TUKWILA, Wash. – The cavalry has finally arrived for the Seattle Sounders. The only question is whether it’s here in time.
After a rough summer that saw the team endure a stretch in which they lost nine times in 11 matches, the Sounders sit at sixth place in the Western Conference and find themselves fighting for a playoff spot.
It’s unfamiliar territory at this point in the season for a team that is used to thinking of the playoffs as a foregone conclusion.
“I was sitting on my couch watching a movie last night, trying to disconnect a little bit and it was impossible,” captain Brad Evans said after Seattle’s 2-1 victory over the Portland Timbers on Aug. 30. “I kept checking results and it was like, ‘Oh s---, we haven’t been in this position before. I haven’t been in this position before.’”
The caveat attached to that rough summer is simple: The Sounders didn’t field anything close to resembling a full-strength squad for any of it.
Star striker and last year’s MLS MVP runner-up Obafemi Martins missed nine games with a groin injury. Clint Dempsey was tagged with a three-game suspension for tearing up a referee’s notebook in US Open Cup play in June and has hardly been seen since between a lengthy absence to play for the US national team and a hamstring injury.
Evans, Osvaldo Alonso and Marco Pappa have also missed extensive time due to a combination of international duty, injury and a suspension. The result was a disastrous stretch of goalscoring futility in which the Sounders struggled to generate any kind of offensive traction.
“The difficulty is you’re trying to integrate new players,” Seattle head coach Sigi Schmid said. “You’re trying to get them fit but you’ve also got to throw them into games sometimes maybe before they’re entirely ready.”
But now, as the Sounders gear up to host Toronto FC on Saturday at CenturyLink Field (10 pm ET, MLS LIVE in US, TSN2 in Canada), the long-awaited full-strength side tasked with saving their season could finally begin to take shape.
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Dempsey and Martins may finally be simultaneously healthy and have a chance to play with international newcomers Nelson Valdez, Roman Torres, Andreas Ivanschitz and Erik Friberg in time for the make-or-break stretch run.
“I don’t know yet but this could be the first week we have almost all the options to choose from,” Schmid told reporters on Monday.
Having all your options is one matter. Figuring out how the crop of new faces will gel with their teammates is a separate challenge altogether.
“When everybody’s healthy, I think this team is top-to-bottom better than anybody else’s roster,” Evans said. “If we can get healthy and clicking in time, we can make a very good run at this. I think that’s still the focus. Once we get everyone healthy, then it’s about figuring out the puzzle pieces and where they fit.”
