Last week, Minnesota United veteran midfielder Ozzie Alonso received hugs and pats from a former teammates at Seattle, where he played 10 successful seasons.
This week, the story line repeats but with a twist: United plays Chicago and former Loons captain Francisco Calvo on Saturday for the first time since last week's trade sent him away.
Loons midfielder Miguel Ibarra calls it yet another game. But such situations rarely are, at least for somebody.
Only eight days after the May 3 trade, Calvo will meet a team he led for most of his two-plus seasons in Minnesota. He does so embittered by coach Adrian Heath's decision to keep him sidelined after he served a one-game red card suspension, and by what he called the team's unrelated decision to trade him five days later.
He said Heath never supported him, even though he sacrificed by playing out of position at left back.
"He put me in the trash as if I were a rookie, to put it that way," he said in a translated Spanish-language interview after he played his first game for Chicago last weekend.
A player motivated to face his former team dates to Heath's playing days in England long ago — and well beyond.
"It's always something to prove, I don't care who you are," Heath said. "It didn't surprise me. You get a bit hurt when you get traded, but we have to do for the rest of the group. If there is somebody in the group we don't feel is truly engaged in what we do, then we have to think about what we're going to do about that."
