Sounders finished last season 2nd in the West and 4th Overall. In the MLS Cup playoffs, they were knocked out by Portland Timbers after penalties in the Conference Semifinals, which was a disappointing result for Sounders, who managed to win the cup only 2 years prior. As for their U.S. Cup campaign, the 4th round was where it all ended for Seattle when they lost to Sacramento Republic FC after extra time (2:1). Despite that, their Champions League quarter-finals finish is not something to take lightly as they were one of the 3 MLS teams that managed to get that far.
Head Coach: Brian Schmetzer
A part of the Seattle Sounders FC club since 2009, when he joined as an assistant. In 2016, Brian Schmetzer was appointed to the head coach position after Sigi Schmid left to coach LA Galaxy. In his long coaching career, he was also a part of the following teams: assistant at Tacoma Start, an assistant at Seattle SeaDogs, head coach at Seattle Sounders and as mentioned assistant and currently head coach Seattle Sounders FC. As a coach he has achieved many titles with his teams, however for the sake of keeping the list short, we will only look at the titles Brian Schmetzer got with Sounders
Transfers
[su_table url=”” responsive=”no” class=””]
| Date | Name | Moving from | Moving to | Mode of Transfer |
| December 28, 2018 | Jonathan Campbell | Chicago Fire | Seattle Sounders | Trade |
| January 15, 2019 | Trey Muse | Indiana Hoosiers | Seattle Sounders | Homegrown player |
| February 5, 2019 | Waylon Francis | Seattle Sounders | Columbus Crew | Trade |
| December 28, 2018 | Tony Alfaro | Seattle Sounders | Guadalajara | Free |
| January 10, 2019 | Osvaldo Alonso | Seattle Sounders | Minnesota United | Waivers |
| February 12, 2019 | Calle Brown | Seattle Sounders | Loudoun United | Free |
[/su_table]
Expectations for the 2019 season
I expect their playoff streak to continue this season as well. Comparing the last season’s Sounders to the Sounders that come into 2019 there is not a lot that changed, which is a good thing. In addition, I expect Ruidiaz to have yet another great season. If he managed to score 10 goals in 14 games, we can expect a lot of goals throughout the whole season. All in all, Sounders are surely going to make it into the playoffs. Anything more will depend on how healthy their players will be. Last season was filled with injuries for Sounders, and let’s hope that won’t be the case this season as well.
