It was only a couple weeks before the opening of Seattle Sounders training camp that FIFA got around to officially confirming that the Club World Cup would really happen. That left the Sounders little time to throw together a proper preseason, one that ultimately included a trip to Spain for most of the two weeks before their first match in Morocco.
One thing it didn’t include much of, though, was proper preseason matches. During their four-week preseason ahead of the Feb. 4 Club World Cup opener against the winner of Auckland City-Al Ahly, the Sounders will only have one day’s worth of preseason matches against other teams.