Disappointment is no longer a free space: An MLS team is (finally) King of CONCACAF
TheSeattle Sounders are the first champions of the CONCACAF Champions League from Major League Soccer after 14 years of futility. But will they be the last?
Thanks for spending part of your morning with Own Goals, the official newsletter of Salt City FC. For one post, we’re going to step away from the Wasatch Front and turn our sights toward the Pacific Northwest, where on Wednesday night, the Seattle Sounders made history with a 3-0 win over Mexico’s Pumas to become the first CONCACAF Champions League winners from MLS.
History for Seattle. History for Major League Soccer. History for American soccer.
For the first time since the CONCACAF Champions League rebranded to its current form in 2008, the mountain has been summited.
After 14 painstaking years, a half-dozen disappointments in the final game, and mountains of gnashing teeth — so many that the phrase “free space is disappointment” became a cliche spread around MLS, popularized by the league-produced ExtraTime podcast — the climb is finally over.
Seattle Sounders FC broke through the wall with a 3-0 win over Pumas (5-2 on aggregate), with two goals from Raul Ruidiaz and another from Nico Lodeiro smashing a barrier that had seemed insurmountable for over a decade — but really since the league was founded (with apologies to the LA Galaxy and DC United, champions of the CONCACAF Cup in 2000 and 1998, respectively).
Never again will an MLS team, coach, player or reporter be asked the most fateful of four words around the continent: is this the year? Is the year that MLS finally breaks through and wins it all, with one of its teams establishing itself atop the masses from North and Central America, as well as the Caribbean?
With a record-setting crowd of 68,741 fans at Lumen Field, the Sounders had one response: Yes, it is.
And then after the win, Seattle general manager Garth Lagerwey sent a different message: You can be next.
“We’re a good team. But there are a lot of good teams in this league,” said Lagerwey, who joined RSL in 2007 as the second-ever general manager. “New York City. LAFC. New England had 73 points last year.
“We’re level now with the top Mexican clubs. The top MLS clubs can compete on any given day with the top teams in Mexico. You just couldn’t say that five years ago. We’re the tip of the spear — but everybody’s welcome. We don’t want to be by ourselves.”
For Lagerwey, the title was a little extra special. Nearly 14 years ago in 2009, he won his first professional title as an executive when Real Salt Lake clinched a penalty kick shootout for its first (and so far, only) MLS Cup title in the cold Seattle night air.
Among the many close calls in MLS — Toronto, Montreal, LAFC just two years ago — the most stinging for Lagerwey was perhaps the first: RSL’s Champions League runner-up finish in 2011. It was a high point of the club’s history, and continues to be to this day. But would it haunt Lagerwey’s legacy, too?
Four years later, Lagerwey took a job at general manager and president of soccer in the Pacific Northwest. He knew he had a formula for winning, for successful franchises, for building a contender; but could his formula take the final step, and establish themselves as the best team, not just in the league, but in the region — one of the best in the world?
On Wednesday night, he finally answered in the affirmative. And in so many ways, the keys started to turn in Salt Lake City.
From newly installed Seattle sporting director Craig Waibel to former RSL midfielders Albert Rusnak and Kelyn Rowe (who both played pivotal roles in Wednesday’s home-leg final) to assistant coach Freddy Juarez and many others, Salt Lake’s fingerprints were — at least in part, but a significant part — on that trophy lifted high into the Seattle air on another big night in the Pacific Northwest.
“I said I wanted to compete for trophies, whether it’s MLS Cup, Open Cup, Champions League,” said Rusnak, who ruffled some feathers around the RSL faithful when he signed with the Sounders in January. “I felt that me coming here would be a good addition to a great team that they had.
“I’m just glad it worked out … You always say you want to win. It’s one thing to say; it’s another thing to do it.”
It was special for a lot of people, including rival clubs in the league. Think of Rowe, the journeyman from Federal Way, Washington on his fifth club who found himself staring at his coach as he subbed on for an injured Nouhou, one of two key subs on the match.
“It’s a moment you can’t really explain,” said Rowe. “It’s so amazing; the crowd was unbelievable — just under 70,000 people. But the fact that we were able to win it at home — and for me, this is home. I’ve got my family and friends here; I’ve cried about 10,000 times.
“When the final whistle blew, you could see it on everybody’s face: pure joy.”
Even Seattle coach Brian Schmetzer, one of the most enigmatic men in American soccer, dropped an F-bomb in a live interview with MLS, saying that winning “felt f—ing awesome.”
Wednesday night was special to Lagerwey, too. And as such, it should also be special to Real Salt Lake fans. The formula — the one that started in Sandy, with the Beautiful Game, the tactical innovation, the mix of big Designated Player contracts with academy products — had finally captured the biggest prize in the history of the league.
Next stop, the Club World Cup. But steal a glance at RSL on the way.
“It’s incredibly special. Go back to 2009, Salt Lake won their first title on this field. Now to win the continental championship in 2022, for me personally, it’s overwhelming,” Lagerwey told MLS ExtraTime. “I didn’t know if I’d ever get back to the final. But it’s not about me; a credit to our ownership, and a credit to our players … You kind of felt it was coming tonight. But you saw our quality, right?”
The nature of professional sports is to look ahead to what’s next, to overcoming the next hurdle. And by Thursday morning, that will be the case in Seattle, as it will be around the rest of the league — looking for a way not to be the first CONCACAF Champions League winner from MLS, but the second, the third or so forth.
But there can’t be a second without a first. For one night, tip your hat to the Sounders for making history and setting the path. Pour one out, or raise a glass, or do whatever else you do to celebrate momentous occasions.
You can go back to hating them tomorrow.
“You get in sports for stuff like this, stuff that people can never take away,” Lagerwey said. “Hopefully it’s the first of many.
“This is such an exciting time in American soccer. We’ve got the most talented generation going to the World Cup — and now we’ve got this.”
