After a short week of training at Starfire Sports, Sounders FC will depart on its first preseason trip of the season on Wednesday with Southern California the destination.
The goal of this initial sojourn is to get the players back in soccer shape before for the lengthy regular season.
“In California, the main thing is to get our fitness base done,” said Head Coach Sigi Schmid of his goals in the Golden State. “The weather here has been great. If we knew that was going to be the case, we wouldn’t need to go, but we’re just assuring ourselves of a bit warmer weather. It’s easier to get some of that fitness work done there. We can test people a little further and finalize our roster, but the main thing is to really build our fitness base with the core group of players that we have.”
While down there, the club will play two friendlies against familiar opponents. First on February 4, the Sounders will take on the college team Schmid coached for nearly 20 years in the 80s and 90s, UCLA. Following that, Seattle will take on the 2014 MLS Champion LA Galaxy on February 6.
For these matches, it’s all about evaluating the talent available at this early stage in the process.
“Just to get guys some time on the field,” said Schmid on the purpose of the friendlies. “Nobody will probably play more than 45 minutes, so we’ll play two groups. In the first game we’ll play two groups, and the second game as well. It’s sort of the end of their fitness, but it also gives us a chance to see how they look. We can try out some different groupings, some different combinations. So all of that is helpful. UCLA is different because they’re a college team in offseason training, but the Galaxy will be at the same stage we’re at.”
With forward Clint Dempsey away with the U.S. National Team, Schmid will have the chance to experiment with his attacking formation, in addition to the reshuffle on the back line.
“We got Tyrone Mears here,” Schmid said of his biggest defensive addition. “We’ll see how that fits in, with him coming in at right back, and seeing how that group works together. We had different looks in the midfield last year at times with [Lamar] Neagle, [Marco] Pappa, Andy Rose and [Gonzalo] Pineda. How does that all fit together? We won’t have Clint down in LA, so we’ll look a little bit different up front as well.”
It won’t stop there, though, as once the team returns from California, there will be a week of training in Seattle heading to Tucson, Arizona for a third consecutive year.
Before that’s all said and done, Sounders FC General Manager & President of Soccer Garth Lagerwey expects more movement on the player front as the club nears the season opener on March 8.
“We’re always looking at players, and we’ll continue to look at players,” said Lagerwey. “The Sounders have had a pretty good track record of signing at least one guy out of preseason. We have four or five weeks to go through this.”
