Seattle Sounders Take on Pumas UNAM… So What?

DC United won the CONCACAF Champions Cup in 1998.

Today the Seattle Sounders of Major League Soccer are set to host Pumas UNAM of Liga MX in leg two of the CONCACAF Champions League Final – and it’s the most important soccer game of the year in North America. Sure, MLS supporters, and probably front offices as well, think more highly of MLS Cup or even the Supporters’ Shield, but that’s recency bias kicking in. A US-based team hasn’t won the title since LA Galaxy beat Honduras’ CD Olimpia 3-2 with names like Cobi Jones, Robin Fraser and Paul Caligiuri on books. Its been even longer since DC United won the Champions Cup in 1998, led by Jaime Moreno, John Harkes, and Roy Lassiter.

Despite LAFC’s deep run at the title last year, losing the single-match final 2-1 to Tigres, most MLS franchises aren’t champing at the bit to compete for it. Front offices and fans argue that the timing of the opening matches coincide with the early phase of their regular season while other leagues in the region have an earlier start and are already rolling by the time they face off. It ends up seeming like a distraction instead of a challenge and they lose sight of what the title could signify – that their club is the single greatest soccer team on the continent, even if only for a season.

LA Galaxy were 2000’s Champions Cup Winners.

What’s extra disheartening is that teams from the US have four routes to qualify and three of those are inaccessible to clubs outside of the closed market system which MLS have set up. Major League Soccer paths to entering the CCL are winning the Supporters Shield, being the best runner up to the Supporters Shield from the opposite conference, or winning MLS Cup; a post-season playoff cup seeded by the outcome of the regular season in which the majority of teams from the regular season qualify for anyways. Of course, only ownership groups with enough financial leverage to enter the closed first division can, in effect, buy access to these routes.

But there is a fourth path to earning a berth in the CONCACAF Champions League, one MLS has not completely made unavailable to the rest of the leagues, professional or even amateur, and that is the winner of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup (coincidentally, a tournament the Seattle Sounders have won four times). While, yes, MLS teams have won the competition 23 of the 27 years since the league’s inception, amateur and non-MLS professional clubs can and have competed for the title as well – Richmond Kickers and Rochester Rhinos being the last two non-MLS teams to have won the competition, also happen to be competing in the Round of 32 of the USOC, which kicks off in one week.

Seattle Sounders, four times USOC Winners, have earned their way into the CCL several times.

So, while you won’t find me actively hoping the Seattle Sounders become the first MLS team to technically win the CONCACAF Champions League (the tournament having changed from Champions Cup to Champions League in 2008), I will be hoping that they inspire teams like Detroit City, Union Omaha, Sacramento Republic, SG Tormenta FC, NoCo Hailstorm, Phoenix Rising, San Antonion FC, Louisville City or Cal United Strikers to push extra hard next week – to get on to the next round of the US Open Cup, fight hard to get as far as possible and earn their way into next years’ Champions League Final.

by Josh Duder