The Seattle Sounders announced some big news today. Tyrone Mears, the English professional footballer who is a right back on the Sounders team as an international player, is no longer such a player. He now has a green card. Mears started in 33 games for the Sounders last season, scoring a single goal and making three assists. He has made 35 appearances on the team in all. Although he was born in Stockport, England, he is no longer considered an international player on the team—which means that the Sounders now have a spot open for another international player.

So the question is, who will they pick? Most fans are calling for a strong defenseman to help us get out of this rut we seem to be stuck in this season. We need a designated player to make up for the loss of Oba Martins just a month ago, of course, and we have seven international players already, but the team also scored another international spot and Targeted Allocation Money from Toronto FC in exchange for some General Allocation funds, so we’d better put it to use and soon.

Who do you think would be a good fit for the Sounders? Martins is an obvious awesome selection, but he’s certainly out now. As many challenges as Martins has taken in his career, most fans think that his excuse about looking for new challenges was pretty flimsy and it was really his head butting with Sounders Head Coach Sigi Schmid that led to his departure.

Sounders GM and President Garth Lagerway says that what they want is pretty simple. “The idea is to add more, good players. With every crisis comes an opportunity. Nobody wanted to lose one of our best players the week before the season, but it’s a real opportunity to to re-balance our team and to add to the amount of talent on our team, long-term.”

Indeed, many commentators are chalking up the shaky start of the season to that very same loss, but some are also blaming the sweeping changes made preseason when so many veterans were cut. Was new blood necessary? Sure. You always need newer, faster guys that are hungry for the win and quick to recover from an injury. Do you need THAT much new blood, though? That’s something to be debated, and may remain something to prove until the end of the season for the powers that be.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia