The World's Game According To Us: The Seattle Sounders

The "super search" is on.

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"Hello, Seattle."

The Seattle Seahawks may have had a miserable 4-12 season this year, but football fans in the Emerald City still have something to look forward to on Super Bowl Sunday: the Seattle Sounders Super Search. Sure, it's not American football—it's soccer. And it's not a huge game that will capture the nation's attention—it's a local tryout/publicity stunt. But it's got alliteration (say it: Seattle Sounders Super Search) and it's one of the more entertaining ways to fill out the roster of the new team.

Sounders FC, MLS' latest expansion club, is running a series of open tryouts after which it'll sign up the best player it finds. The local NBC affiliate is airing recaps of each tryout, and fan voting will determine one of four finalists. Videos, bios, and expert reports will appear on the website where we can all help pick the next, uh, Freddie Ljungberg. The whole thing culminates in a televised grand finale right after the big gridiron game. It's sort of a cross between American Idol and Invincible, gone low budget.

Like the Mark Wahlberg movie, the Sounders are trying to capitalize on the dream of being a professional athlete. There is something rosily democratic about it, sure to comfort fans alienated from their puffed-up multi-millionaire sports heroes. Sometimes we like to imagine the pros are just like us (or like us if we were played by Mark Wahlberg), just working-class stiffs with huge furrowed brows and a decent first touch. The first episode features a tubby 31-year-old fellow named Christian who just got off his night shift. Christian works as a security guard at a Spokane hospital. He looks like he could run the 40 in over 15 seconds. (Insert Simon Cowell zinger here.)

On the other side of the coin, though: don't we hope the players we pay to see have a much, much better first touch than the average Marky Mark? Shouldn't some experts be picking and grooming young talent? Shouldn't there be draft picks and reserve players and academy standouts, all bright and talented, fighting for a few places on the team? The promise of a roster spot to an unheralded schlub might seem worse than a Hollywood stunt. It might seem like the sign of poor youth development and a weak talent pool.

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This guy should be involved.

Critics have been bashing the U.S. and MLS development system for a long time, but recently teams have begun to beef up their youth programs, subsidizing academies and expanding teams. Just when things were looking up, though, the MLS reserve league collapsed. According to last year's statistics, many of the development players were making only $12,900 a year while 46 MLS players were making the $33,000 league minimum. They really are working-class stiffs.

The Sounders Search, though, isn't really for player development. It's for fan development. It certainly isn't the first MLS open tryout. It's not even the first one on TV. The Sounders scheme, said the team's majority owner Joe Roth, was inspired by the Chivas USA tryouts on Univision. The fan-voting element was a Seattle innovation, though. A Sounders spokesperson told us, "Joe is very familiar with the American Idol program." A Hollywood veteran, Roth also produced Major League and Angels in the Outfield, popular genre pictures, so he knows how to please. And the Super Search is aimed to please.

Judging by the first episode with its sugary local news simplicity and its American Idol references ("I can't vouch for how well the players sing," the reporter says), it's not really aimed to please hardcore soccer lovers though. Fan development may have a ways to go as well.

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While we're on the subject of stocking rosters, it's worth mentioning other ways to attain players. You can throw ungodly amounts of money at them like Manchester City is reportedly throwing at Kaka (this may not work though), or you can start a new league and target the best player in the world as the WPS did: The L.A. Sol just signed FIFA Player of the Year Marta.

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EXTRA TIME:

Did Maradona's cigar cause a fire at Chelsea's hotel?

Is soccer scared of technology?

Some of FIFA's Players To Watch in 2009.

Israel/Palestine conflict and soccer.

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