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By Doug McIntyre
FOX Sports Soccer Writer
Editor's Note: MLS Footnotes takes you inside the major talking points around the league and across American soccer.
Moments after the Seattle Sounders advanced to the CONCACAF Champions League final over New York City FC on Wednesday, FOX play-by-play man John Strong asked the obvious rhetorical question.
Is this the year an MLS team finally wins it all?
Wednesday’s 1-1 tie against NYCFC, combined with last week’s 3-1 victory in the two-leg, total-goals series, gave the Sounders a 4-2 aggregate win. It also made Seattle, which will meet Mexico’s UNAM Pumas for regional bragging rights and a trip to the FIFA Club World Cup, just the fifth MLS team to reach the finale since CONCACAF went to a home-and-home format in 2003. MLS has lost all four.
By contrast, Liga MX has won every edition of this tournament since 2006.
That’s not to say Seattle can’t flip the script. The Sounders have been the most consistent team in MLS over the past decade-plus. They’ve made the playoffs every year since their 2009 ascension from the second tier, reaching four MLS Cups and hoisting the league’s most important prize twice. They’ve also won four U.S. Open Cups and a Supporters Shield.
Still, Seattle is the clear underdog.
But they have a chance. Maybe not a better one than LAFC, the most recent MLS team to make it this far, did in 2020, when the pandemic sent the business end of the competition to a neutral-site bubble in Orlando, Florida. LAFC didn’t have to travel south of the border after the round of 16. Seattle won’t have that luxury.
The good news is this version of the Sounders is possibly the most complete MLS team ever. From back to front, there is no obvious weakness. Their spine consists of veteran Stefan Frei in goal, Cameroon international defender Nouhou in central defense and three MLS Best XI players from 2021: Colombian center back Yeimar, Brazilian midfielder João Paulo and Peruvian forward Raúl Ruidíaz.
They also have one of the league’s best playmakers in Uruguayan Nicolás Lodeiro, who along with Ruidíaz is finally healthy after missing the beginning of the season; USMNT regulars Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan; and Roldan’s brother Alex, captain of El Salvador’s national team. By MLS standards, they’re comically stacked. Add their universally beloved gentleman of a coach, Brian Schmetzer, and maybe this really is the year.
"It’s a trophy that the club certainly covets," Schmetzer said following Wednesday’s contest. "The culture of this club is to win every game, every trophy, every competition."
Easier said than done.
FOOTNOTES
1. Miami up next
Before the Sounders meet Pumas, their focus returns to MLS play. Seattle host Inter Miami on Saturday (10 p.m. ET, FS1/FOX Deportes/FOX Sports app).
Miami sit dead last in the Eastern Conference. But they’re also coming off their first win of the 2022 season, a 3-2 thriller over the New England Revolution that snapped a three-match losing skid in which they were outscored 13-3.
Unlike Seattle, which also had a long flight back to the Pacific Northwest on Thursday, Miami will arrive with fresh legs. That should make things interesting, especially if Schmetzer rests some of his stars.
The match will serve as a homecoming for several members of Miami’s traveling party. DeAndre Yedlin is making his first trip back to Seattle, his hometown, since he left the Sounders for Tottenham in 2015.
"I’m going to have most of my family there. My daughter’s going to be able to be in Seattle for the first time," Yedlin said. "Just to be able to be back in the stadium and where I grew up will be a good feeling."
Fellow defender Damion Lowe was drafted by the Sounders in 2014 but never appeared in an MLS match for the club. Inter sporting director Chris Henderson is another Seattle-area native who filled the same role for the Sounders from 2008 until last year and built much of the Sounders' current roster.
2. Higuain out again
One guy who won’t be in Seattle is designated player Gonzalo Higuain. The former Real Madrid, Juventus, Chelsea and Argentina forward missed the Revs match due to a knee injury from which he still hasn’t fully recovered.
Higuain’s absence all but guarantees another start for 21-year-old Leonardo Campana — if Campana weren't a lock already after he scored all three of Miami’s goals against the Revs, including the 88th-minute winner. Campana already has 10 senior caps for Ecuador and is hoping to crack the South American country’s World Cup roster later this year.
3. Schedule shuffle
Seattle is supposed to visit the San Jose Earthquakes on April 23. As of this writing, CONCACAF hasn’t announced the date for the first leg of the Champions League final in Mexico City, but we know it will be between April 26 and April 28.
To give the Sounders the best possible chance to field a fresh and full-strength starting lineup, expect MLS to reschedule the Quakes match. When the Rave Green advanced to the semis, the league moved their April 9 game against Cincinnati to late September.
Seattle will host the second leg against Pumas between May 3 and May 5.
4. Home cooking
Having that match at home could be huge for the Sounders, provided they keep the opener close. New England beat Pumas 3-0 at home in the quarterfinals before losing by the same score and then on penalties in the high altitude of Mexico’s capital. In the 2018 final, Toronto won the second leg over Chivas in Guadalajara but also lost in a shootout after extra time.
Seattle get to play the decisive game on their turf in front of some of the best fans in MLS. "Hopefully with an amazing atmosphere," Frei said, "we can achieve something that nobody’s done before."
5. Poor pigeons
New York City couldn’t overcome the two-goal deficit from the first leg, which became three when Ruidíaz opened the scoring Wednesday.
Still, they came close. It was all Pigeons late in the match, and had the MLS Cup holders managed to pull within one late, they might have gone on to win.
But Frei made a series of key stops midway through the second half, none better than this one on Brazilian teenager Talles Magno from point-blank range.
6. Home cooking, part II
With the Yankees hosting the Blue Jays in the Bronx, Wednesday’s match was played at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey — home of NYCFC’s biggest rival. It was the fourth "home" venue City have used in five games this season.
Watching how the match unfolded, it’s tough not to think that had the game been played on the small field at Yankee Stadium, the Pigeons might have advanced instead.
7. Galaxy on Fire
The LA Galaxy kept their unbeaten streak at home against crosstown rival LAFC intact with a 2-1 win on April 9. After beating the Timbers in Portland the previous weekend, Gregg Vanney’s side goes into Chicago riding a wave of momentum — not that Vanney is getting ahead of himself.
"We’re still early in the season," he said before facing the defensively sound Fire.
"We want to set our bar for every game as high as we can," Galaxy star Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez added. With five goals, Chicharito is tied for the league lead with FC Dallas’ Jesus Ferreira and Cincy’s Brandon Vazquez. "We always know that we can improve."
8. New CB in LA?
One place the Galaxy can get better is defensively. While they sit second in the West and are just a point behind leaders LAFC, three teams below them in the standings have conceded fewer goals than LA’s six.
Multiple reports last week suggested that help could be on the way after the Premier League season ends next month, with Watford and Nigeria national team defender William Troost-Ekong a target. But Watford insist they haven’t received an offer.
Vanney also downplayed the link.
"I know the player, but that’s the extent of the situation," he said, pointing out that the Galaxy recently signed former MLS Cup-winning Toronto FC defender Eriq Zavaleta. "Center back is not really a priority in the moment."
One of the most prominent soccer journalists in North America, Doug McIntyre has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams in more than a dozen countries, including multiple FIFA World Cups. Before joining FOX Sports, the New York City native was a staff writer for Yahoo Sports and ESPN. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.
