The Seattle Sounders know what they’re up against in their quest to capture Major League Soccer’s first CONCACAF Champions League title. They’re not immune to the fact that since the inception of the current format, no MLS team has won, and only two — Real Salt Lake in 2011 and the Montreal Impact in 2015 — have even made it to the final.
After their 4-0 throttling of El Salvador’s Santa Tecla FC in the Round of 16 last Thursday, the Sounders will get one of the biggest tests of the tournament and one of their most important matches in the last few years when they battle Liga MX’s Chivas de Guadalajara beginning with quarterfinal Leg One at CenturyLink Field on Wednesday (7 p.m. PT; go90, Univision, 950 JKR AM, El Rey 1360 AM | TICKETS).
“You don’t get these opportunities that often to play against Mexican teams,” said defender Chad Marshall. “That’s what MLS is striving to be. They want to be on par or better than the Mexican league, so these games are important for the league and for the club to prove themselves of where they stand in that hierarchy. We look forward to it, it’s a good challenge.”
Chivas becomes the fifth different Mexican team to face the Sounders in CCL, joining Monterrey (twice), Santos Laguna (twice), Tigres and Club América. The Sounders became the first MLS club to defeat a Liga MX club in 2013 when they knocked off Tigres behind a golazo from now-Assistant Coach Djimi Traore.
The talent gap between the two leagues continues to dwindle especially with the recent influx of MLS’ Targeted Allocation Money, which allows teams to bring in high-quality middle-to-top of the roster players to strengthen depth. Liga MX teams tend to have quality at every position, an advantage that extends to their bench and beyond, something MLS teams had previously lacked. But as MLS ups its spending on players, the results on the pitch have increased accordingly.
“MLS is improving year by year,” said Assistant Coach Gonzalo Pineda, who spent four years with Chivas and another four elsewhere in Liga MX before joining the Sounders first as a player in 2014 and then a coach in 2017. “Right now, we’re still very close to Mexican teams.”
Seattle’s path to the semifinals and a home-and-home series against the winner of MLS’ New York Red Bulls and Liga MX’s Club Tijuana starts at home. Given the hostile and difficult environment awaiting the Sounders in Guadalajara in the return leg next week, earning a heavily favorable result on Wednesday is imperative. That starts with limiting Chivas’ influence in the final third and winning individual dues in the center of the park.
“Offensively, we have to make them defend,” said midfielder Cristian Roldan. “They’re away from home, they have to feel that they are away from home. Sometimes Mexican sides come in and play just as well as if they were in Mexico. They have to feel like they’re in Seattle and we’re going to take the game to them.
“Once they have the ball, whether they’re square or half-turned, we can’t let them fully turn and run at our defense,” he continued. “Their quality will show if that’s the case. We have to really take it to them and make them feel uncomfortable.”
There is still a stigma attached to MLS as it begins its 23rd season. An infantile league relative to its competition in North America and beyond, it carries a reputation as inferior that, although greatly debunked in recent years, still plagues it. To be one of the best leagues in the world, you must be the best league in your region. MLS needs to usurp Liga MX to get there and winning CONCACAF Champions League would go a long way in expediting that process.
“MLS, nationally and internationally, people still might say, ‘OK, it’s MLS though,’” said Head Coach Brian Schmetzer. “There’s still that little bit of weight that’s holding us down a bit and until a team from our league finally breaks through, there will always be that, ‘Well, maybe MLS isn’t quite there yet.’ Someone [in our league] has to win it. We have to win it to be legit.”
