João Paulo now recovered, is ready to fight for the starting role!

Recently the star Brazilian CDM João Paulo talked to Sounders at Heart about the upcoming 2025 season. Saying he's feeling the best he's felt since his devastating 2022 ACL injury. But I want to focus on thing he said in the great interview. Which is that he's ready to fight for his spot , key word being fight. This is a excellent thing though I understand why some people may think it's not a good and I'll take a lot at both sides here.

As for why some might not like the fact our star CDM has to fight for a starting job that on paper should be his. Of course before the injury he was nothing short of fantastic. He was a dark horse MVP candidate all throughout the 2021 season and player a key role in our 2022 CONCACAF Champions League victory. But it was the leg injury in the final that has caused him all this trouble now. But with his greatness so profound but so short I definitely see why some believe or really want João Paulo Mior to return to his former greatness. But he's 33 years old.

Reality is as you get older it becomes harder to recover from serious injuries like ACL tears. That doesn't mean he won't return to his greatness for this season and I really hope he does because it'd certainly help us in winning the MLS Cup and it'd be better for João Paulo mentally more importantly. But these facts makes the smart move we're keeping a close eye on how he's recovered and how ready for action he is. If it helps in our 1st preseason game of the year he looked like his old self even getting a assist from a free kick before he was subbed off with all the other starters at halftime.

Most importantly we have a logjam at CDM with lots of younger options for replacements as well. Players already on the roster like Obed Vargas who will start alongside him, Danny Leyva, Reed Baker-Whiting, Josh Atencio who did move to centerback this season but CDM is his original position and of course the deep lying maestro Cristian Roldan. Then there's the likes of Ryan Baer who we drafted this year in the MLS Superdraft in the 1st round and is the only Superdraft pick on our preseason roster for 2025. Leo Burney the very promising Ivy defender we signed this off-season who can do a job in the midfield or in defense. We have lots of options and if João Paulo tragically can't replicate his pervious form we've got lots of young players who can't do that yet but could do a better job.

And with so many young CDMs I'm sure João Paulo would feel no shame in instead teaching a few of the young and promising players behind him to teach them how to replicate or even become greater than he ever was. In other words if he's ready we have lots of rotational pieces to help him rest or we have plenty of players ready to step up and to do their best to replicate his greatness. Thanks a bunch for reading!