In a sense, the Seattle Sounders’ decision to trade two 2024 international roster spots to LAFC in exchange for $350,000 of 2025 General Allocation Money is not a particularly notable move. It looks like they’re possibly getting a bit of a premium on those roster spots in exchange for deferring payment, considering they traded two international spots to the Columbus Crew for $325,000 in 2024 GAM earlier this year.
Jeremiah Oshan
Those two combined moves leave the Sounders with just four international rosters spots for 2024. Three of those are currently occupied by Yeimar Gomez-Andrade, Nathan and Braudilio Rodrigues. The fourth spot will likely be filled by Pedro de la Vega, whose signing is still expected to be announced any day now.
Some simple math makes the implications pretty clear: Once de la Vega is signed, the Sounders probably aren’t planning to make anymore international signings during the current transfer window. That is unlikely to tie their hands for the rest of the year, however, as Yeimar is apparently working on getting his green card. I don’t know how long that will take to complete, but having it before the close of the summer transfer window seems to be reasonable expectation. Even before this, all indications seemed to be that the Sounders were planning to keep enough flexibility to make a TAM-level signing in the summer, but makes that all but a certainty.
I can appreciate how this may seem a bit frustrating, especially if you were expecting the Sounders to make a bunch of additions on the offensive side this offseason. I will point out that this does nothing to diminish their ability to add a domestic player, but that’s more than likely more of a rotational piece at best, not someone you’d expect to compete for a starter’s minutes.
