In week two of his Captain's Notes, Sounders defender Brad Evans takes a look back at the home opener and discusses his thoughts as he looks ahead to the second match at home in Seattle against the San Jose Earthquakes.
What an amazing crowd for our home opener this past weekend. Can’t say enough about the fans, absolutely phenomenal, always coming out in numbers. You tend to remember certain games, it’s usually all the openers and I’ve been lucky to be a part of so many and this was no exception. Great, great atmosphere… can’t say enough about the atmosphere and fans.
Obviously moving on to the game, myself playing a new position for the first time, starting in that position was something I wasn’t used to but something I felt pretty comfortable in from the get-go.
I thought the first half was a typical first half for the first game of the season. A little bit disjointed at times, even though we did score the two goals. A little bit here and there disjointed, but at the end of the first half and into the second half, I thought we looked like a team that have played together the last three or four years. Very fluid, very fast... people seemed to be on the same page, which is great for the first game of the season.
Getting the two goals in the first half was a big plus. The insurance goal made things easy from there on out. Obviously its important to get off to that good start. We’ve seen in years past that winning the first game can propel you onto a good season. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s something we hope to hang our hat on. The biggest thing is picking up points at home.
A massive congrats to Cristian Roldan in getting his first appearance for the Sounders. Certainly a moment he’ll never forget.
Obviously more of those moments to come for him and Tyrone, no stranger to big games, played poised, so solid from minute one. It had been his first game in probably a full calendar year at least and to come out, notch an assist and to keep a shutout says a lot about his character and ability. I’m excited to have him play along next to me. Congrats on his first appearance, as well. It says a lot about the guy.
We move on to San Jose on Saturday. As we prepare on our own with our families at home, it’s a game that we can kind of look back on last year and realize that we did win our first game last season, and we ended up losing our second one against Toronto at home. Hopefully we’ve learned from that mistake and tomorrow night, we get off to another good start.
If we can notch those goals and keep it to zero, we’re looking like a team that can hopefully take the points at home because we all know points at home are the most valuable. If you can notch them here, it makes things easier as we move into the summer.
Let’s go Sounders, let’s do it again.
