Sounders FC rallies to 2-1 victory over Houston

The Houston Dynamo traded defender Patrick Ianni to Sounders FC before this season, probably never imagining that he would be the guy to beat the Texas club.

Ianni, with only one previous goal in his four-year Major League Soccer career, did just that, driving a bicycle kick into the far corner of the net in the 46th minute to break a tie and give the Rave Green a 2-1 victory over the Dynamo at Qwest Field on Saturday afternoon.

Ianni didn't know he had scored right away. He collected a loose ball off the head of teammate Jhon Kennedy Hurtado to the left of Houston goalkeeper Pat Onstad and just wanted to hit the ball.

"I didn't hear any reaction. I was 4 yards out and I thought I'd hear something a lot quicker than I did," said Ianni, who admitted he hadn't scored with a bicycle kick since he was 6 years old. "Fredy Montero [teammate] shook me kind of as if I'd fallen asleep ... I had no clue."

About 48 minutes later, when the final whistle blew, Ianni's goal made a winner of assistant coach Brian Schmetzer, who was coaching the team in place of Sigi Schmid. Schmid was attending his son's wedding, but got text-message updates throughout the afternoon.

Schmetzer was asked how rare bicycle-kick goals are in pro soccer.

"Very rare, especially from Pat Ianni," Schmetzer said. "If you would have told me before the game that we would have won the game on a bicycle kick and pick one of my players that was actually going to score the bicycle kick, Pat would have been like number nine."

Seattle won for the sixth time at Qwest and improved to 7-3-7 overall, moving three points behind the first-place Dynamo in the Western Conference.

Sounders FC rallied for the victory, entering the game winless in seven matches when allowing the opponent to score first. Montero's goal in the 31st minute tied the score at 1.

Passes from Stephen King and Nate Jaqua got the ball to Montero in the goal area. Montero controlled Jaqua's long ball with his shoulder, then his chest, and got off a shot on the run with his left foot. The referee ruled that the ball crossed the goal line, even though Dynamo defender Mike Chabala appeared to be very close to clearing the ball as it reached the line.

The goal was Montero's team-leading ninth goal of the season. Jaqua was credited with his sixth assist of 2009.

Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear protested vehemently from the sideline, but the goal stood.

"The play was really fast. My reaction was to raise my arm and go celebrate," Montero said. "In my mind, it was a goal. You always want to score and when it happens so fast, it's my building and I'm going to celebrate a goal."

Kinnear's club was playing its fifth match in 14 days, and Schmetzer felt the Dynamo looked fatigued in the second half. Not so in the first.

The Dynamo (9-4-4) scored first and made it look easy. Playing without seven starters and key players because of injury, national team call-ups and yellow-card accumulations, Houston scored in the 12th minute.

Midfielder Brian Mullan slid a pass to the middle for Brad Davis, who was in wide space 16 yards in front of the goal. Davis controlled and, with no one around him, fired point blank and put the ball past Sounders FC goalkeeper Kasey Keller.

SOUNDERS FC 2, DYNAMO 1

Houston	1 0 — 1
Seattle FC	1 1 — 2

First half — 1, Houston, Davis 3 (Mullan, Oduro), 12th minute. 2, Seattle FC, Montero 9 (Jaqua, King), 32nd. Second half — 3, Seattle FC, Ianni 1 (Zakuani, Ljungberg), 46th. Goalies — Houston, Pat Onstad; Seattle FC, Kasey Keller. Total shots — Houston 10, Seattle 9. Shots on goal — Houston 3, Seattle 6. Fouls — Houston 11, Seattle 14. Offsides — Houston 1, Seattle 3. Corner kicks — Houston 5, Seattle 5. Saves — Houston 4, Seattle 2. Yellow cards — Hurtado, Seattle FC, 43rd; Vagenas, Seattle FC, 64th; Wahl, Seattle FC, 66th; Waibel, Houston, 71st; Kamara, Houston, 90th. T — 1:53. A — 32,404.

LINEUPS

Houston — Pat Onstad, Craig Waibel, Brian Mullan (Danny Cruz, 54th), Brad Davis, Ricardo Clark, Richard Mulrooney, Kei Kamara, Dominic Oduro (Ade Akinbiyi, 62nd), Mike Chabala (Erik Ustruck, 60th), Corey Ashe, Julius James.

Seattle FC — Kasey Keller, James Riley, Patrick Ianni, Tyson Wahl, Steve Zakuani (Sebastien Le Toux, 56th), Fredy Montero, Stephen King, Nate Jaqua, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Peter Vagenas, Fredrik Ljungberg (Roger Levesque, 91st+).