Seattle Sounders Set To Make History In Morocco At The Club World Cup
Seattle Sounders Set To Make History In Morocco At The Club World Cup
The Concacaf champions become the first American team to appear at the tournament.
Detailing the turbulent, inconsistent history of global intercontinental association football tournaments at club level might have American soccer nodding empathetically, gesturing knowingly — a sense of if you think this is bad… look at what the organised professional game in the United States has been through.
It is, therefore, typical, almost fitting, that the last time an American team was eligible to play in intercontinental competition, in 2001, the Club World Championship was cancelled following the collapse of the FIFA-linked International Sport and Leisure marketing company due to, erm, let’s say ‘money issues’.
LA Galaxy had won the 2000 Concacaf Champions' Cup, a competition shorter in format than the current Concacaf Champions League but, nevertheless, the tournament that determined the champions of Concacaf at that time.
Despite that different format, it is not an achievement to be diminished. The Galaxy earned their spot in the 2001 Club World Championship where they were due to face Ghaniain side Hearts of Oak, Júbilo Iwata of Japan, and Spanish giants Real Madrid. Forces beyond their control would end the possibility of a dream fixture against Real in competitive football.
The creation of Major League Soccer on the back of the 1994 World Cup in the United States, and the league’s first season in 1996, looked to install a potentially more stable professional division than the those that had preceded it.
That MLS remains to this day, still expanding with the introduction of a team from St. Louis in 2023, suggests it has been successful in achieving that stability, and for the first time since the Galaxy in 2000, the league has produced a winning side at continental level.
In 2022, Seattle Sounders became the first American team to win North America’s premier international club tournament in its current format — the Concacaf Champions League. They defeated the Mexican side UNAM (better known as Pumas) across the two-legged final, drawing 2-2 in Mexico City before achieving a joyous 3-0 win in front of 68,741 spectators at Lumen Field in Seattle.
22 years ago, the Galaxy’s dream of facing Real Madrid was scuppered due to factors beyond their control, but the Sounders have in their own hands an opportunity to face the record 14-time European Champions.
To do so, they will need to get through their quarter-final match against Egyptian powerhouse Al Ahly. It won’t be an easy game. Al Ahly breezed past Auckland City in the tournament’s opening game to set up the tie between them and the Sounders. A meeting with Real is far from guaranteed for Seattle, but that they are here in the first place is an achievement in itself.
The last time an American team played in any kind of official intercontinental competition was DC United in the 1998 Copa Interamericana.
DC United was also invited to play in Conmebol’s Copa Sudamericana on a couple of occasions (thanks to Roberto Rojas for the reminder of this), holding their own but being knocked out by Chilean side Universidad Católica in 2005 and by Chivas Guadalajara of Mexico in 2007. But, despite the presence of Mexican and American sides, and as the name suggests, that was very much a South American competition rather than one set up specifically for intercontinental fixtures.
Back to the 1998 Copa Interamericana — that tournament was organised jointly between Concacaf and the South American confederation, Conmebol, and pitted the winners of the respective confederations' continental competitions against each other.
1998 Concacaf Champions Cup winner, DC United, defeated Vasco Da Gama of Brazil in a two-legged tie played in Washington DC and Fort Lauderdale. It was to be the final edition of that particular tournament, but it is set to be revived in a fashion in the coming years.
The two confederations are working together once again and have plans for a final-four format club tournament in 2024 between the two best teams from each region.
The 2024 Copa America will also be played in the United States, featuring six Concacaf international teams as well as the ten from South America.
Until then, the Sounders’ appearance in the Club World Cup this February will be a significant moment in terms of an American club testing itself on the international stage in a competitive game, or, Seattle hopes, games.