TUKWILA, Wash. — Despite a bit of a scare earlier this week, the Seattle Sounders should be looking quite a bit healthier for their game against Chivas USA on Sunday (11 pm ET; Univision Deportes).
Obafemi Martins, who has been somewhat limited in training this week after clashing knees with teammate Mauro Rosales on Tuesday, appears to be ready to go. Brad Evans, Djimi Traoré and Andy Rose – all of whom have been limited by injury recently – were also full participants in training.
“Oba was good,” Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid said about Martins’ health. “He did the beginning part of practice. When he came out, I pulled him out. I told him I just wanted him to go through half of the 11-v-11 and he did that. He was fine. We’ll see how he is now, but he said he felt fine once he got going.”
In a somewhat surprising development, Schmid also sounded optimistic about the progress of injured goalkeeper Michael Gspurning. The Austrian has not played since coming out at halftime of the match against the San Jose Earthquakes on July 13 with a forearm strain. Until earlier this week, he had not been able to train at all while he was wearing a brace.
But the brace was removed on Wednesday and he seemed to be ready for everything in training short of jumping into the full-sided scrimmage.
“We’ll see how it is,” Schmid said when asked about a timeframe for Gspurning’s return. “If it improves tremendously between today and tomorrow, maybe Gspurning could be on the bench [against Chivas USA]. We have to see about next week. It’s just week-to-week.”
Schmid added that Steve Zakuani is still at least two to three weeks away from returning from his sports hernia operation, which would still be in line with the two-month predicted recovery time.
