With both Seattle and LA sitting in decent enough positions going into the second legs of their respective CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal ties against Santos Laguna and Toronto, the neutral MLS supporter had to like the chances of at least one of them, if not both, moving on to the semifinals of a competition whose trophy, up to this point, has yet to grace the trophy case of any MLS team, though Real Salt Lake was within a goal of bringing it home last year. After defeating Santos Laguna 2-1 in Seattle, there was always hope that Seattle would be able to join FC Dallas in beating a Mexican club in Mexico, and just about everyone would have picked Los Angeles to take control of their matchup with Toronto after coming out of the Rogers Centre with a salvaged 2-2 draw last week.
It's a bit of a cliche to say that things often deviate from the plan in soccer at this point, but sometimes there's a reason why cliches continue to pop up and be used: they tend to be true. Seattle's chances of consolidating their first leg advantage took two well placed sucker punches in the span of a couple of minutes early in the first half down south, and while a seemingly crucial away goal pulled the game itself back to 2-1 and put Seattle very briefly back in tie, a four goal second half collapse left things in tatters for the Sounders and made Don Garber cringe.
In Wednesday's nightcap out west, the Galaxy, also known as the trendy pick to win just about everything in sight this year, continued to show just how much they are missing Omar Gonzalez at the back; his ACL can't magically heal soon enough. Once again, as we had already seen in the first leg against Toronto and in the season opener at home against Real Salt Lake, the likes of Andrew Boyens and Tommy Meyer are hardly going to approach being suitable replacements for Gonzalez. Ryan Johnson had his way with Meyer, Toronto moves on to face Santos Laguna, and LA looks like they'll need to conjure all of their highly acclaimed attacking pedigree to score three goals every game if they're going to reach the heights they aspire to in the league this season.
Toronto has done well to get to this stage, but one has to question the likelihood of them being able to progress past Santos Laguna before defeating one of either Monterrey or Pumas. This would be a tall task for even the best teams in MLS, but for a team that has never made the MLS playoffs in their history? It doesn't sound promising. As an unapologetic MLS supporter, I really hope that they can somehow do the near impossible, but I just don't see it at all. Maybe Johnson can continue his torrid form and Torsten Frings can continue keeping things tight defensively to change my mind here.
So once again we have a final four that is mostly comprised of Mexican teams, and barring a miracle, a Mexican team will once again be lifting the trophy soon. The question is, what can MLS teams do to finally find glory in our continental competition? Maybe there is still a talent gap for MLS teams to bridge, but if there is such a gap, I don't think it's especially large--MLS teams beating Mexican teams with some regularity on US soil bears that point out. Is the psychological roadblock that goes along with playing the Mexican teams on their turf overly massive at this point? I tend to think this has a lot more to do with the failings of MLS teams than anything else. The players are here in the league, players that are so much better than just about anything we had ten years ago, but their belief needs to come to the fore when it comes to winning these massive games south of the border.
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