It’s now down to 330 days.

“I think it’s kind of just right,” general manager Adrian Hanauer said last week during a brief stop home between international scouting trips. “I might go crazy if I had too much more time.”

Less time would also be a challenge, although it could be done. That was proven by the San Jose Earthquakes, who are one win and three losses into an expansion season that began about nine and a half months after being invited into MLS.

“It’s nice to have a bit (more) lead time,” said Gary Wright, the Sounders’ senior vice president of business operations. “But while (it) sounds like a lot, it’s going to go by awfully fast. We’ve got so many things still to do. We’ve got time to do them and do them right; but if we procrastinate, we aren’t going to get anywhere.”

A look at some key items remaining on the to-do list for Sounders FC:

The roster: Hanauer said the first Sounders FC players could “start to trickle in over the summer.”

Those first players are likely to come from the existing Seattle Sounders, a first division team in the United Soccer Leagues.

In fact, there is speculation that this has already happened with USL Sounders midfielder Sebastien LeToux.

For now, Hanauer offers neither confirmation nor denial, only a smile. However, he did explain how such a move could happen: Sounders FC would sign the player and then loan him to the USL Sounders.

“We have identified players that are interesting to us that could potentially be on the Sounders FC side, but all of those players are under contract currently, so we’re not going to mention them publicly,” he said. “We’re keeping an eye on how they’re progressing from their respective leagues.”

Hanauer is free to sign available players any time, but most MLS-quality players are already are under contract to some team. That means paths to certain players will open at different times: USL players in the fall, and European league players in May and June, for example.

That European schedule poses an added challenge, because no one benefits from players signing with an MLS team and sitting idle until spring.

And don’t even get Hanauer started on the complexities of international transfer windows.

“Long story short, I would imagine a trickle (of signings in summer and early fall),” Hanauer said. “And then I would imagine that the bulk of the players would come toward the fall: October, November, December.”

A prime infusion of players will come after this MLS season – probably November – when the league holds its expansion draft.

Over the past two expansions, Toronto and San Jose were allowed to pick 10 players from a pool of those left available after each existing team protected 11 players on its roster. Something similar is foreseen for Seattle.

“We certainly expect that some of our players – some starters, some depth – will come from the expansion draft,” Hanauer said. “Again, we expect that some depth, some starters, may come from the existing Sounders. We feel that between those two, the college draft and our advance work on scouting internationally, we expect to field a competitive team from Day 1. I will certainly feel that I have underperformed if we don’t have an extremely competitive team from Day One.”

Hiring a coach: This will be affected by many of the same complications regarding player signings. However, in this case Hanauer is willing to name one candidate: USL Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer.

“We will probably begin sort of a formal process in September – maybe mid-August – and try to make a decision in October,” Hanauer said. “It falls to some degree as the players, where there are perhaps some high-quality coaches that are currently coaching, and it will be difficult to interview those people while they’re under contract coaching other clubs. And then, obviously, Brian also will be included.”

Support issues: Sounders FC is negotiating to have its offices and training facilities at the Starfire Sports complex in Tukwila.

Meanwhile, MLS mandates that each team form U.S. Soccer Academy teams of U-18 and U-16 players from geographically assigned territories, in hopes of creating a pipleline of young talent into the league.

“Our intent is to build a pyramid system that supports that: from camps that introduce younger players to the game, to higher-level camps, to higher-level-yet academy training,” Hanauer said.

The business end: Sounders FC received approximately 14,000 season-ticket commitments and is starting the process of turning those commitments into actual ticket sales.

The team will play at 67,000-seat Qwest Field, but will use only about 24,500 seats from both sides of the lower bowl. Ticket prices were announced this week, ranging from $16 to $75.

The luxury suites also will be sold separately from suite holders currently onboard for Seattle Seahawks games.

The Seahawks and Sounders FC also will be symbolically separate in another way important to many soccer fans: Wright says FC is serious about keeping football lines and logos off the soccer pitch.

“I know the MLS model was the smaller soccer stadium,” Wright said. “But being this was configured as a soccer stadium and not just (an American) football stadium, everything can be close. You’re right on the action. It’s a heck of a stadium. It will be fun.”

The fun stuff: The first items – the team name, crest and colors – were revealed early last month, and were received well.

However, the Adidas-made home and away uniforms won’t be unveiled until the team lines up a jersey sponsor, a practice used by about half the teams in MLS.

Any day now the team plans to announce its broadcast package. Every game is expected to be on radio and television – perhaps with Spanish-language versions. Wright’s goal is to have a single flagship TV channel showing all games, except for those that are part of the league-wide national and international packages.

Also imminent are a couple of items dear to the heart of minority owner Drew Carey: a boosters club and marching band.

Carey is expected to be part of the upcoming booster club announcement, while auditions for the Sounders FC Marching Band have been set for June 1 (register online at www.soundersfc.com).

“Our goal is to have the best of everything,” Wright said. “We want to have the best broadcast package, we want to have a great team on the field, we want to have everything. My thought is if you’re major league, you have to prove it in all those other areas. You do that with your broadcast package, you do that with your sponsorship packages and everything else that you do. That’s the object.”

Don Ruiz: 253-597-8808

blogs.thenewstribune.com/soccer

One team’s expansion time line

Here is a time line of key moves by the San Jose Earthquakes leading up to their current expansion season in Major League Soccer:

Days before Move

1st game

290 MLS grants expansion franchise to San Jose

183 Team unveils logo and jersey

183 John Doyle named general manger

150 Frank Yallop named head coach

134 Ten players selected in MLS expansion draft

70 Four players selected in supplemental draft

59 Training camp opens in Carson, Calif.

50 First friendly vs. Houston Dynamo

April 3, 2008 First game: 2-0 loss at Los Angeles

Don Ruiz, The News Tribune