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At Long Last, An MLS Team Wins the CONCACAF Champions League

Grant Wahl
May 5
21
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Raúl Ruidíaz Artwork by Dan Leydon for GrantWahl.com

SEATTLE — From the moment he and his family moved into their house near Lake Washington six years ago, Garth Lagerwey, the GM and soccer architect of the Seattle Sounders, has kept an arresting three-by-five-foot photograph above the mantelpiece in his office. It’s the first thing he sees when he looks up from his desk. The picture of a sold-out Rio Tinto Stadium is from April 27, 2011, when Lagerwey’s previous team, Real Salt Lake, hosted Mexico’s Monterrey in the CONCACAF Champions League final—and lost by a single fateful goal.

“Other than my wedding, that was probably the biggest day of my life,” Lagerwey told me during an interview on his backyard deck on Monday. “I’d look at that and think, Would we ever be able to get back there [to a continental final]? It’s fair to say it’s been a goal of mine for some time. And if we win on Wednesday, I will take that picture down and hopefully replace it with one from Lumen Field with something happier.”


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