By Matt Gaschk

As the off-season is now under way, we talked with Sounders FC technical director Chris Henderson about the 2012 season and how the Sounders may look different in 2013.

Q: After a third place finish in the West, another U.S. Open Cup final, reaching the Western Conference Championship and qualifying for another CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals … What’s your assessment of how this team finished the 2012 season?

Henderson: “If you look at the team as a group, I think this was the best Sounders team we’ve had.  Obviously we’re disappointed losing in penalty kicks and not winning four straight Open Cups.  That was a hard one for all of us.  But a credit to the guys.  Really, we’re still undefeated with the last game being a tie.  That was hard, but it was a great effort all the way through.  In the league, we were close – only a point behind Salt Lake.  We had done well in the league and put ourselves in the position to get in the playoffs again.  We feel like we’re building toward a better showing the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions League.  I think the character of this team is a little bit, getting there and trying it and the next year doing it.  It’s a little bit about building that belief and I think we made some really big steps in the team culture and belief in each other and belief in the club and what we can do.  That’s what we really need to work on in the off-season is keeping the team culture and build that so when players come in, they fit in the culture and know what we’re all about.”

Q: This is the first year that the team hasn’t won a trophy, but do you feel like this team progressed further and met those expectations beyond previous years?

Henderson: “I do feel like the performance and the way we played was fantastic.  We always feel like we can get better and we made a lot of positive steps.  It’s going in the right direction.  But it’s disappointing when you don’t bring a trophy home.  We got used to coming home with one or two trophies to put in the trophy case each year.  But you’re going to have those years where you have a strong year and something doesn’t quite click in the playoffs and you don’t get there.  I do think that taking a step further this year, there are a lot of positives to take out of it and there’s a lot to build on – a good foundation – here.  With any team, there are going to be changes.  I think everyone expects it, but the mentality of our players is that they feel like they need to do some work in the off-season after a little rest and come back strong next year.”
Q: Last year there was a lot of change on this team – there were 14 players that weren’t on the previous year’s roster.  Do you anticipate similar changes next year?

Henderson: “Any time you’re trying to keep a group together, you’re hitting against the salary cap.  Those are things that we have to manage and each year, it’s a challenge in terms of the constraints of the league and the way it’s set up.  Even if you go about a season and you don’t want to make any changes, there are still some changes you need to make – either for the cap or offers that come your way or players want to be traded or go home to their country.  There are always some things that come along with that.  There will for sure be changes to our team.  How many is going to play out in the next few months.”

Q: How does the experience from last year’s quarterfinals of Champions League affect how you go into the off-season and, maybe more importantly, how do you approach the preseason?

Henderson: “Going into preseason and playing Tigres in the quarters, the one thing we learned before was that maybe we weren’t ready to play that high of a caliber of a team twice in a week because we were coming off preseason.  I think we’ll be ramping up our preseason a little quicker.  I don’t want to speak for our fitness coach Dave Tenney, but I know there are things we learned from that period last year that maybe can help us get ahead for this quarterfinal round.  The game we played against Santos in Seattle, we were very good.  They said we were as good as any Mexican team in the league.  That set up that second game, where we started to get fatigued early and they took it to us down there.  I think there are a lot of things we learned from that and we are going to try to use that to our advantage.”

Q: Where do you see this team needing to improve for next season?

Henderson: “I thought we did a good job of scoring goals last year.  I don’t think there were many games where we didn’t create a few opportunities to score.  If you’re playing well and creating chances, that’s going to pay off in the end, so you have to keep creating.  I thought defensively, we were strong.  Gspurning was a great pickup for us and I thought our defense was pretty solid.  We’ll look at adding some pieces to help improve that.  You look at the playoff series and sometimes when big players come to play, that can help a team.  We have to make sure that we are able to try and stay healthy and get players who, within the culture of the club that we keep building, realize the importance of big moments during the year and step up and perform.  I think the coaching staff does a great job of building that culture and management does a great job.  We have to be really sure that the players we bring in continue to carry that culture through the whole locker room.”

