Cruz Azul dismantles MLS's Whitecaps to claim Concacaf Champions Cup title

New York Times

2 days ago

Another continental final, another 5-0 scoreline.
Cruz Azul demolished MLS's Vancouver Whitecaps by that five-goal margin in the Concacaf Champions Cup on Sunday night in Mexico City to emphatically and unequivocally claim the regional title. A day after that same scoreline made waves around the football world, when Paris Saint-Germain defeated Inter Milan in the UEFA Champions League final, Cruz Azul sent a similar message in a dominant, message-sending performance.
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Cruz Azul captain Ignacio Rivero opened the scoring in the eighth minute, which began the avalanche of goals. Lorenzo Faravelli scored the second 20 minutes later, before Ángel Sepúlveda added the third in the 37th minute. Former LAFC winger Mateusz Bogusz scored Cruz Azul's fourth right before halftime, and Sepúlveda capped the scoring – and his tournament golden boot – in the 50th minute with his ninth goal of the competition. Five of Cruz Azul's six shots on goal found the back of the net. Vancouver, conversely, didn't attempt a single shot – the first time a club has failed to do so in a Concacaf Champions Cup match since stats outfit Opta began tracking such data for MLS clubs in 2011-12.
The win was Cruz Azul's seventh Concacaf title, which ties city rival Club América for the most in history. For Vancouver, it'll fly back to Canada humbled to say the least. The absence of central midfielder Sebastian Berhalter (who was suspended due to yellow card accumulation) robbed the MLS side of a hard-working player who could've added some fight in midfield. But Berhalter alone would not have been the game-changer that Vancouver needed. The Whitecaps were outclassed in all facets of the game and were never able to break free from the anxiety of playing in their first major continental final.
On paper alone, Cruz Azul's obliteration of Vancouver was impressive. The 5-0 win is the most lopsided final victory in the modern history of the competition. Vancouver's loss was very nearly the worst ever suffered by an MLS club against a Liga MX opponent in continental club competition, within a goal of the Philadelphia Union's 6-0 defeat at the hands of Pachuca in the 2024 quarterfinals.
Vancouver became the third straight MLS team to crash out in the tournament final, but the club — recent darlings of MLS — did so in particularly shocking fashion.
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'It's hard to say anything,' Whitecaps captain Ranko Veselinović said on the Fox broadcast after the match. '(Cruz Azul) won deservedly. They were a better team in every aspect. We were not ready for this game tonight.
'It's devastating to go out like this.'
Here are a couple of more thoughts on as lopsided a final as you'll see:
Vancouver was comprehensively dismantled by Cruz Azul in the first half, held without a shot while the hosts scored on all four of their attempts on goal. The Whitecaps have run roughshod over their fair share of opponents this season in MLS and continental play, but they looked lost on Sunday, lacking any real sense of urgency and struggling to string together any real spell of possession.
Vancouver's performance on Sunday was almost beyond question the most embarrassing display ever put on by an MLS team in a Concacaf club final. The 5-0 result was just shy of the club's worst-ever loss in their USL and MLS era, a 6-0 drubbing at the hands of Sporting KC in 2018.
It was a shocking turn of form for Vancouver, which arrived at the final after comprehensively beating Lionel Messi's Inter Miami in the semifinals. It also, however, felt deeply unsurprising to anybody who has watched this tournament, in all its varied forms, over the last several decades. A narrative has emerged in recent years that suggests that MLS is on the front foot, having finally turned a corner in terms of perception and performance.
Yet the league's teams still struggle consistently when playing abroad, particularly in Mexico. Vancouver seemed to have as good a chance as any team has in recent years, besting not only Miami but Pumas and Monterrey, a pair of very respectable Liga MX sides, and advancing on the strength of away goals tiebreakers earned in Mexico.
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In the end, though, it was the same old song: a raucous away crowd and a deeply unprepared MLS club undone by a team with a roster worth nearly twice as much as them. Vancouver has looked like title contenders all year, both in MLS and Concacaf. On Sunday, it may have gotten a brutal reality check and a reminder that it may not yet be ready for this stage.
Vancouver is hardly the first MLS club to put in respectable performances against Liga MX clubs and then fall entirely flat in the final. Just last year, the Columbus Crew, among MLS's elite sides, looked great against Tigres and Monterrey and then laid an egg against Pachuca, though many of the club's players and staff were affected by a rash of food poisoning. A year prior, LAFC made its own attempt at glory but fell flat against León.
The statistics remain brutal: in the 63-year history of the tournament, only three American clubs have ever won it. It will take much more than an MLS club winning the tournament every now and then to change this narrative.
Cruz Azul had not played since May 18, eliminated in the Liga MX semifinals by eternal rival Club América. Clearly, Cruz Azul was looking to take out its frustrations on Vancouver, a side that it must've felt very confident in meeting. If Cruz Azul needed any additional motivation, it came on Saturday in Los Angeles.
Sunday's match came just a day after Club América lost to LAFC in the play-in match for the Club World Cup. That match — a made-up one to gain admission into a tournament created from whole cloth — felt bigger and more relevant than Sunday's continental final. It didn't help that Vancouver failed to even put up a fight. The Canadian side was always going to be outmatched man-for-man against a legitimate Liga MX club like Cruz Azul, a club accustomed to playing on such a stage.
But the expectation was that Vancouver would bring its blue-collar attitude to Mexico City and challenge the favored foe. Instead, Vancouver embarrassed itself on a big stage – while also humiliating MLS and disappointing the 800 or so traveling supporters in the process. Fans in Mexico must've been baffled that Vancouver had eliminated Pumas, Monterrey and Miami. It was a historic run worthy of all the attention that Vancouver had received, only to be undone in 90 horrifying minutes.
There are few things that garner more satisfaction in Mexican football than thoroughly shaming an MLS club. Cruz Azul had no mercy in front of a partisan crowd at the Estadio Olímpico, and Cruz Azul manager Vicente Sánchez gave several starters their deserved curtain call in the 66th minute, another subtle jab at the visitor's fragile ego.
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Crushing an MLS club doesn't erase Liga MX's disappointment at not sending its flagship club to the Club World Cup. Sunday's final, though — an absolute dismantling of what many consider to be MLS's best club right now — will probably go a long way toward making them forget that Saturday's match even happened.