Sounders upset LAFC 3-1 to reach MLS Cup final
Although Los Angeles FC had the best regular season in Major League Soccer history, the two-year-old club had never been this deep in the play-offs.
The tough, tested Seattle Sounders go deep almost every year, and they’ll get to play for another championship after a vintage display of postseason grit and guile in the Western Conference final.
Nicolás Lodeiro scored a goal and assisted on two more by Raúl Ruidíaz, and the Sounders advanced to the MLS Cup final for the third time in four years with a 3-1 victory over LAFC on Tuesday night.
Ruidíaz and Lodeiro scored four minutes apart in the first half to claim the lead for the Sounders, who held probable MLS MVP Carlos Vela to one shot on goal, while they upset the Supporters’ Shield winners with a superb big-game performance.
Los Angeles’ MLS newcomers have a raucous stadium and a thrilling style of play, but the Sounders have years of play-off experience that LAFC can’t match. Seattle’s veterans pushed, shoved and carried them back to the one-game final, where the
Sounders won the league title in 2016 and lost to Toronto FC in 2017.
“The many times that we’ve been to MLS Cup now has been off grit, has been off not playing pretty,” midfielder Cristian Roldan said. “It’s been off winning in different ways. Today we won in a different way. We locked down defence. We scored on our few opportunities. In other games, maybe we would play pretty. But we knew it was going to be a tough opponent away from home. We adjusted accordingly. Sometimes we would press. Sometimes we would sit back. Overall, it was just a fantastic performance.”
Seattle slowed down the most potent offensive team in MLS history with physical defence, sometimes on the edge of legality. The Sounders committed 12 fouls and appeared to get away with two handballs in their box, but LAFC failed to capitalise on any of its meagre chances after Eduard Atuesta scored on a free kick in the opening minutes.