The opening 25 minutes at Toyota Park thrilled the 13,839 in attendance, but from then on no one could blame anyone watching the Chicago Fire and Seattle Sounders for falling asleep. The two teams struggled to generate chances and the match turned ugly, forcing both teams to settle for a scoreless draw that has to be considered a fair result.
It took just five minutes for Seattle to generate the first great chance of the match and it was a golden chance ruined by a sterling save. Mauro Rosales got a quick throw in and found space on the right. He spotted Lamar Neagle running towards the back post and put a pass right on his head that Neagle nodded for what looked like an easy goal. Amazingly though, Sean Johnson dove across the face of the goal to make a great save.
Daniel Paladini had two great chances for Chicago just a couple minutes apart in the first half, but neither found the net. First, a corner kick was cleared and played to Paladini from more than 25 yards away. Paladini hammered the ball and it looked like it was going towards the far post for a goal, but Kasey Keller dove and blocked the shot at full stretch to keep the match scoreless.
Not long after, a beautiful passing sequence and dummy by Paladini got him space to shoot and he struck it hard. Keller would have had a hard time stopping the shot, but luckily for the Sounders, it went wide of the post.
After that, the match settled into a monotonous bore. The 90 minutes finally came to an end and the two teams were able to take their point and run.
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