Tacoma Defiance, formerly Seattle Sounders FC 2, is an American professional soccer team based in Tacoma,

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, U.S. that competes in the

MLS Next Pro MLS Next Pro is a men's professional soccer league in the United States and Canada that is affiliated with Major League Soccer. It launched in 2022 with 21 teams and will expand to 28 in 2023. The league comprises 27 reserve sides for MLS clubs ...

, the third tier of the national soccer pyramid, as the

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...

of Seattle Sounders FC. The Defiance is operated by The Baseball Club of Tacoma (operator/owner of the

Tacoma Rainiers The Tacoma Rainiers are a Minor League Baseball team of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and the Triple-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. They are located in Tacoma, Washington, and play their home games at Cheney Stadium, which opened in 1960 ...

) and managed by Seattle Sounders FC, while 20 percent of the club is fan-owned through the

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

Sounders Community Trust. The club was established in 2014 as Seattle Sounders FC 2 (S2) and originally played at Starfire Sports in

Tukwila, Washington Tukwila ( ) is a suburban city in King County, Washington, United States, located immediately to the south of Seattle. The population was 21,798 at the 2020 census. Tukwila is a community of communities, with residents of many diverse origi ...

. The team moved to Tacoma's

Cheney Stadium Cheney Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located in Tacoma, Washington, United States. Originally built for baseball, the stadium is currently home to the Tacoma Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League, as well as professional soccer club Tacoma Def ...

in 2018 and was rebranded as the Defiance the following season. The Defiance plans to move into a new

soccer-specific stadium Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States and Canada to refer to a sports stadium either purpose-built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multi- ...

near Cheney Stadium in the 2020s.

History

The club was announced on October 14, 2014 at an event held at the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum and began play in 2015 at the

Starfire Sports Complex Starfire Sports is a multi-purpose stadium and sporting facility in Tukwila, Washington, United States. It is located on the banks of the Green River, just south of Seattle. The stadium is operated by the nonprofit corporation Starfire Sports an ...

in Tukwila. Sounders assistant coach

Ezra Hendrickson Ezra Hendrickson (born 16 January 1972) is a Vincentian professional football coach and former player. He is currently the head coach of Major League Soccer club Chicago Fire. Born in Layou, Hendrickson moved with his family to the United Sta ...

was named the team's coach on November 13, 2014.

Inaugural season

S2 played its inaugural match on March 21, 2015, winning 4–2 over the defending USL champion Sacramento Republic. Andy Craven notched the first goal in team history. Their second game yielded the team's first shutout, a home game against

Whitecaps FC 2 Whitecaps FC 2 is a professional soccer team based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada that serves as the reserve team of the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of Major League Soccer. History Prior to the MLS Next Pro iteration the team played its h ...

that ended 4–0.

Darwin Jones Darwin Jones is a fictional scientist, a comic book character published by DC Comics. He first appeared in ''Strange Adventures'' #1 (August 1950), and was created by David V Reed and Paul Norris. Publication history The first Darwin Jones story ...

scored the team's first

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

during the game.

Tacoma relocation

The owners of the

baseball team had expressed interest in hosting a lower-division soccer team at its ballpark,

, or a separate soccer stadium as early as 2013. Cheney Field hosted an MLS Reserve League match between the Sounders and Orlando City SC reserve teams in May 2013, which brought an attendance of 2,174. The Rainiers partnered with the Tacoma Stars, an indoor soccer team, and discussed a potential move for S2 with the Sounders organization. The Sounders had previously discussed plans to move their lower-league franchise to the Tacoma area in the 2000s in the event of a successful MLS expansion bid. On May 6, 2017, the Sounders and Rainiers announced that they had agreed to relocate the reserve team to Tacoma upon completion of a new, 5,000-seat soccer-specific stadium by 2020. After the USL announced its intention to refuse waivers for teams with smaller venues that did not meet full Division II requirements, the Sounders announced in November 2017 that S2 would temporarily play at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma beginning in the 2018 season. The team had previously played in front of crowds of less than 1,000 at Starfire Sports, but debuted at Cheney Stadium with a sellout crowd of 6,049 on March 16, 2018. The team failed to qualify for the USL playoffs, but the first season in Tacoma garnered an average attendance of over 3,000. The club was re-branded as the Tacoma Defiance on January 30, 2019, following a campaign to solicit suggestions from the public for a new name. The Defiance name was the top choice in the poll and references

Point Defiance Park Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington, United States, is a large urban park. The park includes Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, the Rose Garden, Rhododendron Garden, beaches, trails, a boardwalk, a boathouse, a Washington State Ferries ferry doc ...

and Tacoma's civic pride. MultiCare Health System was named as the team's jersey sponsor and

Reign FC OL Reign is an American professional women's soccer team based in Seattle, Washington. Founded by Bill and Teresa Predmore in 2012 as Seattle Reign FC, it was one of eight inaugural members of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). In 2020, ...

of the National Women's Soccer League also announced a move to Cheney Stadium for the 2019 season. Sounders FC Academy Director Chris Little had been named as the team's new head coach a week earlier, replacing John Hutchinson.

