Darlington Nagbe isn’t ready to call it a rivalry quite yet. Denis Bouanga isn’t either. It’s getting there, though. When two teams are this good and run into each other this often, there’s bound to be some strong feelings behind it.
Sunday’s Leagues Cup final isn’t just a final. It isn’t just a match with a trophy on the line. It’s not even just about defining a competition still yet to be defined. For the two teams playing in it, this is a chance to be the unquestioned best. Sunday’s matchup is a chance to show who really runs the show.
On one side is the Columbus Crew, MLS’ defending champions. Last season’s MLS Cup winners have hardly missed a beat, establishing themselves, once again, as a contender. If you wanted to design a perfectly-constructed MLS team, the Crew would be pretty damn close. From top to bottom, from the front office to the last guy on the bench, the Crew are the benchmark.
Standing across from them is another team that continues to set the pace in this part of the world: LAFC. Since the club arrived in MLS, LAFC has been elite. This team’s vision centers around proving that it can do things better than everyone else, and truthfully, they have.
Last year they did better than almost everyone else. LAFC made it all the way to the MLS Cup final before falling to, of course, the Crew. Now, nine months later, these two teams are meeting again with another trophy on the line.
And yes, there are still some hard feelings on both sides.
“You start to see it a little bit in the lead-up to it,” Crew forward Christian Ramirez told GOAL. “There were a couple of comments and interviews that they’ve had about revenge and about writing us down as the favorites and stuff like that, which, to be fair, they can say all that stuff, and maybe that’s their motivation and something that pushes them, but we just have to stay in our lane and do what we’ve been doing.”
Added Bouanga: “I don’t think there’s a rivalry yet. Columbus is a very good team. Tomorrow is a final, but it’s a different kind of match. We’re looking forward to playing tomorrow, and this is going to be a different game than it was at MLS Cup.”