Perhaps the biggest news of the Seattle Sounders’ season dropped right in the middle of the first half of their match against FC Cincinnati. It wasn’t exactly the most convenient time to learn that the Sounders were close to finalizing the acquisition of Dejan Joveljić, but we’re not really in a position to dictate when Fabrizio Romano breaks news.
Due to the timing of that drop, though, it’s understandable if there’s still some confusion about what we actually know.
Let's try to fix that:
What did I miss?
If you were innocently out living your life on Saturday rather than glued to your device, you could quite easily be excused for entirely missing the news that the Sounders have effectively agreed to terms on one of their biggest transfers in club history. Two days later, Sounder at Heart has confirmed that the Sounders have lined up a move that will likely result in them acquiring Joveljić from Sporting KC in a $6 million "cash-for-player trade."
Is this guy good?
I’m not going to try to convince you that he’s literally perfect – there’s some advanced analytics that are a bit skeptical – but the facts are these: Joveljić has already scored more than 100 professional goals, 60 of those in six MLS seasons, just turned 27, has been remarkably healthy and even has an MLS Cup trophy to his name. In his one MLS season where he played on a good team, he had 21 goals and 8 assists in less than 2,400 minutes. To put it another way, he compares quite favorably to Raúl Ruidíaz when he first joined the Sounders, as well as international players like Petar Musa and Hugo Cuypers when they first came to MLS. That he’s "only" going to cost $6 million is actually a pretty good bit of business.
Why is he even available?
There hasn’t been a ton of reporting on Sporting KC's side of this deal, but here’s my educated guess: Sporting KC signed Joveljić from the LA Galaxy right before the start of the 2025 season. It ended up being basically the last big move of the Peter Vermes era. A few months later, Vermes was fired and David Lee was ultimately hired to take over the chief soccer officer duties later in the year. Even more recently, Peter Mallouk has taken over as team owner, having already made one of the most expensive transfers in MLS history and with rumors circulating that he’s looking to make more big splashes. The reality is that Joveljić was always a bit of an odd fit for Sporting KC and moving him allows this new leadership group maximum flexibility to remake the roster.
