Seattle Sounders \not the same team\" that won CCL

By winning the CONCACAF Champions League, Sounders can complete one MLS quest…and beginning a new one

Eleven years agone, Real Common salt Lake was on the brink of becoming the beginning MLS team to win the CONCACAF Champions League. The minor-market, low-budget club fought their style through the tournament'south at present-defunct grouping stage, beat out Columbus and Saprissa in the knockout rounds and, thanks to an 89th minute goal from star midfielder Javier Morales, overcame long odds to draw the first leg of the CCL final 2-2 at Liga MX power Monterrey. RSL needed to tie 0-0 or 1-i in the return leg in Utah, where they hadn't lost in virtually ii years in any competition, to go continental champions.

They couldn't practice it. Chile international Humberto Suazo scored just before halftime, RSL missed several gilt opportunities and Monterrey won 1-0 at Rio Tinto Stadium, denying the heavy underdogs a crowning moment.

Xi years and a few about-misses later, an MLS squad has still never won the CCL.The Seattle Sounders are in a skilful position to change that.

Concluding calendar week, on the 11th anniversary of the 2d leg of the 2011 final, in an intimidating environment in Mexico Urban center, Seattle got two tardily goals from club fable Nico Lodeiro, the second in the 99th infinitesimal, to depict 2-2 at Pumas in Leg 1 of the CCL final. A win on Wed in front end of an expected tournament-record crowd of 70,000-plus in Leg ii at Lumen Field, where the Sounders have outscored opponents 11-1 in iii games this CCL, would exist plenty for Seattle to elevator the trophy.

For the Sounders, information technology's a precious opportunity. For Seattle GM Garth Lagerwey, it's familiar territory. Lagerwey was GM of that RSL squad that came so close to winning the CCL in 2011. He felt the pain of that final, the get-go of three championship matches in dissimilar competitions that Table salt Lake would drib betwixt 2011 and 2013. Since then he has helped build the Sounders teams that made it to iv of the last six MLS Cup finals, winning two of them. Simply to him, the CCL is the biggest prize available. He'due south been talking about winning it from the moment he left Salt Lake to join Seattle in January 2015. In a contempo pregame spoken language to the Lumen Field crowd that was part P.T. Barnum, part Bruce Buffer, Lagerwey said the CCL concluding offers the guild a run a risk at "immortality."

"It'd be the biggest moment in club history," Lagerwey told The Able-bodied. "It'due south 1 thing to get to finals, we've done that pretty consistently in the last couple of years, only we haven't won them consistently. And this is a huge moment where nosotros can win the biggest tournament of them all. That'd be a real achievement, a real milestone. Information technology's a chance to make history. We believe it's a foundational step for us."

They're well-equipped to pull it off. Though they've struggled in league play so far in 2022, the Sounders have one of MLS' best rosters. Their front vi of striker Raul Ruidiaz, playmaker Lodeiro, wingers Hashemite kingdom of jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan and center midfielders Joao Paulo and Albert Rusnak might be the best in the league. Eye backs Yeimar Andrade and Xavier Arreaga are part of a resolute defensive group that as well includes fullbacks Nouhou and Alex Roldan and goalkeeper Stefan Frei.

They've shown their substantial talent at times in their CCL run, blitzing León in the starting time leg of the quarterfinals and putting in one of the acme performances by an MLS team in recent memory in Leg 1 of their semifinal against New York City FC. But their maturity has been equally important in reaching this point. The Sounders were under serious pressure in Leg ii confronting NYCFC, merely they maintained their cool, embracing the dark arts in a way we've rarely seen from MLS teams to progress to the terminal.

Their ability to blend sophistication and subversion served Seattle well once again final week in the first leg of the concluding. Despite largely outplaying Pumas, the Sounders fell into a 2-0 hole when striker Juan Dinenno powerfully headed home his 2d goal of the friction match in the 48th minute. 3 minutes later, Ruidiaz, so clutch so many times for Seattle, had a signal-blank attempt saved by a sprawling Afredo Talavera.

Talent and budget discrepancies are the main reasons an MLS team has never won the CCL, but, as the years and disappointments take stacked up, it's felt like there's been a malevolent force at play, as well, an inexplicable power that trips up U.South. and Canadian clubs, sometimes in the final, more often before in the competition. After Ruidiaz'south miss, it felt like that mystical undercurrent was over again flowing.

The Sounders, as ever, held steady. They took advantage of some good fortune in the endmost minutes, with Lodeiro converting a pair of late penalties — the offset following a handball by erstwhile RSL homegrown Bofo Saucedo, signed by Lagerwey to his offset pro contract in 2014, the second following some savvy play from Cristian Roldan — to become into the 2nd leg tied 2-two.

As was the case after the second leg of the semifinals, information technology was fair to wonder whether a less-seasoned team would have responded as maturely as Seattle did last Wednesday. Their core has been together for years; besides Rusnak, who joined the gild as a costless agent this winter, every member of their first-choice XI has played in at least one MLS Cup with Seattle. Lodeiro, Cristian Roldan, Morris, Frei and head omnibus Brian Schmetzer take been around for four of them. Most of the current team got further final experience in a defeat to León in the Leagues Cup title match last summer. Unlike a number of clubs around MLS that are emphasizing buying young players, the Sounders don't seem to put much stock in resale value when making their signings. They near exclusively target players in their primes, frequently with championship pedigrees, with these verbal moments in listen.

"When nosotros got this squad all together in the offseason, we thought information technology would probably exist the best Sounders grouping nosotros've had, at least on paper," Lagerwey said. "Guys are at the right ages to go for it."

No ane knows how things will play out this Midweek, of grade. Dinenno, the CCL's leading scorer with nine goals in vii appearances, could once over again discover the dorsum of the net. Talavera could stand on his head. The CCL monster could merits another MLS victim. But the Sounders are the clear favorites heading into the second leg, more talented and, afterward getting the weekend off, better rested than a Pumas team that had to win on Sun just to finish 11th in the final Liga MX regular season standings. If the Sounders play even close to their potential on Wed, they should win the CCL.

That would be a existent triumph — one the gild would be deservedly celebrated for. But a Sounders win would also launch a broader word about what finally capturing the CCL means for MLS.

Existent Salt Lake's Fabian Espindola in the 2011 CCL Concluding (George Frey / Getty Images)

It would be tempting to view a hypothetical victory as the moment when MLS finally defenseless Liga MX. That'd be going besides far, just a Sounders win could exist a legitimate turning point. Earlier MLS can even dream of achieving its goal of condign one of the best leagues in the world, it needs to outset become the best league in CONCACAF. That won't happen with one CCL title, simply with several stacked together. It'll happen when MLS teams litter the semifinals and final of the competition each year; when U.Southward. and Canadian clubs regularly beat the biggest, richest teams in Mexico (which, notably, did not authorize for this year's tournament). The Sounders can't accomplish all that on Wednesday, but they can jumpstart the procedure.

"I practise think that this is a potential watershed moment," Lagerwey said. "It doesn't mean that everything'southward gonna change overnight, simply I exercise think — if we're able to win, if we're able to push through, considering we've started to stack semifinalists and nosotros are having more than finalists — that this could be indicative that MLS is arriving on the international scene."

MLS is certainly far better positioned today to build on a potential Champions League title than it was when RSL almost won the contest back in 2011. Salt Lake was such an underdog in that final that Monterrey, up ane-0 early, took off star forward Aldo de Nigris and fellow starter Luis Perez in the 21st infinitesimal to salvage them for the club's league match that coming weekend.

"It was insulting, right? That was how piffling they thought of us," Lagerwey said. "And when we tied them, they decided to take the second leg seriously, simply it was e'er a David and Goliath scenario."

Monterrey had reason to exist arrogant. At the time of the 2011 final, TransferMarkt pegged the order's overall squad value at nearly four times that of RSL, which paid its entire roster just $3.52 million that season.

The biggest Liga MX teams still spend much more than whatever MLS team, simply the overall residuum has shifted meaningfully over the last 11 years. Inefficiencies remain, only increases to the MLS salary budget, the advent of targeted resource allotment coin, growing returns from academies and the addition of the Young Money/under-22 initiative take helped narrow the gap between the two leagues.

TransferMarkt isn't a perfect measure, but it lists Seattle as having an overall team value of $52.88 million. Pumas is far from a financial powerhouse in Liga MX, but the society's corresponding total of $30.69 one thousand thousand pales in comparison. That'south a big reversal from the 2011 final. Same goes for the payroll of the involved MLS squad. The MLS Players Association hasn't nevertheless released bacon data for 2022, but the Sounders paid their players $13.59 meg final fall, over $10 one thousand thousand more what RSL spent on its roster in 2011.

"What's happened in the ensuing 11 years has changed things," Lagerwey said. "We've beaten Mexican teams in the Leagues Loving cup and CCL in the last year, so certainly we're capable of doing this. That doesn't mean information technology's like shooting fish in a barrel, but it's not the moonshot it was back then."

We've seen that play out on the field. After RSL, no MLS team returned to the CCL title for some other 4 years, when outgunned Montreal made a Cinderella run to the final, where they lost to Club América.

The last three MLS teams to make the final have been different. Toronto had the well-nigh impressive journey, memorably taking out Tigres and América before they were upset by a struggling Chivas team in the 2018 final. The pandemic meant the 2020 competition was completely different, played mostly equally a series of single-elimination matches that December in Orlando, Fla., but LAFC was a very worthy finalist. Led by Carlos Vela, they trounce León in a two-legged pre-pandemic series in Feb, and then toppled Cruz Azul and América in Orlando before conceding twice in the last xx minutes to lose two-1 in the final against Tigres.

ANDRE. PIERRE. GIGNAC. 😤@TigresOficial accept the lead vs LAFC in the 84th minute! pic.twitter.com/HD3nir1c6A

— Flim-flam Soccer (@FOXSoccer) December 23, 2020

These Sounders are very much in line with those squads, which couldn't have been synthetic in 2011. We now meet a few of their ilk every yr in MLS. Every bit Lagerwey said, this sort of thing "is replicable."

Seattle's presence makes it three times in the last 5 years that an MLS team has appeared in the CCL last. A growing number of MLS teams have advanced to the semis in contempo years, besides, with at least ane MLS side qualifying for the competition's concluding four every twelvemonth dating dorsum to 2017. The league had two semifinalists in iii of those 6 years, including in the current tournament. Those numbers certainly aren't overwhelming, only they're a marked comeback from the four total semifinal appearances fabricated by MLS teams in the first eight editions of the CCL.

The same goes for how MLS teams have fared in two-legged series against Liga MX opposition. In the 54 all-time habitation-and-home matchups between the leagues, MLS teams accept won only 11. Merely nine of those 11 victories have come in the 29 series since TAM was introduced in 2015. Ii take come in iii meetings between the leagues this year (though those matchups have included weaker-than-usual Liga MX sides). The record is still horribly one-sided in favor of Liga MX, just things are getting demonstrably better for MLS teams, which will have fifty-fifty more opportunities to take on their Mexican counterparts one time the new Leagues Cup begins in 2023.

The league has progressed profoundly since RSL fabricated the CCL last in 2011, but information technology still has a ways to go to attain parity with Liga MX, nevermind to achieve its goal of becoming one of the top circuits in the earth. One of its teams finally winning the CCL wouldn't mean the league has arrived where it wants to, but it would mark the end of one painful journey and the beginning of another, i with enough of new possibilities.

(Photo: Jaime Lopez / Jam Media / Getty Images)

Source: https://theathletic.com/3290495/2022/05/03/sounders-ccl-pumas-mls/

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