The Seattle Sounders' preseason roster got just a little bit lighter as they got ready to take off for Florida and Mexico. Although the Sounders didn't officially release an updated roster, Joshua Mayers of the Seattle Times has managed to piece one together:

Goalkeepers (5): Chris Blais*, Josh Ford, Michael Gspurning, Bryan Meredith, Andrew Weber*

Defenders (10): Marc Burch, Andrew Duran#, Leo Gonzalez, Harlinton Gutierres*, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Patrick Ianni, Adam Johansson, Jeff Parke, Zach Scott, Michael Tetteh

Midfielders (13): Osvaldo Alonso, Servando Carrasco, Alex Caskey*, Cordell Cato, Brad Evans, Alvaro Fernandez, Lamar Neagle, Mauro Rosales, Andy Rose^, Amadou Sanyang, Michael Seamon, Christian Sivebaek, Steve Zakuani

Forwards (7): David Estrada, Mike Fucito, Roger Levesque, Fredy Montero, Sammy Ochoa, Babayele Soldade#, O'Brian White

* -- trialist/invitee, # -- unsigned draft pick, ^ -- acquired on draft day trade, underline -- recovering from injury with uncertain timeline

Still not a whole lot of surprises at this point.

Sigi Schmid's Seattle Sounders FC took the pitch in anger for the first time. While it may only be preseason anger, the number of cards (10 yellow, 1 red) and the puncture wound on Mike Fucito indicate that emotions were high and form was off. While the game ended with both the Vancouver Whitecaps and Sounders netting just one goal apiece, the point of these matches is not to win, but to prepare to win meaningful games.

Even after bidding farewell to five players, the Seattle Sounders' list 39 players as participating in training camp as the team begins activities in Casa Grande, Ariz. The five players who didn't make the trip were Sounders academy product Darwin Jones, University of Washington product Abdul Aman, goalkeeper Tyrel Lacy, invitee Jonathan Prieto and an unnamed trialist.

After reviewing the losses I decided to lump the remaining defenders together. Seattle Sounders FC returns two fullbacks, three centerbacks and Zach Scott man-marker. These ratings add clarity in the various authors' opinions about why Seattle is reinventing it's fullback positions signing Adam Johansson, pursuing Christian Sivebaek and possibly adding more wide defensive talent either through a young international or draftee.

The losses of James Riley and Tyson Wahl have Seattle Sounders FC adding allocation money only at this point. It is also rather apparent that their biggest low-budget success of 2011, Mauro Rosales, will be extended at a significantly higher figure, which should be announced very soon. There will also be a new keeper, likely with a budget number that is fairly large considering that the current leading candidate is Michael Gspurning, another situation we expect to be resolved shortly.

Some of this is recounting from Twitterisms some, you just couldn't make up:

Seattle Sounders: B+

Fucito, not cruising anywhere...

Good day to you Sounders fans. Two years ago Sebu Le Toux couldn't quite get on the field for Sigi Schmid's first team. Off he went to the Philly Union in their expansion draft and nearly captured an improbably MLS MVP award (of far from it, but you get the picture.

Two of their three picked O'Brian White. The other picked Patrick Ianni. Over twitter Matt Doyle (who does their tactics stories) said he'd go Servando Carrasco.

It would seem Greg Lalas and Jason Saghini are gamblers

With the announcement of the twelve players protected from selection in the Montreal Impact's expansion draft there are a few players that could be labeled as "key" to the strong 2011 who were left available for selection. The protected list is heavy on players up the spine was well as wide midfielders but leaves three fullbacks available as neither of the left backs (Tyson Wahl or Leo Gonzalez) nor iron man James Riley are protected.

When the NCAA Men's D1 bracket was announced there was a somewhat surprising team left out of the tournament. Despite a 12-4-2 record, winning 7 of their last 8 and being 18th in the Coaches Poll the University of Washington Huskies season did not continue. First year head coach Jamie Clark did see six Huskies make all-PAC12 honors.

It's almost that time again, folks. Another team is going to enter the hallowed land of MLS and in doing so they're going to take some of our stuff. And don't kid yourselves. Unless the Seattle Sounders and the incoming Montreal Impact work out some sort of deal, we're going to lose a player. Seattle's a tremendously successful and deep franchise and the list of players that have played significant minutes in big games this season is much more than 11 deep, which is all we get to protect.

The Seattle Sounders just needed a point to become just the second MLS team in the four-year history of CONCACAF Champions League to win a group. Once Fredy Montero equalized in the 42nd minute, they seemed well on their way.

But two all-too-familiar problems cropped up once again: Allowing attackers to get behind the defense and poor passing in the defensive third.

