After enjoying the luxury of a boisterous Qwest Field crowd for the first two games in club history, Seattle Sounders FC head to Toronto FC for their first away game. Awaiting them will be the fervent fan base of Toronto's BMO Field, which averaged more than 20,000 fans last season and had previously set the record for season tickets sold for an expansion team with 14,000 in 2007.
After Seattle broke that record with more than 20,000 season tickets sold for its inaugural season, goalkeeper Kasey Keller knows the Canadian fans will be keen to make their presence felt.
"There's no doubt that Toronto had been the best crowd in the league. And they're obviously going to want to prove something to us and to themselves that they still could possibly have that title," Keller said. "I like that. I like going into that little bit of animosity. I kind of feed off of it. I'm hoping they have a big rowdy crowd, and we can make them real quiet."
If Toronto FC raised the bar for fan engagement in its expansion season, then Seattle Sounders FC launched the bar into orbit. Seattle averaged an astonishing 30,536 fans in their first two games, a figure unmatched by any team without David Beckham on the roster.
Seattle coach Sigi Schmid is aware of the advantage the home crowd has given them but will not change his tactics too much on the road.
"Certainly the enthusiasm of our crowd has helped us in the first two games, and we've been very aggressive defensively early on in games," Schmid said. "It's more important on the road in the first 15 minutes, 20 minutes to be good about what you do; not to give the ball away unnecessarily, not to bring their crowd into the game by turning the ball over deep in our end of the field and give them momentum."
Seattle sits tied atop the Western Conference with Chivas USA on a perfect six points from two games. Fredy Montero, named the MLS Player of the Month for March, leads the Seattle attack with three goals and one assist. In midfield, Osvaldo Alonso has notched three assists while potent striker Nate Jaqua got into the act with his first goal of the season last Saturday.
Marshalled by Keller, the Seattle defense has yet to concede a goal in 180 minutes.
They will face a stern test from Toronto FC, who have notched a win and a draw in two away games to start the season. In year three of its existence, Toronto posted a 14-point improvement in its second season and has looked excellent thus far in 2009, especially in scoring three goals on the road to defeat the Kansas City Wizards. Midfielder Amado Guevara is back from international duty for Honduras and looking to build on his two-goal outing against the Wizards.
Healthwise, Seattle comes into the game at almost full strength. Both Nathan Sturgis and Freddie Ljungberg came off the bench last week against Real Salt Lake and can challenge for starting spots. Both of these players could play a key role, as they were brought in for their ability to hold the ball when the match started going Real Salt Lake's way.
Should Seattle get an early lead, they may take a defensive posture and try to kill the game off. If so, Keller won't apologize for those tactics. The 'keeper is content to turn the game into a snoozefest if it means victory.
"It's really the other team's responsibility to make the game pretty. We can go there and play spoilers they like to say in England," Keller said. "We can just go and do what we need to do to get a result.
"I have no problem going into Toronto, and not necessarily playing as well as we want to, but getting a result. It's up to Toronto to make the game attractive for their fans. For us, it's to just get points."
Andrew Winner is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
