The MLS promo for their 20th season begins with "when we started." We Seattle Sounders had a different start date. You can look back continually to 1994 and the Seattle Sounders of the A-League. Last year, we looked back all the way and celebrated 40 full years of pro soccer in Seattle.
As MLS starts season twenty, we can put on a different kind of a remembrance.
When it started - I was fresh out of DLI and had fallen in love with a US National Team that I only saw through newspaper clippings.
When it started - the Seattle Sounders held two A-League trophies.
When it started - broadcast.com carried radio streams of matches and the league paid to be on TV.
When it started - I listened to radio streams of Brian McBride's Columbus Crew, because it was Brian McBride.
When it started - Sounders were in a cavernous Memorial Stadium.
When it started - grunge ruled the airwaves.
When it started - kits were garish, not just in color, but in the style of the crazy times of the '90s.
When it started - Thursday nights were must-see-TV with Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld and ER.
When it started - Dick McCormick played for the Sounders
Now, it's 2015
Now, Duncan McCormick is a Sounder.
Now, the league is ours. No promotion of what MLS is can ignore Seattle.
Now, the Open Cup is ours. No mention of America's oldest soccer trophy can ignore the Sounders.
Now, Sounders FC are favorites to win trophies again.
Now, American soccer is on three national networks, broadcast globally and Seattle will be featured.
Now, National team players flock to the league.
Now, we get Oba and Clint and B-Rad and an Air Marshall, a Honey Badger, Frei Day, a magician-thief.
Now, our league and our team are back.
Now, it's time for major trophies 13, 14 and 15.
It's twenty-fifteen and soccer is back. I'm still greedy.