MLS released its 2025 schedule on Thursday, illustrating what a busy year it promises to be for the Sounders. Seattle could play eight competitive matches from Feb. 19-March 15, are guaranteed to play at least 40 matches this season and could easily play more than 50 for the first time in their history.
But we knew the Sounders were going to have a congested schedule before all of this. Here are some of the highlights we newly learned:
Key match dates
- The Sounders will open the regular season at home against Charlotte FC on Feb. 22, which will be sandwiched between Concacaf Champions Cup matches against Antigua GFC on Feb. 19 and 26.
- Their first-ever trip to San Diego FC will be played on April 5, which is potentially between two CCC quarterfinal matches.
- They’ll also make their first-ever trip to Inter Miami (Sept. 16), which is a Tuesday.
- With 15 teams in each conference, there was bound to be one inter-conference Decision Day game and the Sounders drew the very short straw. Not only are they playing out of conference, but they’ll be traveling across the country to face New York City FC.
More variety of kickoff times
One of the most common complaints about the schedule in recent seasons has been that virtually every home game kicked off at 7:30 PM. That’s no longer the case, with 8 of 17 home matches now starting at a different time.
- Among those earlier start times are four afternoon games. They’ll host LAFC at 1:30 PM on March 8, FC Dallas at noon on May 24, Minnesota United at 3 PM on June 1 and the Columbus Crew at 2 PM on July 6. The Minnesota and Crew games are also being played on Sundays.
- One oddity is they are scheduled to host San Diego FC on May 28 at 5:30 PM, which is a Wednesday. I suppose this is an attempt to avoid conflicting with Mariners traffic (first pitch is scheduled for 6:40 PM that day), but I’m going to guess most fans would prefer a 7:30 PM kickoff for that one.
Road-heavy start
The Sounders will play 9 of their first 14 regular-season games on the road. That doesn’t even include four potential road games in Concacaf Champions Cup, for which they are already guaranteed to log nearly 6,000 air miles when they go to Guatemala. Underscoring the importance of that stretch is that all nine of those road games are against Western Conference opponents. The kicker is a stretch of three road games from May 10-17, in which the Sounders visit the Houston Dynamo, LAFC and Portland Timbers.
The good news, I suppose, is that the five home matches during that stretch are against pretty manageable opponents. The notable exception there is LAFC, which is also likely to be played between CCC Round of 16 matches.
Brutal stretch run
Even more than normal, the Sounders will want to be in decent position by the time they’re finished with Leagues Cup because their season-ending stretch is about as brutal as you can imagine.
When Leagues Cup finishes up on Aug. 31, the Sounders will have six league games remaining on their schedule. Here’s how it goes: home against the LA Galaxy on Sept. 13, away at Inter Miami on Sept. 16, away at Austin FC on Sept. 20, home against the Whitecaps on Sept. 27, home against the Timbers on Oct. 4 and away at New York City on Oct. 18. That’s a trip that includes games against the reigning MLS Cup winners, the reigning Supporters’ Shield winners, a game in one of the hottest stadiums, a game against an opponent they’ve not beaten at home since 2017 and the longest league road-trip of the season. No biggie!
