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Two matches into Brian Schmetzer’s tenure as the interim head coach have not changed the depth chart and starting XI much. The biggest addition is Nicolas Lodeiro, who has been one of the wide players, mostly, in the band of three in a 4-2-3-1. No one has played a dramatically different than expected role, especially with a minor injury to Erik Friberg creating opportunity for Cristian Roldan.
Aaron Kovar will be out a while. A broken clavicle takes a while to heal, but isn’t something that should effect him long term. However, at this time he drops to the bottom of the forward and winger depth. Roman Torres is also at the bottom of the depth for centerbacks, but that could change any day now.
Looking forward to 2017 the need for strong performance from an attack minded winger will be needed. The fullback situation is unsettled and the depth in the central midfield, outside of Roldan, is aging. Centerback looks to be fine, even if Torres isn’t what he was. Three of Marshall, Evans, Lowe, Ockford and Alfaro should be able to perform at a playoff level or better.
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Think of the top section as a 1st team, 2nd team and in a few places 3rd team situation. The Depth by Role area shows the relative ranking displayed by team usage so far as well as the SaH staff view on the quality of that player when compared to the league.
#TheFuture is pretty bright
Players like Zach Mathers, Mark O’Ojong, Jordan Schweitzer and Michael Nelson have all at times displayed skills that are on par with MLS talent. O’Ojong is merely 19 so he probably stays with the USL squad next year to gain more game experience, but he’s one to track.
Mathers got the short-term call-ups for the Open Cup and looks the most likely of S2’s players to make MLS a permanent home in 2017. Both Nelson and Schweitzer should get the opportunity to prove themselves in training camp.
Others could still break out as well. Still, if S2 is producing a couple players a year they are doing their job, particularly if those players are under-20s or only a year out of college.
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*all positions for Academy and alumni are quite rough and subject to change with new seasons.
At the Academy and alumni level things are quite bright. Not only are two players short-listed for the Hermann, two others made names for themselves at the Youdan Cup.
Several of the U18s gained experience with Sounders 2 while their seasons overlapped.
- Tomozawa with 50 minutes in 5 substitute appearances
- Jnohope with 437 minutes in 5 starts and 1 sub appearance
- Kurtz with 90 minutes in a start and 4 sub appearances
- Hinds with 252 minutes in 3 starts and 4 sub appearances
- Ramos with 345 minutes in 3 starts and 10 sub appearances. He scored a goal.
- Bwana with 158 minutes in 1 start and 4 sub appearances.
- Magnus with 121 minutes in 1 start and 3 sub appearances.
A handful of players are getting called to youth national teams as well. With players scattered around the country the easiest way to follow the Academy alumni will be to watch Seattle U, UW and Denver. Each of those programs has at least two alumni at them.