“It’s rooted in the long history of foreign visitors who arrived to work as Boeing engineers, which formed the foundation for more modern-day programs.”
— Cliff McCrath, Seattle Pacific head coach (1970–2007) on Seattle’s rich soccer culture.
“It was already cool being a soccer player here in the late 1970s, early 1980s.”
— Kasey Keller, U.S. national team goalkeeper (1990–2007).
“Soccer is ingrained in Seattle culture, and it’s a beautiful thing to see,” U.S. midfielder Cristian Roldan said on the eve of the USA’s game against Australia in downtown Seattle’s Lumen Stadium.
Roldan has played for the Seattle Sounders since 2015. He told his teammates:
“The city is ready. The city is energized. You’re going to feel the crowd, feel the energy, and it’s about feeding off it.”
The USA is coming off a 4-1 over Paraguay in Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium, where the crowd support was hailed by the Coach Mauricio Pochettino and the players.
“I’m expecting Seattle to be even better,” midfielder Sebastian Berhalter said. “I’ve played there a lot of times. It should be fun. They have a loud atmosphere in the stadium and they know what they’re doing.”
The Sounders broke the MLS attendance record for five years in a row after joining the league in 2009 and led MLS for straight eight seasons until Atlanta United, which also plays in an NFL stadium, joined the league in 2017.
Tim Booth served as a Seattle-based Associated Press sports reporter for 20 years before in 2024 joining The Seattle Times, a newspaper that has long taken soccer seriously.
“The timing of when the Sounders came on board worked in their favor,” Booth said. “The NBA [SuperSonics] had just left. Microsoft had its growth period, with a lot of people coming from around the world. You had Amazon going through its growth period — you name your company.
“Being a new team, the transplants could rally around the Sounders and claim them as their own even while they had teams they supported from where they came from.”
That created a perfect formula when combined with a vibrant local soccer community, which evolved long before MLS started in 1996.
Roldan (above) was speaking ahead of the USMNT’s training at the University of Washington, where the Southern Californian played in 2014-15 before joining the Sounders.
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