SEATTLE — The Seattle Sounders play their first real game of 2016 Tuesday night when they host Mexico’s Club America in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions League.
However, the Sounders’ biggest ordeal of the preseason still hasn’t been resolved.
Seattle held its Media Day on Monday at CenturyLink Field in advance of the 2016 season, and the fate of star forward Obafemi Martins has yet to be determined.
Martins, Seattle’s Most Valuable Player each of the past two seasons, reportedly has signed a deal to play in China. However, Sounders general manager Garth Lagerwey reiterated Monday that no transfer deal has been finalized.
“Unfortunately, we still don’t have any news with respect to Obafemi Martins as that transaction is not formally legally concluded,” Lagerwey said. “We’re still hopeful and optimistic that it will, but unfortunately I don’t have any updates on that.”
Martins tallied 17 goals and 13 assists in 31 games in 2014, then added 15 goals and six assists last year.
The former Nigeria international seemed set to lead the line for the Sounders again this season. However, news broke last week that Martins was considering signing with Shanghai Greenland Shenhua of the Chinese Superior League. Then last Wednesday, Martins tweeted his goodbye to Seattle fans.
“At the end of the day everybody has a right to choose their own path in their career,” Clint Dempsey, Martins’ front-running partner with the Sounders, said. “I have a lot of respect for Oba, he’s come from being a little kid in Nigeria to playing for some of the best clubs in the world. He’s had a great career, so who am I to tell him anything? All I can say is that I enjoyed my time playing with him, and he’s one of my favorite teammates I got to play with.”
Martins’ departure from Seattle isn’t official, though the Sounders seem resigned to forging ahead without him.
“The timing is not ideal,” Lagerwey said. “I think that’s stating the obvious when you lose a player that’s had an impact on the club the last couple years a couple weeks before your season. That’s not how you’d choose to do it. But it is what it is. We have to adjust.”
Martins was one of Seattle’s three designated players — players who can be paid in excess of the salary cap — along with Dempsey and fellow forward Nelson Valdez. Therefore, his departure frees up a designated-player roster spot, allowing the Sounders to potentially add another high-impact player.
Lagerwey said he would fill Seattle’s vacant designated-player spot should the Martins deal go through. However, he said he had no timetable for making a move. All three of Seattle’s designated players are forwards, and Lagerwey expressed the desire to have more positional balance with his designated players. Lagerwey also said he would consider making midfielder Osvaldo Alonso, a former designated player, into a designated player again, thus giving the team added flexibility to work within the constraints of the salary cap. MLS teams must be salary-cap compliant by March 1.
“I just want to emphasize that we’re going to be cautious about this because we believe we have a good team, we believe we have a lot of good players,” Lagerwey said. “Might we look different from last year? Yeah. But can we be successful with the team we have? We believe we can, and we’ll certainly keep all our options open.”
Martins’ likely departure makes the January signing of forward Jordan Morris all the more important.
Morris is one of the great young hopes in U.S. soccer. The 22-year-old from Mercer Island is already a member of the national team, and he won the Herman Trophy as the best player in NCAA men’s soccer in 2015 as he led Stanford to the national championship. He decided to turn professional instead of returning to Stanford for his senior season, and after having a tryout with Werder Bremen in Germany, he decided to sign with the Sounders, who held his MLS rights as a homegrown player.
Morris likely will be thrown straight into the fray and asked to replace Martins’ production, rather than get a chance to ease himself into professional soccer. Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said he believes Morris is ready.
“I thought he was ready to play in the league a year ago and he made the decision to go back to university, which worked out well for him with an NCAA championship,” Schmid said. “What he is is a strong, powerful player. He’s got good speed, he’s the kind of guy who can stretch the opponent’s defense, he’s a handful because he he’s stocky and hard to get around at times, and he’s a good hard worker. I think he’s a very good addition to our team.”
And with Martins likely on his way out the door, a necessary one.
Spot kicks
New FieldTurf has been installed at CenturyLink Field, and it was met with approval from the players: “Night and day,” was Sounders captain Brad Evans’ evaluation. “It’s great. I think it actually plays really nice. With the turf before it was so matted down. It was definitely bouncy, and when it was wet, it didn’t play true. But this one, even though it was wet yesterday, it played pretty true. Today I haven’t heard any complaints. I think it’s definitely a lot softer than before, the joints are feeling better even after two days of being on it. So from that standpoint I’m very pleased with the turf.” … Seattle brought back a familiar face Monday when the team re-signed midfielder Nathan Sturgis. Sturgis, who spent last season with the Houston Dynamo, played for the Sounders from 2009-10.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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