RENTON — In an attempt to make it easier for participating teams to bolster their rosters for the Club World Cup and address a quirk of tournament timing relative to player contracts expiring, FIFA decided to grant them an additional 10-day transfer window.
Although U.S. Soccer has granted the Seattle Sounders, Inter Miami and potentially LAFC the ability to use that window that opens Sunday through June 10, it’s unclear how active they will be.
Sounders GM Craig Waibel doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get a signing done during this window.
“We’re not going to do anything for a three-week tournament,” he said. “We’re gonna do something that makes the team better over time.”
As Waibel has said repeatedly over the past few months, the Sounders’ scouting efforts are mostly focused on identifying and signing a U22 Initiative Player.
“We’ve targeted quite a few top players in Europe and South America,” Waibel said. “Right now, we put the press on those players to make decisions.”
While the U22 Initiative allows MLS teams to spend effectively unlimited amounts on transfer fees while not counting any more than $200,000 against the salary cap, there are nuances to the rule that make it a bit more complicated. The main one is that players can’t be older than 22 in the year the signing is made. But they also can’t be paid more than the maximum salary — this year, that’s $743,750.
Combine those two elements together, and the type of players being targeted are almost by definition relatively unproven. The success rate across MLS has been, at best, mixed.
At the same time, the type of players who fit the profile the Sounders are targeting tend to have options.
“Part of this is we’re starting to own up to what we are, which is we’re becoming a better league – probably the top 10 league in the world – so we’re competing for players now than they’re not just talking to us,” Waibel said. “They’re talking to us and teams in the fifth, sixth, seventh best leagues in the world.
“We’re in competition with a lot of big name teams now, it’s pretty fun. It’s pretty fun to be a part of, and we've just got to figure out how to win one or two of those conversations. We’re optimistic, but at the same time, a lot of good young players have choices to make.”
The transfer market is, of course, a two-way street and the Sounders could end up as sellers as well.
The prospect around whom there’s been the most attention is Obed Vargas, who has few peers around the world who can match the amount of high-level experience he’s already accumulated as a 19-year-old.
While that may have piqued the interest of just about every team in the world, it hasn’t yet led to any official offers.
“One of the biggest debates I think a lot of teams are having is, is he ready to come in and contribute to their team, and do they need him?” Waibel said. “The significance of the investment to bring a player like Obed in, you need to do it with the timing that he's going to be on the field.”
The other player who seems to be on a lot of foreign teams’ radars is Pedro de la Vega, who the Sounders signed as a Young Designated Player before last season. After struggling to stay fit in 2024, de la Vega has been more consistently available this year and has been able to showcase more of his talents.
Among the teams who has previously shown interest in de la Vega is one of the teams the Sounders will be facing in the Club World Cup.
“He’s starting to perform as I think a lot of us expected him to,” Waibel said. “Physically, he’s developed. He’s put the work in over the last year. He’s mentally in a much better place, physically, he’s contributing in a much higher rate.”
But Waibel insists he’s not necessarily itching to sell, either.
“The structure of MLS is there’s not a lot of reward for selling players,” he said. “There is financial reward to the club, which we take into consideration, we are a business.
“In terms of terms of staying competitive, winning games, and honoring both our commitment to our players as well as their commitment to their careers and their dreams, that's a balance. When opportunities come up, there’s nothing hidden. When official offers come in, any player I have will know. I have always communicated official offers to players because I think it's important that transparency exists, and sometimes we as a club will make the decision that it’s not the right time or not the right business opportunity, and sometimes the players do.”