MLS Next Pro

The club announced on December 6, 2021, that it was joining the inaugural 21-team

season starting in 2022.

Team colors and crest

The Tacoma Defiance branding was unveiled on January 30, 2019, replacing the original S2 brand that was inherited from the Sounders. The name references

, a major park with gardens, a zoo and aquarium complex, and several marinas. The club's crest is a black circle featuring an image of a stylized ship, based on , in the foreground and the tentacles of a

Giant Pacific octopus The giant Pacific octopus (''Enteroctopus dofleini''), also known as the North Pacific giant octopus, is a large marine cephalopod belonging to the genus ''Enteroctopus''. Its spatial distribution includes the coastal North Pacific, along Mexico ...

surrounding it. The original team colors for S2 were inherited from the first team, including the Sounders' trademark Rave Green. The crest was a green silhouette of the Sounders crest, itself constructed with symbolism representing the club, fans, and players, with "S2" in the center. The club continues to use the basic silhouette in their secondary mark, with "TAC" in the center to represent Tacoma. A tertiary crest includes the words "Defiantly Tacoma".

Sponsorship

Stadium

The Defiance plays home matches at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, Washington. The stadium has capacity for 6,500. They played at the

from 2015–2017, and will still train there. The record for largest attendance for an S2 game at Starfire was 2,951, set on March 21, 2015. After two years in Tukwila, it was announced that the team would move its business operations and home field to

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Pa ...

. A new 5,000-seat soccer stadium was also announced with an estimated opening date of 2021, located on city-owned land adjacent to

. The preliminary plan approved by Metro Parks Tacoma is to use part of Heidelberg Davis Park near Foss High School for the stadium and a complex of sportsfields for public use. Following the departure of OL Reign in 2021, the stadium plan was paused and later scrapped in favor of relocating the Defiance to a new Sounders training facility at Longacres in Tukwila. It is scheduled to open in 2024.

Ownership and team management

The ownership of the club is composed of two groups. The majority owner is the Sounders FC organization, with the

Sounders Community Trust owning minority share of 20%. Since 2017, the business operations of the Defiance is under the management of the

, a Triple-A baseball affiliate of the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...

, while soccer operations are managed by the Sounders. Andrew Opatkiewicz was hired as the General Manager in October 2014, having experience with Seattle Wolves FC (now Washington Crossfire). Retired MLS veteran defender and former Assistant Coach and Reserve team coach of Seattle Sounders FC,

, was announced as the head coach of S2 on November 13, 2014. Opatkiewicz took an indefinite leave of absence from the team in May 2016 and Kurt Schmid, the former Seattle Sounders FC head scout and son of then-coach

Sigi Schmid Siegfried "Sigi" Schmid (; March 20, 1953 – December 25, 2018) was a German-American soccer coach who had the most wins in the history of Major League Soccer (MLS). Born in Tübingen, West Germany, he moved to the United States with his fam ...

, was named as S2 GM on an interim basis. Prior to the start of the 2017 USL season, Schmid was formally named the S2 GM and John Hutchinson was added as an assistant coach on Hendrickson's staff. Chris Little was named the head coach of S2 shortly before its rebranding as the Defiance in 2019. Little left the organization in February 2021 to become an assistant coach for the

Colorado Rapids The Colorado Rapids are an American professional soccer club based in the Denver metropolitan area. The Rapids compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference. Founded in 1995, as part of the Anschutz Corporation, lat ...

and was replaced by assistant

Wade Webber Wade Webber (born January 12, 1967) is an American soccer coach and former player who spent most of his career with clubs in the Pacific Northwest. However, he did see three years in Major League Soccer with the Dallas Burn and Miami Fusion be ...

Players

Current roster

Technical staff

:''.''

Head coaches

* Includes Regular season & Playoffs

Statistics

Most points

:''The following players are the club's top point leaders.'' :''As of October 13, 2018'' Bolded players are currently on the Sounders FC 2 roster.
Two points awarded per goal.

Record

Year by Year

References

External links

*
Sounders Community Trust website
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