Email exchange. Topic line “Orange Speedo. ” Same anonymous friend/Sounders fan I talked about in the previous post. We are both thinking about the upcoming game with “Forever Orange” Houston.

Him to me: [Link to the following photo.] (laurie’s aside: Given that I have no idea who the guy is, I have taken the liberty of removing the face. Which I’m pretty sure is far less painful than it sounds.)

Me to him: I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Him to me: But…it was orange!

Me to him: So are cheetos. That does not make them sexy.

Me to him, again: P.S. I dare you to photoshop Pat Onstad’s face onto that one.

So I guess in a way I’m to blame for the following photos.

(You’re welcome.)

P.S. As I was doing tags for this post, I typed in “Hous” as in Houston. One of the options it gave me, apparently from sometime in the past (yes, on this blog) was “Little House on the Prairie.”

This is me, sitting here with little cartoon question marks coming out of my head.

But because of this, I had to add it as a tag on this post, just so I could click on it and see where it led.

P.P.S. Oh. Okay. Now I remember. Wow. I was really pissed at Tim Weyland after the LA game, wasn’t I?

P.P.P.S. I am SO immature.

Not only that, but among The Offside’s 280 blogs, we’re just this close to breaking into the top 15, which currently includes heavyweights like Arsenal, Liverpool, Lyon…. Oh, and HABS, the site dedicated to players in various states of undress.

Oh, what? I’m just throwin’ it out there.

So to everybody who’s stopped by this site to check out a score, offer an opinion, or see Freddie Ljungberg in his underwear? Thank you. You made my week. I love you all.

And now for some of the fun stuff currently being seen ’round the blogosphere:

• Jose over at the Seattle Times has an interview with Craig Waibel. Spoiler: Craig is nothing but complimentary of us and thrilled for our success. Even as he plans to beat our team.
• Yamsmos over at GoSounders wants to know: Do you hedge your bets? (Come on, ‘fess up. You know who you are.)
• Oh, and also? Team plane. SeaTac. 10 p.m., C01888. Be there. (It will be dry, so you have no excuse.)
• And if you are a news junkie who wants to read it all in advance of the big game? (Y’know, as opposed to one of those people who is simply drinking him/herself into oblivion to try to make Sunday arrive a little sooner), Seattle Soccer Examiner has links to all the press reports.
• Don Ruiz at the News Tribune wonders publicly if Houston has the second-best atmosphere in MLS. At least during the playoffs.
• And finally, change is afoot at Sounder at Heart.

Later, when we were driving away, I started crying.

“What’s wrong?” says my mom. Says I: “I forgot my nickel!”

My mother was, of course, horrified. Because leaving no tip is kind of…ambiguous. Leaving a nickel tip is a slap-in-the-face insulting statement.

That’s kind of how I feel about Pat Onstad’s “punishment” for his shoulder slam on Fredy Montero. It was announced today and is…

$100.

No, I didn’t leave off a zero. That’s: One. Hundred. Dollars. Officially for “lack of respect for the game.”

Because no punishment at all could in theory kind of mean, “Oh. We forgot.” A hundred dollar fine, on the other hand, means: “Pfft. Who cares?”

We care, MLS. Way to enforce your rules and tell players that this is not the way you want them to behave.

I am officially disgusted.

(Oh. Wait. Excuse me. “AT&T Goal of the Year” and“Degree Men Save of the Year.” Because I’m pretty sure that none of this would have been possible with the wrong antiperspirant and long-distance plan.)

At any rate, we have a bunch of candidates for both. Almost too many.

The issue here is that Seattle has eight candidates for Goal of the Year — fully 20% of the total — and four for Save of the Year (10%.) What this means is that if we don’t focus our attentions, we risk having our votes cancel each other out. If this happens, we’d see any voting advantage we get from our huge fan numbers erased. Or eclipsed by Dallas spambots, who, if they could, would cheerfully award “Top Serial Killer AND World’s Best Dad” to Jeff Cunningham and/or Dario Sala.

(Irrelevant aside: Is anybody else surprised to see this kind of thing coming from Dallas? Not that I consider the city too ethical; just that I never thought they were smart enough.)

But anyhoo. To keep this from happening, we need a strategy. We need to pick a goal (or two) and a save (or two) and focus on those. My recommendations below:

Below are our Goal of the Year candidates, as swiped from GoSounders. (Because I’m way too damn lazy to type this stuff up myself on a UEFA Champions League day.)

