Early preseason is going to plan

A season isn’t won or lost in the weeks or months leading into it, but for the Seattle Sounders the groundwork for a successful 2025 season is currently being laid in Marbella, Spain. Players and staff are doing the work to build fitness, implement some new tactical approaches, integrate players, learn new positions, build on- and off-field chemistry and familiarity. With a bit of luck, they’ll also establish confidence and form through performances in preseason matches against a variety of opponents.

Cristian Roldan and Brian Schmetzer both took time to discuss all of that during a press availability on Wednesday.

As Roldan explained, the time spent together in Spain is crucial for forging bonds throughout the team that will help to carry them through a long season.

“You have to use these days that you have in Spain all together to create chemistry. You see, there’s always cliques in professional sports and on teams – Georgi [Minoungou] and Nouhou are always hanging out together, Georgi and the young guys, right, the older guys kind of hang out together – but Spain is a great chance for us to all bond. So it’s been great to see that, and to see chemistry come out on the field, as well as off the field.”

Paul Arriola and Jesús Ferreira have a little bit of a head start on developing that chemistry, thanks to their time spent in United States men’s national team camps with Roldan and Jordan Morris. The pair joined the club from FC Dallas during the offseason, and when asked about their integration into the squad Roldan described it as, “very smooth, first and foremost. Jesús, you can see his quality. He is technically extremely sound, very good in front of goal. His link-up play is also really nice, so being able to play him up top, being able to play him in the 10 gives us some flexibility.”

Ferreira has yet to play in a preseason game, but Arriola had his first showing against Puskás Akadémia.

“Paul is a very smart player, he’s been playing at wingback and we see both his energy, his relentlessness to press and get back into the box, he’s a player that’s going to help us energy-wise and even scoring goals. I can see him getting into the box on a cross from Alex [Roldan] and scoring. So seeing those guys come in and integrate really smoothly is really important and really nice.”

“I think overall the group is in a good place,” Cristian continued. “I think the mentality, the overall level is pretty high. Even the young guys coming in, filling into their roles, it’s hard to play against each other because I feel like our team is well balanced. And so the level of competition is really good.”

Those young players helping to keep the competition level high range from guys already signed to the first team but lacking some experience, like Stuart Hawkins and Minoungou, to Tacoma Defiance players Snyder Brunell, Osaze de Rosario, Sebastian Gomez, and Kalani Kossa-Rienzi, and Sounders draft pick Ryan Baer. Brunell and Gomez both participated in the first preseason game against Puskás, but they’ve all shown well in training according to Schmetzer.

“Craig’s gonna have his hands full when he comes here, because he’s going to come visit us here and he and I can sit down, and I can give him the full report and he can watch the games.” Schmetzer went on to praise all of those players by name, seeming particularly impressed by Brunell and Kossa-Rienzi.

With some space available on the roster, Schmetzer made it clear that it was more than just idle praise.

“There might be a signing or two,” he said. “I don’t know when, I can’t tell you when, but there are kids that are certainly deserved of a roster spot.”

Asked about the signing of Kim Kee-Hee, Schmetzer said the idea in bringing back the 2019 MLS Cup champion was mainly about bolstering the squad’s depth.

“Kim Kee-Hee is coming here as a little bit of an insurance policy, because young Stu has had a good camp, but is he ready for prime time? Is Josh [Atencio] ready to fit in where Jackson plays? How do we, if we do play with three centerbacks? How do we manage minutes over the course of a long season, and especially the first part of the season?” Schmetzer asked rhetorically. “I mean we could be playing a pile of games in that first part of the year, so it’s good to have some veteran presence back there.”

Kim will need to fight for his spot, though.

“We’ll see what he’s all about and see if he can still contribute, but he’ll have competition. Jonathan Bell’s looked good, Leo Burney’s done okay in camp, and obviously, I mentioned Stu, he’s continued to develop, so it’s good competition there.”

It’s not just new teammates that the squad needs to adjust to. Throughout preseason so far we’ve seen and heard a lot about the use of a three-CB setup for the Sounders. It wouldn’t be the first time Seattle has used a similar formation – Schmetzer’s side used three CBs frequently during the 2021 season – but the team is currently set up to be able to flex between formations a little bit more fluidly than they have in the past.

“What I love about some of the roster construction is we actually have a lot of flexibility … we can play 4-2-3-1, we can play 3-5-2, and we can flop,” Schmetzer said. “We can go, maybe this opponent we feel 4-2-3-1 is a better matchup, maybe against an opponent on the road we will play with three centerbacks.”

Those changes in formations will have impacts up and down the roster. Roldan expanded on what that means for him in central midfield, saying, “in terms of the pivots, we’ve had a slightly different look this year: sometimes playing with two strikers, sometimes playing with two 10s. It’s been really nice to see how many guys we get in the box, so as pivots one of us has to get into the box, that’s what we’re focused on. The other one is more of a preventative position to eliminate any counterattacks.”

As Roldan put it, though, it’s not just the CMs whose jobs have changed a little.

“For guys like Georgi, Paul Rothrock, Pedro [de la Vega], Reed [Baker-Whiting], guys like that, we’ve got to find places for them when the time is right and when they’re seeing the field. It’s really, honestly it’s great to see all the young guys come in sharp, because this is their opportunity to make an impact and we’re going to have to rely on a lot of the young guys coming off of the bench when we have injuries, or guys are off on national team duty, or we’re rotating and we’re playing a lot of games.”

What matters is how all of the work in preseason shows up when the rubber meets the road. That’s why the Sounders are in Spain in the first place: to test their preparations and the work they’ve put in against different kinds of opponents than the ones they’ll meet once the season starts. That part of the work continues on Friday with another preseason game, this time comprised of three 45-minute periods against Aalborg BK.

“We’re gonna try to accomplish some of the things we’ve been working on in training. That’s number one,” said Schmetzer. “We’re going to try to get the fitness out of it … if guys didn’t work in the game, or they didn’t hit their numbers for the game they’ll do extra running afterwords. We’ve got it pretty dialed in, but for us obviously winning would be great, but we just want to make sure that players understand some of the tactics that we’re giving them in training, that that actually translates into success against an actual opponent.”

The result won’t matter nearly as much as seeing how players like Atencio and Hawkins perform alongside their more established CB partners, or how the attacking pieces fit and work together. A win would be nice, but guys like Morris and de la Vega continuing to build confidence create or score goals ahead of an important season would probably be nicer. Preseason results don’t count towards any of the season’s competitions, but that doesn’t make the games meaningless.