Sounders’ notes and quotes: Frei ready to return

Lots of little bits of Soudners news and opinion today. The highlight were a couple of health updates: goalkeeper Stefan Frei will be back for Vancouver’s visit at 7 p.m. Saturday, but centerback Brad Evans won’t be.

Here’s some of what was said:

Coach SIGI SCHMID

On the presence of unsigned goalkeeper Tally Hall of Gig Harbor: He’s doing the same: He’s still rehabbing from his injury.

On the presence of unsigned forward Herculez Gomez: Herculez is just a good pro. It gives us a chance to look at him. He’s going to come out and he’s going to train hard. The other guys look around, say, ‘Oops, maybe I need to up my game, if they’re looking at him.’ But he’s a good pro, he’s a good guy in the locker room, he brings a good attitude onto the field.

On former Sounder Darren Sawatzky being named MASL coach of the year: I’m happy for Darren. He’s a dedicated soccer person who puts his heart and soul into it. It’s good to see him get that accolade.

On Brad Evans availabilty: Brad’s doing much better, getting much more comfortable with the ball, so he was doing a lot more ball work today. Now we just need him to still avoid contact for a little bit, but with the bye week after this week we think by the time we play (Montreal on April 2) he should be ready to go

Goalkeeper STEFAN FREI

On his inflamed elbow: I feel great. It’s good to be back practicing, and obviously it’s important to be able to practice 100 percent before the game. I’ve had a couple of good sessions, and I feel fit, I feel ready, I feel sharp.

On how it happened: It was a bit of a freak thing. It’s just Thursday I had a really good session. I felt a little bit of soreness in the elbow, and it got a little bit inflamed. I went to bed. I took an anti-inflammatory. I work up, had so much fluid in my elbow I couldn’t touch my nose. I obviously had to go get it drained and had to put some cortisone in it. It turns out there’s a little chip of bone that came off inside the joint and it’s just floating around now – apparently not very uncommon for goalkeepers. A lot of goalkeepers have it. But I guess that little thing just got jammed into a position that it didn’t like it, and the body just went into protective mode and started putting out fluids. Hopefully it’s not going to happen again, but like I said: I feel great now.

Forward CLINT DEMPSEY

On his chemistry with Jordan Morris and Nelson Valdez: Yes, sir, still a work in progress. We’ve got to do a better job as a team just circulating the ball in the attacking third and getting better looks in front of the goal. The first game against America, I thought we moved the ball well. But since then we haven’t been able to create the chances that we wanted.

JORDAN MORRIS

On his first Cascadia Cup match: It’ll be really fun. I think these rivalry games are super-exciting to watch, but now I get to play. It will be an awesome experience for sure.

On his first two MLS games: It’s an adjustment a little bit, like with anything as you make the jump to the next level you’ve got to learn how to deal with the pace and the speed of play. … With every practice and every game it gets easier.

This story was originally published March 17, 2016 at 3:25 PM with the headline "Sounders’ notes and quotes: Frei ready to return."