Just about everyone agrees, at some point Obed Vargas will be playing in Europe. That move is unlikely to come before the Seattle Sounders play in the Club World Cup, however.
“We’re not interested in moving Obed this winter,” Sounders GM Craig Waibel told reporters at the end-of-season press conference on Tuesday. “Obed’s going to be with us. He will be competing with us.
“He’s one of the top young players, frankly, in in all of North America. He’s going to attract a lot of attention over the next next six, 12, 18 months. We’ll see what happens.”
The Sounders’ desire to keep Vargas around is two-pronged.
Vargas is coming off a season in which he logged nearly 3,400 minutes for the Sounders, with two goals and nine assists across all competitions. He also made his senior Mexico national team debut, along with a handful of other appearances with youth national teams. The expectation is that he’ll be a key part of the team, at least in the early stages of the season, as the Sounders embark on a campaign that will see them playing in five separate competitions in the first half of the season alone.
The Sounders are also interested in getting Vargas into the most attractive shop window possible, with the hope that a strong performance in the Club World Cup could drive his transfer fee into eight figures.
“At the end of the day, we’re gonna have open communication,” Waibel said. “But at the beginning of all that is the Sounders. One of the best things about Obed is his character – his loyalty hasn’t changed in a year of great growth and success. I think his humility has remained his priority.”
