West Ham United will travel to the United States for the 2025 Premier League Summer Series in July-August. As we look forward to crossing the Atlantic Ocean again, we look back on the Hammers' previous visits and links to America...
Major League Soccer club Seattle Sounders will be at the centre of the football universe this evening when they take on UEFA Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
Sounders, who qualified for the expanded tournament by winning the CONCACAF Champions League in 2022, will need to produce the best performance in their 18-year history to defeat Luis Enrique’s team.
Drawn in a group alongside PSG, Spanish side Atlético Madrid and reigning Brazilian Serie A champions Botafogo, Seattle’s hopes of progressing to the knockout stages were likely low before the competition began, and those hopes were lowered further by a 2-1 defeat by the latter in their opening tie, which was played on their home turf at Lumen Field.
Whatever happens against the European champions, however, Sounders earned their place at the Club World Cup, and just being part of it shows how far the club has come since its formation in its current guise in 2007.
These Seattle Sounders, in fact, are the third club to play with that name. The first played in the North American Soccer League (NASL) between 1974-83, and had strong links with West Ham United.
Former West Ham winger Harry Redknapp appeared more than 150 times in Claret and Blue during his playing career before going on to manage the club from 1994-2001. In between, he turned out for NASL-era Sounders as a player-assistant manager from 1977-79.
Redknapp featured 15 times in 1976 as Sounders reached the Western Conference Division final, where they were beaten by Minnesota Kicks.
His close friend and West Ham legend Sir Geoff Hurst made 23 appearances for the Sounders during that 1976 NASL season, while another of Redknapp’s mates, fellow former Hammers and England great Bobby Moore, represented the Sounders seven times during the 1978 NASL campaign.
With Redknapp assisting Scotsman Jimmy Gabriel, Sounders finished as runners-up in the NASL Soccer Bowl in 1977, albeit the former Hammer did not appear in the 2-1 defeat by a New York Cosmos team that included Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto.
More recently, full-back Tyrone Mears had a short spell in Claret and Blue in 2006/07 before later spending two seasons with the Sounders between 2014-16, winning the MLS Cup in December 2016.
Sweden midfielder Freddie Ljungberg, who also had a single season in east London in 2007/08, joined the Sounders in 2009 and won that year’s US Open Cup.
As a Club, West Ham visited Seattle in 2016, when Slaven Bilić’s Irons tackled the third iteration of the Sounders at what is now Lumen Field, with the Americans running out 3-0 winners.
For reference, the second Sounders played between 1994-2008 at Starfire Sports Complex and competed in the second-tier American Professional Soccer League and later the United Soccer League First Division.
Since being reformed and entering MLS in 2008, Sounders have become one of the best supported teams in the US, while among the players who have worn their green shirt have been forward Jordan Morris, who scored twice against West Ham in 2016, Obafemi Martins and US national team stars Clint Dempsey and Eddie Johnson.
