Gspurning "full in" for Sounders at latest practice

Seattle Sounders FC were back at practice on Monday July 23rd and so was their Austrian goalkeeper Michael Gspurning, who has missed much of his debut season due to injury.

See head coach Sigi Schmid’s comments after training below.

(On the team’s three-day break…) “Some of the guys just hung out here, some of the guys went to different places for a day or two. It was just good to get away and re-charge the batteries.”

(On the injury status of Michael Gspurning, Brad Evans, Cordell Cato, and Alex Caskey…) “Gspurning is full-in. Caskey was full-in. Evans still has a little bit of swelling. But we sort of said, ‘Okay, see what you feel comfortable doing.’ He felt comfortable doing the whole practice. Cato already trained the last day before we left, so all those guys are okay.”

(On if Eddie Johnson and Osvaldo Alonso playing in Wednesday’s All-Star game affects their status against Colorado…) “No. Obviously they’re going to train there. Both of those guys have played a lot of minutes over the last two months, so it’s not so bad. Hopefully they won’t play a ton of minutes on Wednesday because our team is a little different than the other teams. We have an Open Cup final in mid-week, we have a CONCACAF game mid-week, so we have more games than the other guys, so hopefully they’ll take that into account.”

(On traveling to a high-altitude game in Colorado…) “That’s always our plans…we get in and get out. The question was whether we take our all-stars and fly them to Colorado on Thursday or fly them home. My answer to that was, ‘They’re flying back to Seattle and flying with us on Friday.’ You always try to get in, when you go to altitude, within 24 hours of the game or right around there.”

(On playing Colorado for the third time this season…) “What is difficult this time around is that they’re a team that hasn’t done well in their last games—I think they haven’t won in their last five—so they’re a team that’s going to be hungry, that’s going to be angry a little bit. Obviously there’s a lot of attention on the state this week for other reasons, but all that’s going to serve into a team that’s going to want to give some happiness to the people of Colorado. They’re going to come out very, very motivated, so we have to make sure we match that.”

(On the recent play of Alvaro Fernandez…) “I think he’s doing a better job, not just the goals, he’s doing a better job of keeping possession of the ball, which is important. He’s also doing a better job of making sure he gets goal side defensively—that he reacts in there a little bit sooner and quicker—and I think that’s helped our defending, as well.”

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