"Preki and Deki": Sounders Officially Sign Dejan Joveljić Through 2030

RENTON, Wash. - I didn't get the chance to ask about the Open Sicilian. I actually found a way to workshop the chess-related question I had been joking about for 15 minutes before the presser into something half-decent and relevant.

Not that the topic (chess, not the Open Sicilian) didn't come up. Dejan Joveljić, who has a FIDE rating of over 2200, was asked about his life outside of soccer.

"Besides soccer, I like to play chess. That's what I do almost every day. Even though my wife - she's here - she hates it sometimes, but that that that's fine," Joveljić said. "I mean, simple life, family, chess, thinking about soccer, and then waiting weekend for the games. Nothing special to be honest; I don't know what to say. Family, chess, soccer."

Joveljić says it's simple. Getting to a 2200 rating requires thousands of hours of study, not just of how to play and think ahead, but memorizing lines. Lines and lines. Studying opening theory. There's a reason I'm a 1200 on a good day.

Then again, "Deki" is also leagues better at soccer than I am.

What I lack in chess and especially in soccer, perhaps I make up for in verbosity. Joveljić, meanwhile, kept things to the point as he held his opening presser, possessing a Balkan bluntness compounded by the fact that, although he is fluent, English is not his mother tongue. He also knows exactly why the Rave Green (who recently broke an eight-match MLS losing streak) ponied up $6 million to get him from Sporting KC.

"I'm here to bring goals and to help win games," Deki said. "I'm the striker who works hard, who is helping the team in every possible way. I can score with left, right, head, doesn't matter. If Seattle is playing the way they - we - played the last couple of years, I'm gonna score a lot of goals I'm sure. And I'm ready for it."

Seattle already has some acquaintance with Joveljić, though it is of the less saccharine variety. Back in 2024, the Sounders found themselves on defense 86 minutes into the Western Conference Final and one mistake from Alex Roldan allowed Joveljić to send the LA Galaxy (his team at the time) to the MLS Cup Final. Had Seattle pulled that game out, they would have hosted the MLS Cup that year.

If Schmetz can't beat 'em, Schmetz will make 'em join. That's how the saying goes.

"Dejan was the guy that we wanted. We've known him for a long time. '24 still sits here with me a little bit, but it was a well-deserved goal. He scored with eight minutes left, Alex gave, you know, cued the ball; we could go through that," Schmetzer said. "But he (Joveljić) was the one."

As could perhaps be gleaned from the rumors about guys like Casper Tengstedt, much of the transfer window was spent looking at people not named Dejan Joveljić. Sounders general manager Craig Waibel noted the process of opening communication on and on again, looking everywhere for something. At the beginning, he described the reaction of the Sporting front office as "slamming the door in our face", he kept looking for an opening. Unlike a lot of things, making the transfer you want only requires you be lucky once.

"And then, recently, things changed, and the ability to be opportunistic in a really, really quick manner was essential. When they cracked the door open, we kind of kept kicking it, and and we just kind of persevered in that sense," Waibel said. "But Kansas City was great to deal with, to be honest. [SKC GM] David Lee was, you know, his communication throughout was simple, it was direct. We we knew exactly where we stood from a couple months ago, when the answer was 'get away from me,' to you know, I think he said the word 'maybe' once, and I didn't let him forget it. We just kind of kept reminding him that 'maybe' can turn into 'for sure', and thankfully we were able to get it."

The Sounders badly needed a striker. While they had opened the year with a hope that either Danny Musovski or Osaze de Rosario would "make the position their own" - or that Jordan Morris would find his stroke at nine once more - nothing had gathered for Seattle up top. Although this remained manageable (with some luck, to be sure) before the World Cup, chances from the wings all but disappeared once summer came and the team's Alex Wennberg Syndrome notably worsened.

That's what Seattle could control. The injury bug, meanwhile, is only something they can influence, with more optimal training regimens perhaps somewhere in the wings to prevent such a torrent of knocks from coalescing again. The team hasn't been able to play the top back line (Nouhou-Yeimar-Ragen-Alex) since March 7 while Cristian has been out of commission since during the World Cup.

