MLS Cup: LAFC, Philadelphia Union have been on collision course for years

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Football Club and the Philadelphia Union have been inseparable since 2018.

When they compete for the MLS Cup at Banc of California Stadium on Saturday afternoon it will be the first league championship match in 19 years featuring a pair of No. 1 seeds.

LAFC entered Major League Soccer in 2018 as if it was shot out of cannon.

Philadelphia took a more circuitous route after its initially-chartered course was corrected a few years ago.

The result meant the duo opened 2022 tied on points over the previous four seasons.

They closed the year deadlocked after each added a league-topping 67 points to their ledgers.

For LAFC, that total required a late equalizer against the Union during a 2-2 draw in L.A. in May to go with the most single-season wins in its short history. Twenty-one, two more than Philadelphia, handed LAFC the Supporters’ Shield tiebreaker, which, critical to their aspirations, also secured home-field advantage throughout the postseason.

All things considered, competing in front of their supporters at the Banc is the clearest advantage LAFC holds over Philadelphia ahead of Saturday’s match.

“Full credit to the fans,” Philadelphia head coach Jim Curtin said. “Every time we come here they make it about as intimidating an environment as there is. It tends to bring the best out of us in this building. I think we’ve had some great games here.”

Their first encounter in LAFC’s expansion season was an outlier, ending 4-1 in favor of the Black & Gold. Of the 28 players who appeared in that match, just three Union players remain on the current squad, including the league’s best goalkeeper Andre Blake, their captain Alejandro Bedoya and forward Cory Burke.

LAFC captain Carlos Vela did not play, making Latif Blessing the club’s only holdover from 2022 who participated that day.

When LAFC visited Philadelphia the following year the first of three consecutive draws between the clubs followed. As did a start of a streak of 12 alternating goals, which would continue if the Union jumped out to a lead on Saturday.

Give and take. Tit for tat. Anything you can do, I can do … better? That’s what the Cup match will decide, at least for now considering both appear capable of ranking at or near the top of their respective conferences in the years ahead.

Following a 1-1 draw in Philadelphia during LAFC’s first Supporters’ Shield season in 2019, the Black & Gold looked especially formidable when they met the next season in what turned out to be the last MLS match before the league paused while the COVID-19 pandemic upended everything.

The spectacular 3-3 contest offered a great deal, most notably tremendous competition, stellar goals and signs of things to come.

“That game kind of galvanized us,” said Curtin, the second-longest tenured head coach in MLS. “It really moved our club forward. Yes, it was one game but it was as thrilling and exciting of a game as we could play and I think it did put us on the map, so to speak, and did propel us to success in the 2020 season lifting our first trophy in the Supporters’ Shield. And then getting a little bit better each year. Taking steps and winning multiple playoff games and now reaching an MLS Cup final.”

The two teams were not scheduled to play in 2021, when LAFC failed to make the postseason for the first time and Philadelphia lost in the Eastern Conference final after sitting 11 players against New York City due to COVID restrictions.

This year, in a spring preview of the MLS Cup, the late LAFC equalizer by Franco Escobar prevented the Union from pocketing three points that would have allowed them to host the final.

Sometimes a draw can be as good as a win, though, of course, not in the postseason where a champion will be decided on penalties if needed.

“It is this clash of style, formation and philosophy that I think is really intriguing,” LAFC co-president and general manager John Thorrington said.

Sidetracked during the pandemic, Thorrington, his staff and LAFC ownership engineered significant changes leading into the 2022 season that largely paid off.

“It was almost like this rocket ship about to take off and all of a sudden the fuel was gone,” Thorrington said. “COVID was the low tide where you see who’s wearing a bathing suit. We learned some tough lessons during COVID as to how you can create a club and a roster of players that can withstand those tough times that nobody would have predicted.”

The result of their effort wasn’t a revolution so much as an evolution of the club’s on-field product, including a new coach, the then-unproven Steve Cherundolo, following Bob Bradley’s four years at the helm.

While the pandemic made LAFC regroup, Philadelphia circled the wagons, added key pieces and learned how to succeed.

“We had a hard time, came right back out and guys were just hungry,” Blake said. “We want to win. We have a group of guys that just show up everyday and fight. So to be where we are today, the club being in the first MLS Cup, is a big deal.”

The Union’s leading scorer in 2022, Hungarian midfielder Daniel Gazdag, joined the core of the group that took shape after Bedoya’s arrival in 2016.

“I’m not going to say I changed the locker room culture, but I’d always get so pissed after a game when guys would go straight on their cellphones,” Bedoya said. “It was like they didn’t care as much.”

The influence of sporting director Ernst Tanner, who joined the club in 2018, set a fully-formed Union on a similar trajectory as LAFC. That makes Saturday’s clash between the winners of three of the past four Supporters’ Shields feel like dense objects about to collide at high velocity.