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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781629375670 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 05/22/2018 |
| Series: | 100 Things...Fans Should Know Series |
| Pages: | 272 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Roman Torres Has a Championship at His Feet
Roman Torres was the most unlikely pick to score a championship-winning goal in MLS history. But on a frigid December 2016 night in Toronto, with neither the Sounders nor the hometown Reds able to score in regulation or overtime, it came down to Torres on penalty kicks.
The hulking defender from Panama, captain of that country's national team, had appeared in only 13 regular season games over two seasons with the Sounders. He'd torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee only weeks after coming over from Colombian side Millonarios midway through 2015, ending his season and limiting his play the following year. But his game picked up late in 2016, helping the Sounders make the playoffs and advance through each round with a rock-tight defensive strategy to offset a weakened attack.
That strategy held up in the championship match, with the Sounders keeping things scoreless despite failing to register a single shot on goal in regulation play or overtime. Torres was a monster throughout the match, outmuscling Toronto star Jozy Altidore throughout and limiting him and Sebastian Giovinco to a handful of opportunities. Like all others on the field, Torres was exhausted by the end. But after the teams made it through five rounds of penalty kicks tied 3 — 3, Justin Morrow hit the crossbar during the second sudden death round and opened the door for Torres and the Sounders to steal a title.
The Sounders hadn't used Torres among their first five shooters when penalty kicks began. Then, as the sudden death segment began, he didn't know whether he'd be called upon.
"All of a sudden, I see them signaling over 'two-five,'" he said. "And I go 'Really? Two-five? Number twenty- five? Okay.'"
Torres had yet to score a single MLS goal. But growing up in Panama, he'd played as a forward on his youth team.
Playing professionally in Colombia, he'd scored 44 goals over parts of 11 seasons. In the semifinals of the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup, he'd scored the opening goal on a header.
But he'd need to use his feet this time, as Toronto keeper Clint Irwin stared back at him from 12 yards away.
"I had no idea where I was going to shoot," Torres said. "I was just saying, 'God, you're going to tell me where to put this ball and it's going to go where it goes.' And it did and thank goodness for that."
Once his shot hit the back of the net, Torres let flow a tide of emotion. His teammates stormed the field to greet him, champions at last.
For Torres, it capped a long journey that began in Panama City. Torres was just three when the U.S. invasion to overthrow dictator Manuel Noriega occurred. Though Torres was too young to remember much, he sensed things gradually improving in his Central American country. By age 15, he was still playing as a striker, far bigger and taller than most boys his age. He attended a national U-17 tryout camp with about 200 to 300 other teens, looking to qualify. At one point, the coaches began splitting the youngsters into positional groups. They called out for all forwards to raise their hands.
"There were a lot of kids with their hands raised," Torres said. "Then ... they called for defenders and I noticed there weren't a lot of them. And I was like, 'I'll play defender!' because there really weren't a lot of people to compete with.
"And so, from that moment on, I was a defender, and I was learning and learning and getting better at the position. And I decided that was going to be what I adopted as my position. I just kept learning how to play defender as much as I could."
His MLS Cup — clinching goal would turn out to be a warm-up act for Torres. Less than a year later, playing a World Cup qualifier for Panama against Costa Rica, Torres would score in the 88 minute to snap a 2 — 2 draw. Moments later, when the final whistle sounded, he was a national hero. Panama was going to its first FIFA World Cup and his goal had put them there.
Understandably, that moment outranks even his Sounders exploit. Torres ripped off his shirt in celebration immediately after his goal. "The stadium was just in pure happiness and euphoria over what happened," Torres said. "It was a historic moment for our country and our national team." For now, his rare goal-scoring has secured milestones on two continents.
CHAPTER 2A Hollywood Beginning
Hollywood film producer Joe Roth had grown up playing youth soccer on Long Island. He later played a season at Bowling Green University and then another at Hofstra University.
Back then, in the late 1950s, a professional soccer career wasn't imaginable for those playing it. There was no pro league in the United States, and even the best players on the country's national team knew they had no chance of making it in any top circuit overseas.
In Roth's case, he had a fallback plan in movies. He would go on to produce more than 40 films and direct six of them, including America's Sweethearts with Julia Roberts and Billy Crystal in 2001. Roth had co- founded Morgan Creek Studios with James G. Robinson in 1988, later became chairman of movie studios at 20 Century Fox and Disney, then started his own production company, Revolution Studios.
But he never got over his soccer bug. He'd coached his oldest son, Zack, for 15 years starting in the 1990s and until Zack played for Boston University. By then, Major League Soccer was getting launched on the heels of a successful 1994 World Cup hosted by the U.S. By 2007, when David Beckham joined the Los Angeles Galaxy, Roth could see the sport was gaining serious traction.
"It felt like a turning point," Roth said. "Maybe not the turning point, but a turning point." And he wanted to be a part of it.
