Standing under the crisp January sun in the Arizona desert, Gustav Svensson was recently asked at Sounders preseason camp a to-the-point question about his style of play. Given that most Sounders fans have likely never seen the Swede play, his answer was of particular interest.
The first adjective out of his mouth was instructive.
“Hard-working.”
He should fit in just fine.
Svensson represents the Sounders’ latest foray into the global transfer market, a deal officially announced by the club on Monday. Svensson was entering his second season with Guangzhou R&F in the Chinese Super League in 2017 when the league’s rules shifted underfoot. The CSL’s roster allotments for foreign players shrunk this offseason, and the Sounders were quick to scoop up Svensson in the aftermath.
Sounders General Manager and President of Soccer Garth Lagerwey has proven himself to be, among other things, an opportunist on the transfer market, and Svensson is perhaps the greatest monument to the fact. Given the additional note that Svensson’s had time on the field with the Swedish national team as recently as January 2016, the swoop for the 29-year-old should pay immediate dividends.
But let’s go back to how Svensson self-defined himself in that interview early this week with Sounders broadcaster Keith Costigan. Here’s his full reckoning.
“I’m a hard-working, just good tactical defensive midfielder,” Svensson said. “I love to play the ball, have good possession, just to work hard and make my players better. That’s basically what I do.”
If that’s indeed what he ultimately provides, Svensson should find his way into the lineup at some juncture. Seattle entered the offseason with a need in the central midfield, an area where a relative stockpile is necessary in a 4-2-3-1. Head coach Brian Schmetzer’s preferred formation is hard on deep-lying central midfielders in the sense that you need two on the field dedicated to the position at all times. That puts a strain on depth and necessitates a strong dose of bodies in the middle.
The Sounders attempted to address the dearth through the draft, when they snapped up international Dominic Oduro and added Bakie Goodman as well. But Oduro is still young in addition to being something of an unknown, and Goodman is more in the Cristian Roldan mold than in the stuck-in defensive midfielder type of an Osvaldo Alonso. And if Brad Evans is indeed needed at right back, the Sounders severely lacked depth in the defensive midfield entering camp.
Svensson addresses the most pressing of those needs.
Svensson isn’t a like-for-like swap with a recently departed countryman of his, but he does more or less take his spot on the depth chart for the foreseeable future. For the last year and a half, Erik Friberg provided cover in the middle as a more adventurous version of Alonso. Where the Cuban is content to sit deep and pile up match-leading passing numbers while smashing attacks, Friberg was more comfortable diving into space to jar the opposition midfield.
Friberg, though, was a possession sponge at heart, and while he took more chances than either Alonso or Roldan, he too wanted to build attacks along the ground. In that way, Svensson should fit right in.
In 2016, the Sounders attempted the second-most short passes in MLS, and Svensson describes himself as a player who prefers to keep it along the ground. Still, he’ll have a difficult time cracking the central midfield duo of Roldan and Alonso who just led the Sounders to an MLS Cup, and barring an injury or some unforeseen turn of events, it’s likely he’ll start the season as a third option behind those two.
But there are other benefits, even if Svensson’s immediate value isn’t necessary in starting games. He’ll instantaneously provide competition for the incumbent starters in practice, which should push the entire central midfield core, including the rookies, into more heated competitive battles for playing time. Elite coaches the world over rave about these sorts of intense training atmospheres providing the refining fire for winning sides on match day. Svensson brings that sort of intensity from the jump.
And lest we forget, recently announced Sounders assistant coach Gonzalo Pineda was himself once a midfield partner to Alonso. If any group on the field will benefit from Pineda’s addition, it’s Svensson’s.
MLS is ultimately about smart depth at key positions. The salary cap puts a limit on the amount of depth teams can horde, and allocating it to the right places is key to surviving a grueling 10-month grinder of a season. At least in Seattle’s current system, Svensson was smart money directed into the right channels. Considering Friberg got nearly 1,600 minutes in 2016 in a similar role, expect to see plenty of Svensson in 2017.