A massive crowd of 64,140, the third largest standalone crowd in MLS history, came to pay tribute to the Sounders' retiring goalkeeper Kasey Keller on Saturday and they were treated to a dramatic come-from-behind 2-1 victory for the Sounders over the San Jose Earthquakes.

Seattle overcame a plucky San Jose side and a 24th-minute strike from Chris Wondolowski, getting goals Sammy Ochoa and Fredy Montero in the 82nd minute and 87th minute, respectively.

Saturday night's game will be one of those where in a decade there will be twice as many people in the stadium as CenturyLink Field actually fits. Celebrating an American Legend in wearing a Seattle Sounders kit will do that. Much less significant is the contest for the Golden Boot featuring Fredy Montero and Chris Wondolowski, the MVP runs of any of three Sounders (Montero, Osvaldo Alonso, Mauro Rosales) and the least significant trophy Seattle can capture in a year the Heritage Cup.

Since not many were able to go to the Seattle Sounders Reserves win over the San Jose Earthquakes I thought to expand a bit on the live blog and collate some comments made there and other thoughts I had on the lesser seen players. Now, since Sigi Schmid uses a lot of player rotation there were two subsets of players - the seen and unseen.

The MLS Reserve League is petering to a close. Tonight's match against the San Jose Earthquakes doesn't mean anything in any standings (Seattle has already won the MLS Western Reserve Division), but it does give Sigi Schmid an opportunity to see a few of his players on the deep bench. The Seattle Sounders have 6 available outfield players who have played in 4 or fewer MLS matches.

What else can we say about Tuesday night's gut punch? Clearly, Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid's hands were somewhat tied with his lineup options from the midfield forward. Alvaro Fernandez was on a yellow-card suspension. Mauro Rosales is out. Brad Evans and Erik Friberg are nursing injuries.

Nine points. Through three matches of CONCACAF Champions League group stage play, the Seattle Sounders remain perfect after beating Herediano in Costa Rica 2-1. Just think about that for a second.

When CCL play started, we knew the Sounders would have two of their first three matches in Mexico and Costa Rica.

All of that talk about Brandon McDonald trying to bolt for Europe should be put on hold.

The D.C. United centerback agreed to a new contract with the club on Tuesday a couple of months after being acquired from the San Jose Earthquakes in exchange for allocation money.

McDonald has helped fortify and improve United's defense in his brief time with the club, but a major question when he was brought in was whether the club would be able to retain his services, as his previous contract was set to expire at the end of the season.

With the victory of CSD Comunicaciones of Guatemala in the CONCACAF Champions League by the Seattle Sounders one phrase seems to have rocketed to the top of the charts. #ChurchOfFucito (now in the left sidebar here for your viewing pleasure) started as a way for someone to mock my near constant call for Mike Fucito to start.

By CALEB SONNELAND

It was the Mike Fucito show at CenturyLink Field Tuesday night in the CONCACAF Champions League.

The Harvard product notched a brace and an assist for Seattle in the club's first match in group play of the competition. Fucito got the nod for the start from head coach Sigi Schmid and repaid the boss's decision with two clinical goals while setting up another to give the Sounders a 4-1 win over Guatemalan foes Comunicaciones.

If the Seattle Sounders have any hopes of advancing to the CONCACAF Champions League knockout stage, beating Comunicaciones at home is an absolute must. If the Sounders are serious about doing that, it stands to reason they will put out pretty close to a first-choice lineup.

There will be at least one player missing, though, as Osvaldo Alonso will have to sit out with yellow-card accumulation.

Considering there was 120 minutes of soccer played on Wednesday and many of the Seattle Sounders starters played most of them, there's really no telling for sure what kind of personnel Sigi really has available to him for Saturday's game against Sporting Kansas City. Making matters worse is the forecast which suggest temperatures should be in the low 90s or high 80s with intense humidity following the possibility of thunderstorms earlier in the day.

There are a few things we can take away from this match. And even fewer will be positive towards this season or the next. The Seattle Sounders, despite being on the road, probably should have gotten a draw or better heading into this match against the completely average Houston Dynamo. But that didn't happen.

Sigi Schmid had indicated that twenty would travel to Panama and then to Houston. Barring an injury those would be the players who make up the two gameday 18s. While the Seattle Sounders do not release a traveling roster, there are clues. First were a few players posting on twitter and/or facebook - Mike Seamon and Fredy Montero.

In the friendly against Manchester United we saw David Estrada finally replace James Riley. The original plan seems to have been that Riley would get rested by Brad Evans, but the aggravation of Evans' injury meant that he wasn't able to go long enough. With Seattle firmly entrenched in three tournaments it doesn't matter that Riley is one of the fittest players on the team, they will need someone to back him up, and there are only interesting options with no one a lock.

