In the 85th minute of last week’s match against D.C. United, Chad Barrett looked up at the video board and saw he was being substituted. He proceeded to sprint off the field faster than you will ever see another player run when being taken out, as the game was tied with Sounders FC up a man.
When he made it to the bench after a long sprint, Barrett smacked a water bottle onto the ground in frustration. He was surely upset about coming out of the match, but the bulk of his frustration rooted from his team failing to score since D.C. was reduced to 10 men in the first half.
Seattle would break the deadlock three minutes after that substitution, and Barrett celebrated emphatically, jumping up and down with his shirt off and hugging goal-scorer Tyrone Mears.
That sequence defines the unselfish mindset the 11-year pro brings to Sounders FC.
“You always want to put your best team out there,” Barrett said this week. “If I’m part of that best team, then that’s great. And if I’m not part of it, I’ll be ready to come off the bench like I always have.”
As a member of the defending Supporters’ Shield champions, Barrett knew it would be difficult to earn a starting spot on the team this season. When healthy and available, fellow strikers Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins are more than likely to be in Sigi Schmid’s lineup.
Barrett developed his selfness nature in Chicago, where he was mainly a reserve during his first two seasons in the league before enjoying a starting role for the majority of his MLS career.
“I was lucky to go to a team that had a lot of good leadership and a bunch of older players on it,” Barrett said. “I thought I was hot stuff coming in, and they really laid it out for me in terms of how to become a good professional and have a successful career. We had a good mixture of old and young, kind of like we do here in Seattle.”
Barrett could be counted on against his former team this weekend, when Dempsey and Martins will be unavailable for the fifth straight match. Dempsey is with the U.S. National Team at the CONCACAF Gold Cup, while Martins is recovering from an adductor strain.
Despite all the injuries and international call-ups Seattle has endured, the club remains atop the Western Conference standings with 15 games remaining. And according to Barrett, the Sounders see the next few matches as a chance to once again separate themselves from the rest of the pack.
“I like the fact that we’re in first in the Western Conference and just beat the best team in the league without a bunch of star players. I like all that stuff because we’re still not happy,” he said. “I’ve been in locker rooms where you’re sitting in last place and everybody accepts it. This just speaks volumes to the type of mindset that this team has developed. We were happy with that nine-point cushion, but now we’ve lost that cushion and made it harder on ourselves.”
Barrett and the Sounders will look to pick up their second straight victory on Saturday in Chicago. The match kicks off at 5:30 p.m. PT with local television coverage on JOEtv.
