Only one of this year's MLS semifinalists has so much as even played in the league championship game.
The 2016 MLS Cup playoffs have been heavy with the burden of previous futility and postseason failures past.
In keeping with the theme of 2016, the year of Leicester City Football Club and the Chicago Cubs, only one of the MLS semifinalists has so much as even played in the league championship game.
Prior to Sunday afternoon, no Canadian team had ever reached a conference final. The Montreal Impact beat Toronto FC to become the first club with that distinction by roughly two hours — though as TFC opened a 6-0 aggregate lead on New York City FC by the time their match reached its half-hour mark, for all intents and purposes, the window was even tighter than that.