A Glorious Night In Vancouver

After conceding the match's first goal early in the first half, the Sounders stormed back to ultimately claim a 3-1 victory over their Cascadia rival the Vancouver Whitecaps, reclaiming the Cascadia Cup in the process.

The Whitecaps got the scoring started first, as they did earlier in the season when they visited Century Link Field. Eric Hassli played an excellent ball through to Chumiento, who played the ball across the mouth of the goal to a wide open Camilo Sanvenzo who easily hammered the ball into the back of the net. That goal wouldn't stand for too long, however. The Sounders got their opprtunity to even things up only eleven minutes later on a penalty awarded thanks to a hand ball Alvaro Fernandez forced on Jay Demerit after some brilliant build-up by Montero. Brad Evans stepped up to the spot and easily sent Joe Cannon the wrong direction and hammered the ball home.

The Sounders burst out of the gate at the start of the second half, Lamar Neagle firing a curling shot up over Cannon in the forty seventh minute but was denied by woodwork. The Sounders finally and permanently grabbed the lead in the sixty third minute, Demerit sending a clearance straight into the feet of Montero, who fired a curling effort past Cannon and into the far corner of the goal. Montero extended the Sounders' lead just four minutes later, receiving a pass from Brad Evans and blasting a shot that deflected off of Demerit's foot and over Cannon into the goal. Afterwards, Neagle and second half sub Sammy Ochoa came incredibly close to further increasing the lead, both striking the post. The Whitecaps continued to press forward and look dangerous but ultimately found no way to reduce the Sounders' lead.

Lately Mauro Rosales has been the one pulling all of the strings in the Sounders' offense, but watching tonight's match it's clear that his absence isn't a crippling blow for the Sounders (much the same as with Zakuani and White). The Sounders are a truly deep team, to manage to lose three major goal-scorers and playmakers and feel very little ill-effects of their absence.

Notes

• Demerit was involved in every single goal, conceding the penalty, clearing the ball to Montero on the second, and deflecting the ball in on the third. Rough night.
• To cap off the fantastic victory, a handful of the Timbers Army had travelled all the way up to Vancouver to hand the Cascadia Cup over to the eagerly awaiting Sounders Supporters.

Timbers Fall to the Sounders

After a first half where the Sounders dominated most the of play save for some late pressure from the Timbers, the match burst into life in the second half where the Timbers got two lucky deflections and Montero nearly scored the second hat trick in the history of his club. The Timbers opened up the scoring shortly after the referee whistled the start of the second half. Timbers' midfielder James Marcelin slid the ball to a sprinting Khalif Alhassan who wove his way past the Sounders' defense into the box and attempted a cross the was knocked into the goal off of the inside of Jeff Parke's leg and trough the legs of Kasey Keller. Eleven minutes later a foul committed near the edge of the penalty area gave Fredy Montero the perfect opportunity to level the score, and he did just that. He swung the ball over the wall and it snuck it's way into the near corner of the goal past a diving Troy Perkins. The Timbers found the lead once again in the sixty ninth minute. Diego Charra found Jorge Perlaza on a breakaway as he was sprinting down the right side of the field. Perlaza made it to the edge of the penalty area and unleashed a shot that took a deflection off of Tyson Wahl that sent it hopelessly past Keller and into the Sounders' goal. Fredy Montero came up huge for the Sounders and evened the score once again just five minutes later. James Riley crossed the ball to far post of the Timbers goal where Lamar Neagle gathered it up and crossed it back across goal where Mauro Rosales settled the ball down onto the turf for a waiting Montero who hammered it in. The Timber ultimately shot themselves in the foot seven minutes later, Neagle running onto an excellent ball over the top by Alonso and getting tangled up and taken down by Eric Brunner which drew a straight red without any hesitation from the referee. With Brad Evans not on the field and Montero having missed a PK attempt just barely a week earlier, Alonso stepped up to the spot and buried the ball past a reaching Perkins who guessed the correct direction but just could not muster enough to reach it. The Sounders are now 1-0-2 in their campaign to win the fan-based Cascadia Cup and have now advanced a single point beyond FC Dallas to once again claim second place in the standings.

Match Prediction: Portland Timbers - Seattle Sounders

Being aired on ESPN, past the first meeting of these two teams, this is the MLS match of the season that is an absolute must watch. The stakes and expected energy of the match itself and animosity of the Timbers' fans will certainly make for one crazy match, one that should be of much higher quality of play than their last meeting at Qwest Field where everything was slogged down by a downpour of rain. Leading into this match the Sounders are undefeated in seven while the Timber haven't been able to win in six, but in a derby match like this those runs mean next to nothing. The three points are all there for the taking for both teams. That said, past form does have a factor. The Timbers have a crippling reliance on set pieces to score goals and also a crippling weakness when it comes to defending set pieces earned by their opponents. If the Sounders can limit set piece opportunities on goal for the Timbers, their incredibly strong back line should be able to hold off any attempts by the Timbers through the run of play. The question then is, who will step up and find the back of the net for the Sounders? As of late, just about every player on the field has scored (13 different players have scored so far this season, in fact) so that shouldn't be too much of a concern, though past Roger Levesque's brace against the Red Bulls a couple of weeks ago, the Sounders' forwards have had trouble being a threat on goal. This is definitely the perfect opportunity for Fredy Montero, or even Levesque to spite the Timbers Army, to step up and change that. Regarding past form, the Sounders should have this in the bag. But, this is a derby after all and anything can happen.