I’d recommend that the Seattle community focus on one of these two: That Ianni bicycle kick goal against Houston (because it’s easier to win Goal-of-the-Whatever with a bicycle kick) or Montero’s amazing blast against New England. (Which is up for the award despite the fact that Dallas spambots swiped the goal-of-the-week award that week.) Those two will be where I’m focusing my energies.

Must say that for the sake of sentiimentality, though, I’ll probably vote a couple of times for Montero’s and Seattle’s very first goal against the Red Bulls way back in March. But after that I won’t let myself get distracted.

(Sorry Nate. Sorry Steve. We’ll take care of you next year.)

Fredy Montero- Week 1 vs. New York Red Bulls- the low blast from 17 yards out
Fredy Montero- Week 2 vs. Real Salt Lake- shot from 24 yards
Nate Jaqua- Week 11 vs. Columbus- side volley off of a Ljungberg pass to the opposite corner
Nate Jaqua- Week 15 vs. Colorado- slides the ball past Nick Rimando
Patrick Ianni- Week 17 vs. Houston- bicycle kick
Steve Zakuani- Week 22 vs. LA Galaxy- from a beautiful cross by Brad Evans
Nate Jaqua- Week 23 vs. Houston- a side volley from Zakuani’s header
Fredy Montero- Week 28 vs. New England- 28yd diving shot

Montero is currently fourth with 8%, and Ianni is way down the list with 3%. This means you need to vote.

For Save of the Year, I’m also swiping from GoSounders. (So please click on the link when you’re done here to keep them from hating me too much.)

Kasey Keller has 3 saves up for MLS’s Save of the Year.

Week 3 vs. Toronto FC makes a diving save to the near post
Week 10 vs. Colorado stopping a Conor Casey doorstep header
Week 21 vs. Real Salt Lake where he shuts down Robbie Findlay

Tyrone Marshall’s flying scissor kick against Columbus is also an option.

Tyrone (week 29) is currently leading with 14%. I’d recommend sticking with this one. But if you’re feeling bad about not voting for Kasey, how about that Week 10 save, which is currently the top Keller save with 3%.

(Also, please note that our all-time favorite goalkeepers, Josh Wicks, Pat Onstad and Dario Sala are up for the saves. Can you live with yourself if the award goes to one of them? I thought not. Go vote.)

Save of the Year here.

Goal of the Year here.

What do you think? Agree with my choices? Or is there a particular goal/save you prefer?

My guess is at least a few of the folks who voted for Senor Belly Bump, Houston goalkeeper Pat Onstad, for the “Fair Play Award.” Because if “fair play” is all about knocking down a player who’s half your size in a fit of rage, you are using a different dictionary from mine.

(Of course, there are also those who are thinking, “Montero got what he deserved! Is it too late to vote for Onstad?” But I’m pretty sure I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Onalfo.)

And Pat? If you receive this award, you’d better at least have the decency to blush when you go onstage to accept it. And then, as penance for your behavior — and for the love of all that is decent — lay off the Grecian Formula.

I’ve also heard a few snorts of derision over the inclusion of last week’s referee, Ricardo Salazar, on the “Best Referee” list. This one’s a little more complicated. By MLS standards, Salazar isn’t bad. Remember, again, he’s the one who had the guts to red-card Beckham. He didn’t give Columbus any advantage for diving. He ignored The Excavator. (Okay, that one may not have been good refereeing, but it made me like him more.) Heck, even Montero cleans up his act when Salazar’s reffing because he knows play-acting won’t do him any good.

In short, rather than being a bad referee, he just had a bad game. A really bad game. If he receives the award (which he won’t — I’d bet money that it goes to Alex Prus, our USOC final referee) he should be required to stand onstage and sing:

♫ “So I had a bad day, I’m taking one down, I sang a sad song just to turn it around…” ♫

That should be punishment enough that he’ll never have a game like Thursday again.

And Seattle has all three nominees for Newcomer of the Year: Kasey Keller, Fredy Montero and Fredy Ljungberg. All worthy nominees. (That photo is for the ladies who complained that it wasn’t nearly big enough last time I posted it. If you’d like… Well, it would be a sacrifice, ladies, but I can go bigger. Because what it all comes down to is that my only goal in life is to make my readers happy.)

Must say that the best comment on this came from “carella211″ over on the GoSounders post on this topic:

something tells me we won’t win a single award. not even the one with all sounder players. some voting bot from dallas will give it to jeff cunningham.

