A Season Ends
But Love Goes On

Through all these games, roastin’ and freezin’,
We’ve loved this team far beyond reason
Through so many starts
you captured our hearts
Thanks, guys, for a wonderful season.

Or we could write a song dedicated to our argumentative Designated Player, who will be missing the next game due to yellow card accumulation because he just Could. Not. Shut. His. Effing. Mouth.

(FYI, I believe “Lju” is pronounced “Lyooo.”)

The Freddie Ljungberg Card Accumulation Song
Sung to the tune of “Oh My Darling, Clementine.”

You must whine and you must argue
and you cannot shut your trap
now you’re taking a vacation
and the team will play like crap

CHORUS:
Shut the F*** up, Shut the F*** up
Shut the F*** up Freddie Lju
There’s a ref’ree with a red card
and he’s waiting just for you.

Now the team could miss the playoffs
And you know they’re gonna blame
the Swedish guy who couldn’t shut up
Freddie Ljungberg is his name

CHORUS

(Photo: Prost Amerika Soccer)

Jaqua, Montero, Ianni all should have scored. Montero could not have gotten any closer on his penalty, but Ianni and Jaqua both blew it from less than 5 yards out right in front of the net… Please, feel free to leave your laments, especially in the form of poetry and I will try and take a more in-depth look into this annoying and irritating loss later today….

********

(Laurie is slipping in here late to add a little Sounders Poetry to get you motivated to comment.)

~~~*@*~~~

A Melancholy Ode
to Missed Opportunities

US consensus on healthcare?
China out of Tibet?
The only thing more unlikely would be
a Sounder finding the net

~~~*@*~~~

OR: Reflection on Freddie’s first yellow
(for a “dive”)
and second
(for dissent)

Apparently blindness won’t get in they way
of being an MLS ref
but if Freddie must talk as he’s walking away
why can’t the guy also be deaf?

The Seattle Sounders Starting XI Blues

We’ve got all kinds of problems
Now that Freddie’s meeting Fred
And all these lineup issues
Are messing with my head

We’ve got too many wingers
And isn’t that the rub?
So should our Frenchman be a starter
or a Seba Super Sub?

And there has to be a way to get
Brad Evans in the middle
‘Cause Alonso really needs him
‘less he doesn’t; that’s the riddle

And how about our fullbacks?
Riley’s great and Zach’s our guy
and if either one got yanked
I am pretty sure I’d cry

And the Zak Attack should start
’cause he’ll be flying up the wing
but he can’t defend like Seba
so that’s another thing

And Taylor’s finally healthy
But where the hell’s he go?
With the Jamaican and el Presidente
running every show

And here’s the deal, Nate Jaqua
You’re six-four, so knock ‘em dead!
But it isn’t really working
‘Cause the ball can’t find your head

Sigi says it takes some time
For guys to be a team
I don’t think my brain can take it
so I’m gonna have to scream

“Sigi make it happen!
Wave your wand and make the news!”
or I’ll be the first fatality
from Starting XI blues

That’s kind of how I’m feeling right now.

Because you know my Sounders poetry? It seems to have had unintended consequences.

I realized this last week, when I wrote a poem about Kasey Keller, only to have him get sent off with his first red card in what, seventeen years?

And then I started to think about the previous week, when I wrote about Fredy Montero, Freddie Ljungberg, and Sebastien Le Toux. And within a couple of days of the poem, Fredy is asked to surrender his passport, and Freddie goes down with a (thankfully not too serious) knee injury. Only Seba seems to have had the power to resist. (Unless you count the fact that he was the one chosen to come off last week to bring on Dragavon. Which I think I will, because the alternative is to imagine that my poetry is a malevolent force just hovering over his head, waiting to strike. And I don’t think I could live with myself if that were the case.)

And at first I’m thinking, “Oh, it couldn’t be me. I used to write Galaxy poetry all the time, and nothing ever…”

Oh, crap. Their last two seasons were entirely my fault, weren’t they?

But that was then. This is now. No sense looking back; we must now look to the future. And what does this mean, oh fans of Seattle Sounders FC?

It means that from this day forward, I will choose to use my powers only for good. From here on out, I shall write only about the opponents we will be facing.

Kind of like this:

The Poem Written Specifically for
Chivas Midfielder
Sacha Kljestan

They say that when you take the field
There’s magic in the air
Don’t think that I’ll quite see it
Till you cut your freakin’ hair

P.S. All right, I know he already cut it. But he says he misses his long hair and is growing it back, so the sentiment holds.

~~*~~

The poem written specifically for
Chivas midfielder
Jesse Marsch
instigator of the infamous
Beckham Brawl

You took on David Beckham
(And truly, we’re all glad)
But Seattle’s undies model
will make you scream for dad

~~*~~

The poem written for
Chivas goalkeeper
Zach Thornton, who is
(oh, how can we phrase this delicately)
A Big Guy

I know you’ve seen our forwards
And you think that you can beat ‘em
But the only way you’ll stop Montero
Will be if you eat ‘im

Now I’m just hoping that the specifics of my super powers don’t require me to say positive things about somebody in order to cause bad things to happen.

(Hey, sometimes these things take awhile to sort out, okay?)

So last week in our new weekly tradition, Sounders Poetry, I wrote you some couplets about a few of our favorite players.

But apparently some of you (okay, one of you, I won’t name names, but it starts with a “K” and ends with an “en”) were less than happy that I left out our ol’ man and on-field leader, Kasey Keller.

Let’s remedy that, shall we?

I think we all know that Kasey does not merit merely a poem. Kasey merits the highest form of Seattle Offside Poetry Adulation: The Limerick.

So without further ado, we have

The Limerick Dedicated
to Kasey Keller,
A Goalkeeper so Awesome, So Amazing,
That He Can Make Saves
Without. Even. Touching. The Ball.
True Story*

You asked for a poem about Keller
He’s really one heckuva feller
From tight spots he frees us
Through telekinesis
He’s truly that stellar, is Keller

~~*~~

*Read the absolutely true and utterly amazing story right here.

Yesterday was such a day.

I believe that this is a sign that it is time to bring back an old tradition: Laurie’s MLS poetry! (Of which you have already seen one example.)

My favorite form of the art is, of course, the limerick. I love limericks. And did you know that according to a now long-gone iteration of the Wikipedia page on limericks, the reason the city of Nantucket features so prominently in this type of poetry is that it was a whaling town? And limericks were, of course, popular with whalers?

That’s exactly what I would have guessed.

But limericks are the highest form of the art. You can’t just leap into a limerick. You need to kind of…sneak up on it. And so, to ease into this, I bring you: A couplet poem.

The Poem
in Which I Write Couplets
in Honor of Some of the
Seattle Players
We Know and Love

Séba’s promoted
His fans are devoted

Montero amazes
Seattle embraces

Freddie models undies
Wait, what was I talking about again?

~~*~~