The Seattle Sounders received the Concacaf Champions League on Wednesday evening, beating Pumas of Mexico, 3-0, to assert a 5-2 victory on mixture within the two-legged closing. The victory made Seattle the primary crew from Main League Soccer to raise the trophy in a technology, and gave the US the continental title it has coveted for greater than 20 years.
It also needs to make Seattle the primary M.L.S. crew to play within the FIFA Membership World Cup.
Besides that nobody, not even FIFA, is certain when that occasion will happen, or what it should appear like. The event’s conventional December window is unavailable this yr due to the World Cup in Qatar, and grand plans for an expanded Membership World Cup in China have gone nowhere after they had been introduced after which promptly disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
“No clue,” one FIFA official mentioned in a textual content message when requested when Seattle might count on to participate within the occasion.
The Membership World Cup has been held yearly since 2005, with representatives of every of FIFA’s world confederations dealing with off to find out a world membership champion. Prime European groups have dominated the occasion, with the likes of Barcelona, Actual Madrid, Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Chelsea lifting the trophy within the final decade. Dealing with off in opposition to groups like that in a world competitors has been a dream for a lot of M.L.S. gamers, executives and followers.
FIFA, which runs the Membership World Cup, has been desirous to increase the event, and it put a plan on the desk for a 24-team event shifted to the summer season and held each 4 years as an alternative of yearly. In a gathering in Shanghai in October 2019, it accepted the change and awarded China the hosting rights for the primary version in 2021. The coronavirus quickly made that plan unworkable.
The pandemic-delayed 2021 Membership World Cup that was held in February, and received by Chelsea, was nominally the ultimate one underneath the previous, smaller format. Holding one other one in 2022 may very well be problematic, with league schedules already being squeezed by the enforced break brought on by the World Cup that opens in November. There was discuss of holding the primary expanded model in the summertime of 2023, however as of now there isn’t a official date for the occasion.
Underneath the unique plans for the expanded event, three groups from the Concacaf area — overlaying North and Central America and the Caribbean — would take part. One in every of them presumably may very well be the Sounders after Wednesday’s victory, though the official qualifying standards has not been introduced.
It is usually attainable that the previous, smaller format can be retained for a number of extra years: Not even Sounders officers had been positive within the afterglow of Wednesday evening’s win.
“We don’t have the format but; we don’t have the placement,” Garth Lagerwey, the crew’s basic supervisor, instructed reporters. “We’re instructed, in all probability February-ish. Most likely Center East possibly.”
Regardless of the uncertainty, Lagerway, a longtime M.L.S. govt, did little to cover his pleasure on the achievement. “We’re going to play Actual Madrid or Liverpool, man,” he mentioned. “In an actual sport.”
Formally, FIFA would solely say Thursday that “additional particulars in regards to the FIFA Membership World Cup 2022 can be introduced sooner or later.”
An American crew has almost performed within the Membership World Cup as soon as earlier than. The very first Membership World Cup, in 2000, was an eight-team occasion in Brazil. That yr was the final one by which an American crew, the Los Angeles Galaxy, received the continental championship. So for the 2001 world occasion, expanded to 12 groups, the Galaxy was duly entered alongside Actual Madrid and different groups from all over the world.
However monetary issues and the collapse of a sponsor led the occasion to be scrapped. It was revived in 2005 in its present format. Too late for the Galaxy. Mexican and Costa Rican groups — to the immense frustration of M.L.S. — have received the title yearly since.
Now that the Sounders have damaged that streak, they and M.L.S. will hope the Membership World Cup — every time it’s held, and no matter it appears like — goes extra easily.
Tariq Panja contributed reporting.
