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Aron Wright - June 21, 2018
Seattle Sounders vs Chicago Fire
MLS
Date: Sunday, 24 June 2018
Kick-Off at 03:00 UK / 04:00 CET
Venue: CenturyLink Field, Seattle, Washington.
The Sounders will hardly repeat successes form past two seasons when they featured consecutive MLS Cup finals. They are struggling badly in this term of the Major League Soccer having clinched no more than 11 points from the opening 13 games of the season.
There is still plenty of time for the hosts to catch up with the rest of the league given they are just six points short of the play-off spot on the West.
Nevertheless, the most recent spell of form is not suggesting a rebound victory for them on Saturday afternoon when their CenturyLink Field plays host to in-form Chicago Fire in one of the most interesting ties of the weekend Matchday.
The form might be speaking in Chicago’s favour, but the head to head stats are entirely on Seattle’s side.
The Sounders have been almost impeccable in the history of clashes with the Men in red in front of the home crowd, winning six and drawing one of seven affairs at CenturyLink Field.
Overall, Seattle won nine, drew three and lost only two of 14 encounters with Chicago Fire.
Past term’s meeting, however, saw Chicago clinch a demolishing 4-1 victory in May last year at Toyota Park.
Men in Red come into this unbeaten in five subsequent outings across competitions, including mid-week 0-1 upset away at Atlanta United in the US Open Cup. Veljko Paunovic finally has reasons to be satisfied with his side’s defensive performance after Chicago kept their net untouched in the mentioned success.
It was the clash which saw the end to the BTTS trend which was present in four consecutive games Men in Red played. Even though they have a horrendous record in H2H games with Seattle at CenturyLink Field, we have to recognize the value in backing the visitors not to lose at the sky-high 2.50 odds.
Seattle have been struggling to cerate up front ever since the start of the season as they’ve bagged no more than 10 goals in 13 games, by far the weakest record in the entire league. Since Chicago’s back-line showed signs of improvements against the likes of Atlanta United on Wednesday evening, we will alternatively back the hosts to net less than two goals in the game at the odds of 2.00.
