There is no place for a depressed sports fan like the Northwest.
The region offers up the worst team in baseball for the summer months, a football team that does not even show up to half of their games during the cold winter months, and a plethora of college athletic programs that mean next to nothing on a national scale.
There was no hope for residents of Washington and Idaho … until now. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present your team of the future — Seattle Sounders FC.
All that build-up for a soccer club?
“This is ‘Murica and we don’t like that sport around here,” the masses shout back.
If that were really the case, how would the Sounders pack 36,000 people into every home game? Why would there be a support group in Pullman that watches every game and loves new members? This is a team the entire region can get behind, and more importantly, it plays an exciting brand of soccer.
Now that the 2011 season has come to an end after a 3-2 aggregate loss to Real Salt Lake in the Western Conference Semifinals of the MLS Cup, the rowdy fans in rave green have four months until training camp for the 2012 campaign gets underway. This is the perfect amount of time for anyone who has not had the chance to watch this team play, to hop online and watch some highlights.
The MLS is starting to shove its way into the American sports landscape, and within the next year or two could overtake the NHL as the nation’s fourth sports estate, and that charge is being led by fans in Seattle.
These are no average sports fans. Sounders fans are by far the most intense and wild fans, not only in MLS, but possibly in any sport across the U.S. This season, the Sounders broke their own MLS attendance record averaging 38,496 fans per game, placing them in the top 10 in England, Spain, Italy and France.
The Sounders also do one thing differently than other teams in the region — they win … a lot. In three years since joining the MLS, Seattle has made the playoffs every year, qualified for the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football Champions League for two straight years, and won three Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup titles.
Results like these don’t come from luck or a huge fan base. Sounders FC is coached by the all-time winningest coach in MLS history, Sigi Schmid, as well as having a roster full of international talent like Fredy Montero, Osvaldo Alonso and Mauro Rosales.
Going into next season and beyond, the Sounders are positioning themselves to not only be the best team in the MLS, but the best in North America. Want to watch a winner? Meet Seattle Sounders FC. Or you can watch and wait to see when Gonzaga basketball will collapse in the NCAA tournament again.