If you haven’t noticed, the soccer calendar is becoming increasingly crowded.
It’s impossible to go more than a year without a new proposal popping up to expand tournaments like the World Cup and the Club World Cup. Effort to squeeze value out of every possible inch of scheduling real estate isn’t unique to FIFA, of course. It’s commonplace in MLS, too. Between the introduction of a best-of-three playoff series and an expanded Leagues Cup, MLS teams are playing more games than ever (up significantly from an average of 36.3 per team in 2021 to 42.2 last season).
With more games on the calendar, the best teams in MLS are responding with increasingly deep rosters. There may not be a club with a more effectively built squad — or a more cleverly built one — than the Seattle Sounders, who are guaranteed to play at least 49 games this year, a top-10 all-time number for an MLS team.
Now about to begin their push for a third MLS Cup, here’s how the Sounders looked inward to create a squad with a level of depth most other MLS clubs could only dream of.
When it comes to the Seattle Sounders’ roster, Adrian Hanauer is a straight-shooter. The team’s 59-year-old owner doesn’t try to hide the fact that the Sounders don’t spend on their first team like Inter Miami or a handful of MLS’s other high-rollers.
“I don’t pay very much attention to where we’re spending relative to other teams. We’ve always said we won’t spend the most, won’t spend the least,” Hanauer told Sounder at Heart last year. “But what I’m super focused on is to be spending the right amount of money to always be competing for championships.”
The Seattle Sounders rank 14th in the league in total guaranteed salary spend based on the latest release from the MLS Players Association. They’re not splashing cash left and right on salaries, nor are they doing so on transfer fees. In fact, according to Transfermarkt, the Sounders rank dead-last among the league’s 30 teams in total transfer expenditure since the start of this decade, even sitting behind the four expansion teams that debuted after the 2020s began.
As Hanauer and his roster decision-makers in the front office know well, there’s no meaningful relationship between salary spend and points in MLS. There’s no meaningful correlation between transfer spend and points per game, either. Because team rosters are governed by the league’s regimented salary budget, it’s impossible to buy your way to success in present day MLS. It is possible, however, to think your way there.
For the Seattle Sounders, that thinking has manifested itself as a unique, internal multi-faceted development system.
Of course, successfully landing quality, full-fledged professionals who are ready to contribute to the senior roster is still crucial for the Sounders. They’ve largely checked that box over the last several transfer windows. But make no mistake: it’s their ability to find and improve players along unorthodox pathways that helps them stand out.
Of the 29 players to step on the field for Seattle in this year’s regular season, 18 of them came through the Sounders’ academy, their second team, or the college draft. No other team in MLS rivals that number, giving Seattle an unparalleled amount of internal depth.
“Look, our fourth Designated Player is our development system,” Sounders general manager Craig Waibel told Backheeled. “That’s where we choose to spend the money because it’s working.”
