We’ve reached the weekend and a little bit of downtime for the club after a very busy week. In the club’s lone Saturday training session, as you will soon read, the club participated in a little full-field 11v11. Head coach Sigi Schmid discusses that and more below.
Sunday will be a full off-day so the guys can enjoy the Super Bowl (or whatever else they may want to on a sunny SoCal afternoon) and the work will continue on Monday morning.
Here’s what went down on the first really nice day down in California.
Full Field, All Fun
After a nice warmup, Sigi had his team breakout into a full-field match of 11v11. The halves were around 20-25 minutes or so with the teams being a mixture of first team and squad players. It was good for the coaches to get a look at the guys out there mixing it up in a match-type scenario and there were a number of standouts.
Read on to see who they were!
Another Good Session For Neagle
Lamar Neagle continued his strong preseason with a excellent performance in the intra-squad scrimmage. The Federal Way native played the majority of the match up front as a striker with Obafemi Martins, and the two connected well on multiple occasions.
The first of the two goals scored came from Neagle, who made a darting run through the middle and latched onto a Martins pass that cut the backline to shreds. From there, Neagle battled Jimmy Ockford into the area and fired low and hard past Troy Perkins. Very tidy stuff.
More Good Things From Darwin
Want to know what Darwin Jones does with 50 yards of open space? Well, it’s pretty simple. He covers it QUICKLY. The UW product took an over-the-top flick from Kenny Cooper and motored down the pitch into space and put a powerful shot on net that was saved by Stefan Frei. His pace was really impressive to watch. Not that dissimilar from his mentor Martins.
Fisher Sees Time At Rightback
Another Sounders rookie showed some wheels in the 11v11 match as Oniel Fisher got some space along the right flank and worked himself into a good area outside of the box. Fisher, who is on the shorter side (a bit like Mr. DeAndre Yedlin), looks to extremely athletic and can cover ground quickly.
Obagoals Are Back, Baby
The goals keep coming for Martins this preseason, as a fantastic one-two effort from Martins and Marco Pappa at the top of the area resulted in the Nigerian slotting home a nice finish in the 11v11 match. Smooth stuff that left the defenders wondering how the ball was able to slip past them into Martins’ path.
Go Hawks!
With the team off on Sunday, a majority of the guys will be watching the big game on Sunday, especially considering the local products on the squad. Following training a handful of the team grabbed the microphone to wish the Seahawks good luck in a little video you can see below. Go Hawks!
