Seattle Sounders Vs. Chicago Fire, 2011 U.S. Open Cup Final: Fredy Montero, Osvaldo Alonso Guide Sounders To Victory

At the core of the complaints is the blind bidding process by which home teams are determined. Prior to each round, the prospective hosts are selected based on a bid form they submit to U.S. Soccer, part of which includes an actual cash payment. These bids are never revealed, which has caused quite a bit of consternation.

According the story, MLS and U.S. Soccer are considering the possibility of making the bid system more open or possibly even forcing teams to guarantee an attendance figure. While this change would not necessarily keep teams from being able to host the vast majority of the games, it would at least allow teams to know what they are up against.

Obviously, the takeaway from this game is and should be the Sounders’ winning a third straight Open Cup, but kudos to the suporters for giving us a little extra something to think about.

To put a nice ribbon on the championship, Alonso scored a tremendous goal six minutes into injury time to send CenturyLink Field into a frenzy. The midfielder, who had done a brilliant job all match breaking up every Chicago attack, got forward on his own this time and danced his way through the Fire defense. Finally, he split two defenders right in front of goal and sent Johnson sliding out to take out his own defender before finishing into an open net.

Chicago Fire blog Hot Time In Old Town is cautiously optimistic that their team can finally get the monkey off their back and beat the Sounders on Tuesday, thanks to their recent form and some great mid-season acquisitions.

The Fire will be slight underdogs against the two-time defending champion Sounders on the road in front of a huge crowd at CenturyLink Field, but it would have been hard to imagine the team would be in this situation just a couple of months ago.

For the most part MLS should be happy either way with the winner. It is yet another club winning the oldest soccer trophy in America from MLS. But diving a little deeper into it for each side, there are some serious pros and cons for each side winning tonight.

Seattle Winning The Cup: The Good

There is no doubt that the Sounders are still favorites. Especially at home, they should get past the Fire, but the visitors will give Seattle a tough match. This isn’t the same Fire team from earlier in the year and they have the individual quality, especially in Pappa, to flip the match and send the trophy on its way to Chicago.

X-Factors

Fredy Montero (Seattle) - 5 goals and 3 assists in last 6 MLS games is reason alone to key on on Montero. The Fire have to know that he is key to getting the offense going if Rosales is unable to play in this game.