Freddie Ljungberg worked with the Sounders for the first time today, although he was held out of 11-v.-11 work. (Here's my story from the Tuesday paper.)

He also met with the media after -- my first time meeting him -- and he seems like a really good guy.

A few highlights:

FREDDIE LJUNGBERG
on the cold temperatures: Sweden is colder. But I was hoping it would be warmer.

On today's training: It felt great. It’s nice to see the boys. They've been out traveling a bit so it’s nice that at last they’re here and we can start training. Personally I probably can do everything in training. We just want to be careful in the beginning here, so I didn’t play the 11-against-11, but I did everything else and it felt great.

I’m going to double-up. When the boys are off in the afternoon, I’m going to have fitness sessions in the afternoon. That’s how I’m going to do it normally probably: I’ll join in the full session then I will do some more training afterwards and then I’ll have one in the afternoons.

On when he'll play in a game: We don’t want to put pressure on exactly what date it is, but it feels great and there’s nothing that I can’t do, so it’s all good.

I’m so much ahead of schedule, that it looks – not scared, but it looks a bit almost too good to be true. We’re scared if I do too much I’ll have a setback, but I can’t get any pain in anything I do, which is great. That’s why they want to take it step by step all the time. But what I got from London and Sweden the restriction is I can do whatever I want on the pitch, but they want me still to correctly build it up. But what I want to do maybe the next two weeks is train really really hard. I’ve already been training and running for three weeks, so I’ve been doing quite a bit of physical work. But to do two weeks more really hard – almost like a bit of a preseason thing – and then I can ease off a bit and just do the technical stuff on the pitch.

On getting to know his teammates: It doesn’t take that long. Normally, you play in England and stuff they have a rotation system on the big clubs so you can get people in and out if they’re tired. That is not a big issue. To be perfect, like we say in England, you want to play with the same team the whole year, and then you will know each other. But there are injuries and stuff, so you can never be perfect.

On his first-impressions from today: They were very concentrated, I must say that. The warm-up I joined to begin was the most concentrated warm-up I’ve ever been in. In Europe they joke and have a laugh and stuff. They seem to be focused, and I think that’s a very good thing.

The full release from the Sounders appears below.

One thing to keep in mind, is that I'm picking up every indictation that the Sounders are going to treat this tournament seriously. As those who followed the USL Sounders know, not every MLS team really wanted to win these games. But it sounds like the Sounders see this as a cup they could actually win in their first season. And they like the idea.

The Seattle Sounders FC will host Real Salt Lake in a Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup play-in match on Tuesday, April 28 at Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.

Pre-sale tickets will be offered to season ticket holders before being made available to the general public on March 30th at 10:00 a.m. All tickets are general admission and priced at $15. There will be limited seating capacity.

The top six Major League Soccer teams from 2008 qualified for the Open Cup, while Sounders FC and the other seven MLS teams must qualify to reach the tournament.

If Seattle defeats Salt Lake, it will play the winner of the Colorado Rapids vs. Los Angeles Galaxy for the opportunity to reach the Round of 16. The other play-in bracket features New York Red Bulls at San Jose Earthquakes and FC Dallas at D.C. United.

In 2008, the United Soccer League Seattle Sounders en route to the semifinals shut out two MLS teams, Chivas USA and Kansas City Wizards. Current Sounders FC goalkeeper Chris Eylander was named player of the tournament after 420 consecutive minutes without conceding a goal. Sounders FC forward Sebastien Le Toux and defender Taylor Graham also played in last year’s run.

The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the U.S. Soccer Federation’s National Championship, is an annual competition open to all amateur and professional soccer teams affiliated with U.S. Soccer. It is the oldest annual team tournament in U.S. sports history and among the oldest soccer tournaments of its type in the world.

The 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup will be played in a record 13 different U.S. cities, opening at The Home Depot Center in Los Angeles on Friday, 3 July; concluding with the championship match Sunday, 26 July at Giants Stadium outside New York, and including a July 4 match at Qwest Field.

