A fairly light training session today, as the majority of the starters from Saturday’s victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps did some light jogging while watching the reserves practice. With a short turnaround before the next game versus San Jose Wednesday, coaches focused on regeneration.

The word after practice today was cautious. As in, while the Sounders face a team with far more remote playoff chances than their own (and substantially more turmoil), playing at San Jose has never been a pleasant experience for the Sounders.

Stephan Frei noted that due to MLS’ focus on parity, any team is capable of rising to the occasion and getting results. He said that the team had even discussed the issue, bringing up the now-defunct Chivas USA, and how even at the end, they’d get the occasional positive result. Combine that will the Sounders’ historical difficulties in San Jose, and you have a Sounder team that, while increasing in confidence, is wary of an opponent down on their luck. Especially with someone like Chris Wondolowski, who delights in torturing the Sounders.

Coach Brian Schmetzer echoed the thoughts of his keeper, pointing out the best way to approach a team that is historically difficult to play against is to focus on what the team does well, and not take San Jose lightly.

On the injury front, it appears that the team came away from the Vancouver game mostly unscathed, with the (notable) exception of Victor Rodriguez. Schmetzer said that a MRI is scheduled for today, and they’ll have an update once that’s done. Kelvin Leerdam, who is dealing with a lingering injury, was taken off early as a precaution, as he is coming back from a six-week layoff.

As an epilogue to the Atlanta game, Schmetzer was less than pleased with the disciplinary outcome from that game, wherein Jordan McCrary and Victor Rodriguez were fined, while Josef Martinez didn’t receive so much as an admonition from MLS for head butting Chad Marshall. Schmetzer called the incident “egregious,” and believed that Martinez got away with something in escaping any punishment. As we got no explanation for the lack of punishment, it appears the incident will be buried deep beneath MLS HQ, to be lost for all time.