The Seattle Sounders will play their third competitive match in seven days on Saturday, meaning there will likely be some tweaks in the starting lineup. We initially expected this would be a game that Fredy Montero would possibly start on the bench, but came around to believe that he's just too hot to sit.

When Alvaro Fernandez scored the game winning goal in the 40th minute it wasn't just a display of solid passing and movement by Mauro Rosales, Roger Levesque and El Flaco. The build-up started well before Rosales got the ball, and was a prime example of the reset versus the retreat. When Patrick Ianni won the ball and Hurtado recovered it, Arlo indicated that the Sounders should look up the field quickly to take advantage of the down Kevin Alston.

Took my parents to the game and sat in the Brougham End. From my vantage point, it seemed like a solid performance from the Seattle Sounders, but not necessarily a great one.

Like most people, when I'm at the game I don't feel like I necessarily got a great sense of how it really went, though.

The Seattle Sounders beat the New England Revolution on Sunday through quality players that at one point were considered merely depth, but are now clearly depth in quality. Tyson Wahl, who just a few short weeks ago expected to not be the player taking free kicks and so did not expect to get a goal, just mere assists.

Welcome to the New England Revolution vs. Seattle Sounders live game thread! The Revs should be well-rested tonight with eight days gone since their 1-1 draw with the Chicago Fire last week. The Sounders, meanwhile, are in the midst of a difficult three-game six-day swing after their 4-2 thriller with New York on Thursday.

Dave and I have gone back and forth over this lineup countless times. With three matches being played in six days, it's no easy task trying to read the mind of Sigi Schmid. Well, this is what we settled on: Mike Fucito and Roger Levesque up top and a never-before-deployed midfield of Alvaro Fernandez, Erik Friberg, Brad Evans and Mauro Rosales.

The Seattle Sounders are about as close to full health as we've seen all season, although they will be without Jhon Kennedy Hurtado because of last week's red card. Our projected starting lineup features only one surprise, and that's Zach Scott getting the nod over Patrick Ianni at center back.

That's in quite stark comparison to the New York Red Bulls, who will be without five regular starters.

Projecting the Seattle Sounders starting lineup this week against Toronto FC was a bit challenging this week. It sounds like coach Sigi Schmid has not exactly been blown away by Mike Fucito, which could herald the return of Nate Jaqua to the starting lineup and it's not exactly clear whether or not Alvaro Fernandez is once again fit enough to start.

Heading into the rematch of a game they probably should have won in Seattle, the Fire's first game under interim coach Frank Klopas isn't an easy one. Seattle snapped Real Salt Lake's 29 game MLS undefeated string at Rio Tinto Stadium last weekend. Seattle did benefit from a red card to Jamison Olave in the 58th minute and the fact that they caught RSL at the right time during a down period without playmaker Javier Morales.

Like we did for the match against Real Salt Lake, this week's Seattle Sounders projected lineup is more of a preferred lineup than one necessarily based on any inside information. In fact, it seems like based on the way personnel was deployed during practice this week, Fredy Montero could be on the bench again this week.

On the whole, there are two words I would use to describe the Seattle Sounder's play over the month of May: sloppy and uninspired. Yesterday, by and large, was no different; but the result was probably one of the better in this team's still short MLS history.

It seems that Sigi Schmid has settled on the diamond midfield as his default shape, which probably follows the lack of wingers available on this team.

There were a lot of things working against the Seattle Sounders on Saturday. Before the match even started, there was Real Salt Lake's roughly 350-minute shutout streak and their 29-match home unbeaten run. Shortly after starting, the Sounders lost Alvaro Fernandez to a muscle strain. The weather, once again, turned bad.

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By CALEB SONNELAND

In another week of unlikely goal-scorers, center back Patrick Ianni and midfielder Lamar Neagle got on the score sheet for the travelling Seattle Sounders to deal Real Salt Lake its second home loss in over two years.

For a team that hasn't had many breaks go their way the Seattle Sounders got a few tonight, but at first it didn't seem like that. Prior to the match starting Alvaro Fernandez had a tweaked hamstring, but insisted that he could play effectively. He could not and Sigi Schmid had to use a sub prior to the 20th minute, and then the weather got worse.

As we've been saying, the starting lineup for Wednesday's match between the Seattle Sounders and FC Dallas is a bit of a crap shoot. There are injury concerns, there's the fact that both teams are in the middle of playing three matches in about a week and there's the ever-changing lineup decisions of Sigi Schmid.