Could Seattle become hub for blind soccer? There's a push underway

In blind soccer, players rely on noise to navigate, so Saturday's Blind Soccer International Tournament crowd was asked to remain as quiet as possible while play was underway.

This was at Interbay Stadium, however, so a nearby boat let out several long horn blasts at regular intervals.

"We planned for the planes, we planned for the trains," United Adaptive Soccer Association president Joslynn Bigelow joked into her walkie-talkie.

"But we forgot about the boats."

Aside from that bit of local flavor, the first-of-its-kind event in Seattle - newly named hub for blind soccer - was seen as a wild success. Attendance was free, and Michael Holmes, president of the U.S. Association of Blind Athletes, said it was "by far the largest crowds that have ever watched blind soccer in the U.S."

It was imagined as the first blind soccer friendly in the Pacific Northwest, but a trio of participating national teams - U.S., Kazakhstan and Peru - made it the first blind soccer international ranking tournament in the region. SeattleFWC26, the city's World Cup organizing committee, hosted, in partnership with Ballard FC and Salmon Bay FC.

Blind soccer debuted at the 2004 Athens Paralympics and has been contested at every Paralympic Games since. The sport is played in more than 60 countries, according to the USABA. Team USA is due to make its Paralympic debut as the host nation of the Los Angeles Games in 2028.

Each team has five players, including a goalkeeper. Four of the players wear blindfolds, otherwise known as eyeshades, for impact protection and as a way of leveling the playing field, as some players are partially sighted.

Goalkeepers can't leave a designated space in front of the net. They can be sighted and do not wear blindfolds. There's a constant stream of instruction from them, as well as the coaches, who aren't yelling encouragements, but rather something closer to play-by-play.

Matches consist of two 20-minute halves. There's no offside rule, but there are corner kicks. The playing area is less than half the size of a field used for professional or international matches, at 40 meters by 20 meters. The goals are also much smaller. Each pitch is surrounded by kick boards, or 4-foot barriers that contain the action.

The ball used for the tournament contained a rattle so players could track it by sound.

The U.S. team fell 4-0 against Peru in the opener, then played to a scoreless draw against Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan took Sunday's final match, 1-0, against Peru.

It served as a tuneup for the U.S. National Team, which is "running out of time" before the 2028 games, according to captain Charles Catherine.

"After the 4-0 (loss to Peru), I was so down on myself, and I was almost ready to cry. I was embarrassed," Catherine said. "Instead, people (in the crowd) were like, ‘You guys are awesome.' And that was what we needed before the second game."

Catherine was born in France and grew up a soccer fan, but retinitis pigmentosa - a group of rare, genetic eye diseases - kept him out of organized soccer. It was a frustration, he said, but something he'd accepted.

He moved to New York City for a fresh start and got involved in triathlons and endurance sports. One day, he got an email asking if he'd like to give soccer another try. He was "terrible" at the sport, he said, but he was a runner, and they needed that. Over the past seven years, he's participated in camps and combines, helping to get a U.S. team ready to host.

"We started from absolute scratch, which is why a game like today's is massive," he said.

A clinic following Saturday's games allowed spectators to try to replicate what they just saw. Armchair quarterbacks became actual quarterbacks.

Linda Hoffner of Bellevue made it a family outing. She saw a teaser for the event on Instagram and sent it to her son. They decided it was an opportunity they couldn't pass up, and they headed over to Interbay with Hoffner's husband and younger son.

Hoffner considers herself a pretty athletic person, but felt like "a stumbling goofball" in the blindfold.

"It was very overwhelming at first, just trying to navigate where I was," Hoffner elaborated. "The minute you lost the soccer ball, it was like panic set in. Then you're just fumbling around with your foot, trying to find it.

"It was very helpful having people say, ‘On your left,' and the folks who were at the wall tapping to help orient (you). It helped me have a greater appreciation for what the players were experiencing during the game."

She was glad they stuck around for the clinic, but: "Man, that was hard."

The hope is that this is just the beginning. The weekend's events will bring in new fans, and more programming will follow.

"The city government and a couple of local organizations are really making a push for the adaptive sports in this area, and we just wanted to be a part of that and make sure we can join in and support that in any way possible," Holmes said.

Overseeing it all was Leo Flor, chief legacy officer for SeattleFWC26. He's been tasked with helping find and boost local projects "in an attempt to make the World Cup work a little bit better for our community."

"There are so many people doing incredible work in our community that can benefit from even just a portion of the spotlight that comes with hosting the World Cup," he said.

"The real measure of success is going to be - how do people remember this six months from now? A year from now? Three years from now?

Flor said SeattleFWC26 CEO Peter Tomozawa attended blind soccer events at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio and was eager to promote the sport.

"We came up with this concept that we would designate Seattle as the Northwest hub for blind soccer, which we did in December," Flor said. "We held a clinic in December and started training and recruiting players and referees, and then this international qualifying tournament is the next step of that."

Flor's background isn't in sports, but there he was, fighting to get the decals on the kick boards, which barely arrived from Florida in time for the tournament.

"We use donations and funds that we've raised from our supporters to actually purchase the first set of dedicated blind soccer Pitch Panels (kick boards) that are in Seattle," Flor said. "Then we're going to provide these, for free and forever, to a new field we're opening up (this) week in Tacoma, so we have the permanent facility in place for people to play blind soccer in our region."

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.