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Philadelphia (0-0-0) at Seattle (0-0-0), 9:55 p.m.

Seattle, WA (Sports Network) - Last season, Seattle Sounders FC's first in Major League Soccer, the team showed fireworks on and off the field to open their first game. A resounding 3-0 win over Red Bull New York at home to open the 2009 season provided the perfect start to a dream season by the expansion club.

This season, the second-year club is hoping history doesn't repeat itself - with an expansion team opening the season at Qwest Field with an impressive win - when the Philadelphia Union come to town on Thursday night.

Sounders coach Sigi Schmid is confident his club can build on its solid first season, in which it made the playoffs while setting MLS attendance records off the field.

"Obviously we want to have as much success in the second year as we had in the first, maybe a little more so," he told The Sports Network. "The second year is always tougher. We have to show consistency. Teams know what to expect when they come into Seattle and they know what our team is about a little bit now. I'm sure their game plans will be much better for us as they prepare for us.

"We still think we have a quality team and we expect to build upon the success we had last year."

The Union are the unknown team at this point, with coach Peter Nowak and his club set to face not only the Sounders, but about 37,000 home fans as the Seattle faithful are expected to come out in full force, as usual.

Expect Philadelphia's back-four of Danny Califf, Shavar Thomas, Jordan Harvey and Michael Orozco as well as goalkeeper Chris Seitz to be under siege all game.

"We always want to do that when we're playing at home," Schmid told MLSnet.com. "Toward the end of last season, a lot of teams sat back against us at home, so we have to work on breaking down a team like that in game situations.

"We've worked on that in training and we think we have the pieces of the puzzle to do break that down. We certainly want to carry the game to them."

"I think we are trying to develop our game this season; trying to play a bit more complex of a complex game," Seattle attacker Ljungberg told MLSnet.com. "I think last season we played quite simple because we didn't know each other very well."

Despite a gloomy prediction for not only the first game, but perhaps their entire first season, the Union are staying positive

"We are at ground zero, ready for liftoff, and especially with the CBA a thing of the past, we can be ready for liftoff and can be fantastic," Califf told the Philadelphia Inquirer.