The seemingly endless 2023 MLS season has nearly made it to the finish line with Saturday’s MLS Cup final (4 p.m. ET, Fox) between Steve Cherundolo’s LAFC and Wilfried Nancy’s Columbus Crew. LAFC’s grueling schedule couldn’t derail the team’s hopes of lifting a second straight MLS championship trophy. On the other side, Columbus is looking for its third MLS Cup title, but it’ll have to overcome some not-so-great historic precedent between the two clubs.
That’s because the Crew are 0-3 against LAFC all time. In their last match against LAFC in May 2022, the Crew surrendered two goals in a loss at home. But losing at home has become a rarity for the Crew as they’ve gone 28-1 at Lower.com Field in Columbus since August of 2022. Yet this isn’t the same squad that lost the May 2022 match. In fact, one player who could make a huge difference for Columbus on Saturday will be wearing black and yellow instead of black and gold.
Diego Rossi, who spent four trophy-filled seasons with LAFC from 2018-2021, signed with Columbus in August and has quickly become a key contributor alongside Cucho Hernandez in the attack. The duo helped the Crew rally in last week’s stunning Eastern Conference comeback win over FC Cincinnati and have a combined six goals and five assists in this year’s playoffs.
But LAFC has been putting on a defensive clinic throughout the postseason and hasn’t conceded a goal in its last three matches. It’ll need Golden Boot winner Dennis Bouanga to keep up his hot streak after leading MLS this season with 24 goals including 10 in his last seven matches.
So will Cherundolo’s squad become the first back-to-back MLS Cup winners since the LA Galaxy did it in 2011 and 2012 or will the Crew, under first-year head coach Nancy, return as champions after last winning it all in 2020?
Let’s find out together as Yahoo Sports will be following, covering and analyzing the MLS Cup final below with our live tracker. Join us.
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