Sounders top pick OK with his bench role

Steve Zakuani faced rejection and a career-threatening injury by the time he was 15, so don’t expect his current struggle to earn playing time to get him down.

Zakuani, who joined Seattle Sounders FC as the first overall pick in this year’s MLS SuperDraft, has shined when given opportunities to play, but Freddie Ljungberg’s return from injury made the 21-year-old forward/midfielder the odd man out in Seattle’s starting lineup.

Making his first start in Seattle’s second game, Zakuani set up a goal with the type of move that helped make him the No. 1 pick out of the University of Akron. A week later, Zakuani stayed in the starting lineup when Fredy Montero didn’t make the trip to Toronto, and scored his first professional goal. With Montero and Ljungberg both in the lineup, however, Zakuani has had to come off the bench in each of the past two games. He did play the entire second half last weekend in place of Sebastien Le Toux, however, so it is possible that move was sign of a change to come.

“We obviously made him the number one draft choice for a reason because we think he has ability,” said Sounders FC coach Sigi Schmid, who team hosts San Jose Saturday night. “So I think he’ll play a role on the game on Saturday, whether it’s coming off the bench or not is something that we’ll determine this week.”

Zakuani, like any athlete, would like to be in the starting lineup, but if he’s not, he’s happy to contribute off the bench once again.

“(Schmid) makes the decision for the team, and game by game it depends on what he needs for that game,” Zakuani said. “I’m ready to accept that. I’m just two months in as a pro and I’ve got a very long time. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to play, because every player wants to play, but at the same time, if I have to come off the bench every game, then I’m going to come on and do what I need to do.”

And for Zakuani, a battle for a starting job hardly qualifies as adversity. Zakuani, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, moved to soccer-crazed England when he was four, and like so many of his peers, fell in love with the game at a young age. He was good enough to eventually earn a spot on the youth team of Arsenal, one of the top clubs in the English Premier League.

At 15, however, it was time for Zakuani to either move up the Arsenal ladder, or be let go. The letter that arrived at his parents’ house five years ago informed him it would be the latter.

“The news came in a letter and a phone call to my parents saying that, as of next season, I wasn’t in their future plans,” he said. “It was very hard. Obviously growing up in London, football is the main sport and Arsenal is one of the biggest teams. To be there in the first place was incredible, so when that suddenly ended in that way, it was hard to take.”

That news caused the doubt to creep in. In England, you make it as a professional soccer player young, or you usually don’t make it at all, so Zakuani began to think his soccer dreams were over.

Then the accident happened.

Riding a moped in London later that same year, Zakuani got in an accident that cause not only an ACL tear — a devastating knee injury for any athlete — but also a severed nerve that threatened not only his playing career but his quality of life.

“I didn’t think I’d come back,” he said. “My doctor told me I just needed to hope to walk again.”

But eventually the feeling in his right foot came back, and so too, ever so slowly, did Zakuani’s passion for the game.

“It was a very bad injury, so it was kind of incredible when I started to play again slowly,” he said. “For the way things have come now, it’s just a miracle.”

After he had returned to the field, Zakuani was invited by a friend — a fellow Arsenal castoff — to play with his club. At one match, a scout from Akron happened to be there, which led to Zakuani coming to America.

Only two years into his college career, Zakuani was an All-American and the nation’s leading scorer.

“I’d never heard of Akron, I didn’t know what a scholarship was, I just took a chance and it worked out great,” he said. “Those two years I would never exchange them for anything. It really set me up for where I am today.”

Like any elite soccer talent, Zakuani would like to test his game in Europe some day, but for now, he is more than happy in his current stop on this strange soccer journey. It is, as he points out, a journey that almost ended five years ago.

“After Arsenal, the next two years before I came to college, I kind of gave up football,” he said. “I was going to get a degree, get a job somewhere. I gave up. It wasn’t until I went to Akron, and once I got there it kind of hit me again, ‘Hey, I might be able to play professionally.’… I’m glad with the way it’s worked out.”

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.