Perhaps the best news to come out of Thursday’s sponsorship announcement was that Chad Marshall is fully recovered from knee surgery he underwent last November. Marshall tore his meniscus in the first leg of the Sounders’ Western Conference semifinal against the Portland Timbers.

“I got the surgery done, and it was a pretty quick recovery after that — like four weeks I was getting back running,” Marshall said at the event. “I’ve been getting after in the gym and the field, I should be good to go.”

That should come as music to the ears of anyone who was worried that Marshall would be slowed when training camp opens next week or, even worse, might not be fully recovered by the time the season starts in March.

Marshall’s statement also suggests he likely would have missed the entirety of the playoffs no matter how far the Sounders advanced, as the MLS Cup final was almost exactly one month after he underwent surgery.