In the aftermath of the gritty 1-1 draw between the Seattle Sounders and Atlanta United on Sunday, both fanbases – loud, proud and large in number – have taken to the interwebs to chirp back and forth.
On Tuesday afternoon, Head Coach Brian Schmetzer offered his thoughts on the ongoing conversation.
“They paid the ticket price, they can say what they want," Schmetzer said. "[On] Twitter you can hide behind things a lot easier than face-to-face. What I would say is that [Atlanta United] are a good franchise. They have done a lot of good things. They should be happy to cheer their team on. Throwing shade on opponents, that’s where you can, sometimes, cross a line. I don’t think anything was [malicious].”
He went on to add commentary on the comparisons between the two organizations.
“There’s good competition between the two franchises. They obviously think they’ve gotten the better of us, but look – we won an Open Cup trophy our first year in existence. We actually won some trophies in our first year, they did not.”
The Sounders return to action against Vancouver Whitecaps FC on Saturday at CenturyLink Field (1 p.m. PT; JOEtv, YouTube TV, Univision-Seattle, 950 KJR AM, El Rey 1360 AM | TICKETS).
