Manchester United 7, Sounders 0: Not As Bad As It Looks

People all over the world will look at Wednesday’s Manchester United/Sounders FC score and…well, laugh their asses off, probably. As far as final scores go, this is the most humiliating margin for a Seattle sports team since Denver’s 56-point win over the Sonics in 2008.

But that 7-0 score is very, very deceiving. For the first 45 minutes of the game, when the Sounders’ top players were in the game, they played a Manchester United B squad pretty even. The halftime score was 1-0, but could easily have been tied, as Man U keeper Anders Lindegaard saved two quality shots in the 37th minute.

After halftime, the Sounders replaced several top players–notably Fredy Montero and Mauro Rosales, who’d given Manchester United the most trouble, and Kasey Keller, who’d saved several dangerous shots, including one at point-blank range from former English soccer prodigy Michael Owen. Man U, meanwhile, inserted soccer legends Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand. That’s when the runaway began, the part that led Sounders coach Sigi Schmid to apologize to fans.

(My favorite moment of the match was when the scoreboard showed Kasey Keller shaking his head in disgust after Man U went up 3-0. Keller is so competitive, you could make him point guard of a 4th-grade boys team playing the Miami Heat, and he’d still be pissed when he lost.)

Two takeaways from this game, one surprising and one less so.

Surprising: The Sounders’ top players can compete one-on-one with backups on one of the world’s best soccer teams.

Not so much: If you put two of the best players of their generation against the Sounders’ backups, the Sounders’ backups will get killed.

Wayne Rooney, one of the better scorers in the world, scored three goals in 20 minutes against the Sounders’ reserves. This is almost what you’d expect–about as surprising as Felix Hernandez striking out 10 straight Everett Aquasox.

So keep your heads high Sounders fans, despite the derision that will be heaped upon you. (I’d imagine Portland Timbers fans are practically pooping themselves with delight.) I’m about to say that a 7-0 loss in soccer was actually impressive.

This 7-0 loss was actually impressive!