By Jon Arnold
Sunday is a special day in Seattle. The city is hosting the Leagues Cup final, with the Seattle Sounders welcoming Inter Miami. The upper deck at Lumen Field will be open, the weather will be crisp when the opening whistle blows around 5 p.m. local time.
And fans have been advised to be there to enjoy the show.
“We’re going to play against Messi at our home field in front of 65,000 people, and I would seriously counsel everyone should be there because it’s going to be an entertaining game,” Seattle Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer said after his side clinched a place in the final with a 2-0 win over the LA Galaxy on Wednesday.
Seattle is used to this, though. Hosting a big international match is nothing new for the city. And being in a final is nothing new for Inter Miami.
The Leagues Cup final pits two teams that have a history of international and domestic success in recent years, with both the Sounders and Inter Miami looking to build on recent success to add another trophy to their trophy case.
Fans filing into the building Sunday will have fond memories of the 2022 Concacaf Champions Cup final. After a 2-2 draw with Pumas in the first leg of the final, the Sounders controlled the second leg and rolled to a 3-0 victory that earned the CCC trophy.
That tournament gave the Sounders a ticket to FIFA’s Club World Cup, which kicked off a jam-packed summer of soccer in the U.S. being capped off this weekend with the Leagues Cup final. For Schmetzer, who played for the NASL version of the Sounders out of high school in Seattle and has coached the MLS squad as an assistant or head coach since its inception, it’s a thrill to be in these games - even if it’s becoming somewhat routine.
“My perspective on this being a local kid, having seen a lot of big events at the stadium, championships, finals, we’re hosting the greatest player … Miami’s coming to Seattle in a meaningful championship game,” Schmetzer said. “That followed playing against Paris Saint-Germain, arguably the best club in the world. Simeone and Atletico, Botafogo. It’s been a great summer. I’m hoping to make it an even better summer on Sunday.”
And both teams know they have a chance to return to the Club World Cup in the future, thanks to their tickets to the 2026 CCC, punched Wednesday with their semifinal victories. A winning run in 2026 would mean a Club World Cup return when the competition takes place again - which is expected to be in 2029.
Much more immediately, they’ll try and get a first-round bye in the competition with the Leagues Cup winner getting direct passage to the CCC Round of 16.
Inter Miami enjoyed that privilege once, already having one Leagues Cup trophy to its name. The Herons won the competition in 2023 shortly after Lionel Messi’s arrival. His 10 goals in that tournament were the most of any player and he earned the top player award. Miami is more than Messi, but his return from injury in the semifinal - and the two goals he scored - pushed Miami past Orlando City 3-1 in the semifinal.
“We’re happy about the situation,” Inter Miami assistant Javier Morales said. “We’re very happy to have another opportunity to play another final in Leagues Cup. We already won one and have another opportunity now. We’re going to look forward to it.”
While a team with Messi on its roster may often be expected to find a way to win the match, Morales insisted that the team will head into Seattle with any pressure as a past Leagues Cup champion or being weighed down by any expectations.
“We always go into every match with the same hope, wanting to win,” he said. “We’ve got the chance to play for a trophy in this next game, and we’re going to continue on with that hope but not worried about being a favorite.”
That’s wise, since Seattle has been the site of games like this before, backing the Sounders. Even if the scenes of top players competing on the Lumen Field turf are becoming more and more common, Sunday will be a special day in Seattle - one both teams hope is another famous day in their impressive histories.