Admit it. If you’ve tried (unsuccessfully — always unsuccessfully) to vote a Sounder in for any Blank-of-the-Week award over any player from FC Dallas, you just splurted coffee all over your computer screen, didn’t you?

Other Sounders in the mix:

Goalkeeper: Kasey Keller
Fair Play: Kasey Keller
Defender of the Year (by which I of course mean VISA Defender of the Year. Which seems pretty appropriate, especially at this time of year, given that I feel a need to defend myself from my Visa on a regular basis): Jhon Kennedy Hurtado
Coach of the Year: Sigi Schmid

Awards begin tomorrow and will be awarded over time between now and the Cup. Finalists below.

Goalkeeper of the Year Finalists
Kasey Keller – Seattle Sounders FC
Donovan Ricketts – Los Angeles Galaxy
Zach Thornton – Chivas USA

Fair Play Finalists – Individual
Kasey Keller – Seattle Sounders FC
Pat Onstad – Houston Dynamo
Steve Ralston – New England Revolution

Comeback Player of the Year Finalists
Brian McBride – Chicago Fire
Ben Olsen – D.C. United
Zach Thornton – Chivas USA

Visa Defender of the Year Finalists
Geoff Cameron – Houston Dynamo
Jhon Kennedy Hurtado – Seattle Sounders FC
Chad Marshall – Columbus Crew

Adidas Referee of the Year Finalists
Alex Prus
Ricardo Salazar
Kevin Stott

Rookie of the Year Finalists
Stefan Frei – Toronto FC
Omar Gonzalez – Los Angeles Galaxy
Chris Pontius – D.C. United

Coach of the Year Finalists
Bruce Arena – Los Angeles Galaxy
Sigi Schmid – Seattle Sounders FC
Robert Warzycha – Columbus Crew

Newcomer of the Year Finalists
Kasey Keller – Seattle Sounders FC
Freddie Ljungberg – Seattle Sounders FC
Fredy Montero – Seattle Sounders FC

Volkswagen MLS Most Valuable Player Finalists
Jeff Cunningham – FC Dallas
Landon Donovan – Los Angeles Galaxy
Shalrie Joseph – New England Revolution

On the one hand, Tyrone Marshall. Experienced and solid. His pairing with Hurtado is established. When they’re on the pitch together, miscommunications are few. And he’s scored a couple of times in important games on set pieces.

On the other, Patrick Ianni. He’s shown that he can get the job done against Houston, which just happens to be his former team. He scored a goal-of-the-week against them at Qwest during the season, and had two near-misses last Thursday. And he looks like he has the potential to be even more lethal on set pieces than Tyrone.

The current status on Marshall is this:

Tyrone Marshall said he had a “procedure” done on his right knee on Friday, and that he needs 48 to 72 hours of resting the knee before he can feel right, or not feel soreness in the knee.

But let’s ignore that. If you’re Sigi and both are available, who do you go with?

Which central defender would you like to see start on Sunday?(surveys)

And now some fun stuff from around the blogosphere:

1) In general, our players are a fair bit more technically skilled than New England’s.

2) So how the hell did we lose to New England again? Twice?

3) On the other hand… Wow. That Mansally free kick that led to the New England goal was something else. I wish Freddie could do that. Or I wish we’d pick up a dead ball specialist in the off season. (What’s Juninho doing these days?)

4) Oh, what?! A woman can dream, can’t she?)

5) Jon Busch got his clock cleaned by Shalrie Joseph. He went up over the top, then fell the length of Joseph’s body and landed on his shoulders/head. I’m amazed he’s still out there. (Also a little surprised that Toledo let play continue. NE hit the post on a keeper-free net.)

6) This game is far more entertaining than I expected.

I’m expecting LA-Chivas to be a defensive snoozefest with one or two counter-attacking goals. I hope I’m wrong. (About the defensive snoozefest. Not the goals.)

Anybody else watching the games? What do you think?

Why, oh, why, did I not find this site till this morning?

It’s Zombie FC — dedicated to combining the best of Sounders and Halloween. Complete with Sounders logo pumpkin carving instructions AND directions for dressing as Zombie Jaqua.

Hilarious. I hope they’re not on hiatus now for another year. (Because Jaqua zombies never go out of style.)

C’mon, guys. I’m dying to see what you can do if you put your creativity towards Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day…

But first maybe you could start with a little something for a “We Hate Onstad” day? (Grizzly bears optional.)