Joveljić, meanwhile, might really need a change of scenery. Although he has eight goals and an assist so far this year, he has the second-worst goals added (g+) of any striker this year (-1.98) and has been fairly "lucky" when considering his expected goals (xG) of 6.8 so far this year. He had the lowest g+ of all strikers in 2025 (-4.51), a figure that was over two goals worse than the next lowest competitor. Most of these g+ dings have been in passing and receiving, however, so it stands to reason that he might be able to prosper in a different scheme.

There is good evidence for this. In 2024, when Joveljić scored 15 goals and made five assists with the Galaxy, he had a -0.57 g+, largely due to a -1.24 g+ in passing but offset by positives in receiving (0.40) and shooting (0.57). The year prior, he had the league's 16th-best g+ for a striker at 0.65, again with positives in receiving (1.60) and shooting (0.34).

Joveljić still couldn't pass very well - and he is very clearly a get-to-the-ball striker above any kind of guy who could drop back and play an effective false nine - but his time at SKC has seen him improve his dribbling ability, and in any case, he has the goal-scoring pedigree to make g+ a bit of a footnote.

After all, this talk of advanced stats is somewhat sideways of the reason the Sounders signed him and the thing he stated again and again in his presser on Tuesday. He can make a killer one-touch finish. If you get the ball his way in the box, he will score and he will do so with frequency. So what was Kansas City doing wrong?

SKC's issues in utilizing Joveljić' skillset are twofold. One is formation: they have been using a lot of 4-4-2 setups where Deki is supposed to take on a much more distributive role, asked to complete far more passes in the final third. The other is supporting personnel, as where 2024 Galaxy had Joseph Paintsil and Gabriel Pec flanking Joveljić and Riqui Puig behind him, 2026 SKC has ... Zorhan Bassong, Capita, and Calvin Harris. One of those guys is mediocre, one is terrible, and the other one is good, but not at passing. Lasse Berg Johnson is the only solid distributor SKC has in their 4-4-2 top XI. Not a lot of quality touches going Deki's way.

To Sporting's credit, they've tried occasional 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 ideas with Manu García at 10, but these haven't worked out as hoped. Perhaps that's a warning amongst the fanfare that Joveljić isn't what the Sounders are hoping, or perhaps that's 2026 SKC being 2026 SKC.

In any case, Waibel has put the chips on Deki, and Schmetzer and the team have put their full confidence in their new signing to bring what the team wants.

"What I wanted, and what we delivered on, was getting what we feel is a really, really top, top, top striker," Schmetzer said. "He knows our league. He fits our culture, and I think this is going to pay dividends, hopefully, for the Seattle Sounders and give you a home for many years."

And for all that the advanced stats may doubt him, Joveljić fits the top-line definition of what a top striker does: he had 20 goal contributions in 2024, 20 goal contributions in 2025, and is pacing 14 this year. The onus is now on the rest of the team to do what Puig, Paintsil, and Pec did and give him lots of good balls in the box. That means improvement from Paul Rothrock, who has had a habit of airmailing box-bound crosses, and it means connection with Albert Rusnák, Kalani Kossa-Rienzi, Seba Gomez, and the like.

Perhaps the most important follow-up news from the presser was that Deki was "guaranteed" to feature in the starting XI for the team's upcoming Saturday afternoon fixture against the Chicago Fire, almost certainly as the starting striker.

"Well, we struggle to score goals consistently, and so, you heard him; he's going to come and try and help us score more goals. I think that's the immediate effect," Schmetzer said. "I think whenever you sign a big player, I think there's a lot of excitement. Training today was good. There's a little bit better buzz, energy was good ... even in this losing stretch, the team still has a heartbeat. They're still fighting for everything. I know you guys - Maz [Mazvita Maraire of Cascadiasports.net] mentioned, but look - he's gonna have good coaching with Preki, with Freddy, with Tommy, with Rico. You know, there's there's going to be a good connection there with all of the coaching staff, and he is going to play. I can guarantee that he's going to start the game."

Deki himself knows that he's going to a team that isn't on the best of runs right now. Like many of the Sounders, however, he displayed confidence that the team has the pieces to turn it around. If that's going to happen, he's going to be one of the centerpieces.