He called his friend, Tim Leiweke, who ran the Anschutz Entertainment Group company that owned the Galaxy and several MLS teams. They got together, along with AEG chief financial officer Dan Beckerman, for lunch at The Palm steakhouse in Los Angeles, a block from the Staples Center.
"They showed me a spreadsheet of what the math was," Roth said. " I said, 'Okay, I'm interested in doing this.'"
Leiweke phoned MLS commissioner Don Garber in New York and arranged an introduction. Roth and Garber met at a Galaxy game.
"I told him I'd like to own a team and I think I can help in other areas because there's this whole entertainment side to it," Roth said. "He said 'Great,' and to look in the Pacific Northwest."
Roth visited Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, all of which were preparing MLS expansion bids. But Portland and Vancouver already had their principal owners, and Roth wasn't interested in being anything other than top dog.
Also, while Roth visited Seattle with Leiweke alongside him, the NBA Supersonics were in the midst of being duped out of their franchise, which eventually moved to Oklahoma City. Roth sensed a strong business opportunity.
Leiweke's younger brother, Tod, was president of the Seattle Seahawks and had already been talking with Adrian Hanauer — owner of the second division Sounders franchise in the USL — about vying for an MLS expansion team. But the league was interested in higher profile ownership, and Hanauer didn't quite fit that bill.
So Leiweke arranged for his younger brother and Roth to have dinner at the SkyCity restaurant atop the Space Needle. "That's really where I think the plot began as far as ownership goes," Leiweke said.
The younger Leiweke gave what his brother describes as a "passionate" business pitch to Roth.
"Tod doesn't get as much credit probably as he should get for that," Tim Leiweke said. "He was dead right on that one and completely understood what Adrian [Hanauer] had in terms of pent-up demand. And Joe [Roth] was smart enough to get in."
Roth didn't need much convincing from there. He met Hanauer through Garber at the 2007 MLS All-Star Game in Colorado. "I actually did some research and it didn't take much," Roth said. "[Hanauer's] minor league team was outdoing everybody else's minor league team. Then I did some homework and found that Washington was, per capita, the biggest youth soccer state and also had a very vibrant adult league at night."
Roth figured that he, Hanauer, and the Seahawks would make a solid partnership.
"I realized that I live in Los Angeles and know nothing about the infrastructure of a soccer team," Roth said. "But I knew how to run movie studios. It seemed to me that here, you had the two prongs you typically have at a movie studio — which is the creative and the business sides. So the Seahawks were the business. To get that entire staff — which didn't have a whole lot to do because they were selling out every game anyway — and Adrian became the basis upon which I decided to move forward." Hollywood pal Drew Carey joined the partnership soon after and the Sounders were officially announced as an expansion franchise on November 13, 2007, with Roth as the majority owner.
"I started out of passion and as a hobby because it was a sport I loved," Roth said. "And I could just feel it was going to grow because we can't be that different here than everybody else in the world.
"So it was just a feeling. And we turned it into a real business."
CHAPTER 3Sounders Play First MLS Game
Sounders owner Adrian Hanauer admits he didn't sleep much the night of March 18, 2009. The very next day, his new Major League Soccer entry was playing its very first match, against the New York Red Bulls.
"I was about as nervous as you could possibly get," Hanauer said. "You wonder how the team will play, will anybody show up? Will they like what they see? Will they like it enough to come back? I was probably just as nervous about the same thing for the next three years, but that night was particularly bad."
Olympia native Kasey Keller, who'd left his overseas goalkeeping career behind to try to make soccer work closer to home, was also feeling some pressure. He knew a faceplant against the previous year's MLS Cup finalists could undo a lot of the hard work that had gone into launching the new franchise.
"I really wanted to make sure that wasn't the case where we'd fall flat and people would leave that first game going, 'What? This is what we were excited about?'" Keller said.
As it turned out, Hanauer and Keller needn't have worried. His Sounders put on as good a performance as any expansion debut side could have hoped for. A crowd of 32,523 — officially deemed a sellout with the upper levels at Qwest Field closed off — gave the team a rousing welcome as it walked onto to the pitch. Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire presented MLS commissioner Don Garber with the team's first ceremonial Golden Scarf.
And once the game began, the city was introduced to a new sports star as Colombian forward Fredy Montero quickly took over. Montero needed fewer than 12 minutes to score the franchise's first goal, taking a cross from Sebastien Le Toux on the right side of the box and firing a shot past New York goalkeeper Danny Cepero. Even today, Montero remembers that goal as his finest Sounders moment.
"I just couldn't believe how loud the crowd was," Montero said. "I'd never really heard anything like that before."
