The Seattle Sounders must wait for the availability of their newest player and several others, but their increasingly busy schedule won’t.
Seattle on Tuesday announced the signing of 31-year-old Austrian midfielder Andreas Ivanschitz. However, he isn’t expected to arrive in the United States until late in the week, and it will take him a while even after that to become game ready.
That means he won’t be available Wednesday when the Sounders begin CONCACAF Champions League group play at Vancouver.
“He hasn’t played a match … I think in six to eight weeks,” general manager Garth Lagerwey said. “So I think it’s unreasonable to think he’ll play right away. That’s why I’m careful to say he’ll be competing for starting minutes. But we haven’t had the production we need from midfield, and I think he’s going to really help us.”
Ivanschitz spent his 15 professional seasons in the top leagues of Europe, including the last six in Spain’s La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga. He also has 69 appearances with the Austrian national team. He has 62 goals over 380 professional appearances, and has a reputation as a set-piece specialist.
The Sounders have been interested in him since at least 2013. Terms of the deal were not announced, but he was not signed as a designated player, nor was MLS’ new targeted allocation money involved.
“Andreas is a guy with great experience,” Seattle sporting director Chris Henderson said. “He was a player for his national team. … He’s played at a high level. We’ve been following him for a long time. He’s good on the ball. Good service. He can move with and without the ball. I think he’s going to fit in well — great character, great professional.”
Even after the signing, the club has a roster spot available and was said to be working on another signing before the summer transfer window closes Thursday.
“I’d still ideally like to sign an attacking player,” Lagerwey said. “We’ve had a dearth of chances, we’ve had a dearth of goals. So those are the two things that we’re trying to tackle. Whether that proves possible or not, we’ll see.”
The Sounders are in a nosedive of seven losses over their last eight MLS matches, scoring just two goals along the way.
They will return to league play Sunday at Los Angeles, but before that there is the first of a four-game group stage in CCL. First up are the Whitecaps, who defeated the Sounders, 3-0, Saturday at CenturyLink Field.
“We just need to focus on the present,” midfielder Gonzalo Pineda said. “In the present we have a game (Wednesday) in the Champions League. We will try to win that game. And then the coach decides how he can rotate the team. And then on Thursday the focus will just be the team we need to face on Sunday.”
The Sounders will be without midfielder Osvaldo Alonso, who suffered a hamstring injury on Saturday and whose status Schmid listed as “week to week.” Seattle also once again will be without forward Obafemi Martins (leg) and midfielder Marco Pappa, who is still fulfilling the league’s substance abuse program.
Meanwhile, forward Clint Dempsey is among those who played long in the weekend match and might be among those rested at midweek.
“We’ve got to play better than we played on Saturday,” Schmid said. “Obviously we gave up (all three) goals on set pieces. We’ve got to eliminate that for sure. … We need to be more dangerous up front and do a better job of that. But overall we need to play a better game. This is an away game in CONCACAF. What you want to do in Champions League is win your home games and try to get a result away from home, so we’re trying to get a result.”
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