Less than two weeks ago, Seattle Sounders FC expanded its footprint in the Pacific Northwest as S2 started its first season. The team, announced last fall, took to the pitch at Starfire Stadium – located just south of Seattle – in its inaugural match on Sunday, March 21. Almost immediately, the added energy was palpable. Nearly 3,000 supporters watched and cheered the team to its first victory, a 4-2 statement win over reigning USL champion Sacramento Republic FC.
In the words of Sounders FC Head Coach Sigi Schmid, the Sounders were now “becoming a soccer club in the truest sense of the word, from top to bottom.”
Fast forward another week, and S2 has started its first season with two wins, scoring four goals in each after a 4-0 win over Whitecaps FC 2. The roster has taken shape and includes not only S2-specific signings, but also First-Team players that are earning consistent minutes with the squad. Darwin Jones, who signed a Homegrown Player contract with Sounders FC in early 2015, is one of those players already making an impact, netting a hat trick in his first start against the Cascadia rival last weekend. Jones joins seven other players with First-Team contracts who have clocked minutes with S2.
“It’s an opportunity for guys deeper on the First-Team roster to get game minutes. You can train every day, but if you don’t get game minutes, you’ll lose sharpness,” said S2 Head Coach Ezra Hendrickson following the team’s weekend victory. “It’s a different beast to play a match than to just train. This provides them that opportunity.”
Hendrickson himself moved, having worked with the First Team as an Assistant Coach since 2009 before being tapped for the Head Coach position with the USL expansion team. He knows that S2 is filling a space that previously existed between young Academy players and the First Team.
“It’s a pyramid, really. What happened in the past was that you had the Academy, and then you had the First Team. There was a gap – S2 fills that. We knew that players would leave the Academy and need somewhere to develop,” Hendrickson notes. “Not every player is going to take the path of DeAndre Yedlin from the Academy to the Sounders.”
A deep First-Team roster lined with veterans can mean that younger players don’t get a chance to play. S2 General Manager Andrew Opatkiewicz knows this has often led to losing talent to other clubs around MLS.
“We have a limited number of roster spots with the First Team. In years past we would have lost the opportunity to keep some of these players,” he notes. “We wouldn’t have been able to see players like Andy Craven grow and develop in our organization. S2 is the vehicle to keep them with us and to be able to see them develop.”
Having a USL side also means that players are primed and ready when the time comes to move forward with the next step in their career, as well as with the Sounders organization.
“S2 is really the future of the Sounders. We’re doing the best job to develop these guys and get them ready,” says Hendrickson. “When we lose players on the First Team due to retirement or to trades, we have guys here already who can move in and fit those roles.”
Opatkiewicz also sees the setting where the matches are played to be equally as important. “A meaningful match in a small, intimate stadium pushes players and challenges them. It’s not just the players and the training, but it’s also the environment that’s important to that development,” he says.
In the past, reserve matches helped get players on the pitch, but the games were often held during the day and didn’t attract a large audience. S2 competes in front of a packed Starfire Stadium with a feel that Jones described as “electric” following the squad’s last win.
S2 provides the essential piece of the development puzzle that will help the Sounders grow for years to come. It also symbolizes a shift in the way clubs that now have both MLS and USL teams operate, according to General Manager and President of Soccer Garth Lagerwey.
“It’s the next step for the league – It’s evolution in player development,” Lagerwey explains. “It’s not just moving players between teams, but we’re creating a paradigm where Academy kids go to S2, and that’s going to be the next step in their development.”
As the season moves forward, Opatkiewicz is optimistic that his team will excel and that players will be able to thrive as they continue on professionally.
“The gap between our USL players and our First-Team players needs to be small,” says Opatkiewicz. “That’ll guarantee that our players will have the First Team as their goal at the end of the tunnel.”
Your next chance to catch S2 in action will be Saturday, April 11 as the team takes on Portland Timbers 2 in another Cascadia matchup. Tickets are on sale starting at $15.
