Andy Rose, the rookie midfielder from England by way of UCLA, was won one of the two fitness beep tests the Sounders conducted today at the VMAC. (The other was won by David Estrada, also of UCLA.

Afterward, I talked to Rose about the test and about his first week as a professional.

Did you expect to do that well?
AR: Coming from a school like UCLA we have a lot of guys who really push us—we have a lot of fit players over there. Growing up I’ve always been pretty fit and pride myself on fitness and working in the off-season and coming in prepared. I used to work out a lot with David Estrada at UCLA, so that probably explains it.

How hard is that? Do you sort of look to the side to see who’s dropping out? Read more »

The Sounders are now one week into preseason training, so coach Sigi Schmid was asked for his overriding impression so far.

His answer:

“It’s tough. When you plant a little thought in the player – when maybe he hasn’t played well the day before, especially the younger guys – and you say, ‘Look, this is what I need to see,’ they’ve actually responded fairly well, and then they bring that the next day. It’s going to be tough making decisions Read more »

This just in from the club:

Tickets for the Seattle Sounders FC versus Santos Laguna match will go on sale on Monday, January 30 at 10 a.m. Tickets will be available by phone at 800-745-3000 or online at www.SoundersFC.com.

Seattle will host Mexico’s Santos Laguna in the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals on March 7 on the Xbox Pitch at CenturyLink Field. The second leg will be played on March 14 in Torreon, Mexico.

To purchase 2012 season tickets, including seating in the Hawk’s Nest, please contact the Sounders FC Ticket Office at 877-MLS-GOAL (877-657-4625) or www.SoundersFC.com.

Here was Sounders’ fitness coach David Tenney’s overview after today’s fitness testing at the VMAC in Renton.

“I was very happy. Every year we’re using this as a look at what our starting points are from a physical standpoint going into Arizona. Typically we do this three or four days before we go to Arizona and then it kind of drives our programming for Arizona. I haven’t looked exactly at all the numbers yet or done an analysis, but it appears that our team average is significantly better than it was last year. For a lot of guys, their starting points are a lot better than they were last year.

“And I think that it’s a testament hopefully to the guys and the voluntary workouts we were doing at the beginning of January. You could see it pays dividends from that. We want to start doing stuff with the ball. You look at other countries, they don’t do anything with the ball the first two weeks. It’s all running. I was thinking about that. Really, those voluntary workouts, for the most part, those end up being the two weeks without the ball that we get to skip. It helps Sigi do everything technically and tactically a lot earlier in the program.”

Here was coach Sigi Schmid’s overview impression: Read more »

Sounders Andy Rose and David Estrada were the last men running the beep tests on this first morning of two days of fitness testing at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton.

The video above shows the early portion of the second test, won by Estrada.

After, we spoke to fitness coach David Tenney about what the test shows…

Physically: A lot of it’s position-specific. If you’re a midfielder, that’s a very, very important test for you – especially your ability to resist fatigue. Central defenders and strikers, statistically they’re not doing as

…

Read more »

The Sounders return to the Seahawks indoor training facility in Renton this morning to begin two days of fitness testing. I’ll be back here afterward with some highlights, and probably a few tweets before that.

Meanwhile, a few other soccer notes:

* The New York Red Bulls announced today that Major League Soccer and English Premiership side, Bolton Wanderers FC, have agreed to a transfer fee for Red Bulls defender and United States National Team international Tim Ream. Ream has agreed to personal contract terms with Bolton, earned United Kingdom visa approval and passed a physical. The transfer terms were not disclosed. Details here.

* Sports Illustrated has conducted an interesting draft of the best soccer players of all time.

* In MLS Western Conference news, Read more »

As you may have known from the six dozen or so blog posts below, Seattle Sounders FC has joined with Pierce County’s Premier Development League team, which has been renamed Sounders FC U-23s.

After the announcement, I asked general manager Adrian Hanauer why the Sounders didn’t affiliate instead with the Kitsap Pumas, North Sound SeaWolves or Washington Crossfire.

He said it was in part because of pursuit by the ownership of the Tacoma team, and in part because the clubs already had a relationship due to the (former) Tacoma Tide’s involvement with the Sounders Women team.

But then Hanauer got to this one: “I think there’s another benefit, which is the potential to continue to build interest in Pierce County in the Sounders in general. And I think playing (PDL) games down there with some hopefully future stars maybe brings some fans out in Pierce County to see the (MLS) team.”

Hearing that Sounders FC wants to fan the flames in Pierce County, I asked Hanauer something I’ve been asking him now and then since the start of the franchise: Why not have the MLS Sounders play a friendly — or U.S. Open Cup matches — in the Tacoma Dome? That is where Alan Hinton’s reborn Sounders played the early part of their 1994 season. It’s a comfortable place to watch a game. Finding open dates wouldn’t seem to be a problem. And the soccer capacity would be very convenient for certain competitions: notably bigger than Starfire, notably smaller than CenturyLink.

Hanauer did not slap his forehead, shout “Eureka!” and say he’d get right on it.

But neither did he rule out the possiblity.

“We haven’t had those discussions recently,” he said. “It’s certainly something that we’re open to. But in all honesty, we haven’t been proactively too focused on that. We still think of ourselves as sort of a startup business, and we’re just trying to solidify ourselves in King County. So, Pierce and Snohomish Read more »

Sounders Jeff Parke and Brad Evans both saw action in the U.S. national team’s 1-0 win over Panama tonight. (The video above shows the lone goal.)

Parke came on in the 54th minute, and Evans in the 66th.

Congratulations to both Sounders, who are expected to return their journey home tomorrow. The Sounders media-relations folks said they will try to get us some time to speak to both players about their experiences before the club leaves for Arizona next week.