Against all odds, the Seattle Sounders not only reached the 2019 MLS Cup final, but hosted it. The event was cause for jubilation — Seattle’s first time playing in the final at home, the first real full-stadium sellout in team history, the first opportunity to lift the coveted hardware in front of tens of thousands of their own fans. To do that they would need to get past an all-too-familiar foe in Toronto FC.
Unlike the dominant TFC teams of 2016 and 2017, this version of the Reds was similarly an unexpected participant in the final, and Seattle was inarguably the better team on paper.