It’s game day: New York City FC are in Seattle to play Seattle Sounders on the plastic grass at Lumen Field for the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League Quarterfinals.
Rather, it’s game night: The match kicks off at 10 pm ET. Those of us on the East Coast might plan on taking a disco nap later if we want to make it to the final whistle.
NYCFC are recovering from a frustrating loss to Toronto FC – and the biggest refereeing mistake in MLS so far this year – while the Sounders are coming off a composed away win over Minnesota United.
New York City and Seattle have met a total of five times. NYCFC won three of those games, and scored nine goals, while the Sounders won two, and scored seven goals. When the two teams last played on April 7, 2019, NYCFC won at Yankee Stadium 3-0.
This is an important game for NYCFC, which have struggled in MLS league games and was one goal away from getting knocked out of the CCL. The team’s ridiculous travel schedule has hurt NYCFC’s performances, but the club is prioritizing this tournament over MLS games, and will do everything they can to advance.
Match: NYCFC at Seattle Sounders
Date and Time: Wednesday, April 6, 10 pm ET
Venue: Lumen Field in Seattle
Watch: FS1, FS2, TUDN
Stream: Foxsports.com, TUDN.com
Listen: The game will be broadcast in both English and Spanish on NYCFC Radio
• Injury report: NYCFC Defender Anton Tinnerholm is out with the Achilles injury he suffered last October, and Maxime Chanot is out with an upper-body injury suffered while on international duty with the Luxembourg national team. The rest of the squad is available.
• Expect to see a full-strength defensive line with Alexander Callens and Thiago Martins in the center, and Malte Amundsen and Tayvon Gray on the flanks. Both Amundsen and Gray didn’t play in Saturday’s game in Toronto when NYCFC’s defense was overrun.
• Taty Castellanos scored four goals in the 2022 CCL to date, which is good for second place on the leaderboard. Talles Magno and Seattle’s Fredy Montero are tied for third place with three goals each.
• NYCFC’s new right winger Gabriel Pereira made a solid impression when he took the field on Saturday as a second-half substitute. We will likely see him again. The 20-year-old right-winger looked comfortable with the squad, and he has the trust of manager Ronny Deila.
Poll
Tonight in Seattle, Ronny Deila should play…
This poll is closed
- 60% Taty Castellanos and Talles Magno: Benching either one is a mistake( 9 votes)
- 27% Taty Castellanos and Héber: It worked against Toronto (4 votes)
- 7%Talles Magno and Héber: Mix and match (1 vote)
- 7% Doesn’t matter as long as Gabriel Pereira is on the field: He opens the attack on the right (1 vote)
15 votes total
• The weather station at Pike Place Market predicts it will be a crisp 55˚F at kickoff time.
• This is the first time in the history of the CCL that two MLS teams face off in the semifinals. In fact, in the 13 years of this tournament, only seven MLS teams made it this far.
• Seattle might be able to field their best Starting XI for the first time this year. Striker Raúl Ruidíaz took the field on Saturday for the first time since February, coming on as a half-time substitute. You can read more about how Seattle will approach this game in the Hudson River Blue scouting report on the Sounders.
• Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldan said some spicy things about NYCFC in an interview he gave to Sounder at Heart: “It’s nice to know that you’re playing a rival that 1) Deserves to be here, 2) Has really good players, and is known for good players, and 3) Is struggling right now. Kicking a team when they’re down is something we want to do.”
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UPDATE: The starting lineup was announced at 9:08 pm ET:
