🏆 Sounders can make CCL history tonight, but it doesn't change the past
No matter the result, the narrative will be bad
The 2022 Concacaf Champions League will be decided tonight after the first leg finished 2-2 in Mexico City.
(Thoughts on that game, still relevant!, below)
If the Sounders win, there will be many who draw the conclusion that MLS has ‘caught’ Liga MX. If Pumas win, it will be a sign to many that ‘the gap’ between Liga MX and MLS is as large as ever.
Both will have some points, but neither represents the full story.
Time is running out for an MLS team to win even once in the current format. Titles won by D.C. United and the LA Galaxy were under a different competition name entirely but also in a tournament that looked very different. The CCL branding will stay, but the expansion set to take place in 2024 will bring a much different tournament.
If the Sounders fall to Pumas and no MLS team takes the crown in next year’s competition, Liga MX forever would have the bragging rights of a clean sweep, running the table in all 15 CCL tournaments. It is dominance that can not be denied.
But even if the Sounders protect their home turf (and it is turf, something that has Pumas more than a little nervous), one win does not a power shift make.
As I’ve written many times, MLS will not be able to reasonably claim regional superiority until it is regularly winning this tournament (and, sure, Leagues Cup as well).
Last week, in our live chat, reader Paul asked me how many titles it would take before MLS can claim the balance has swung and said he felt it would be the majority of trophies in a five-year period. Before I got to that part of his comment, my gut said ‘three titles in quick succession’.
That’s not to say the Sounders winning tonight wouldn’t be a huge achievement - a big f’n deal, in line with their clever marketing before the game. You have to win one title, of course, before you can win several.
Even so, this is about more than league supremacy.
Remember, as much as people write that this is Liga MX vs. MLS (heck, I may have written it), it isn’t. It’s a Liga MX team vs. an MLS team. It’s Pumas UNAM vs. the Seattle Sounders.
“The title always gives credibility to what you’re doing and to the club as well. I think the project, beyond the result, is solid,” Pumas manager Andres Lillini said before the match. “The force of a title if for the fans and for the players it’s very important.”
More than any macro-narratives, this is about two clubs going for glory. It’s about a Pumas team looking to prove it still belongs among the grandes and can win trophies even without some of the stars of yore.
It’s about a Sounders team showing its identity can work beyond the confines of MLS, that it has worked out the way to blend homegrown talent, top signings from abroad and savvy maneuvers from within the league, put it all under the direction of a guy who has been in Seattle forever, and be the best team in the entire region.
“If the outcome goes our way, for Seattle, for the Sounders, for the fans, the players, the people that work in our office, the technical staff, I think it would be a huge honor,” Sounders manager Brian Schmetzer said. Absent in that list is the league.
Sure, the Sounders are flying the flag for MLS. The league would love to be able to point to a team in the Club World Cup (and perhaps stake a claim to hosting the tournament in the future) and to trumpet success, however brief, over the rival league to the South.
While the league hasn’t seen an #MLS4RSL-style campaign take off, there are well-wishes pouring in from all over.
“They're representing MLS & it would be really good for (the league) for them to be able to get this title and see the growth the league and soccer in the U.S. is having. All the best to them tonight,” FC Dallas manager Nico Estévez told me Wednesday morning.
But when the whistle blows, it will just be the Sounders XI against their Pumas counterparts.
As for the game, MLS teams have been here before. Sounders general manager Garth Lagerwey was in this position as the general manager of Real Salt Lake in 2011 only to watch as Rayados locked down Alvaro Saborio, Javi Morales and Co. to ride a Humberto Suazo goal to the title.
The Montreal Impact got a famous 1-1 result at the Estadio Azteca in the first leg of the 2015 final and scored in the first 10 minutes of the second leg against América only for Dario Benedetto to smash a hat trick and sink the Impact in a 5-3 aggregate triumph.
Chivas needed a shootout but overcame Toronto FC winning in Guadalajara to earn the 2018 title.
There’s a curse to break here, but even if that hex is lifted, the work continues for the Sounders and for their MLS rivals to send a message that the hegemony is over and the title for top league in Concacaf actually is up for debate.
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