I’ll admit to having a long-standing soft spot for the Sounders.
Grant Clark, who has been in charge of the Sounders’ team administration since their launch, is family. He was Soccer American’s finance director in the mid-1990s.
We went back decades with Grant’s college coach, the late Sigi Schmid, to his days at UCLA. I moved to the West Coast 40 years ago this month to become the editor of Soccer America, and I’ll always be thankful for how Sigi immediately made me feel at home.
One of my favorite things on game nights in the early years of the MLS Sounders, when the league was still small and I still had time for it, was to listen to Sigi’s postgame press conferences. I have never met anyone who loved the game more than Sigi did or was a better quote. Short and to the point but with insight. Talking about soccer.
When Sigi left midway through the 2016 season, the MLS Sounders had already won five of their now nine trophies. They won MLS Cup 2016 after Brian Schmetzer was promoted to head coach, and they have kept on winning every few years. A second MLS Cup in 2019, MLS’s first Concacaf club trophy in more than two decades in 2022, and Sunday’s Leagues Cup triumph over Inter Miami.
We can’t let the despicable behavior of Inter Miami players after the match take away from how special the Seattle’s victory is and how important it is for American soccer.
MLS has a fundamental problem.
Teams will never be able to buy their way on to the world podium. Not unless they are state-funded, like PSG, Manchester City or Club World Cup surprise Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia.
But that doesn’t stop MLS teams from importing players en masse, the only limitations being how many International roster slots they collect and how much TAM they can accumulate to bring down the transaction costs of the players they sign.
By my count, 199 players who had no previous connection to MLS were acquired by MLS teams in 2025: 103 who arrived from abroad by permanent transfer, on loan or as a free agent and 86 who were signings as Homegrown or MLS Next Pro players or via the SuperDraft or by transfer from the USL.
The most common player mechanism was the international transfer: 59 in all, 11 involving players with previous MLS experience (like Miguel Almiron).
A few of the new arrivals are big names. Thomas Müller. Son Heung-Min. Rodrigo De Paul. But most are players no one has ever heard of. For a short while late last fall, Kévin Denkey was the most expensive signing in MLS history, acquired from Belgium’s Cercle Brugge, but I’d be shocked if you could have found a dozen fans in Cincinnati who’d ever heard of the Togo striker. That is a big problem.
MLS is at a disadvantage compared to the NFL and NBA, in that most players already have big national reputations when they arrive from college football or college basketball. And MLS suffers compared to all the big American pro leagues in that players stay in those respective leagues for the duration of their careers.
In a very small way, Seattle is different from the rest of MLS. Of those 59 international transfers, they were spread among 29 MLS teams. One team did not pay a transfer fee for an imported player in 2025: Seattle.
SUBSCRIBE TO KEEP READING
Start for $0 & enjoy free unlimited access for 30 days.
- Daily TV listings for U.S. and global soccer.
- Inside access to USA’s 2026 World Cup prep.
- Exclusive interviews with players and coaches.
- Expert analysis of top soccer headlines.
- Cancel anytime.
Already have an account? Sign in here.
CHECK OUT MORE STORIES
Not ready to subscribe? Sign up here for our free newsletter.
Already have an account? Sign in here.
