The Spokane Sounders was the first affiliate club of the Seattle Sounders Youth Academy, forging a partnership between the two clubs on May 1, 2015, in what is now a widely thriving affiliate program. Sounders affiliate clubs have produced 46 youth national team call-ups in the past five years, including Spokane Sounders’s own Ray Serrano, who signed a professional contract with the Seattle Sounders at the age of 15.

The partnership has been a highly valued avenue for coaching education for the Spokane Sounders, with Seattle Sounders staff visiting Spokane every year during the summer, fall, and spring. During these visits, our coaches are given a presentation by Seattle Sounders staff on the newest and most progressive ways that coaches and reach their players. Afterwards, a session is conducted in which our players and coaches are shown the methods previously described in the presentation and observed for potential invitation into the Sounders Discovery Program (SDP).

For the top boys players in our club, invitations to the Sounders Discovery Program have served as the highest compliment available to players who are thriving with their current team in their current environment. Players invited to SDP sessions are welcome to train with the SDP training for their age group, in Seattle, when they are able to make it over. In 2018, we had three boys represent the Seattle Sounders in South Korea’s prestigious Gyeongju tournament with professional clubs from Brazil, Japan, and South Korea.

Our club has integrated a periodized curriculum constructed with the Seattle Sounders Youth Academy, which is utilized at all age groups, one that gets stronger every year as more individual lesson plans are provided by the Sounders and our staff alike.

Each summer, all Sounders affiliate clubs get together in Seattle for the Sounders Affiliate Workshop and go through a three day educational opportunity, full of coaching education, training sessions, performance data analysis, and celebration of all the successes of players who come through the affiliate programs of the Seattle Sounders.