The Sounders are off today — apparently even the ones whose fitness tests didn’t go so well. But they’ve better enjoy it, because their training schedule now shifts to a run of 12 training sessions over 10 days … and in two states.

They will end their first wave of training Monday and Tuesday at Starfire. Then fly to Arizona where they will train from Wednesday through Feb. 10 — with double practices on Thursday and Feb. 8.

And, of course, now that the MLS and its players union have agreed to extend their collective bargaining agreement deadline through …

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CONCACAF has not yet approved the Sounders idea of playing their Champions League opener at Starfire Sports Stadium.

One alert reader noticed that Starfire seems to conflict with a couple CONCACAF Champions League regulations regarding host stadiums.

One of those is that “the home venue selected by the participating team should be the stadium usually used by the team for its home games.” The other says “As a general rule, matches may only be played in all-seated stadia. … (And) if only stadia with both seating and standing areas are available, the standing space shall remain vacant.”

Obviously the Sounders …

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As mentioned below, the Sounders did their first 11-v-11 full-field scrimmage today.

There were no goals, but coach Sigi Schmid said he was generally pleased with what he saw.

“For the first day out it was good,” he said. “There were a couple of mis-timed tackles. We got a few shins bruised because we had a couple of guy had bad first touches so they decided to kick the opponent instead of kicking themselves. It was good. The energy level was good. You expect that. You’ve got to get that first one out of the way, get all that adrenaline …

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Representatives from three different levels of Sounders FC agreed today that the decision to extend the deadline while working on a new collective bargaining agreement is a good thing.

Player/union rep James Riley:
“Obviously I think it’s a good thing, that there’s a dialogue, trying to make the dialogue a bit more consistent, and work to a resolution. Again, there’s intelligent people representing both sides and the fact that we extended it a bit is promising.”

General manager Adrian Hanauer:
“I don’t have any inside knowledge. To me it’s a good thing. That means presumably that conversations are …

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After practice today, coach Sigi Schmid shared some of the winners of the fitness testing the Sounders went through Wednesday and Thursday.

So I know the answer to that question above. However, I found the answer so surprising, that I’m going to let the question linger for a second. Give it some thought. Who would you guess. (And then assume that guess is wrong.)

Then, I’ll pop back in in a couple of hours with the answer.

Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said today that No. 2 draft pick Michael Seamon and free agent forward Tye Perdido will both return to school after the club’s local training concludes next week.

Seamon will return to Villanova and Perdido to Gonzaga.

Both may then rejoin the club in the summer, similar to what 2009 draft pick Michael Fucito did last season.

Here’s Schmid’s explanation:

“With Michael Seamon we’re going to let him go back and finish school. He’s so close to finishing school and he’s in his last semester. If somebody still had a year to go, we’d say …

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The Sounders moved back to Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila this morning, and for the first time this season they’re playing an 11-v-11 game.

I’ll have a report after practice.