Sounders take the Cup 3-0

[Michael Hopcroft]

1 hour ago, Spence said:

 

I agree, a simple win will not be enough.

 

A crushing victory that shatters the will of the Timbers for decades to come to the wailing tune of the lamentations of the Timbers Army. 

That would be much much better

Not. Gonna. Happen. 😜

[Pariah]

Wow, sounds like we've got a bitter rivalry in the making here.

 

Which would be more interesting if I actually cared about soccer. 

[Cancer]

There's Real Salt Lake....

 

But yes, the Seattle - Portland soccer rivalry is perhaps the biggest and longest-duration one in Anglophone North America.

[L. Marcus]

... Real Salt Lake?

[Cancer]

Real Salt Lake

 

MLS club.  "Real" is pronounced as the Spanish word, not the English.

[L. Marcus]

That's what I have a problem with. Have they ever received any kind of royal writ or sponsorship?

[Cancer]

  Not as far as I know, but the Salt Lake area has some odd history bits I have never bothered learning.

[Starlord]

Salt in lakes doesn't seem real anyway. 

[pinecone]

1 hour ago, L. Marcus said:

That's what I have a problem with. Have they ever received any kind of royal writ or sponsorship?

This be Merica! We all be kings here!

[Michael Hopcroft]

11 hours ago, Pariah said:

Wow, sounds like we've got a bitter rivalry in the making here.

"In the making?" The I-5 Rivalry has been going on for nearly half a century! It's prominent now in soccer, but it was also big in basketball before the Sonics relocated to OKC (Seattle fans will never forgive them, or forgive the NBA for letting them do it).

 

The soccer rivalry dates back to the 1970s and the failed North American Soccer League. The NASL failed because its management made some really poor decisions, and because it made one franchise (the New York Cosmos) to focus of just about all of the league's publicity and marketing. This left the other clubs (once as many as 23) out of the loop. They also pointlessly departed from FIFA rules (there was even talk at one point of abolishing offsides) and didn't even try to recruit American players. Portland and Seattle were among the last holdouts before the league went under, and the rivalry was heated then as it is now.

 

Major League Soccer is encouraging rivalries and passionate fans as selling points of the game. Los Angeles, for example, has two teams, and now both of them have competent and involved management. As a result "El Traffico" has produced some really good football and developed passions (nowhere near Timbers-Sounders of course, he said proudly, but pretty major). LA Galaxy draws better in their stadium than the LA Chargers of the NFL, which borrowed their stadium for a couple of years until the one they're going to share with the Rams opens later this year).

[Pariah]

There was an NASL team in Denver. That team is widely regarded as having the ugliest uniforms in the history of North American professional sports:

 

     

 

Yes, that's a leather fringe on the jersey. Woof.

 

MLS is trying to make the Real Salt Lake-Colorado Rapids rivalry a thing, with limited success.  In the Denver sports market, there are basically two levels: the Broncos, and everyone else. The same is true, perhaps to a lesser extent, in Salt Lake City with the Jazz.