It goes without saying that Schmetzer is going to keep his tactical cards close to his chest. But as for the players who will be servicing Joveljić, they will have to learn the balance between leaving things for a striker who will score 15-20 goals a season and knowing when to take their own chances. After all, if all the opposing back lines have to do is keep Deki surrounded, then it won't matter that much how good the crosses from Kalani or Rothrock or (healthy?) Jordan Morris are. If Rothrock and Morris and the rest are legitimate threats, that will give Deki a whole bunch more space to operate. This is how Galaxy ran their attack in 2024, and they played in an MLS Cup.

Deki, at least, has transferred some of his expectations from his previous winning side (and perhaps from the Open Sicilian) to his current team that hopes to recreate such success.

"When I was in LA Galaxy, we had a lot of players who did well in counter attacks, and especially in MLS, you know, last 20 minutes it opens up," Joveljić said. "And then if we play the way we play, it's going to be a lot of holes from counterattacks."

Seattle, of course, have often struggled in the final 20 minutes of games and been on the business end of Galaxy-style counterattacks. Perhaps Joveljić will provide a new spark in these "even quarters", but he could just as easily find himself high, dry, and disconnected from teammates as they run out of gas and he keeps pushing. There will be - pardon the tortured metaphor - chemical renegotation as the team figures out how to absorb Deki and the new signing figures out how to be absorbed into the Sounders. Seattle hopes that it's a case of iron sharpening iron and Joveljić raising the standard of late-half play.

Rusnák may be the one with the most to contribute - yet also improve upon - in Seattle's new-look offense. Even with the lineup they had before the Joveljić transfer, they've needed to have the confidence as a team to operate their attacks through the middle of the pitch (though part of this is missing Cristian and having a somewhat banged up Snyder Brunell). Now with a true striker up top, they need that piece of the offense to be in operation more than ever.

Of course, this bond will have its own significance thanks to the fact that Rusnák signed a contract extension and left his own DP spot to allow for Deki to get one of those three spots on the Sounders roster.

Team bonding, according to Deki, has already begun taking place - and Albert is playing a key role.

"He (Rusnák) is the one who helped for this deal to make it happen, and he was the one who was driving me today to the training facility," Joveljić said. "So, one more time, I want to say thank you to him, and also, I mean, the guys are great. They already started making jokes: 'Preki and Deki.'"

Preki, one of the Sounders' assistant coaches, will certainly have plenty on his plate as to how he can retool the attack going into Seattle's final 14 matches of the season. But as the old saying goes, you can learn a lot by watching. Training from now until gameday will go some of the distance towards integrating Deki into the roster, but it's likely that he will have some surprises in store for Saturday.

"Look, we're not gonna force anything, Felipe [Felipe Maqueda of Somos Sounders]. He's a talented player. He's already assimilating with his new teammates," Schmetzer said. "We, as coaches, will learn a little bit more because when you scout an opponent, you see certain things, you remember certain things. But we'll see him every day in training, and we'll try and maximize his potential as a player. I'm sure he's willing to learn new things, new ideas. Preki has a lot of new ideas with the tactics and everything, and and he'll have to defend."

Schmetzer went on to say that Joveljić will help them win "many games", repeating the "many" many times. Deki (obviously) has the same idea, but while Waibel and Schmetzer are enthused by Joveljić' individual accomplishments, Deki's spirits appear lifted by Seattle's history of success in MLS.

"To be honest, after our first conversation together, after few minutes, first of all, I said, 'I'm giving you my word that I'm gonna come to Seattle, and when you say Seattle, you mean winning,'" Joveljić said. "This team has been always in top positions. This team wins trophies and [Schmetzer is] a well-known coach in this league, experienced. He won a lot of games, a lot of trophies, and I'm just here to help to score and bring a trophy where it belongs."

Seattle isn't magically fixed with only Deki added to the crew. Though Morris is meant to return fairly soon, Pedro will be out for the year and Jesús Ferreira will be unavailable. until late in the year. Even if everyone on the wings comes back healthy, getting someone with a different look in that position would do well for the team's ability to break down opposing defenses.

Waibel, after the press conference - I had asked him about this during the presser, but it got accidentally skipped over - touched base with me and provided his take on what he and the front office will do for the remainder of the summer transfer window, which closes Sept. 2.

While a big-money move like the Joveljić transfer is almost certainly out of the question, the team would be remiss if they didn't explore chance creation options.