Brad Evans has worn a lot of hats for Sounders FC in his six seasons in Seattle, playing every field position at one point or another in Rave Green and acting as a Swiss Army knife for Head Coach Sigi Schmid. On Wednesday against Chivas USA, he added another title to his lengthy resume – set play specialist.
With Marco Pappa away on international duty and Gonzalo Pineda resting ahead of a busy upcoming stretch in the schedule, Evans was asked to take corner kicks and free kicks for Seattle against Chivas USA. He responded by assisting on three first-half goals as Seattle earned a 4-2 win at the StubHub Center for its third consecutive victory, taking a firm grasp of the top spot in the Supporters’ Shield standings.
“It just means we have another guy who can hit set pieces for us,” Schmid said after Sounders FC earned its 16th victory of the season. “It maybe alters things for us where we can go with some in-swinging set-pieces from the right-hand side. I thought Brad did a really good job serving the ball.”
By registering three first-half assists, Evans tied the MLS record for a single half. It also brought him to five assists on the season, matching his career-best marks recorded in 2011 and 2013.
Knowing that he would be asked to take Seattle’s set pieces against Chivas USA, Evans put in some extra work in training in the days leading up to the match on Wednesday. That also meant conversations with Schmid and Andy Rose, who was twice on the receiving end of Evans’ deliveries for his first two goals of the 2014 season.
Evans also learned from previous mistakes to capitalize on the opportunities to take free kicks and corner kicks.
“I remember I came on as a sub in the game against San Jose. Four corner kicks all went to the same guy, and it wasn’t good enough. After that, I kind of worked on set pieces a little bit,” Evans said. “If you have decent service, the guys on our team are going to get on the end of it.”
Sounders FC now has six goals this season off of corner kicks and five off of indirect free kicks, helping Seattle equal the LA Galaxy for the top scoring team in MLS with 48 goals.
Seattle will have the weekend off before meeting Real Salt Lake on Sept. 12 at CenturyLink Field in the third match of the season between the Western Conference foes.
