The expansion mold was broken and plaudits have been endless with the addition of the Seattle Sounders to Major League Soccer. The brash, young club also stoked a new cross-country rivalry after crying foul over U.S. Soccer awarding the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup final to D.C. United, who will host the match against the Sounders at RFK Stadium on the evening of Sept. 2.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was frustrated and somewhat skeptical of the process,” Sounders general manager Adrian Hanauer told The Olympian, an unseemly suggestion that won’t fall kindly on the ears of D.C. United.
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The Sounders, despite averaging nearly 30,000 per game this season, had bid for a TV-unfriendly 1 p.m. local (4 ET) kickoff on Sept. 1, due to a Mariners game next door at Safeco Field that night.
“A game in front of 10,000 fans at RFK I don’t believe is going to raise the [U.S. Open Cup’s] profile as much as a game in front of a sold-out Qwest Field.”
Funny enough, Hanauer just raised it himself.
