2009 preview: Five questions about Seattle

No MLS expansion team has created as much hype as the Seattle Sounders have. Whether it’s the record amount of season tickets sold or the signing of a high profile DP, Seattle has come in with a splash only rivalled by Toronto. But as an American city, Seattle has the potential to make a far greater impact among casual American sports fans than T.O. did. It remains to be seen how competitive Seattle will be on the pitch. But, there is little doubt that it will be entertaining and intriguing off of it.

Here are five things to watch for in Seattle in 2009:

1)– When will the fan backlash happen?
It seems like the league is going out of its way to make things easy on the Sounders. They have allowed them to play in a stadium that would not fly anywhere else, are kicking off the season there and, most surprisingly, have granted Seattle the 2009 MLS Cup. It’s enough to make fans of other MLS teams wonder where their love is. And, it only seems a matter of time until there is a backlash against the perceived favouritism. Although Seattle isn’t likely being favoured as much as many might thing, it sure does seem like their fans haven’t had to wait long for the good times to roll in. Hosting the MLS Cup, for instance, might have been a step too far this early in the team’s history. Prediction: If Seattle struggles on the pitch, expect a lot of MLS fans in other cities to be a little happier about that then they may have been otherwise.

2)– What will it be like inside Qwest on game day?
Like Toronto before them, Seattle wasn’t the best USL market. Yet, also like Toronto, as soon as the team made the jump to MLS the city’s soccer fans jumped behind the team and have gobbled up tickets. Not to belabour the TFC comparison, but the question now is whether Seattle fans will bring the same sort of stadium-wide involvement that you see in Toronto. Certainly the anecdotal evidence would suggest that they will, but there are some questions. First of all, the team will be playing in a stadium that is not completely full. The Sounders will be putting tarps over a significant portion of the stands and no one will know how that affects the atmosphere until after we’ve seen a couple games there. The other issue is the bizarre decision to sanction a marching band and then to put that marching band directly beside the supporter’s section and instruct the SGs to “work” with the band. I actually don’t have a problem with having a band. It borrows from the supporter’s culture of college football, which is organic to the United States. That you would never see it in Europe is part of the charm. But, where I worry is the FOs directives. From an outsiders perspective it seems like the Seattle FO might be a little too eager to hold the Seattle SGs hands (another example – the pregame march to the stadium is sanctioned by the team), rather than just let them do what they do. Prediction - by July the Emerald City Supporters will want to strangle each and every member of the marching band.

3)– Will Freddie Ljungberg be a factor?
Up until now, no expansion team has gone the DP route (although to be fair only two teams have come in since the DP rule came on the books). It’s understandable. Having a DP on the roster is a massive cap hit in a league that is already difficult to build depth in. So, it was a risky – and some would say foolhardy – move for the Sounders to bring in Ljungberg. It was a great PR move, no doubt, but was it a good soccer move. The early returns aren’t promising. He’s already hurt – he had surgery on a previous injury this off-season – and although there are some rumblings that he might come back sooner than expected, it does beg the question of just how durable he is and how much it will hurt the Sounders if he’s hurt half the year while taking up about 20 per cent of the cap. Prediction – Seattle fans are going to quickly learn why bringing in a DP isn’t the best way to build a team from scratch.

4)– Is the Qwest FieldTurf really state of the art? Or is it a case of same crap, different toilet?
It’s difficult to take the emotion out of any debate on Field Turf. Fans in the cities that have the plastic stuff are defensive about the turf—they are sick of hearing other fans complain and wish that players would just get over themselves and play on it. Grass-only fans see turf as an affront on the very essence of the game. In Seattle, we are already hearing the same arguments that were made about the turf in Toronto a couple years back. Seattle fans say it’s state of the art and that it isn’t like any other type of turf that’s been in MLS before. We’ll see. In Toronto, the FO went from being FieldTurf’s biggest supporter, to being silent on the issue, to loudly proclaiming that they need grass in BMO as soon as possible, within about 18-months. The biggest problem with the plastic turf? The players hate it. Many won’t play on it. Prediction – This issue is far from over, no matter how much Seattle fans wish it to be.

5)– How much are you paying the keeper?
In addition to bringing in Ljungberg, the Sounders opened up their wallet to bring local boy Kasey Keller home from Europe. One of the best U.S. players of all time, it was a nice treat for Keller to be able to finish his career near his home. It would have been nice for Seattle fans if he had given his new team a bit of a hometown discount. In a league where no other keeper makes more than $200,000 and most starters make around $125-150,000, it’s a bit difficult to justify spending $300,000 on a player that can likely remember the 1970s. Is Keller really twice the goaltender that Matt Reis is? ‘Cause that’s what his salary suggests. Prediction – Because of the hometown connection, Seattle fans will overlook the fact that the team overpaid Keller by about $150,000. But, the smart ones will look forward to the day Keller calls it quits so they can more responsibly spend that money.