Center Line Soccer's Embele Awipi caught up with former Earthquake James Riley after his new club, Seattle, lost 3-2 to San Jose in a pre-season match in San Luis Obispo. Riley was chosen by Seattle in the 2009 MLS Expansion Draft a year after the Quakes acquired him in the 2008 MLS Expansion Draft.
CLS: What's it like being on your second straight expansion team?
JR: Definitely no complaints. Seattle is a first-class organization, so it’s excited to be part of something we are trying to cultivate.
CLS: How has the training gone this month?
JR: Soccer is game of inches and how you capitalize. We’re trying to develop team chemistry and playing a solid team in San Jose, who have a year under their belt and a lot of good players, was definitely a good test for us and we’ll only get better. We’ll learn from the goals we scored tonight and we’ll learn from the goals we gave up and the chances we gave up, so it’s good.
CLS: You got a yellow card midway in the first half when clearing the ball from Ned Grabavoy. Did you deserve it?
JR: I don’t know. I think Ned milked it a little bit. But it’s all fun and games. He got up and he is fine. Just one of those things you take it and get on with it.
CLS: Are you looking forward to getting back to Seattle?
JR: We’ve been here for two weeks. We finally get to go back to Seattle and continue looking for apartments. We haven’t really got a chance to get settled yet. So everyone will move in Sunday and then we have Monday and Tuesday off and then we get back at it Wednesday.
CLS: So you haven’t seen your new training center in Tukwila?
JR: We haven’t been to (Starfire Complex) yet. They are waiting on our lockers, so that should be done by the time we go to Argentina. We’ve been training at the Seattle Seahawks’ facility which is first class. Their training rooms, their fields. We have total access so it’s a pretty good time.
CLS: Argentina?
JR: Yeah, we are going on the 24th for ten days I think. I’ve definitely always wanted to go to South America so it should be a good time.