The 2026 season will be the 18th season for Seattle Sounders FC in Major League Soccer (MLS), the top flight of professional club soccer in the United States. It will be the 43rd season for a professional team bearing the Sounders name, which had originated in 1974 with the first incarnation of the franchise. The team remained under the management of Brian Schmetzer in his tenth full MLS season as head coach of the Sounders.
The Sounders will be play 34 matches in the MLS regular season and also qualified for the 2026 CONCACAF Champions Cup as winners of the 2025 Leagues Cup. The team will also play in the 2026 edition of the Leagues Cup. During the 2025 season, Seattle finished fifth in the Western Conference standings and qualified for the MLS Cup playoffs, where they were eliminated in the first round by Minnesota United FC. The Sounders also played in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup and the 2025 CONCACAF Champions Cup.
The 2026 season will be the last under the springâÂÂautumn format used by MLS since it began play in 1996. The league plans to use a autumnâÂÂspring schedule beginning in late 2027 with a long winter break.
The Sounders opened their 2026 preseason training camp on January 12 and retained most of their roster from the 2025 season. Among the new signings are midfielders Nikola PetkoviÃÂ, who was loaned from Charlotte FC, and two players from reserve team Tacoma DefianceâÂÂforward Yu Tsukanome and midfielder Sebastian Gomez. Homegrown midfielder Obed Vargas left the team during preseason to sign with Atlético Madrid of La Liga.
On January 18, the team traveled to Quinta do Lago in Portugal for one week of training and one friendly match at Estádio Algarve. They lost 2âÂÂ0 to Brøndby IF and traveled on January 26 to the Marbella Football Center in Spain for the remainder of their overseas preseason. The Sounders won their first friendly against IF Brommapojkarna and played two full-length matches on February 5âÂÂdefeating Hammarby IF and losing to FC Metalist 1925 Kharkiv. The Sounders returned to Seattle in early February and won two friendlies against Louisville City FC at their home training facility.
The preseason schedule was released by Seattle Sounders FC on January 22, 2026.
The MLS regular season schedule was released on November 20, 2025. The Sounders will play 34 matchesâÂÂ17 at home and 17 awayâÂÂprimarily against the 14 other teams in the Western Conference; the team is scheduled to play six opponents from the Eastern Conference. The regular season will include a six-week break for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in May and June. The Sounders will have five consecutive away matches from February to April while Lumen Field undergoes preparations to host the World Cup, including the installation of a grass pitch to temporarily replace the artificial turf.
The Sounders will play in the CONCACAF Champions Cup, the regional club championship for North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, for the ninth season since entering MLS. The team qualified for the tournament as winners of the 2025 Leagues Cup and were granted a bye to the round of 16. Due to preparations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup at Lumen Field, the Sounders hosted their round of 16 match at One Spokane Stadium in Spokane, Washington.
The Sounders are one of 18 MLS teams that qualified for the 2026 Leagues Cup based on their performance during the 2025 regular season. The tournament begins in early August and concludes in late September with the same format as the 2025 Leagues Cup: three matches in the first phase against teams from Liga MX and a knockout round for the top four teams from each league.
For the 2026 season, the Sounders are permitted a maximum of 30 signed players on the first team, of which 20 players are part of the senior roster and 10 positions are designated for supplemental and reserve players. Additional homegrown players are eligible to be signed to off-roster slots and are able to appear in MLS matches through short-term agreements. The senior players count towards a base salary cap of $6.4million with exceptions for certain categories, including up to three Designated Players, who counted for a set amount in the cap. The Sounders chose the Designated Player model for roster construction and have two unused under-22 initiative slots.
The MLS season has two normal transfer windows during which teams can register new players from outside of the league and those who required an International Transfer Certificate. The primary window is open from January 26 to March 26; a secondary window is scheduled from July 13 to September 2. Teams are required to have their rosters compliant with league rules by February 20 and will be unable to make changes beyond the roster freeze on October 9. Between the transfer windows, teams are allowed to sign free agents or other U.S.-based players, including those traded between MLS teams for other players, general allocation money, or various league slots.
For transfers in, dates listed are when Seattle Sounders FC officially signed the player to the roster. Transactions where only the rights to the players are acquired are not listed. For transfers out, dates listed are when Seattle Sounders FC officially removed the players from its roster, not when they signed with another club. If a player later signed with another club, his new club will be noted, but the date listed here remains the one when he was officially removed from the Seattle Sounders FC roster.
Draft picks were not automatically signed to the team roster. Only those who are signed to a contract were listed as transfers in. Only trades involving draft picks and executed after the start of the 2026 MLS SuperDraft are listed in the notes.