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The Story of the 2007 Seattle Sounders
2007 team photo courtesy of Seattle Sounders / George Holland.
2007 will go down as one of the greatest years in the history of Seattle professional soccer. The United Soccer League First Division Seattle Sounders garnered three trophies and on November 13th Major League Soccer announced that Seattle would join the top circuit starting in 2009. Seattle soccer diehards spent the summer watching a French import rip it up in league and US Open Cup play. They spent the fall celebrating trophies. They went into the winter months pondering the future of the Sounders and the arrival of MLS.
Roger Levesque (left) talks with Sebastien Le Toux before his March trial. David Falk photo.
In March the Sounders held an invitational tryout at Starfire Sports Complex. Sebastien Le Toux had been asked to come up from the FC Dallas camp as it appeared the French defender would not make the roster of that MLS side. Le Toux owned the park that night at tryouts, impressing Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer and owner / manager Adrian Hanauer. Over the next two months Seattle worked to sign and get Le Toux his working papers to join the Sounders. When he finally became a permanent starter in May Seattle's form vaulted and the club would never look back.
The Sounders added many new faces for the 2007 campaign. Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar came up from rival Portland. Nate Knox came west from Minnesota. Andre Schmid had made the club as a reserve forward the same night Le Toux tried out. Josh Gardner came in near the season start from LA Galaxy. Greg Howes returned home from Rochester. 2005 Sounder Champion and USL-1 Defender of the Year Taylor Graham joined up with the season underway. Rookie midfielder Kenji Treschuk joined and quickly became a coach and fan favorite. The Sounders roster was packed and expectations and results grew in equal proportion.
It was another slow start for the club in 2007. Seattle lost 1-0 at Vancouver and 3-2 at Miami before earning a single point in a 0-0 draw in Puerto Rico at the end of April. The Sounders returned for their home opener winless after three matches. The home kick off came against rival Portland Timbers. It was no thing of beauty, but Seattle's narrow 1-0 win before 8,247 fans put the Sounders in the win column. That step forward was met with a step backward when Seattle blew a late 2-0 lead and drew 2-2 in Portland on national TV less than a week later. Sebastien Le Toux scored his first marker in that match, a taste of the feast to come.
Seattle's first win came on this Nate Knox goal in the home opener. Jenni Conner photo.
It got worse before it got better. The Sounders dropped a 1-3 home loss to Vancouver on May 12th. They held Rochester 1-1 at Qwest Field on May 18th. A trip to Montreal ended in a 2-0 defeat. After eight matches the Sounders were limping along with a record of 1 win 3 draws and 4 losses, and only six standings points. The turn-around began in Carolina when Seattle edged the expansion Railhawks 1-0 on a flashy Le Toux breakaway. The Sounders would never look back.
June saw Seattle host Chivas USA of MLS in a friendly. The match was part compensation for Maykel Galindo's departure to the Los Angeles club. Seattle fell 3-1 but would later have open cup revenge. The Sounders advanced in Open Cup play in June with a 4-1 win over Banat Arsenal and then a 2-1 triumph over Portland. In league play Seattle was stringing together a series of one-goal victories. The Sounders' lone league loss in June was a 1-0 affair at Qwest with Montreal. When July came in to focus Seattle had raised its record to 6-4-5 (W-D-L).
The Sounders went undefeated in July. They hosted and beat Preston North End 2-1 at Qwest on the 23rd. They hosted and beat Chivas USA 3-1 in the US Open Cup on the 18th. They won two league matches against Rochester and drew and beat the defending league champions Vancouver. It was becoming clear that Seattle was getting it together. Led by the streaking attacks of Le Toux, the solid goalkeeping of Chris Eylander, the arrival of Kenji Treschuck, the hustle of Roger Levesque and the flexibility of team Captain Danny Jackson in his move to the middle, the Sounders were becoming a team to be reckoned with.
August went nearly as well as July. Seattle stood 14-6-6 at the end of a month that included one of the season highlights, a 5-0 thrashing of MLS Colorado Rapids in the US Open Cup. On the 1st the Sounders retained their derby cup with a 2-0 win over Portland. The Cascadia Cup would be the first of three trophies the Sounders would haul.
The US Open Cup run had Seattle soccer fans buzzing. The Sounders had trashed two higher-league clubs by a combined 8-1 score line. Over 10,000 fans came to Qwest on September 4th to see the Sounders tangle with FC Dallas in the cup semifinals. Seattle fell 2-1 in an overtime heartbreaker that saw all three goals scored in the extra session. The disappointment of bowing out of the oldest soccer competition in the States could have carried over into a lapse of the other goals the clubs still had before them, but the Sounders wouldn't let that happen. Instead Seattle rebounded with a 4-0 win over California in their home season finale and a 1-0 win at Minnesota to end the regular season. The Sounders finished top of the USL-1 table with 54 points and won the "Commissioner's Cup" as their second trophy of 2007.
