Hahnemann on joining Sounders: "It's absolutely amazing"

Marcus Hahnemann has signed with the Sounders. Read his reactions below.

Marcus Hahnemann – Sounders FC Goalkeeper

(On how the process of coming to Sounders FC started…) ”I came in last summer. I talked to Sigi [Schmid] and said I wanted to come back. I knew Kasey [Keller] was playing last year and with the allocation draft process it was just going to be difficult. So I went back to England not sure if it was going to work. I re-signed with Everton, a short-term contract, to maybe get back to Seattle. It didn’t quite happen so I stayed with Everton for the rest of the year. I was pretty much at the process of thinking I was retired. We were going back to Seattle. We moved the kids and family back. There were a couple opportunities in England. Nothing was really that great in that point in my career. [...] We were just getting set up, the kids are in school here, we’re trying to find soccer teams for them, just doing the normal stuff [...] Next thing you know we’re in that part of our lives where we’re trying to figure out what to do next. My wife and I both talking about what we want to do [...] Next thing I know I get a call from Adrian [Hanauer] who says, ‘Do you want to sill play?’ And I’m like, ‘Uhh, yeah. If it’s for Seattle, definitely.” [...] Somehow, it all just sort of all came to work. I’m still kind of shocked it all happened because I had resigned myself that it wasn’t going to happen. This is where I started my career and I wanted to finish here [...] I had resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to be playing for the Sounders again. That was pretty disappointing and pretty frustrating that my first pro team couldn’t get it to work because of this allocation process. In my case, it didn’t seem justified. It was pretty frustrating and next thing you know a few days later, I’m in the office signing a contract.”

(On joining Sounders FC…) “When it looked like I wasn’t going to get a chance to play again for the Sounders and be a part of it, it was pretty frustrating. I thought I really missed out. All of a sudden, to be given that second chance to come back, it’s absolutely amazing. I don’t really know how to describe it.”

(On his expectations of his role coming into this team…) ”[Michael Gspurning] has done great, but he’s missed a couple of games and hopefully I can give the team that backup they need and that experience.”

(On the logistics of joining the team and when he can be ready to play…) ”We’re going to train next week, and the team is going off to Honduras. I’ve been on retirement-mode for the last little bit, so I need a little bit to get back into it. I’ve been keeping myself fit, but that’s not the same as diving around. I trained with Tom [Dutra] on Wednesday and parts of my body hurt that have never hurt before. It’s going to take some time to get back into it, so it’s going to take some time to get back into it. Hopefully it’s not too long.”

(On the atmosphere of Sounders FC games…) “It’s absolutely amazing. The first game I went to I was in awe of how many people-I was just walking around the stadium half the time, just like, ‘This is unbelievable.’ This is what we’ve always dreamed would happen in Seattle, and what I always wanted when I was here.”

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