Leave it to Hollywood to stage the most sensational MLS Cup final of them all.
The record books will show that LAFC beat the Philadelphia Union in a penalty shootout on Saturday at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles, the sixth MLS Cup winner via PKs. What it took to get that point, however, was simply incredible.
A 3–3 draw after extra time required the two latest goals ever scored in MLS postseason history. The second of them was scored by Gareth Bale, whose time in MLS hasn’t been all that remarkable. But then again, this is a player with two Champions League final-winning goals on his résumé. A man for the moment, no matter the setting.
And while Bale kept LAFC’s hopes alive, the club’s hero was a backup goalkeeper, one who was playing against his former team—his hometown team. Philadelphia native John McCarthy was called upon in extra time in dire circumstances, after starter Maxime Crépeau was forced out both by injury and red card for attempting to cut off Cory Burke’s clear path to goal, mangling his leg in the process. LAFC went down to 10 men as McCarthy replaced Kwadwo Opoku following Crépeau’s ejection and stepped right into the pressure cooker.
Five previous MLS Cup finals had gone to penalty kicks, including last season’s in Portland that was won by NYCFC, but McCarthy’s performance, considering the context, is the stuff of legend. He blanked his old club by out-dueling Andre Blake, the league’s best goalkeeper and the man he used to back up. After Dániel Gazdag skied the Union’s first effort, McCarthy, who was voted MLS Cup MVP, saved attempts by José Martínez and Kai Wagner, while his teammates did the rest from the spot, clinching the cup with a 3–0 shootout triumph.
The Union and LAFC have been known to play classics. In their last match before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, they played to a 3–3 thriller in which LAFC came back from one-goal deficits almost immediately on three occasions (the match also featured a Jakob Glesnes free kick that remains one of the league’s great strikes of the last few years). This past season, they played to a 2–2 draw, with LAFC “only” twice coming back from a goal down to salvage the point.
Saturday’s meeting, in which the Union twice overcame deficits, was preceded by concerns over parking capabilities and a light press conference moment in which LAFC and U.S. men’s national team midfielder Kellyn Acosta was presumed to play for Philadelphia. So perhaps it was apropos that it was Acosta who opened the scoring, doing so in the 28th minute with the help of a deflection.
Carlos Vela, who scored on a free kick in a March 2020 meeting between the two sides, looked primed to take the rather straightaway attempt Saturday, but LAFC had Acosta standing just off to the side. And it was he who wound up taking the kick, his blast hitting off the forehead of a leaping Jack McGlynn on the outside of a misplaced wall and trickling by a helpless Blake.
Blake, whose save when the Union trailed NYCFC in the Eastern Conference final was a turning-point in their come-from-behind win, came up with a massive denial of Diego Palacios 10 minutes later to keep the deficit at 1–0.
That proved vital in the 59th minute, when the Union pulled even. It was another odd sequence off a set piece on the same end of the field, with Martínez, whose reckless foul had gifted LAFC the free kick on which Acosta scored, mishitting a shot from long range. It turned out to be a defense-splitting pass for Gazdag, who settled it perfectly and finished confidently to make it 1–1.
LAFC went ahead again late, and it was another set piece that appeared to tilt the balance of the final. Jesús Murillo soared to meet Vela’s corner kick, heading in the go-ahead goal in the 83rd minute.
But not even three minutes later, the Union struck back, on another set piece of their own. It was their center back, Jack Elliott, powering home the header that made it 2–2 and kept the Union’s title hopes alive.
After LAFC went down to 10 men following Crépeau’s red card, it was Elliott again who scored. His career high for a single season was two goals, yet he came through with an MLS Cup brace, scoring the latest goal in league playoff history—a record that would stand for all of four minutes.
Bale’s introduction in extra time had yielded little until he came through with a moment that validates the club’s push to sign him, no matter his fitness level and capabilities throughout the course of the half-season and playoffs in which he’s been in L.A. It was, cruelly, Elliott who couldn’t quite reach his 128th-minute leaping header that sent the match to the shootout.
But this is what happens when the best of the best go up against each other. The 2022 MLS Cup marked the first meeting between top seeds in each conference since 2003. Top seeds in general have had a hard time making it to MLS Cup. Through the various iterations of the MLS playoff format, the last No. 1 seed to make it was also the last Supporters’ Shield holder to win it, Toronto FC in 2017. Beyond that, since that last 1-vs-1 showdown in ‘03, only six top seeds from either conference have made it to the final. Shield winners won four of the first seven MLS Cups. They went on to win three of the next 19. LAFC was on the wrong side of that stat in 2019, when it fell in the conference finals after a record-setting regular season.
So Saturday’s occasion was special and, finally, representative of the season that led up to it. LAFC was on a record points pace until a monthlong lull from mid-August through mid-September temporarily put the club off track. The Union meanwhile, boasted a league-best defense, conceding just 26 times (FC Dallas was next with 37), and a league-best attack, scoring 72 goals (LAFC was next with 66). There can be no denying that the league’s best two teams played for its title, a rarity in MLS indeed—and a bit of an ironic development as the league mulls changes (and significant expansion) to its playoff format, as first reported by The Athletic and then confirmed by commissioner Don Garber in his State of the League address on Thursday.
Nevertheless, both LAFC and the Union have taken different routes to the top. LAFC’s has been to embrace its Hollywood identity, going for the big, box-office moves from ownership on down and sprinkling in some astute scouting. Philly’s build has been more methodical, patient and measured, leaning on its academy and its global scouting as strengths and making incremental progress since becoming a playoff regular. Its biggest accomplishment before reaching the final had probably been selling homegrown star and U.S. men’s national team standout Brenden Aaronson to Salzburg and basking in his progress abroad. “Trust the Process” is a very Philadelphia concept, but it’s one the Union seemed to have embrace since its inaugural season in 2010.
“We've come a long way as a club,” Union manager Jim Curtin told MLS’s official site on the eve of the final. “We've really grown and taken steps forward each and every year. The achievement of getting to your first MLS Cup, from this group, has been something that I'm incredibly proud of.”
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LAFC, meanwhile, came out swinging with the signing of Vela—who was subbed off by LAFC manager Steve Cherundolo in favor of Bale—and has remained ambitious ever since. Its attempts to win MLS Cup appeared to take a significant step forward upon the summer signings of Italian legend Giorgio Chiellini and Bale, but both accomplished veterans began the final on the bench. That’s been a regular feature for Bale, who made two total starts and maxed out at 62 minutes in a single performance as he maintained a balance between contributing to his MLS club and getting fit for Wales’s first World Cup in 64 years. Oddly, he’s won both the UEFA Champions League and MLS Cup some five months apart—and he’ll roll into the Dragons’ opener in Qatar against the U.S. with a bit of a boost.
His appearance was his first since a five-minute cameo against Portland on Oct. 2. But sometimes cameos and unsung supporting roles are all that are required to put that Hollywood feature film over the top. And in perhaps the greatest MLS match ever played—certainly the most entertaining final in the league’s 27 seasons—LAFC’s star forward and backup goalkeeper did just that to deliver a title for a club that’s been building for it since its inception.
