Seattle and New England: Two Teams Seeking Momentum

The Seattle Sounders hope to build on a big 3-0 win in a friendly against Boca Juniors in their last home outing.

The New England Revolution would like to extend the win breakthrough achieved last week against the New York Red Bulls which ended a long winless streak.

Which team will continue forward momentum?

This will be decided beginning with first kick at the Xbox pitch of Qwest Field in Seattle Saturday at 7:30.

After the confidence building victory over the Buenos Aires team in the electric atmosphere of the largest home crowd of the season, the Sounders traveled to Colorado to face the Rapids in an MLS Western Conference matchup.  Seattle lost a 1-0 heart-breaker.

The hope is that returning to Seattle for two important contests with Eastern rivals New England and D.C. United on Thursday night prior to the World Cup break is the kind of home cooking the locals need to carry forward for the rest of the MLS season.

The New England Revolution won last week 3-2 over the New York Red Bulls after a disappointing period in which the team went 0-5-2.

Sparking the victory was Captain Shairie Joseph, a talented veteran from St. George, Grenada.  Joseph’s 2009 season was so impressive that he was one of three finalists for Most Valuable Player while earning MLS Best XI honors for the fourth straight season.

“This is huge for us,” central defender Pat Phelan said. “We’re going to look at this as a turning point in our season. We played much better than we have in the past few games. We gave [New York] some soft goals, but on the whole, I think it was a much better performance and it’s always nice to end a streak like that at home.”

The Sounders seek to make Saturday night’s contest a turning point in their favor.  As Fredy Montero said after the invigorating victory over Boca Juniors in the Sounders’ last home outing, “We wanted to play well for our fans against a very good team.”

Montero delivered a brilliant kick that Roger Levesque chested into the net for the first Seattle goal of the night.  It was the single goal of the first half and was followed by two second half scores for an impressive shutout triumph.

Striker Montero is one of the Sounders speedsters along with Steve Zakuani on whom Coach Sigi Schmid is counting to put the locals in the victory column.  In Thursday’s workout there was a lot of speedy maneuvering and goal kicking by Montero and Zakuani along with recent acquisition Miguel Montano.

The quick strike force can help end a recent scoring slump that has occurred in the midst of solid defensive play.