Rooney hat trick lead Man U to 7-0 rout of Seattle

The final 45 minutes became a display of United’s talent in what became a glorified scrimmage and not the competitive first half where Seattle very easily could have found itself ahead. It helped the likes of Rooney, Ji-Sung Park and Mame Biram Diouf were coming off the United bench to run roughshod over the Sounders, leaving Schmid to proclaim the six-goal eruption his “most embarrassing loss personally.’’

Rooney’s hat trick with goals in the 51st, 69th and 72nd minutes was accompanied by goals from Park, Diouf and Gabriel Obertan.

“I need to apologize to our fans because i thought we embarrassed ourselves in the second half, not to take anything away from Man United because I think they are a great team and they scored some great goals and the movement was superb,’’ Schmid said. “But we wanted to reward all of our guys on the team, we wanted to play everybody and in retrospect that was a mistake.’’

The match in Seattle was the second stop on United’s preseason tour of the United States. They’ll go to Chicago for a match with the Fire on Saturday, then face the MLS All-Stars at Red Bull Arena next Wednesday. Man U will close out its tour with a Champions League final rematch against FC Barcelona.

But it’ll be hard to top the scoring outburst in Seattle.

It started with Owen sliding a header past Keller in the 15th minute after Seattle controlled the opening moments of the match. Owen’s finish in the 15th minute was as stunning as the cross that came off the foot of defender Patrice Evra. Making an overlapping run on the wing, Evra edged ahead of Seattle defender James Riley, who appeared to shove Evra inside the penalty box. Before he fell to the turf, Evra managed to send a left-footed cross to a waiting Owen and headed it past a stunned Keller.

While Keller was beat in that moment, he got the better of Owen late in the first half, making a save that showed the 41-year-old still had plenty left. Owen slipped through an offside trap and moved in alone on Keller, but his shot from about seven yards out was pushed aside by the Seattle veteran.