Ruidíaz, two injuries in four months: from making MLS history to a start to the season that alarms Reynoso

The same, and above almost everything, is Juan Reynoso’s fetish striker: “It is a spectacle to see Raúl Ruidíaz train, his category is indisputable, I am confident that at some point the goal with the national team will open for him”declared the national coach in an interview with Latina.

Since he came to Major League Soccer to defend the colors of the Seattle Sounders as a “franchise player” for which the club paid 6.3 million euros, Raúl has been in charge of returning every euro with goals and happiness: he won Major League Soccer in 2019 , in 2021 he was chosen the best player in the US tournament by the prestigious newspaper El País from Uruguay, with 67 goals he is six goals behind the club’s top scorer (Colombian Freddy Montero) and last year he scored in the Champions League finals of CONCACAF to give his team the first title and qualify it for the Club World Cup.

However, this start of the year has not been good at all for the ex-Academy attacker. In just four months of 2023 he has been injured twice, each time stronger. This injury hits the ‘Flea’ like a bucket of cold water, as he will miss around eight games with the Seattle Sounders. The first of them will be the one that will be played this Wednesday, April 26, against San Diego Royal SC, valid for the third round of the US Open Cup.

“Raul Ruidíaz in this 2023 season has not been what we are used to. With only 2 goals and two injuries in these four months, everything indicates that it is his worst start to the season with the Seattle Sounders”, says Alonso Contreras from the United States, the Peruvian who fought in the war in Afghanistan and today covers the national players in Major League Soccer.

“It is known that Raúl is a player with a strong mentality, who spends extra time training and honing his aim to be ready with his team. And that is reflected in what he has achieved. Since his arrival at the club, in 2018, he has always been the owner of the position, something that is not common in any MLS team, ”he tells us.

Reynoso’s ‘9’

“Raúl is a time scorer. Here in Mexico they love him a lot, in the MLS he has earned a name, he is a franchise player. It is a crack, and we cannot afford to do without it”. With those words Juan Reynoso referred to Ruidíaz in an interview with Deporte Total. It is with these praise that the coach demonstrates his admiration for the striker whom he made his debut at Universitario de Deportes.

In fact, the first big decision that the coach made when he took over the technical direction of the Peruvian team was to open the doors of La Videna to the ‘Flea’ again. Absent in the last games of the Bicolor in the Gareca era, Raúl was called up again for the first friendlies with Juan at the helm. And he was never on the list again.

Even in the match against Germany, due to Gianluca Lapadula’s injury, Reynoso decided to give the Sounders strikers confidence so that he is the one who commands the national attack. However, he could do little or nothing.

“He is a scorer in his clubs because they play for him, in the national team they give him the ball and they want him to solve and his style is not that, the goals in the national team that we remember are long-distance passes to Paolo and he solving, perhaps a little similar to Lapadula who fights all the way up, while Raul is a great finisher but needs to be in the area and to be fed at all times”, explains Contreras about the ‘9’ who has barely 4 goals in 53 games with the team all.

The injury could remove Ruidíaz from the national team, bad news for Juan Reynoso, who fully trusts him. It will be, perhaps, the turn to call Paolo Guerrero who has been picking up the pace at Racing Club de Argentina.