SEATTLE – One day after bringing on Nicolas Lodeiro to help shape the club’s future, the Seattle Sounders have reached into the past to add another World Cup veteran to the locker room for a potential playoff push.
Uruguayan international and former Rave Green midfielder Álvaro Fernández re-signed with the club on Thursday afternoon. Fernández was a key cog for the club from 2010-12.
“It’s always great to bring back members of the Sounders family, and Alvaro is a player who knows the organization very well and can instantly come in and contribute to this team,” said Sounders FC General Manager & President of Soccer Garth Lagerwey. “Paired with yesterday’s signing of Nicolás Lodeiro, we think we’ve added two players who immediately make our team better on the field.”
Originally signed just days after Uruguay finished fourth in the 2010 World Cup, Fernández joined the Sounders as the third Designated Player in franchise history in July 2010. He scored 13 goals and added three assists in 55 MLS appearances with the Sounders and helped the club win U.S. Open Cup titles in 2010 and 2011 before he was traded to the Chicago Fire in July 2012.
“We’ve very excited to welcome a very good player like Alvaro back into the fold after a few years abroad,” said Sounders FC Sporting Director Chris Henderson. “He was a valuable asset to our team when he was in Seattle a few years ago, and we’re looking forward to the contributions he can make to our current squad.”
Fernández didn’t stay long in Chicago and bounced from Qatari club Al-Rayyan SC to Nacional to Argentine side Gimnasia before signing with the Sounders this week.
Fernández, 30, also brings the benefit of a close friendship with Lodeiro, the 27-year old midfielder who inked a multi-year Designated Player contract on Wednesday. Fernández and Lodeiro played together at Uruguayan club Nactional in 2009 and later with the Uruguayan national team at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and Lodeiro said this week Fernández spoke well of the club and encouraged him to make the move to MLS.
“We are good friends," Lodeiro said of Fernández. "We played together with Nacional in Uruguay and after then we played in the World Cup together. We had a lot of time with the national team, and that where's the friendship - which is fairly big - came from."
