SEATTLE — Three games into his tenure with the Seattle Sounders and Gustav Svensson has still not played in his natural position.
A defensive midfielder by trade, offseason acquisition Svensson started at right back in the Sounders’ first two matches before sliding into center back alongside Chad Marshall in Sunday’s 3-1 win over the New York Red Bulls in place of the suspended Roman Torres. Svensson, 30, has largely been employed as a utility knife for head coach Brian Schmetzer, who started the season with a departed Tyrone Mears and an injured Brad Evans and Oniel Fisher as right back options.
The Sounders signed Svensson from China right before the team’s preseason trip to Tucson, Ariz., and his experience and versatility have been put to good use so far.
“He didn’t look not like a center back,” Schmetzer said of Svensson’s performance on Sunday. “I thought he was pretty good as a center back actually so I’ll have to discuss with him what his best position is.”
Svensson said he liked his partnership with Marshall and thought they meshed well together. The two combined to largely shut down prolific goalscorer and last season’s MLS Golden Boot winner Bradley Wright-Phillips, despite Wright-Phillips getting on the score sheet anyway off a header that deflected off Svensson’s head and bounced in off the crossbar.
“On the goal [Svensson] was all over Bradley Wright Phillips and I think it’s just a testament to Bradley, he’s a good player,” said Schmetzer. “Gustav was very good. It was a good pairing with he and Marshall, I thought they were steady.
“The most impressive thing for me on the defensive side with Gustav was a couple of 1-v-1 duels where he was going up against faster players, he was able to win those duels,” Schmetzer continued. “Then offensively I thought he saw some passes on long diagonals that really opened up the game for us so I was really happy with his performance.”
Svensson said he was spurred on by the crowd and atmosphere in his first match at CenturyLink Field. More than 45,000 fans packed into Sunday’s match for the largest home-opening crowd in Sounders history.
“This is something you want to do from when you’re a kid, you want to play in stadiums like this with fans like this,” Svensson said. “I think they know that they helped us a lot, but if they don’t know, I’m going to tell them. It’s so much easier to play with the fans that we have behind us.”
The Sounders will next host Liga MX side Necaxa in a friendly on Saturday, March 25, before welcoming 2017 expansion side Atlanta United to Seattle in MLS play on Friday, March 31. Wherever Svensson sees the field moving forward, he’s proud of the work he’s put in so far and for the support he received on Sunday.
“We want to be really strong at home,” Svensson said, “and hopefully this is the start of that.”
