Scotsman hopes the Sounders are his soccer salvation

TUKWILA — To a lot of Sounders FC players, Friday’s final exhibition game is just one more tuneup as the season approaches.

Sure players like Freddie Ljungberg, Kasey Keller and Fredy Montero want to win Friday in Colorado, and they hope to play well, but ultimately, what happens against the Rapids hardly will be career altering.

That’s not the case for other players, however. For some, a good showing Friday could mean a spot on Seattle’s roster, while a bad game or a subpar week of practice could put jobs in jeopardy.

Take, for example, midfielder Kevin Souter. The Scotsman, like so many players training with Seattle, knows he’s not a lock to be on the Sounders FC roster when the season opens March 25.

The 26-year-old grew up in the youth program of Scottish Premier League team Aberdeen, came to the United States for College, and has spent the past two seasons playing for the Kansas City Wizards. Souter was waived by Kansas City in the offseason, and for a while contemplated giving up the game. He recently joined Seattle for a tryout, however, and now hopes his soccer career has one more chapter to be written.

“It’s been a rollercoaster the last little while,” he said. “I went from a soccer career that was evaporating into something resurgent again, so it’s been good to get that opportunity.”

Souter, like so many of his teammates, knows this week of practice and Friday’s game could determine his future. But even if a roster spot is far from guaranteed, he’s happy to have another shot at the game. Souter came to the U.S. to attend Graceland University in Iowa when it became clear that he didn’t have a future with Aberdeen.

“I’d never been there, never heard of it,” he said. “I’d barely heard of Iowa.”

Souter planned to transfer after a year, but met his fiance as a freshman, got along well with the coach and stuck it out. That connection with Graceland could lead to a post-playing job — former Graceland coach Ivan Joseph is now the athletic director at Ryerson University in Toronto and has talked to Souter about coaching. But that’s a future Souter hopes can wait after getting a chance to salvage a career he thought was over when Kansas City waived him.

“Yeah, I had made a few calls, put out feelers to other teams, and the feedback from pretty much every team was that the international status was a problem,” Souter said, referring to the MLS rule that limits the number of foreign players on a team’s rosters. “I had high hopes initially, but as time went on, I knew I was going in the waiver draft, and I started thinking, ‘OK, this probably isn’t going to happen,’ and I started lining other things up outside of soccer. I was ready to hang the cleats up.

“That’s pretty much what I was going to do until I got the call from Chris Henderson to say they’d like to come out and try out. I’ve been playing a lot time, and I thought maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. Then I got this lifeline in Seattle.”

Henderson, Seattle technical director, knows the pressure players are under heading into these final days of preseason training.

“Now it’s time to start getting things sharp,” said Henderson, a Cascade High grad who went on to play for the U.S. national team and spend 12 seasons in MLS. “Talking from past experience as a player, as you’re getting ready for the season, you try to make sure you’re as sharp as possible. You want to have the best impression to be a starter if you’re in contention to be a starter. And if you’re trying to make that team, you don’t want to have one moment that can give the coach any doubt.”

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.