featured_media":35954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,119,22,19],"tags":[4456,315,39,233],"class_list":["post-35950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-mls","category-sounders","category-skc","tag-2021-leagues-cup","tag-nicolas-lodeiro","tag-seattle-sounders","tag-sporting-kc"],"modified_by":"Rachael Kriger, Senior Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}