Armchair Javier – Stinging Loss at the Hands of the Sounders

That one hurt. The Impact surely did not come out strong, but dominated for long stretches throughout tonight’s game. Just when the Bleu-Blanc-Noir showed the most cohesiveness, a set piece goal from Clint Dempsey took it all away.

The Impact shined tonight in the defense and midfield third of the pitch, but showed very little cohesiveness in the attacking third, looking to have a difficult time with a finishing touch.

After such a promising look from the first two match days, opposing teams defenses have seemed to figure out how to stop the Impact from putting the ball into the back of the net. The team is currently suffering from the absence of a true striker to finish off plays from the plethora of playmakers behind them.

Dominic Oduro has done a great job thus far, but is not the answer for a team looking to put the ball into the box for a true striker to finish.

Man of the Match: Kyle Bekker

This is what the team was missing in the last game against FC Dallas. In what was a very important change to the Starting XI, Kyle Bekker provided the linking between the defending and attacking midfield that simply put, Callum Mallace was not capable of providing

With Eric Alexander largely taking Marco Donadel’s role of being the more deep lying defensive midfield, it opened an opportunity for Bekker to showcase his ability to move the ball forward, and that is what he did all night, effectively. On multiple occasions, Bekker was responsible for the ball moving up the field after having stopped Seattle on the attack. This is what the Impact need if they want to be the possession counter attacking team that they seem to game plan as.

Even when not moving forward, Bekker seemed to be the linchpin of passing trees, being the playmaking quarterback with great vision, able to move the ball with ease to attacking options. Unfortunately, the attackers were not able to take advantage of the sublime service tonight.

This strong performance from Bekker is one that I, personally, have been waiting for since he had been traded to the Impact last season. After attending the Amway Canadian Championship Final two seasons ago, I came away very much impressed with a young blonde Canadian midfielder playing for Toronto FC, his name being Kyle Bekker.

At the time, I turned to my friend I was attending the game with, and told him that I would love to have Kyle Bekker on my team, as he had been the Man of the Match in that game. Now, two years later, Bekker has delivered on the promise he gave two seasons ago. I only hope he continues to start in the first XI.

Honorable Mention: Donny Toia

As someone who is not the biggest fan of Donny Toia, tonight, I came away very impressed with his play. Others have said in the past that Toia is a "rock" on whichever side he plays. While this something I have never agreed with previously, tonight, I can say that he was, in fact, that aforementioned rock. Nobody was able to get by him on his side, and also showed a huge effort to get back after Ciman was beat badly. Let’s hope that he continues this streak of play, maybe I’ll change my opinion on him.

Most Surprising Performance: Hassoun Camara

I gave Hassoun a very hard time in my last post, due to his very porous performance against FC Dallas. However, Camara tonight was substantially better, both defending, as well as attacking. While still not the quality play that Oyongo brings, Camara showed his capability of being a spot start at fullback for this team, caoable of holding his own. Well done Hassoun.

Most Dissapointing Performance: Ignacio Piatti

For what is supposed to be the best man on the pitch for the Impact, Piatti was largely invisible tonight. When he did possess the ball, there were not many positives that came out of it. While this may be a product of the lack of cohesiveness from the front 4, the Impact need a better performance from Piatti if they want to have a shot at winning games. He is that important to the team.

Man of the Match Awards – Thus Far

Ignacio Piatti – 2

Laurent Ciman – 1

Kyle Bekker – 1

But that’s just one man’s opinion, let me know yours by tweeting @javiergonz1994

Additional Notes:

The Seattle Sounders crowd is awesome. Very cool to see how passionate they are for their team.

Lucas Ontivero was very spastic tonight, struggling to settle himself into the game. I wouldn’t mind seeing Venegas in his place in the next game.

Better substitutions from Biello this week.

Darn you Clint Dempsey, it had to be you.