Player Profile: Servando Carrasco

Two years into his professional career, Servando Carrasco is still best known for something that has nothing to do with his playing ability. That shouldn't overshadow the fact that he continues to show signs of being a very useful MLS player. It's probably too early to proclaim him obvious starting XI quality, but he would be right at home on any roster in the league. I'm not going to say that he's going to make anyone forget about Osvaldo Alonso if he were to ever leave, but we can at least have some level of assurance that he wouldn't be out of his depth if he was thrusted into a starting role.

You could be excused for looking at Carrasco's diminished playing time and conclude that he took a step back this year. But his diminished playing time had more to do with Alonso playing more of the available non-MLS minutes and the Sounders finding a more natural pairing to play alongside him. Carrasco looked like a more refined player this year, losing his recklessness and actually completing a team-high 83 percent of his passes in MLS competition. He also was the Reserve League captain and was the only player to start all 10 games.

Skills on offense: No one is going to mistake Carrasco for an offensive-minded player, his best contributions will come from behind midfield as a trigger for the counter-attack.

Skills on defense: A fearless tackler, he's like a less-refined mini-Osvaldo Alonso. To his credit, he reined in his more reckless tendencies that got him into trouble last year.

Best Case 2013: This seemed like a year that he could potentially break out, but he instead found himself playing fewer minutes. He's proven that he's a MLS caliber-player, but as long as Alonso is here the best-case scenario probably involves him establishing himself as a late defensive sub and starting more of the non-league games.