There isn’t a single club in the league that isn’t entering preseason camp with some sort of positional question lingering overhead.
The Sounders might be defending MLS Cup champs, but they’re certainly not exempt.
An offseason of numerically minor but positionally significant change gently shook a lineup that, while largely unchanged from 2016, will feature some new faces in the starting XI. The challenge for Seattle coach Brian Schmetzer and his staff will be using the preseason to fit those faces into adequate positions, not only for their skill sets but for the holistic chemistry of the lineup.
Here’s a look at three positions in particular the coaching staff will be watching this preseason. Each features heated competition and unresolved starting spots. And even after Schmetzer ultimately names a starter for the March 4 season opener, it’s a long season. Anything can happen.
Right back
The battle: Oniel Fisher vs. Brad Evans
The Sounders were blessed with fullback continuity in 2016. Left back Joevin Jones and right back Tyrone Mears combined to play about 5,300 minutes last season, nearly every minute of every possible game including the entirety of the playoffs. Jones is back, of course, but that’ll have to change in 2017. Tyrone Mears’ departure leaves a yawning chasm at right back where Fisher and Evans will probably compete in a relative vacuum for the No. 1 spot this preseason.
The two are vastly different players as fullbacks. Evans is obviously the steadier and more experienced of the two, and he’s been playing right back at the national team level exclusively for several years now, even if it’s been a rarer thing on the club level. On the surface, Evans certainly looks like the safer pick. But Fisher has an entrancing skill set far more closely aligned with what Mears gave the Sounders the last two years. Fisher is more of an attacking cyclone, which the Sounders need going forward with their narrowness higher upfield. An interesting third wheel in this equation could be recent Homegrown signing Henry Wingo from nearby University of Washington. Wingo is listed as a midfielder on the Sounders’ initial roster, but he’s an adaptable talent and could well be thrown into the fullback fray as well. Either way, preseason matches should be hugely significant at right back in particular.
Wide midfielder (right and left)
The battle: Harry Shipp vs. Aaron Kovar vs. Bakie Goodman vs. Alvaro Fernandez vs. Henry Wingo
In honesty, the four attacking positions in Schmetzer’s 4-2-3-1 are mostly a jumble of names and suitabilities at the moment. The coaching staff obviously has a handle on each player’s best position, but where do they slot in? Shipp can pretty much play any of the three positions on the highest midfield shelf. Fernandez can flip between flanks, but Kovar essentially needs to land on the right side. Goodman played the underclassman half of his career at Georgetown as a wide midfielder swapping between both flanks, and Wingo, while largely positioned on the right, could be malleable in that regard as well.
And that doesn’t include Clint Dempsey and Nicolas Lodeiro, ideal central presences who’ve started wide and pinched inside as recently as 2016. Long ago as it may seem, Dempsey actually started the 2016 season as a left winger in a 4-3-3 (it didn’t really work, for the record). In terms of who plays where, at least on paper you can throw these player tiles up in the air and guess at this point, because it’s not entirely clear. So in that sense all these players aren’t necessarily competing against each other. It’s more about making a statement about fit and chemistry as part of the whole. Ultimately, it’s about who jells with Lodeiro and Morris and Dempsey and the central defensive midfield and the overlapping fullbacks. If the Sounders can nail that down by March, they’ll be scary in the final third.
Forward
The battle: Jordan Morris vs. Clint Dempsey vs. Will Bruin vs. Seyi Adekoya vs. Victor Mansaray
Let’s acknowledge off the bat here that “battle” in the construct of the forward pool is perhaps a bit of a misnomer. Morris is the reigning MLS Rookie of the Year after putting in 14 goals in 2016, and he spent the vast majority of that time as the starting center forward. Even when Dempsey was healthy, Morris found his way up top with Dempsey arrayed behind in some combination with Lodeiro. So one has to assume - especially with the offseason departure of Nelson Valdez - that the job is Morris’ to lose entering the 2017 preseason. But to not acknowledge the talent around him at this position would be to dismiss a mighty interesting preseason battle for playing time among some exceedingly talented forwards.
Dempsey is technically listed as a forward, and since I think that’s his best position at this phase of his career - especially coming off a lengthy stint on the shelf for an irregular heartbeat that might’ve lessened his stamina somewhat - I’ve got him here. The reality is that you find a position for Dempsey if he’s healthy, and with Morris that probably means you scoot him back. But it’s still something to watch. Bruin, too, is an interesting piece. He’s been a no-doubt starter in Houston for a full half decade now, and he doesn’t have an obvious in to the XI here unless you move Morris into the midfield, which makes him a mite less goal dangerous. Adekoya and Mansaray are the outliers, and it’s hard to know quite what to expect from the two Homegrown signings. Both have the ability to play wide, but their best use - at UCLA in Adekoya’s case and S2 in Mansaray’s - was clearly as an athletic striker. We’ll see if they find a chance to edge into the conversation this preseason.
