TUKWILA, Wash. -- The fever wouldn't break and the violence of the vomiting was frightening. For the second time in his young life, teenager Sanna Nyassi had contracted malaria and this time he thought he was going to die.
"I was scared for him," Sanna's twin brother Sainey remembered.
Growing up in Gambia, Sanna and Sainey Nyassi were the emerging stars from their country's soccer program and they shared that almost-mystical connection that many twins have.
They shared the same dreams. They shared the same talents. They were each other's best friends. And growing up in their tiny West African country, they were as inseparable as links in a chain.
Sanna could start a sentence. Sainey would finish it. Sainey could send in a cross. Sanna would finish it. "We know each other so well that sometimes it's just kind of like being partners," said Sanna, the Sounders FC midfielder, this past week. "Sometimes when he's not in a good mood, I can feel that. I can't feel happy if he's not happy. We are so much like each other."
When Sanna was diagnosed with malaria the second time, Sainey rarely left the house. He stayed close to his brother's bedside, always monitoring Sanna's condition.
"He told me he didn't feel comfortable going out, leaving me home when I'm sick," Sanna said. "He said when he was at training, his mind was always on me."
Sanna, with the help and love of his family, survived two malaria attacks. And, if it's possible, his illness made his friendship with his brother even stronger.
Now, however, the sport that they've shared, like a prized toy, since childhood has left them the width of a continent apart.
"I miss him a lot," Sainey, a defender with the New England Revolution, said by telephone this past week. "Our dream is to some day play on the same MLS team."
As Sanna, 21, has rocked October, scoring five goals in the past four Sounders FC games, Sainey has followed his brother's success on television and online and on the phone. They talk almost every day.
Sanna's success also is Sainey's success.
"I'm not surprised. He scored a lot of goals in Gambia," Sainey said. "He just needed to get his footing. Just needed more time. I think he will score a lot of goals."
Sanna Nyassi is a breakaway back, another playmaker on a Sounders FC team suddenly loaded with them.
In the final minute of Tuesday's 3-1 win in a friendly against Chivas de Guadalajara, Nyassi, who just had entered the game, sprinted toward the goal after Fredy Montero launched a rocket.
Montero's shot crashed off the post onto Nyassi's knee and past keeper Hugo Hernandez for the kind of look-what-I-found goal that happens when speed and hustle collide with good fortune.
"I just have the confidence right now pushing me," Nyassi said.
After the game the players teased him as only teammates can. They kidded Nyassi about the new powers that were getting him on the score sheet every game.
"There's a genuine happiness for him," forward Steve Zakuani said, "but it's also another weapon for our attack. It's unbelievable right now."
Nyassi converted his first MLS goal two weeks ago against Toronto and scored both goals in Sounders FC's 2-1 U.S. Open Cup championship win over Columbus.
"It's almost like right now he can't help but score goals," teammate Roger Levesque said.
Before the Oct. 2 Toronto game, teammates told Nyassi they would give him $100 if he scored a goal. Keeper Kasey Keller even guaranteed a Nyassi goal.
"It was like my teammates knew that it was coming, and it turned out to be a reality," Nyassi said. "They had the confidence in me, and that motivated me a lot. I will remember that goal for the rest of my life."
Nyassi, who was the third player the Sounders signed in 2008, first attracted general manager Adrian Hanauer's attention while playing for Gambia's under-20 team.
He was a 5-foot-7 bolt of lightning streaking down the wing. Watching him, Hanauer wondered what kind of magic was possible if Nyassi could harness that speed and improve his finishing.
"He was explosive, exciting," said Levesque, who played with Nyassi at the end of the 2008 season with the United Soccer League Sounders. "And now he's starting to see the game. Add that with his athletic ability and talent, and his potential is through the roof. We're just starting to see the first glimpses of what he can bring to the table the rest of his career."
From the other coast, a twin shares his brother's success.
"It's exciting," Sainey said.
And it's only the beginning.
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