French import Sebastien Le Toux had arrived on the scene in spectacular fashion. He won the Golden Boot for most goals in US Open Cup play and then was awarded as the Most Valuable Player in the league over the entire 2007 season. He finished tied for most goals in the league (10).
The playoffs began where the Sounders' season turn-around also began: Carolina. A 2-0 away win in leg one meant the Sounders could play relaxed in leg two at Qwest. They did, and what looked to be a listless 0-0 draw actually ended 1-0 to Seattle on a late penalty kick. The Sounders advanced past the Railhawks and in to the semifinals against Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rico Islanders had been many pundit's 'sleeper choice' to go far in the playoffs. Seattle chose to take the second leg at home so the Sounders began the match-up on the Island before over 11,000 boisterous fans. Seattle surprised with a 2-1 win that seemed to put them well on their way to a return to the Finals. Not so fast.
The Sounders were a draw or victory away from the USL-1 2007 Final when they hosted the Islanders on September 23rd at Starfire Sports Complex. The Islanders had other ideas. The match was dominated by the Isles who were searching for a series equalizer. They got it very late. Twice. First in the 80th minute and then again in the 117th Puerto Rico drew level. Seattle's Greg Howes had put the Sounders up 3-2 in the 110th. The match went to penalty kicks and the Sounders advanced 4-2 with help from goalkeeper Chris Eylander and four sure-footed pk-takers. Fans rushed the pitch at Starfire and Seattle were back in the Final for the third time in four seasons.
The Atlanta Silverbacks were tasked with slowing down the Sounders juggernaut in the Final. They played well but in the end Seattle showed they were indeed the class of the league. The Sounders' 4-0 win allowed for a larger, noisier pitch invasion and the hoisting of an incredible third trophy in just under two months.
Jenni Conner photo collage.
Greg Howes was named Most Valuable Player in the Final. The Tacoma native scored two goals, including a crucial tally near halftime that had Atlanta chasing the match in the second half. Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar tallied a long-range dart and longtime Sounder Craig Tomlison capped the rout with a rebound off of a corner kick late on. The Sounders had returned to the top of the USL mountain with another title. Seattle became the city with the most championships (four) in USA division two history. Division one would soon be making a house call.
Major League Soccer expansion rumors involving Seattle had been nothing new, so when they began to bubble to the surface again in May of 2007 they were met with a healthy amount of skepticism. When they dragged into June and July, and various possible ownership groups went public in the press, then fans began to wonder. In July and then into August rumors started to boil that some kind of Seattle MLS ownership group might have already been awarded a 'conditional franchise' for 2009. Sports Illustrated broke an early report that Adrian Hanauer, Seattle Sounders owner and a rumored MLS investor, called 'premature.' A blogger out of New Jersey all but confirmed the rumors were accurate. In October the Seattle Times sent out a shot that MLS 'was close at hand' for the city of Seattle.
Drew Carey announces his involvement with Seattle MLS.
Finally on Friday November 9th the Times ran a story confirming that Major League Soccer would be holding a press conference the following Tuesday November 13th to announce that Seattle would be joining MLS. Fans arrived a day early on November 12th at The George and Dragon Pub to see comedian Drew Carey get the ball rolling and announce his minority ownership in the new club.
The official press conference the next day was watched by thousands of fans live over the internet. Seattle MLS would play at Qwest Field starting in 2009. It would have a dynamic ownership group of Hollywood movie mogul Joe Roth, Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, local soccer champion Adrian Hanauer and funny man Drew Carey. After a wait lasting over a decade long Seattle soccer was going "up."
As 2007 wound to a close longtime Sounders fans were left to ponder the most amazing season in club history as well as the future of the club and the club name. The MLS press conference had revealed that the "Seattle Sounders" would play one final season in the USL-1 in 2008. The name "Sounders" could move with the club to the Kitsap Peninsula, fold with the club, or be adopted by Seattle MLS. Meanwhile the new MLS club had already sold over 10,000 season ticket deposits in its first month.
The faces, goals, voices and colors of 2007 will live on forever in the hearts and minds of Seattle pro soccer fans. From Sebastien Le Toux's accent and bright smile to his ability to scorch defenders, from a slow start to a red-hot finish, from Qwest Field to Starfire, from Puerto Rico to Tukwila, from France to Washington State, from the bench to the starters, from fan picnics to post-match cheers. From them to us.
From us to them: Thank you. It was magnifique!
See more on 2007 here: GOALSeattle.com 2007 Sounders Museum Page Seattle Pitch 2007 Matches Page
This page hosted by www.GOALSeattle.com
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