Q: You won’t have those four CCL group stage games next summer.  Is there a fair balance that you will be able to rest the players against the negative of not being in the Champions League next year?

Henderson: “If we go far in this year’s Champions League, I think we’ll all be satisfied, and if we can represent MLS in the FIFA Club World Cup.  It’s disappointing not to be participating because I think we know that tournament well and we know how to perform in that tournament.  The positive side is that any national team players we have are going to have qualifying this year.  The CONCACAF players will have Gold Cup.  So you’re going to have players who will have extra games that they didn’t have last year.  But you can also take advantage of moments in the league season where you will have full selection, hopefully.  The travel is definitely thousands of miles less, but we always want to compete to get into that tournament and our goal now is to do everything we can to advance.”

Q: Having been in Champions League the last three years, is it nice that, while you aren’t in the tournament, you won’t have to worry as much about fatigue late in the season when you would be running into that schedule congestion?

Henderson: “Yeah.  We’re out of the tournament and that’s the reality.  In looking at it that way, we’ll have less games, less travel and we’ll probably have more players available for selection because of injuries and fatigue.  That’s going to make our group stronger.  Now without those games late in the year, maybe that’s the 10-percent that can push us in the playoffs to advance.”

Q: You’ve seen Eddie Johnson from many different perspectives.  Talk about what he has been able to achieve this year as the Comeback Player of the Year.

Henderson: “Congratulations to him for being able to put it all together coming back to MLS.  The year he left, he had a great year in Kansas City and he was able to put it together this year.  He was determined to score goals.  You look at some of the chances that he had during the year and he maybe could have had 10-12 more goals.  That’s exciting.  He scored that many goals this year and he could have expanded on that.  Mauro got 13 assists and many of those were to Eddie’s head.  I’m really excited for him.  I know he has a goal to play on the World Cup team in 2014 and he got himself back with the US National Team.  He came back to the league really betting on himself and I think he proved to a lot of people that he still has it.  He can help our club.  He can help our country.  I think he still has that drive and being able to be consistent and keep it going is something that he should keep as a goal.  That’s what you’re judged on in the end – can you continue to do it?  And also, can you win some things?  I’m happy for him.”

Q: Ozzie Alonso made the Best XI this year.  How has he grown this year into a Best XI player?

Henderson: “He’s always been the talk of the league since we brought him in, but it’s taken some time for people to really see his value.  He’s competing with some other good central holding midfielders.  I think now it’s obvious that this year he was the best holding midfielder.  He’s been so valuable to our franchise.  You can tell that he’s proud to wear the jersey.  He’s been an incredible player for us, winning balls, keeping possession, setting the tone for our team.  He’s good in the locker room and I’m really happy for him.  He loves the game and has that passion, but sometimes when those awards and accolades follow that, it’s good to see.  It’s well-deserved.  I’d love to see him wearing a USA jersey at some point, so hopefully FIFA will be nice to him and let him play for the US.”

Q: Speaking of passion for the jersey, a lot of those players who have exhibited that – Taylor Graham, Roger Levesque, Kasey Keller – are gone from this team.  How do you keep that passion for that logo going forward when there is so much change involved?

Henderson: “That’s club culture.  I think it’s important that staff and management and everyone around the team keeps this culture high, the expectations high, the professionalism high.  Creating an environment every day that’s competitive, that’s hard-working.  There are many things that I think we need to improve on and it’s constant work that we strive for and we expect the players to follow that as well – to be hard-working, to be proud of what you’re playing for, to have passion for your team, to be students of the game.  There’s so much that goes into it.  You’re losing players that bled for the Sounders logo and did everything for this club.  I think when other players hear about past players and stories about past experiences that this club has gone through, that resonates within the group.  The people who have been here can help spread that too and there’s nothing more to a player when you hear it from a teammate.  You’re always going to hear it from a coach, but to hear it from a teammate means a lot and it goes a long way.  To hear it as these players leave our club and talk good about the Sounders when they’re at other clubs, that goes a long way too.”