1 week Ago By The Province
The rain and slush in Chicago on Thursday morning couldn’t dampen Axel Schuster’s mood. As he practically skipped through the hotel where Major League Soccer’s board of governors meetings were being held, he was inundated by an endless stream of high-fives, fist-bumps, slaps on the back and text messages. It was just hours after his Vancouver Whitecaps had unseated Liga MX side Pumas UNAM in the CONCACAF Champions Cup in heart-stopping fashion in the thin air of Mexico City, with Tristan Blackmon’s injury-time goal snatching ultimate victory out of the cold hands of defeat.
It was the equalizer in a 2-2 game, but Vancouver advanced on away goals to the tournament semifinals. The Caps had conceded the 2-1 goal in the 88th minute, and looked gassed in the thin Mexico City air, but found the will and the way to tie the score with the all-important second away goal. Coupled with their defeat of Monterrey in the previous round, the Whitecaps became the first MLS team in tournament history to take out two Liga MX teams despite not leading after the first leg.
“I was completely covered with sweat after the game. I have no words for that. I don’t have words for what they did yesterday,” Schuster said.
“The team really showed what it is about this year, and what makes us this team, showing all this character. “I cannot tell you what it meant here to everyone. I don’t know if I ever have been at a meeting with the league where everyone comes to you and fist-bumps you, shakes your hand, or hugs you.
“We did something that we definitely haven’t done in the time that I’ve been at the club, and no one feels that we are done.” Their prize for their unprecedented run through the tournament is a semifinal date with a living legend, Lionel Messi. And this time, he will probably show up at B.
C. Place . The Whitecaps took a blast furnace’s worth of heat over the debacle that was Inter Miami’s visit to Vancouver last year.
The regular-season game was heavily promoted, resulting in the team’s best-ever MLS-era crowd of 51,035 at B.C. Place .
But when Messi — as well as Sergio Busquets and Luis Suarez, Miami’s other superstars — didn’t even get on the plane to fly to B.C., fans were incensed by what they felt was a bait-and-switch.
Tickets that had been on the resale market for thousands of dollars saw their value bottom out, and those who had bought at inflated prices were equally enraged, with one fan even launching a class-action lawsuit. Game day discounts on food and beverage, and the option to get choice of several other games later in the season did little the quell the anger. But the first leg game (Thursday, April 24, at 7:30 p.
m. PT) at B.C.
Place should be a different story. Miami will have five days’ rest before the match, and have a non-conference fixture with FC Dallas two days after, a game with a lighter impact on the MLS standings. “I know that there was huge frustration from everyone who bought a ticket, and I totally get that.
And I would have felt the same way,” said Schuster. “It’s absolutely okay if they vented on us ..
. because we understood that there was nothing we could have done better and nothing we could have done differently, because it was purely a decision of (Miami).” Schuster expects the upper bowl to be open, and he also thinks Messi will play — because this year’s Whitecaps team, currently first in MLS, isn’t the plucky underdog of years past.
“What this club, and I mean every employee, and especially our team, is doing this year, is unbelievable,” he said. “This is not one of 34 regular season games. This is the semifinal of the Champions League.
For that, we have fought so hard, we eliminated two Mexican teams. No other MLS team has done that. “I have a recommendation for Miami — you better bring your best team, because otherwise you might not make the final, and I wouldn’t be sad about that.
” Tickets went on sale to season ticket holders and soccer clubs around the Lower Mainland at noon on Thursday. Three hours later, the lower bowl was close to a sellout, and resale tickets were popping up on StubHub for between $400 and $1,800 — and selling, too. Travel to Vancouver has long been an issue for many MLS clubs, considering the length of flight and questionable B.
C. Place turf. If there is any team that knows what travel like that entails, it’s Vancouver.
Case in point, Wednesday night’s game. Travel time to Mexico City took more than 12 hours, arriving at the hotel after midnight, after their pilot got sick and the flight was forced to land in Denver for a replacement. But they still came out Wednesday night and dispatched one the teams that has won this tournament three times previously.
In their three rounds of CONCACAF play, not counting their trips to Dallas or Toronto in league play, the Caps have covered around 32,000 kilometres in the air. So there are no excuses remaining for Messi and Co., not to make the trip.
“The commentators (for Wednesday’s game) said, ‘Look, you cheer a little bit for the outsider, for the underdog ...
the Vancouver Whitecaps are the best team in the league, so they’re not really an underdog in this game,’” Schuster said. “It’s not only me saying that. There were a few other guys who have been here today in Chicago from the league that said, ‘You guys, you really can beat everyone in this league.
’ So Miami better bring the best team. But if not, that’s not my problem.” EXTRA TIME: At the league meetings in Chicago, the board of governors authorized a second phase of exploration into a potential change of the league’s schedule to match the international soccer calendar, as well as looking at the regular season and playoff formats.
But no changes would come before the 2027 season. The season typically begins in February and ends with MLS Cup in November or December. The international calendar usually runs from July/August through May/June.
It would work well for teams in the Southern U.S., but teams in altitude or northern areas — Real Salt Lake, or all three Canadian clubs — would face the prospect of winter games.
There have been reports that some sort of financial restitution to these teams would have to be made to make the switch. [email protected] @jjadams.
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