The Seattle Sounders and Chicago Fire took part in a wild and crazy first half on Saturday night. The Fire took the lead 25th minute thanks to a sequence of shenanigans. First, the Fire were awarded a penalty when it appeared their defender Tony Alfaro made a nice tackle inside the box. Next, referee Nima Saghafi waved off a save by Stefan Frei. Finally, Nemanja Nikolic scored the second attempt. Needless to say, Sounders players were irate, with Clint Dempsey leading the charge.
Unjust for #Sounders on all aspects of #cf97's PK: Alfaro got all ball on Nikolic, no clear encroachment or Frei coming off line. #CHIvSEA pic.twitter.com/BDz03rxFFj
— Jason Foster (@JogaBonitoUSA) May 14, 2017
As many teams in the world have found out, you don’t want to make Clint Dempsey angry. That’s when he’s at his best. Just three minutes after that tomfoolery occurred, Deuce had the ball in the back of the net thanks to this nice left-footed strike:
.@clint_dempsey delivers! The #Sounders are right back into this one: https://t.co/zqB6IYfHxW #CHIvSEA https://t.co/yLQge5k3s1
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 14, 2017
Lesson #1: Don’t make Clint Dempsey mad
Lesson #2: Don’t play crap defense when Clint Dempsey is on the field
It’s Dempsey’s fourth goal of the season and it comes at a good time as the USMNT’s important summer is creeping up. The Texan legend is just one goal shy of tying Landon Donovan for the national team’s all-time goal record. At this rate, it’ll be rather shocking if we don’t have a new American goal king sometime soon.