NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Thursday, December 15th, 2016

Seattle rallies to celebrate the Sounders’ historic MLS Cup victory

After an ardu­ous elec­tion year with shock­ing results, Wash­ing­to­ni­ans were in des­per­ate need of a feel-good sto­ry to close out 2016.

Panoramic view of Sounders' victory celebration

Cue the under­dog Sounders’ barn­storm­ing through the MLS Cup playoffs.

The unex­pect­ed loss of the team’s two top scor­ers and mid-sea­son fir­ing of head coach Sigi Schmid set the stage for a sto­ry­book turn-around that came thanks in part to the com­ing-of-age of two local sons; rook­ie for­ward Jor­dan Mor­ris (Mer­cer Island) and long-time assis­tant turned head coach Bri­an Schmet­zer (Lake City).

If just one Sounders vic­to­ry had gone the oth­er way, the team would have failed to qual­i­fy for the play­offs for the first time in their MLS history.

Instead, they nev­er let their epic come­back slow down, knock­ing off (among oth­ers) top-seed­ed FC Dal­las and East­ern Con­fer­ence Cham­pi­on Toron­to FC, stacked with big-name attack­ers, to bring home the club’s first MLS Cup.

Seat­tle May­or Ed Mur­ray was the first guest speak­er to address the crowd, ask­ing for a round of applause for the Seat­tle Police Depart­ment and the offi­cer who was injured on duty in the ear­li­er parade. He was joined on stage by King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine and retir­ing Con­gress­man Jim McDer­mott, both Sounders sea­son tick­et hold­ers. As a fan since the club’s ear­li­est iter­a­tion in the North Amer­i­can Soc­cer League, McDer­mott showed off his knowl­edge of Sounders his­to­ry and claimed to have pre­dict­ed the path to the MLS Cup after see­ing his beloved Chica­go Cubs claim their first MLB World Series title in 108 years.

Sounders' victory celebration

By win­ning the league, Sounders also earned a birth in the CONCACAF Cham­pi­ons League where they will rep­re­sent the North­west as stew­ards of diplo­ma­cy in the inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion through­out North and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

Con­grat­u­la­tions, Sounders, and thanks for giv­ing us some­thing to smile about!

 

Written by Dominic Barrera :: 11:35 AM

Categories: Unscheduled Programming

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