The world's game is coming to Seattle.

Not America's Game (Used to be baseball, is now football? Debate amongst yourselves…), but rather the WORLD's game has arrived in the Pacific Northwest.

Welcome to the Seattle Sounders FC, the newest entry into Major League Soccer.

While the Sounders can't replace the 41 years of history like the N.B.A.'s Seattle Sonics compiled here before they were stolen away to Oklahoma City, the name of the team does have a rich history in the Emerald City.

Way back in 1974 (before you born, but after I was), the name Sounders was chosen as the moniker of Seattle's entry into the North American Soccer League (NASL). The team played at both Memorial Stadium and the Kingdome, reaching the league's title game ("The Soccer Bowl") in both 1975 and 1982, falling both times to the New York Cosmos.

Although I never played organized soccer, I became a huge fan of the Sounders, as were most of my friends. We listened to games on the radio, went in person when we could, and I remember the entire city stopping when the Sounders played in the title game.

Pele, once (still?) regarded as the best to ever play the game, starred for New York. It was like Beckham's coming to America — revered foreign star coming over to share the world's game with the Yanks.

In fact, the biggest soccer match ever played in Seattle had to be when Santos of Brazil (Pele's Brazilian club) faced the Sounders in front of 60,000+ fans at the Kingdome in 1977.

Fast forward to 2009, and the Sounders FC (an evolution of the Seattle Sounders of the United States Soccer League) are preparing for their inaugural match on March 19 at Qwest Field.

The team is currently in Argentina preparing for the season. Baseball teams go to Peoria, Arizona, soccer teams go to Argentina. Go figure.

Instead of the exhibition games that baseball and football teams play, the preseason matches in soccer are called "training matches". Not to be confused with "friendlies" which are true exhibition matches, usually between teams who wouldn't ordinarily meet (like Chelsea and the Sounders, who will play a friendly this summer).

The team's first training match in Seattle was against the Vancouver Whitecaps at Qwest Field. No fans were allowed in, which created a strangely quiet atmosphere (who knew that players from different countries can all swear in English?).

For photographers, the backgrounds were the biggest problem. For me, it was a chance to brush up on my soccer shooting, which is something I hadn't done a lot of until the Olympics this past summer in Beijing.

The Sounders gathered in a team hug before the start of the match.

(Nikon D3, VR 600mm/f4.0 lens, ISO 1000, 1/1250th sec.,f4.0)

Sanna Nyassi is a fleet midfielder from Gambia.

(Nikon D3, VR 200-400mm/f4.0 lens @ 400mm, ISO 1000, 1/1250th sec.,f4.0)

Osvaldo Alonso, battling a Vancouver player in the second half, is a Cuban midfielder who played for Charleston of the USL. I'm telling you that because I don't really know much more about these guys yet, but trust me, I will by season's end.

(Nikon D3, VR 200-400mm/f2.0 lens @ 400mm, ISO 1000, 1/1000th sec.,f4.0)

Alonso (facing, center) hugs teammate Fredy Montero after Montero's second goal of the match. Montero and teammate Nate Jaqua each scored twice in the 4-0 victory.

(Nikon D3, VR 200-400mm/f2.0 lens @ 340mm, ISO 1000, 1/1250th sec.,f4.0)

Headers are always hard to shoot — releasing the shutter at the proper moment is tough to do. I tried to shoot as many headers as I could to work on my timing. Was also messing around with focal length and used an extender on the 600mm lens just to see how it looked.

(Nikon D3, VR 600mm/4.0 lens + 1.4 teleconverter = 850mm, ISO 1000, 1/1000th sec.,f5.6)

Rarely do we get nice warm light in Seattle, especially in February, but when Tyrone Marshall shot from the top of the box in the second half, the light was low enough to make a nice frame (okay, absent of ball, legs, feet, shoes, fans…fine). Maybe testing the 1.4 extender on the 600mm lens was a little long for this frame.

(Nikon D3, VR 600mm/4.0 lens + 1.4 teleconverter = 850mm, ISO 1000, 1/1000th sec.,f5.6)

Shooting soccer is exciting — one never knows when the key moment will happen or when a goal will be scored.

But take it from me — in training matches it's easy to get distracted — just as I did when I made multiple (bracketed!) frames of a spare soccer ball sitting on the turf.

(Nikon D3, VR 200-400mm/f4.0 lens @ 290mm, ISO 1000, 1/1600th sec.,f4.0)