The best positional battles of Sounders training camp

The Seattle Sounders are off to Portugal for fitness testing, then Marbella, Spain for the rest of preseason. There are beep tests to be run, scrimmages to be played and minutes to be earned.

Here are a few of the best position battles that'll be taking place in Marbella, which could prove most consequential once the regular season and Concacaf Champions Cup get underway.

Left wing

In the mix: Paul Arriola, Paul Rothrock, Georgi Minoungou

With Pedro de la Vega slated to be sidelined for the start of the year with a dislocated kneecap, the competition for minutes on the left wing is going to be a fascinating one to watch. Paul Rothrock would seem the odds-on favorite after starting 27 league matches last year and earning himself a hefty contract extension. But his fellow Paul, Paul Arriola, seems to have arrived to camp with a point to prove, drawing rave reviews upon returning to the training ground coming off last year's ACL injury. Arriola looked poised for a big year in 2025 before going down with the injury and he seems like a perfect fit for Seattle’s style of hard-working, high-pressing, two-way wingers – similar to Rothrock and Jesus Ferreira.

This is also a big preseason for Minoungou, coming off his best year as a pro where he showed plenty of glimpses of his tantalizing potential and upside. If he shows signs that he’s taken another step forward in Marbella in terms of his final product and consistency, that would be one of this team's biggest ceiling-raising developments from training camp.

Third centerback

In the mix: Kim Kee-hee, Stuart Hawkins, Ryan Sailor

Yeimar and Jackson Ragen are the incumbent starters, but the role for the first CB off the bench behind them seems to be wide open, especially with Jon Bell’s free-agent departure to Austin FC.

It was relatively unheralded, but Kim actually played more than 1,000 minutes of mostly-solid soccer last year when he was called upon, to the point where he seems like a serviceable option to fill a similar role this year, even at age 36.

Any sort of emergence or breakout from Hawkins would be the biggest story in the position group. The homegrown showed up to camp looking like he spent all offseason in the gym and he played well in the limited minutes he got last year. He’s still just 19 and he has a top pedigree among any of the Sounders’ prospects coming up as far as his accomplishments at the youth level, both for Seattle's academy and the US youth national teams.

Sailor seems like a long-shot for a significant role considering he hasn’t played more than 310 minutes in an MLS season since 2022. I wouldn’t necessarily count him out from having more to offer than people might think, though. It seems like his lack of playing time at Inter Miami was more due to their stacked depth chart than him not being worthy of minutes. It's possible he's been an MLS-level centerback this whole time and just hasn't had the opportunity to show it.

Central midfield

In the mix: Hassani Dotson, Nikola Petković, Snyder Brunell

Obed Vargas is still on the roster as of this writing, meaning there’s no doubt that he’ll remain part of Seattle’s first-choice double-pivot along with Cristian Roldan. But Vargas will be moving on at some point, meaning the preseason should be instructive as to what the plan is at the position.

Unless something crazy happens, Dotson will be tasked with slotting in when one of Vargas or Roldan is out, and would be the one taking over the starting role in the event that Vargas is transferred. Even if Vargas stays the whole year, Dotson is going to play a lot of minutes, hopefully taking some of the load off Roldan, who famously played pretty much every minute of every game last year, and shouldn’t rightfully be expected to do the same thing in 2026. Dotson's skillset is more like-for-like for Roldan than Vargas, giving the team a contingency plan at that spot that they really didn't have last year.

Where it gets interesting is how it shapes out with Petković and Brunell. With Petković, you’ve got a U22 Initiative player who had enough talent and pedigree to become a regular for Serbia's youth national teams and earn a senior cap. That’s an intriguing place to start, even if he fell out of favor at Charlotte FC and arrived with less fanfare than your typical U22.

Brunell is looking to build on his 2025 emergence, which saw him look actively good in his MLS appearances and even bag a couple of league goals. Of all the midfielders brought up through Seattle’s academy in the last few years, Brunell had one of the most impressive first forays into MLS, giving hope that he'll be able to follow the same path as guys like Vargas, Danny Leyva and Josh Atencio. He'll have a chance to show that in Marbella, and Brian Schmetzer's willingness to play him last year indicates that he won't shy away from giving him minutes.