Earthquakes forward Chad Barrett has yet to see the playing field this season since becoming San Jose’s first-ever free agent signing due to a lingering groin injury, but you wouldn’t know that by his spirits. The 13-year MLS veteran is positive, excited and anxious for this weekend’s match against Seattle, a place he called home for the past two seasons.
“I’m sure I’ll get a warm welcome when I go back there,” said Barrett.
Don’t expect that welcome to remain warm if he has anything to say about it. Barrett has a history of scoring against his former clubs. In 2015, Barrett played a total of 25 minutes over the course of three games against LA, where he played from 2011-12, and scored a pair of goals against them. After 82 games with Chicago from 2005-08, he proceeded to score four goals against the Fire within three years of departing. With Barrett, scoring against his old teams has become more of a habit than a coincidence.
“First and foremost, you want to get on the field and do your job, do whatever you’re supposed to,” he explained. “But if you get a chance to score a goal, you absolutely have that extra incentive that you want to score just so you can say, ‘Hey, you shouldn’t have let me go.’ It’s a bittersweet feeling still because they treated you well when you were there and you won trophies when you were there.
“I look forward to seeing everybody when I go back. I feel like that’s part of what I do when I go to a new team – I make a lot of good friends, lot of good connections that will last me a lifetime. It’s always good to see those guys.”
San Jose has given Sounders FC their share of fits over the years at CenturyLink Field. Since 2010, the Quakes are 5-3-1 in Seattle and are currently riding a three-game unbeaten streak in the Emerald City [W 2-0 (6/20/15); W 3-2 (3/14/15); D 1-1 (8/20/14)].
“He’s probably going to tell his guys, ‘Hey, we’ve got to stop letting this team beat us up here because they almost swept us last year.’ For one reason or another, they always have trouble with San Jose. I want to go up there and help aid in that frustration that [head coach] Sigi [Shmid] has and hopefully get a goal.”
Despite the excitement, Barrett, who was active for his first match of the season last weekend at Philadelphia, is still unsure of whether or not he will make his Quakes debut or possibly be named to the starting XI.
“Dominic [Kinnear] keeps that close to the vest,” he explained with a laugh. “He knows I’m active on Twitter.”
