TUKWILA, Wash. — For the first time as a member of the Seattle Sounders, Harry Shipp is going home.
Seattle will take on the Chicago Fire at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Ill., this Saturday (6 p.m. PT; ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, KIRO Radio 97.3 FM, El Rey 1360AM) as Shipp revisits the club with whom he began his career.
A Lake Forest, Ill., native, Shipp signed a Homegrown contract in 2014 with the Fire following his career at Notre Dame. He spent the 2014 and ’15 seasons in Chicago with tons of success, scoring 10 goals and assisting on 14 more in 66 MLS regular-season appearances.
The Sounders acquired Shipp this past offseason from the Montreal Impact, a place to where he was abruptly traded from the Fire after the 2015 season. He played at Chicago while with the Impact last season, and he expects this year’s trip to be much different.
“Last year was right at the beginning of the year, it was one of our first games,” said Shipp. “At that point I was still coping with leaving. Now over a year removed, I feel good about where I’m at. It’s a very different team players-wise from when I was there.”
Shipp’s immediate family will coincidentally be out of town for Saturday’s match because his sister is graduating from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He does, however, expect friends from his hometown to attend and hopes he can turn in a similar performance to last season. Shipp started and went the full 90 minutes at Toyota Park in 2016 and helped the Impact to a 2-1 road win. He has been a terrific utility player for Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer so far, and he’s still doing the best he can to be ready, wherever Schmetzer calls upon him.
“I can play a bunch of different spots,” said Shipp. “We’re tinkering. This week is about trying to figure out how to put guys in the best spots. Whether that’s me in the middle or out wide, I’m just trying to work and get as much playing time as possible.”
