The Seattle Sounders enter the 2018 Major League Soccer season returning 10 of 11 starters from last year’s MLS Cup appearance, but the one man not coming back leaves a considerable statistical hole to fill.
Joevin Jones departed for SV Darmstadt in 2.Bundesliga at the end of the year and took his three goals and 19 assists at left fullback with him. The Sounders will likely slide second-year First Teamer Nouhou, who had a breakout season in 2017, into Jones’ role, but Seattle replenished its fullback depth when it acquired veteran Waylon Francis from Columbus.
“He’s technically clean,” Sounders Head Coach Brian Schmetzer said of Francis at the first day of 2018 training on Monday. “He’s good on the overlap, his timing is good there. He seems like a real nice kid, and he wants a new start. He’s anxious and eager to play.”
Schmetzer is also hopeful that Francis can push Nouhou and increase positional competition while also helping him further his development.
“Are the rosters deep enough to have true competition?” asked Schmetzer. “Is the team settled by the end of the year? I think that’s changing. I think our league is changing. We’re going to have better players, and we’re going to have competition.
“Nouhou is super talented,” Schmetzer continued, “but if you watch Waylon’s career and watch what he did in Columbus, he had a couple of really good years there. That’s going to be really interesting to watch.”
Francis, 27, spent the last four years with Crew SC, recording 18 regular-season assists and earning an All-Star nod in 2015. The Costa Rican international is an attacking menace on the flank in very much of the Jones mold and fits into the Sounders’ system nicely opposite 2017 summer signee Kelvin Leerdam.
General Manager & President of Soccer Garth Lagerwey first had Francis on his radar in 2012 when Lagerwey’s former team, Real Salt Lake, competed against Francis’ former Costa Rican side CS Herediano in CONCACAF Champions League. Lagerwey kept an eye on Francis, and when he became available and was not playing much under Crew SC Head Coach Gregg Berhalter, Lagerwey sought to bring Francis to Seattle.
“We plugged the numbers and he’s a guy who really compares favorably,” Lagerwey said. “He was a 2015 All-Star, has some of the attributes we look for in an attacking outside back. He can go both ways. He’s a guy in the prime of his career at 27 years old, so he really ticked all the boxes: character, age, experience, level of play. We’re excited about Waylon.”
Francis is just as happy to be in Seattle and wants to help the team return to its third consecutive MLS Cup.
“It’s important for me that [Lagerwey] has confidence in me,” Francis said. “It tells me that he has heard good things about me from other people around the league.
“It’s a winning club, it’s always in the finals and for me it’s important to be in a big club in MLS with a great organization. My only goal is to win championships. In Columbus, I couldn’t win an MLS Cup so this is one of the goals I have here in Seattle.”
