Step on THIS, Seattle fans!

So it will be called the Seattle Sounders or some copycat name from Europe?

 

Oh come on! Let's have it

 

I am very excited to have top flight soccer return to Seattle. We were, are and will be one of the greatest soccer cities in the US. We have great owners with resources and vision.

Other deserving cities like Philly St. Louis are still waiting. It is not easy for a city to get a franchise. We had our share of disappointments and waiting too. The bar and criteria has been raised higher.

We are fortunate and blessed to have an owner like Adrian Hannauer who peresevered through many challenges and setbacks to bring top flight soccer back to Seattle.

Joe Roth, gets the game loves the game and is committed to helping make Seattle a real success story for MLS and US Soccer.

Drew Carey, his passion and love for the game is contagious, not only does he have a platform to promote our team but the league and game as a whole.

Paul Allen, promises made and promises kept.

Having a pro soccer team in our city is not an entitlement, it is a privilage, when I see the struggles and challenges that the folks in Philly and St. Louis have had to go through and still not have been their team, it makes me realize how fortunate that we are. I wish them the best in there quest. Regardless of what they think of us, I think they are great cities for MLS.

Seattle Soccer is in the big leauges again! Whatever the name of the team or the colors of the kits, I am excited that Top flight soccer is back in one of the best soccer cities in the US and many people young and old will get to discover what we have known for years and that soccer truly is the beautiful game! In my humble opinion and at the and that is what truly matters.

 

I'm sorry to inform you that the madhouse called Qwest Field located in Sodo or called South of the downtown. Seattle Center is where everything clicks!

 

I want to believe in MLS. I believed in the NASL once and got burned, and saw a league consumed by its own greed.

Now I see men like Paul Allen putting up their own money, to bring MLS to Seattle. These are some powerful and influential men in our ownership group, has North America finally grown a league that can stand the test of time?

I believe it has. It's a good feeling believing in a major-league soccer league again. I had watched MLS with envy, and when QWest Field became a reality, I waited with baited breath for Seattle to be adopted into the league.

Now it is finally here. I can't wait. I find myself closing my eyes and seeing myself at our first match, a scarf raised to the sky celebrating the arrival, like Caesar himself had returned triumphant.

 

I'll add my two late-night, somewhat conscious cents.

For years the Sounders have been tearing shit up in the USL. But that only goes so far. The fans who do support the team celebrate joyously and drunkenly, and rightfully so, but all that comes out of it is a picture on page 3 of the sports section and a KOMO blurb. With a major league team comes the very real possibility of capturing the attention of the entire city, or region even. The Seahawks have done it with their success the last few years, the Mariners and Sonics did when they were winning, and I have no doubts that Seattle's MLS side can do the same thing as well.

Of course, all the ingredients seem to be in place to build a team/franchise that can be perennially successful - the Asian connection, a great (on paper) ownership group, a brilliant stadium in the heart of an amazing city. And that's what has me so excited; we could be not only major league, we could be one of the best major league franchises. In America.

 

Im excited 2009 seems so freaking far away but its not and before we all know it MLS will invade our city. I believe we have an outstanding group of owners who will make not only a commitment to the organization but to the city. We have the best stadium in the MLS by far, regardless of what those inbiciles with their same lame arguments say. Shit atleats we dont have have to travel 45 minutes out to the boonies where there is nothing, we got it all. We will succeed on the pitch and off the pitch mark my words I can feel like!!! Man I just cant wait, I need the season to start to take my mind away from it hahaha.

 

It will be a year away in late March, when Seattle will join the MLS. I am excited by the fact that Seattle (so far) do not seem to be fallowing the same mistakes of past expansion teams, ie. building a team around the expansion draft. Instead the team will be built around a group of talented players who have actually played with each other.

And the fact that we are playing at Qwest and not Tukwilla or Renton, means a better atmosphere before the game. One of the leasons from Toronto, stadium downtown in a major city, good... Stadium in the boonies (SSS or not) not so much.

Though the team name fills me with some dread, but that is for bright's thread.

 

I guess it's a good excuse to take a trip to Seattle.

 

I have a question for you guys and gals. Is there going to be a plan to build a SSS later or Qwest field will be it. Just wondering.

 

I guess it will work for now. Can't wait.

 

You can start the celebration right now by apologizing for all the crap you've pulled with the current supporters. You've spit in our faces, and then you have the gall to take the high ground. You jerk us around with your soap-opera style "reporting" just so you can get a rise. I also think you've been a big contributor to the lack of cooperation between the Seattle and Portland supporters groups. Some key Portland people used to offer to help us out, but you in your little Napolean role rebuffed them. And now you want to welcome all these new people because you've burned the bridges with everyone else.

I've had the humility to admit that I've been venomous towards some of the posters who disrespect the Sounders and Seattle soccer in general, but you've been the catalyst for that kind of reaction, at least for me, going back at least a year. So if you want to rebuild that bridge, show some humility and admit your mistakes. Otherwise, watching you continue to attempt your role as spokesperson for Seattle soccer fans is downright sickening, and your call for a "jubilee" rings hollow.

- Paul

 

For what it is worth, I think there should just be one *hell* of a bash, the night before, or the day of the very first match in 2009. I advocate the Dragon as the spot of the bash, simply because it was the place it all started.

Whenever, or however the bash is, I'd personally like to offer to buy all you bastards a drink, yes, even you Paul - and yes I think you'll be there.

I'll be the old guy, still wearing Doc Martens boots, most likely seen in the corner of the pub screaming in someone's ear about "Clearchannel", "American Theocracy" and "Stiff Little Fingers".

I won't be offended, if you take one look and quietly back away, I get that all the time.

 

Are you going to be at this season's home opener against Portland? You can buy me a beer then.

- Paul

 

I like beer. A lot. I will take you up on that offer, good sir.

GS-1... That's a lot of drinking. I think we might have some fatalities.