The Seattle Sounders traveled to Arizona on Thursday to continue their preseason training and worked out for the first time there on Friday, with roughly 40 players currently in camp.
It’s been an active offseason for the club with a slew of new additions to the fold, but head coach Sigi Schmid said he’s been impressed so far with how the group has melded together.
“From the understanding of the new guys learning from each other, I think that’s been very good and the cohesion is good as well,” said Schmid. “When you’re going to be together for 10 days in desert, you gotta learn how to get along with each other.”
Schmid also praised the quick acclimation of the team’s recent additions – most notably left back Joevin Jones from the Chicago Fire and midfielder Michael Farfan from D.C. United – and said the group is already in better shape this winter than they were at this point last year.
The Sounders will open the year slightly earlier than usual in 2016 – the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals open on Feb. 23, cutting nearly two weeks off the length of a typical preseason – but Schmid said he feels good about the team’s fitness and health.
“The guys did a good job of making sure they came in at a good fitness level and I would say right now we’re about 4-5 days ahead of where we were last year,” Schmid said. “We can start working a little more functionally and tactically already, which we were hoping our fitness level would allow us to do.”
Schmid said the majority of the team is healthy – Damion Lowe and Ashani Fairclough are battling minor injuries – and he feels confident with how the team is coming together.
“It’s great when you see at the end of practice, Obafemi Martins and Aaron Kovar talking about skills, like ‘how do I collect this ball; how do I turn here,’” Schmid said. “You see a great combination between Joevin and Clint Dempsey for a goal and they’re understanding immediately that recognition of, ‘hey I know I can get the ball to him.’”
Ivanschitz Puzzled by Preseason
The Sounders are set to play both Vancouver Whitecaps FC and the Portland Timbers in their first two matches of the preseason next week. These opponents are all too familiar for Sounder veterans, but for midfielder Andreas Ivanschitz, facing top rivals in preseason is a new experience.
“I never had it like this,” Ivanschitz said. “All the teams are together, training next door. That’s new for me, but I think it is interesting to play in preseason games against strong opponents and rivals as well.”
As a summer acquisition for the Sounders, this will be the first preseason for Ivanschitz in the Rave Green, and he’s been entertaining his teammates with his observations of the oddities of the MLS preseason.
“It’s funny talking to Nelson [Valdez] and Andreas, coming from Europe, they’re baffled by us playing against not only teams from our league but actually our rivals,” goalkeeper Stefan Frei said. “In Germany if they had a locker room next to Dortmund or Bayern, they’d probably kill each other.”
