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Thursday's MLS opener featured two teams just a year apart in age, but a generation apart in Championship purpose.
The Seattle Sounders were built to win right away, awash in high-priced talent and seasoned veterans. Their first season was a rare expansion success for this reason, and year two has produced the requisite championship expectations.
Philadelphia was built with the future in mind, as evidenced by their stockpiling of talented youngsters and draft picks. Peter Nowak took the Philly coaching job because it was a chance to build something and he has taken that philosophy to heart, eschewing more established players for younger ones with more upside and a stronger willingness to be taught.
Philadelphia's approach may eventually bear fruit, but if Thursday’s 2-0 loss to the Sounders is any indication, it is an approach that may doom the Union to a forgettable first season. Thursday's loss provided clear evidence that Philadelphia's squad, the youngest in MLS, lacks the type of veteran savvy and star power that it would take an expansion team to flourish in a 16-team MLS.
The Sounders have those elements, but are by no means the finished product. Overshadowed by the relative ease of Seattle's victory was the fact that some of the Sounders familiar weaknesses revealed themselves. There was the poor finishing that ruined so many Sounders performances last season (a weakness Seattle will hope to address with the summer arrival of Swiss striker Blaise Nkufo), and there was Freddie Ljungberg's habit of losing focus because of perceived slights by the referee.
Some of Seattle's familiar traits were welcomed sights as well, such as Osvaldo Alonso relentless work in central midfield, Brad Evans ability to energize the attack and Fredy Montero's penchant for slipping into scoring positions and scoring clutch goals.
Perhaps the most promising aspect of the rainy night in Seattle was the packed house at Qwest Field that braved the elements to celebrate the return of the Sounders. Any questions about whether the city would lose any of the passion for the Sounders was put to bed with every song and chant the fans sang.
It wasn't just Sounders fans in attendance. A group of Philadelphia fans made the trip West, even after stalled MLS labor talks threatened to jeopardize the MLS season opener. The Philly fans weren't treated to an inaugural victory, but seeing their dreams realized in the form of a flesh and blood team after years of waiting and envying their neighbors in New Jersey and D.C.
The weather may not have cooperated, but that didn’t stop the start of the 2010 MLS season from being a rousing success. It was successful because it actually happened, something that was in doubt before MLS and its Players Union agreed on a new labor deal last Saturday. Watching the spectacle in Seattle on Thursday, you couldn’t help but think about the disaster that was narrowly averted.
Labor strife is now a distant memory, and Thursday’s opener helped give MLS fans a glimpse of what may be to come in 2010, with a strong Sounders team ready to challenge for a title in year two, and a newborn Philadelphia Union team that looks like it will have to endure the growing pains Seattle was able to avoid in 2009.
Ives Galarcep is FoxSoccer.com's newest senior writer who will be covering U.S. Soccer and MLS.
