TUKWILA, Wash. – In the very near future, Sounders fans will get a chance to see the other half of Seattle’s original strike partnership. After Tuesday’s training session, striker Nate Jaqua indicated that he hopes he will be ready for his first action in 2011 after recovering from offseason hip surgery.
“I’m hoping to be available for Friday,” Jaqua said. “After the [New York] game, we talked about it a little bit. It’s just up to the coaching staff now and how I do this week, but I’d like to be available.”
With Blaise Nkufo’s abrupt departure, Jaqua joins O'Brian White as the primary options alongside Fredy Montero. While it would seem likely that Jaqua’s first action of the season will come off the bench, coach Sigi Schmid indicated he was taking a wait-and-see approach to Jaqua’s availability for Friday night’s game against the Houston Dynamo.
“A lot depends now on how he feels tomorrow after doing it today,” Schmid said Tuesday. “We’ll see. Obviously guys that are healthy, we are going to consider for either the starting 11 or the 18.”
At 6-foot-3, Jaqua certainly has the frame to be a target striker. He also has the pedigree – his father, Jon, was a safety for the Washington Redskins. (The son might have followed in his dad's pigskin footsteps had mom – seeing the physical toll football took on Jon – had not steered him toward soccer.)
As it happens, Jaqua hasn’t been immune to injuries on the pitch, either.
After a solid 2009 campaign, the veteran striker looks to rebound from a 2010 season that saw him start only three MLS contests. Jaqua made his most important contributions in the US Open Cup, where he scored five goals and was named the Player of the Tournament.
[inline_node:317436]Schmid indicated in his comments that perhaps Jaqua was asked to play too many minutes in 2010, which contributed to Jaqua’s injury.
“Last year, we probably pushed too many minutes on him right through our Open Cup streak,” Schmid said.
The lanky striker, who is known to be a team-first player, took cortisone shots to get through the pain of his hip condition in 2010. Primarily used as a sub for the latter half of that season, Jaqua made 15 appearances in league matches, including 12 off the bench.
Jaqua said that while he’s not 100 percent pain-free, his recovery is on track after his offseason surgery.
“My target date was the first game of the year, but I think that was very optimistic,” Jaqua said. “This is very realistic. I don’t think I’m behind.”
An All-Star in 2006 with Chicago, Jaqua notched career highs in 2009 with nine goals and seven assists while playing 28 games. During that ‘09 season, Seattle tried a number of tactics, including moving Jaqua back to right midfield to help cover the team’s defensive duties.
Now in 2011, with Nkufo come and gone, Jaqua and White look to be the two primary options to play alongside Montero in the standard two-striker formation.
“He’s a guy that we feel is a good compliment to what Fredy Montero brings,” Schmid said. “He’s a guy who can get on the end of crosses and bring a little bit of that size element to us up front.”
