Minus Keller at keeper, Sounders face big test
Seattle Sounders FC will play the first showdown game of its brief history Saturday and will do so without No. 1 goalkeeper Kasey Keller. Keller picked up a red card for using his hands in a goal-scoring situation outside the penalty area Saturday in what turned out to be a 1-0 loss to Kansas City. By rule, the red card not only removed Keller from that game, but makes him ineligible for the next game.
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In the Sounders’ case, that’s a Saturday night date in suburban Los Angeles with Chivas USA (3-0-1, 10 points), which has slipped alone into first place of Major League Soccer’s Western Conference, just ahead of the Sounders (3-1-0, 9).
“That’s going to be a monster,” Keller said. “I never miss games. Having to watch the rest of the (Kansas City game) was really tough, but to know I can’t play the next game is eating me alive as well. But we’re a good team, and we’re going to go down to Chivas and show that.”
While Seattle had to turn to emergency goalkeeper Ben Dragavon against the Wizards, No. 2 keeper Chris Eylander says he is physically ready to get his first MLS start Saturday at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.
“The doctors have cleared me,” Eylander said. “I completed a full week of training, I can continue to train, sharpen up, and we’ll see what the coaches do.”
Eylander is the only other goalkeeper on the Seattle roster, so unless a personnel move is made this week, he seems certain to be the starter.
That prospect should please the Sounders FC brass, because Eylander was signed as a young player and projected to become an MLS starter.
He was born in Tacoma, grew up in Auburn and played at the University of Washington, where his 18 career shutouts rank third on the school list.
He stepped up to the USL first-division Sounders in 2006, and last season he led the league in saves (119) and was tied for second in shutouts (10).
Eylander was unavailable for the first four weeks of this season because of a knee injury (torn posterior cruciate ligament) suffered in preseason training.
“It wasn’t really a contact injury with anyone else,” he said. “It was during a drill, and I just kind of landed abnormally on the turf with kind of a straight impact by me. I just did it; kind of a weird incident.”
Eylander worked with trainers and on his own for three weeks, returned to full training with his teammates last week, and says he’s ready to go when the Sounders return to work today at Starfire Sports Complex.
“There isn’t really anything that’s holding me back at this point,” he said. “Yeah, there’s a little bit of pain – that’s just going to be there for a while. But from a soccer standpoint, there isn’t really anything holding me back at all.”
Don Ruiz, 253-597-8808
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