Here's the release from CONCACAF:

The 13 cities are more than twice than the number previously used for the continental championship and shy of only the 1982 FIFA World Cup™ in Spain and the 2002 FIFA World Cup™, which used 10 venues each in Japan and Korea Republic. The 1994 FIFA World Cup™ in the USA was played in nine different venues.

“By expanding the Gold Cup to 13 venues, it will give fans more opportunity to experience the championship in person,” said CONCACAF President Jack Warner.

The Gold Cup will make its first appearance in four cities: Columbus, Ohio; Phoenix; Philadelphia and Washington. A Gold Cup quarterfinal will be the first sporting event to be played at the Dallas Cowboys New Stadium.

Each venue will host one doubleheader except for the final at Giants Stadium, with the quarterfinals set for Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia (Saturday, 18 July) and Dallas (Sunday, 19 July), and the semifinals at Soldier Field in Chicago (Thursday, 23 July).

Besides Columbus Crew Stadium in Columbus (7 July), RFK Stadium in Washington (8 July) and the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona (12 July), other first-round venues include: Qwest Field in Seattle (4 July), Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California (5 July), Reliant Stadium in Houston (9 July), FIU Stadium in Miami (10 July), and Gillette Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts (11 July).

“While 13 cities create logistical challenges, we think the benefits of reaching out to more venues are clearly worthwhile,” CONCACAF General Secretary Chuck Blazer said. “The ability of so many people to see national teams play we feel is well worth the effort.”

The tournament will use the same format as in 2005 and 2007, with the 12-team field divided into three, four-team groups. The top two teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals along with the two best third-place teams.

The three first-round groups for the qualifiers: Canada, Mexico and the USA from the North Zone; Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua from Central America; and Jamaica, Grenada, Guadeloupe and Haiti from the Caribbean, and schedule will be announced at a later time.

The Gold Cup was played in six different cities in its two most recent editions, including two stadia in Los Angeles in 2005 (the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and The Home Depot Center).

This will be the second time Giants Stadium has staged the final and first since 2005. Miami will see the Gold Cup for the seventh straight time, although it will be the first time at FIU Stadium, while the Los Angeles area will stage matches for the eighth time in 10 tournaments.

Games will be played on modern synthetic surfaces in four stadiums: Qwest Field, FIU Stadium, Gillette Stadium and the New Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Grass will be laid over the existing surface for the final in Giants Stadium.

Groups and a full schedule as well as ticket information will be available in the coming weeks.

SCHEDULE
First Round
3 July – The Home Depot Center (Los Angeles)
4 July – Qwest Field (Seattle)
5 July – Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (San Francisco)
7 July – Crew Stadium (Columbus, Ohio)
8 July – Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium (Washington)
9 July – Reliant Stadium (Houston)
10 July – Florida International University Stadium (Miami)
11 July – Gillette Stadium (Boston)
12 July – University of Phoenix Stadium (Phoenix)

Quarterfinals
18 July – Lincoln Financial Field (Philadelphia)
19 July – Dallas Cowboys New Stadium (Dallas)

Semifinals
23 July – Soldier Field (Chicago)

Final
26 July – Giants Stadium (New York)

I'm at cold but not snowy Qwest Field, where the Sounders are out on the pitch training.

However, what's caught my eye are the tarps that are now stretched across the upper deck and end zones. The upper deck tarps -- which you can actually see a bit from I-5 -- are sort of a deep blue with huge lighter-blue soccer images, most notably a keeper playing a ball above his head. The end zone tarps are rave green and feature Sounders logos. The tarp that will go over the Hawks Nest end zone side aren't on yet. However, that part of the seating are is now lines with international flags along the outside railings.

Add about 27,000 fans and the place should look pretty good.

(Update, I've added video now, as well as a new post above.)