It was freezing out at Starfire today for Sounders FC training. At one point we were hit by hail and there was snow falling not too far away.
As if the players, coaches and staff needed reminding they’re not in Florida and Cancun anymore.
The Sounders were without quite a few players and assistant coach Ezra Hendrickson, who were out sick on Sunday. A team meal in Mexico is believed to have been the source and the players out of action were: Andrew Weber, Andrew Duran, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Patrick Ianni, Alex Caskey, Cordell Cato, Roger Levesque and Christian Sivebaek.
Coach Sigi Schmid expects a few players back Monday. The bug is communicable, so they wanted to keep any guys with symptoms away from the team.
Other things of note: Honduran trialist Harlinton Gutierres is no longer with the team. Defender/midfielder Amadou Sanyang is indeed on trial with the Chicago Fire, but remains under contract. Eddie Johnson trained mostly to the side in his first practice in Seattle as he recovers from the hamstring injury.
With the addition of a trialist, the camp roster is at 32 and the expectation is that the opening day roster will be around 29 or 30, a figure that includes anyone that would go on the disabled list from what I understand.
I’ve added some more pictures after the jump:
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Considering how fast Eddie Johnson blew past me here, I’d say his hamstring is doing better.
Some of the guys that trained Sunday had already gotten over the bug. Fredy Montero was quick to joke that Hurtado was the only Latin player still affected.
It was nice to see Josh Ford come watch the action. He wasn’t active and I’ll try to get an update on his knee injury this week.
Here new broadcaster Ross Fletcher chats with local legend Alan Hinton. I’m sure Derby County, a club of which both have connections, came up a few times.
The less blurry guy in the background is the trialist. I’ll try to get some more information on him if it’s available. He’s not the same trialist as the goal-scorer in Florida.
Lastly, Johnson signed some autographs to end his first day.
