The Seattle Sounders have an opportunity to right some wrongs when they face LAFC in the Western Conference semifinals. They haven’t beaten LAFC in any competition across 10 meetings since May 16, 2021. That includes a pair of 3-0 losses at Lumen Field this year, a frustrating 2-1 loss in LA on opening day this season, and a 1-0 gut punch at Starfire in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals about three months ago.
A win in this playoff match wouldn’t erase any of those results; it wouldn’t absolve the organization of any of their recent failings or change the way fans feel about their transfer activity over the last few years; but at this point none of that really matters. This is the playoffs, and from this round on it’s a single-elimination tournament; even in a longer format like the best-of-three first round we saw that anything can happen if your team is ready for the moment.
LAFC are a glamorous team who play efficient and deadly football. They have incredibly talented players who have punished the Sounders on numerous occasions on both sides of the field, and they’ve also added Olivier Giroud to the fold. You don’t need to be told that they boast a stout defense and an even better attack that carried them to the top of the Western Conference with 63 goals scored and 43 goals allowed during the regular season.
They are not invincible, though. LAFC had regular-season losses at home against the Houston Dynamo (2-0 at the end of August) and Columbus Crew (5-1 in the middle of July); neither of those teams advanced to this point of the playoffs, with the Sounders ending Houston’s season. LAFC also stacked losses to the likes of the San Jose Earthquakes, Colorado Rapids, Minnesota United and Real Salt Lake. Of those teams only Minnesota are still contending for the MLS Cup, and Seattle beat them in all three meetings this year.
More recently, during the first round of the playoffs, the Vancouver Whitecaps ran LAFC as close as they could, taking the series to three games after winning 3-0 in the second game. Vancouver obviously fell in the end, but taken together with Columbus falling to the New York Red Bulls; Inter Miami and the Messi Mob losing in three games against Atlanta United; and 6 seeds Minnesota and NYCFC advancing over their 3 seed opponents RSL and FC Cincinnati show that upsets are possible and even more likely in a single game.
It’s easy — and understandable — to get stuck on the belief that because the Sounders haven’t beaten LAFC in years that they can’t or won’t. That feeling is well-founded. When it has mattered most in matches between these two teams, their best players have performed like elite players, and the gap in quality at the top of the rosters has been made stark. Mistakes by otherwise very good players haven’t helped, either.
But just because something hasn’t happened, or hasn’t happened in a while, doesn’t mean that it can’t happen. Streaks end, good or bad, that’s just what they do. Nothing lasts forever, so what better time for a change to the Sounders’ fates against LAFC than right now. The other upsets in these playoffs aren’t a blueprint, an indicator of a shift in the whims of Lady Luck, or some sort of proof that the Sounders will advance. What they can be, though, is a source of inspiration. A reminder that this club has a history of doing things that no one expects of them, that they shouldn’t have been able to do.
In the run to the 2016 MLS Cup final “hay fe” became the rallying cry around the club. The English translation of the Spanish phrase is “there is faith,” the team believed that they could do something they’d never done before. Of course they believed that, they’d already overcome so much. The Sounders took a similar faith on their trip to Southern California to face LAFC in the Western Conference final in 2019. That LAFC side loomed much larger than this one, although the history between the two sides was different, and Seattle played one of the best games in the club’s MLS history up to that point despite initially falling behind 1-0. No MLS team had ever won the version of the Concacaf Champions League that the Sounders won in 2022, but they went undefeated along the way and made history when they lifted that trophy in front of a packed Lumen Field after a resounding 3-0 win over Pumas.
Doing things that no one thinks they can is in this club’s DNA. We haven’t seen this version of Seattle beat this version of LAFC, but that’s what faith is: belief in things unseen. The club believes.
For all that there is more that could be done within the organization to close the gap between the two sides, the players and staff believe that they have a real chance to win every time they step on the field. What does it cost us to join them?
Hay fe, so let’s add to it. All streaks end, it’s the only thing that we can really guarantee in this game, so why not have a little faith that this team can end their current streak against LAFC. Let’s believe that they can end it in this semifinal match, and then go on to make a little more history.
