Sota Kitahara (born January 11, 2003) is an American soccer player who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Cana ...

club

Seattle Sounders FC Seattle Sounders Football Club is an American professional men's soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete as a member of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The club was established on November 13, 2007, and began ...

Club career

He was raised in

Edmonds, Washington Edmonds is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is located in the southwest corner of the county, facing Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains to the west. The city is part of the Seattle metropolitan area and is located no ...

, and graduated from

Edmonds-Woodway High School Edmonds Woodway High School is one of five high schools in the Edmonds School District in Edmonds, Washington, United States. It serves students in grades 9-12. It was ranked as the No. 318 high school in America by ''Newsweek Magazine'' in 20 ...

after joining the Sounders academy. He played for

USL Championship The USL Championship (USLC) is a professional men's soccer league in the United States that began its inaugural season in 2011. The USL is sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation (U.S. Soccer) as a Division II league since 2017, p ...

side

Tacoma Defiance Tacoma Defiance, formerly Seattle Sounders FC 2, is an American professional soccer team based in Tacoma, Washington, U.S. that competes in the MLS Next Pro, the third tier of the national soccer pyramid, as the reserve team of Seattle Sounder ...

from 2019 to 2022. On July 17, 2021, he was loaned to

FC Pinzgau Saalfelden FC Pinzgau Saalfelden is an Austrian football club from Saalfelden in the federal state of Salzburg. The club currently plays in the Austrian Regionalliga Salzburg which is the third tier of Austrian football, and has played there since the 2014� ...

. Kitahara signed with the senior team for the Sounders on October 28, 2022.

References

External links

* Men's association football midfielders American expatriate soccer players American soccer players American sportspeople of Japanese descent Expatriate footballers in Austria Seattle Sounders FC players Soccer players from Washington (state) United States men's youth international soccer players 2003 births Living people Homegrown Players (MLS) {{US-footy-midfielder-stub