When Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid praises the play of left back Dylan Remick, you can count on one word coming up: confidence.
Schmid said it Saturday, after he inserted Remick into the starting lineup ahead of incumbent Leo Gonzalez. And he repeated it Tuesday as the Sounders returned to training.
“I thought his confidence was good, his defending was all right,” Schmid said of Remick’s contribution to the 1-0 win over Houston. “Games always teach you things. So there are certain things that you could see in the game that he needs to continue to work on, but I thought he was OK.”
Remick, 23, admits that confidence — or the lack of it — was a problem at times last season. However, he believes it is less of an issue now in his third professional season.
“I thought last year with everything that went on it was a bit of an up and down season, and I’ve talked with (Schmid) about it,” he said. “… For me, as with most players, you’ve got to go through something like that to build back up and to be better than you were previously. That’s what I worked on. It’s good when you have confidence and when the coaching staff has confidence in you as well.”
Remick came to Seattle in the 2013 SuperDraft as a second-round pick out of Brown. He played only 25 minutes in his rookie season, but drew praise from Schmid during the 2014 training camp. However, that gave way to an inconsistent season when he appeared in 13 games, including eight starts. His fast start gave way to injury, which gave way to lack of confidence, which gave way to loss of playing time, which didn’t help with the confidence.
During this preseason camp, the Sounders acquired an even younger left back — 21-year-old Andres Correa — and some saw the writing on the wall for Remick.
Remick, however, opened the regular season as the No. 2 left back while Correa was sent to the Sounders 2 USL club. Then last week, Remick got his first start of the season against Houston — although Schmid mentioned that Gonzalez has a minor hip flexor issue.
“Leo has a little thing going on: nothing that could prevent him from playing, but it was bothering him definitely a little bit,” Schmid said. “We felt it was time to make a little change that way.”
There was no immediate indication who will start Sunday when the Sounders visit Los Angeles.
Regardless, Remick wants to keep improving.
“I want to get a little better with us in possession,” he said. “I want to get the ball more and get forward more and see if I can create a little more havoc in the offensive third. And then defensively I want to stay strong, and I want to be hard to beat … overall, just be strong on the defensive side of the ball.”
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