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Some reinforcement have arrived ahead of the Seattle Sounders’ visit to Atlanta United on Sunday, but they’ll still be a bit short of a full squad.
While Raúl Ruidíaz has officially cleared all the necessary legal hurdles, Gustav Svensson has rejoined the team from the World Cup and Kelvin Leerdam appears to be back from injury, it was also revealed that Clint Dempsey and Román Torres were left in Seattle to recover from injuries.
Neither Clint Dempsey (sore groin) nor Roman Torres (ankle sprain) travelled to Atlanta ahead of tomorrow's nationally televised #ATLvSEA showdown
— Matt Pentz (@mattpentz) July 14, 2018
Dempsey’s absence is a bit more of a surprise, but he was also a bit of a nonfactor in each of the Sounders’ past two road results when he came off the bench. In his place, the Sounders have started Nicolas Lodeiro in the No. 10 spot and turned in arguably their best defensive performance of the season in last Saturday’s match against the New England Revolution.
Even without Dempsey and Torres, it seems reasonably to argue that personnel-wise the Sounders are in a better situation than they’ve been for a couple months at least and possibly since the start of the regular season.
Injury Report per gamenotes
OUT
Bwana - R midfoot sprain
Morris - R ACL tear
QUESTIONABLE
Leerdam - R hamstring strain
Torres - L ankle sprain