If anything is certain about Sounders FC 2’s second season in the USL, it is that there will be a bevy of new faces to get used to out on the pitch at Starfire.
Following Friday’s S2 roster announcement, only five names remain from the inaugural roster. Captain Amadou Sanyang, St. Vincent internationals Oalex Anderson and Myron Samuel, as well as 2015 MLS SuperDraft pick Tyler Miller, a goalkeeper, and midseason acquisition, Carlos Patino.
After the season which saw the Rave Green USL side make the playoffs only to be eliminated in the first round, four players (including both Anderson and Miller) will be brought into the First Team preseason camp, said Sounders FC General Manager and President of Soccer Garth Lagerwey at the Sounders’ Annual Business Meeting. Sérgio Mota and Ashani Fairclough also left enough of an impression with the Sounders FC bosses to get a call into camp.
“First and foremost we are always looking to develop First Team level players,” said S2 General Manager Andrew Opatkiewicz. “That means we need to continually get younger and better talent into the system. We had a lot of good players last year but we are always looking to get better.”
Even with the significantly thinned out lineup from the previous year, Opatkiewicz didn’t rule out the possibility of seeing a few other familiar faces in 2016.
According to the second-year GM, two defenders, Nick Miele and Aaron Long who each started 20 matches in 2015, have both been invited back to preseason.
“Miele and Long were both important players to our inaugural season and we are hoping they will rejoin us in the preseason,” said Opatkiewicz. “However, we are committing to very few players right now, so we can keep our options open, and look at as many new players as possible during the off-season and pre-season.”
The club has also seen a new emphasis on Academy development having announced two new youth partners in the offseason. So far, partnerships have been announced with a local youth club (Seattle United) and one in North Carolina (Twin City FC). Both partnerships include an ability for young players to be placed in the Sounders FC Academy and eventually called up to S2.
One Academy player to keep an eye out for in the USL ranks could be Nicholas Hinds, a Florida-native currently playing with the Sounders FC Academy U-18s. Hinds already logged 45 minutes as a defender with S2 during a 2-1 loss on the road to Real Monarchs in 2015. Hinds has cemented himself as a consistent fixture with the U.S. U-20s Men’s National Team and could be one of a new crop of young players to make their way up the Sounders ranks.
In concert with Lagerwey’s commitment to make the Rave Green “Faster and Younger” as a team, S2 seems to be looking to do just that. With the first set of open tryouts quickly approaching, the new squad could start to take shape sooner rather than later.
