Seventeen quick things that I learned at the Sounders' media event Tuesday:

1.) Sigi Schmid is the coach. (Here's my report on the hiring. And here's the take of TNT columnist John McGrath.)

2.) Schmid gives every indication of being a very good interview. Ask him a question and you get an answer. (I'm sorry if that seems a modest standard, but remember: I've been covering UW football.)

3.) It seems very likely that USL Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer will join Schmid's staff.

4.) The Sounders have reached 18,100 season tickets sold.

5.) And 67 suites leased.

6.) Schmid does not understand why he has been hit with the rap of unattractive soccer. He views his style as "multifaceted attacking soccer."

7.) Schmid said he believes the expansion Sounders may be farther along in terms of playing personnel than the team he inherited at Columbus.

8.) He said the lesson he learned in Columbus is to build the team starting with emphasis on the midfield.

9.) In introducing Schmid, general manager Adrian Hanauer said, "There's no other coach in the world that I'd rahter be introducing today."

10.) He also said Schmid "understands Major League Soccer maybe better than anyone on the planet."

11.) The feeling seems mutual. Schid said what's being built in Seattle is "beyond what's happening anywhere else in the country."

12.) Schmid is the only coach who has taken two teams to the MLS Cup championship -- Los Angeles and Columbus -- and Hanauer said, "We plan on being the third."

13.) Schmid it bi-lingual* and on request answered some questions in German. (*He also has a little -- poco -- Spanish.)

14.) Schmid's grandfather was a brewmaster in Gemany and his father worked for Anheuser-Busch.

15.) He said -- in English -- that he would probably have stayed in Columbus if they had approached them with a dynamite contract-extension offer from the start. When they did not, he decided to look around, liked the idea of the West Coast, and seemed especially smitten with what's going on in Seattle.

16.) Additional USL Sounders will likely sign on. Schmetzer obviously will be helpful with that.

17.) Former Sounders and Tacoma Stars coach Alan Hinton likes the way this generation of Sounders soccer is unfolding.