Ahead of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup kicking off, Seattle Sounders general manager and chief soccer officer Craig Waibel said there isn’t a team at the tournament — or anywhere else in professional soccer — that doesn’t know who Obed Vargas is.
“At this point, what I’d say is I don’t know if there’s a club in the world that doesn’t know who he is,” Waibel told reporters after a training session before their Group Stage match against Botafogo. “I mean, anyone who’s got analytics, he’s triggered and kind of set off the red alarms.”
At just 19 years old, the Mexico international has quickly become one of MLS’s brightest young stars, with a rapid rise that’s now drawing global attention. A proper defensive midfielder, Vargas is athletic, agile, intelligent, and most importantly, talented.
“I don't think he has a ceiling,” Teammate Reed Baker-Whiting said ahead of the Botafogo match. “I think his ceiling is European football, being one of the top guys in Europe. He's a great player, one of the hardest workers I know, and one of the most competitive people I know. So I think with those traits, there's really no ceiling for the talent he has.”
Born in Anchorage, Alaska, Vargas comes from a state with little to no footballing excellence, but that has yet to deter him. In 2021, he became the third-youngest player in league history to start or play in a match at 15 years and 351 days old, and in 2025, he started for Seattle at the Club World Cup against Atletico Madrid - the club he's supported since he was a child.
If he maintains his current trajectory, it doesn't feel far-fetched to say he could play for them one day, too.
But who exactly is Vargas? What makes him different from the rest of the crop? And how has he, per Waibel, caught the eye of the entire world? GOAL scouts the midfielder who could be the next great Mexican star.