And it would stay that way. In the 25 minute, Montero led Brad Evans with a pass in behind the defenders and watched him slip a shot past Cepero for a 2 — 0 lead. "I had never played in front of a crowd like that before," Evans said. "And I'd gotten to do it in my first game for an expansion side at 23 years old. It was pretty incredible. And to score a goal on top of that and win — it was a special day for everybody involved."
The Sounders cruised from there, outshooting the visitors 14 — 8 and only allowing a couple of tough chances against goalkeeper Keller. Montero brought the crowd to its feet with his second goal of the night in the 75 minute, intercepting a pass deep in New York's half, carrying the ball into the box and faking out Cepero with a couple of juke moves.
Keller had received the loudest ovation from fans during pregame lineup introductions. He'd been an integral part of Hanauer and majority owner Joe Roth's plans to market the team during the lead-up to the launch. At one point, Keller had toyed with skipping the team's first training camp in Argentina and playing the 2008 — 09 season in England. He'd just helped Fulham avoid English Premier League relegation and he could have returned to Germany, where he'd captained Borussia M�nchengladbach in 2006 — 07.
But Hanauer and Roth both let him know they felt it important for public perception and overall team unity that he be there. They didn't want people thinking the team was second rate and that star players would just show up when their schedules allowed it. They also wanted to use Keller as an ambassador for the game locally and have him appear at public events.
So Keller agreed upon signing his August 2008 deal that he'd stay and be there full-time and ahead of the franchise opener. "Being able to beat New York, which was a finalist the year before, 3 — 0 at home and make it exciting and special for all the fans that showed up was very important," Keller said.
"It wasn't really until I drove home with my wife after the game that we both really kind of came to the conclusion that it really was the right decision to make. To come home, to stay, to be there for that first game. To be a part of that. And if I hadn't been a part of that, if I'd come back in July because I was playing somewhere in Europe, it just wouldn't have been the same.
"That's when I knew all the decisions I'd made, to come home, to be there for the first day of preseason, to be there for the first game, that I'd made all the right decisions." On that drive back from the stadium, Keller could finally put his mind at ease. And for that night, at least, team owner Hanauer could get himself some sleep.
CHAPTER 4Fredy Montero Becomes First Sounders Star
Brian Schmetzer could hardly believe his ears as he sat down for dinner in Colombia with the player who would become the very first Sounders star. Schmetzer, an assistant under head coach Sigi Schmid, had traveled to South America in 2008 with team vice president Chris Henderson to acquire a key piece for the squad's inaugural 2009 campaign.
Fredy Montero was only 21 back then but had just scored 16 goals for Deportivo Cali in his native country's Copa Mustang circuit. Now, as Schmetzer sat across the dinner table from Montero, he wanted to get to know a player in whom the Sounders were prepared to invest significant money.
But he couldn't get a word out of him.
"It was almost uncomfortable," Schmetzer recalled. "We couldn't get a peep out of him. He was so quiet and deferential, it was hard to believe this was the guy we were hoping would be our star player."
Years later, Montero laughed when recalling that night.
"That's my personality," he said. "Sometimes I just need time to get comfortable around people and the environment of where I'm living. But then, when I get comfortable, I can talk to people."
Montero let his goal-scoring do the talking upon his arrival in Seattle.
After nine goals in as many preseason games, he made his regular season debut on March 19, 2009, in his franchise's first MLS match against the New York Red Bulls at Qwest Field. Just 11 minutes in, Montero took a pass from Sebastien Le Toux at the top right corner of the box and put a wonderful ball along the ground into the far left corner of the net.
The crowd of 32,523 erupted.
"I couldn't believe how loud it sounded," Montero said.
Montero would assist on a second goal, then scored himself in the 75th minute to seal his team's 3 — 0 victory. He earned MLS Player of the Week honors for that feat, then Player of the Month accolades after adding another goal in his second game versus Real Salt Lake.
And a Sounders star was born.
"When I first came there, people didn't know very much about Fredy Montero," he said. "They weren't expecting all that much. But we knew we needed to do well to help [the Sounders] draw big name players to Seattle, so I was happy to help contribute to the team." Montero went on to score 12 goals and added seven assists that season to be named MLS Newcomer of the Year.
"At 21, I didn't want to put extra expectations on myself," he added. "But as players, we felt bad when we didn't do well. We knew the team needed to win that first year, so when I could help them, it made me feel good."
Montero endured somewhat of a sophomore slump his second season in 2010 and was even bounced from the starting lineup by Schmid after nine games. But he found his stride and went on to score 10 goals by season's end, getting named top player on the league's 24 Under 24 list.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "100 Things Sounders Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Geoff Baker.
Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction viii
1 Roman Torres Has a Championship at His Feet 1
2 A Hollywood Beginning 4
3 Sounders Play First MLS Game 7
4 Fredy Montero Becomes First Sounders Star 10
5 Clint Dempsey Comes Home 13
6 Never Over Until the Final Whistle 17
7 What's in a Name? 21
8 DeAndre Yedlin Raised by His Grandparents 24
9 Chad Marshall Solidifies the Back Line 26
10 Born in 1974 30
11 Alan Hinton Becomes Mr. Soccer in Pacific Northwest 34
12 Stand with Ecs Members at a Game 36
13 Sounders Win Consecutive A-League Titles 39
14 From Walmart to a New Life 42
15 Sounders Lose 1977 and 1982 Soccer Bowls 44
16 Garth Lagerwey Changes Team's Approach 48
17 Sounders Make It to Champions League Semifinal 51
18 Stefan Frei Makes "The Save" 55
19 The Greatest Sounders Game Ever 58
20 Talk to Players at Practice 62
21 A Red Card Wedding with No Bouquet 64
22 Brian Schmetzer: Four Decades of Work Ethic from Player to Coach 67
23 Getting It Done 71
24 Native Son Returns 74
25 Sounders Win First Supporters' Shield 77
26 The Most Memorable Sounders Tifos 81
27 Sigi Schmid Fired 84
28 Chris Henderson Goes from Youth Phenom to Top Executive 87
29 Lodeiro Backs Up Big Money with Big Results 89
30 From Dancing Bear to a Muted Celebration 92
31 Eddie Johnson Tells Sounders, "Pay Me!" 96
32 Fredy Montero Rape Allegation 98
33 March to the Match 100
34 Clint Dempsey Sidelined By Irregular Heartbeat 102
35 The Unofficial Team Historian 106
36 Stefan Frei Resurrects Career 108
37 New Attendance Record on Opening Day at Kingdome 111
38 Twitter Feud Turns Foul 114
39 An Ownership Stake for Fans 115
40 Make Your Own Tifo 117
41 The Science of Winning 119
42 Timing Is Everything 122
43 Teenager Cristian Roldan Says, "No Thanks!" 124
44 Listen to a Sounders Podcast 128
45 How Adrian Hanauer Rode a Hot Stock to an MLS Franchise 129
46 48 Seconds and a Tree Chop 132
47 Joevin Jones Follows in Father's Footsteps 135
48 From Gun-Toting Militia to the MLS Cup 137
49 Sounders Win Multiple USL Titles 140
50 Dempsey Dominates a Rivalry 143
51 Jordan Morris Comes Home with Honors 145
52 Freddie Ljungberg Arrives from Arsenal 148
53 Barcelona Seeing Red 152
54 Inside the Emerald City Supporters 154
55 Catch a Game or Pregame at a Local Pub 158
56 Blaise Nkufo Records First Sounders Hat Trick 159
57 Can't Stop Wondo 161
56 Clint Dempsey Scores Fastest Goal in Sounders History 164
57 Fan Protest Reverses League Policy on Championship Stars 165
60 Homegrown Gems 167
61 Seattle Hosts MLS Cup Championship Game 170
62 Sounders Rout FC Dallas for Biggest Margin of Victory 172
63 For Drew Carey, the Price Was Right 174
64 Stefan Frei Becomes a U.S. Citizen 177
65 Attend a Sounders2 Game 179
66 Obafemi Martins Bolts to China 180
67 Sounders Play First Friendlies Against Two World Powerhouses 183
68 DeAndre Yedlin Heads Overseas 185
69 Sounders Give Up Fastest Three Goals in Team History 188
70 Sounders-Timbers Rivalry 189
71 Sounders Score Fastest Three Goals 193
72 Doctor in the House 194
73 Soccer Royalty Serves Up Humbling Lesson 196
74 Sounders Draw All-Time Largest Crowd 198
75 The Memorial Stadium Years 201
76 Buy Pitchside Seats 204
77 Ljungberg First Sounders Player Named to MLS Best XI 206
78 Stalking the L.A. Galaxy 207
79 Sounders Get Championship Rings 211
80 Carry a Team and a Tune 212
81 Sounders Suffer Biggest Defeat 214
82 Alliance Council Votes to Retain Hanauer 216
83 Send Your Child to a Sounders Camp 218
84 The Mission of Gorilla FC 219
85 Steve Zakuani Draft and Injury 221
86 The Starfire Training Facility 224
87 Sounders Take the Lead on LGBT Rights 226
88 The Golden Scarf Tradition 228
89 Go to a Road Game 229
90 Rare Violence Between Sounders and Timbers Fans 231
91 Leerdam Solidifies a Second Title Shot 232
92 U.S. Open Cup Dynasty 236
93 A Sounder at Heart 240
94 Soccer's Rare Marching Band 243
95 A Favor Returned 245
96 The Best of Beginnings 247
97 Getting Their Man 250
98 Brad Evans Becomes Mr. Versatility 254
99 Mr. Sounder Finds a Home 257
100 Brad Evans Finds Penalty Kick Perfection 260