Seattle Sounders FC is a professional soccer team in the United States. FC stands for football club. Soccer is called football in many parts of the world. The Sounders compete in the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS), the top soccer league in the United States and Canada. The team plays its home games at Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington.
The Seattle Sounders joined the North American Soccer League in 1974. The team folded after the 1983 season. The Sounders returned in 1994, playing as a minor league franchise through 2008.
The Seattle Sounders FC joined the MLS in 2009. The team qualified for the playoffs in each of their first 13 MLS seasons. In 2014, the Sounders finished first in the Western Conference and won the Supporters’ Shield as the MLS team with the best regular season record. In 2016, the Sounders rolled through the Western Conference playoffs and defeated Toronto FC in the MLS Cup final to win their first championship. Seattle returned to the MLS Cup final in 2017, but lost the rematch against Toronto. The Sounders again faced Toronto in the 2019 MLS Cup final, winning 3-1 for the club’s second title.
Seattle has won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, an annual tournament open to U.S. amateur and professional soccer clubs, four times (2009, 2010, 2011, and 2014). A U.S. Open Cup title earns the winner entry into the CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football) Champions League, an annual tournament among that region’s best professional clubs. In 2022, the Sounders won the Champions League. The Sounders became the first MLS team to win the tournament since 2000. That year it was called the Champions Cup, and the LA Galaxy won it.
