RENTON — Don’t call it revenge. Albert Rusnák doesn’t hold any grudges against Cruz Azul.
The Sounders will play the reigning CONCACAF Champions Cup winners in their Leagues Cup opener on Thursday. The Liga MX side defeated Seattle 4-1 on aggregate scoring in the regional tournament’s Round of 16 en route to capturing the trophy.
After the home-and-home series in March, Rusnák regarded Cruz Azul as the best team he’s played since joining MLS in 2017. FIFA men’s Club World Cup matches against France’s Paris Saint-Germain, Spain’s Atlético Madrid and Brazil’s Botafogo in June changed Rusnák’s perception. But not by much.
“Realistically, over the two games we played (Cruz Azul) in Champions Cup, they were the better team,” Rusnák said after training Wednesday. “They’re a fluid team. They’re really good with the ball, they’re hard to play without the ball. They’re aggressive. I don’t want to start comparing, but probably a similar type of game as Botafogo. It’s going to be high paced, a lot of tackles, a challenging game. But these are the games that we want to play.”
At stake in the Leagues Cup are automatic berths to the 2026 CCC tournament for the two teams that reach the final and the Leagues Cup winner advances to the CCC Round of 16. The winner of the third-place Leagues Cup match receives the final CCC berth.
But the path is drastically different from last year’s iteration of the tournament. The Sounders advanced out of the group-stage and lost to Los Angeles FC in the quarterfinals.
The new Leagues Cup format features all 18 teams from Mexico’s Liga MX, who’ll play all their tournament matches in the U.S. For MLS, only 18 clubs will participate due to the 30-team league limiting each to two North American tournaments to manage player workload.
FIFA tournaments don’t count, making the CCC and Leagues Cup the Sounders’ two North American competitions.
Liga MX and MLS agreed to pause their seasons for the Leagues Cup’s Phase One, which began Tuesday. The knockout rounds will be played midweek in-season with the final slated for Aug. 31.
In a twist from past seasons, Phase One consists of head-to-head matches between the leagues. After the Cruz Azul match, the Sounders will host Mexico’s Santos Laguna (Sunday) and Tijuana (Aug. 6).
Results won’t be stacked against each other; instead, it will be in an MLS-specific or Liga MX-specific table. The top four teams from each table will advance to the quarterfinals, meaning the Sounders must perform better in their Phase One matches than at least 14 other MLS clubs.
None of the MLS teams won their matches Tuesday. But instead of playing extra time to settle draws — of which there were three — the matches are decided by penalty shootouts.
“Our chances went up a little bit,” Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer quipped of MLS’ poor opening night showing.
The Sounders drew 0-0 against Cruz Azul at Lumen Field in March. But La Máquina (The Machine) didn’t play seven of their top players.
The second leg in Mexico City was a wreck with forward Jordan Morris (hamstring) and midfielder Paul Arriola (ACL) suffering injuries and the Sounders conceding one goal on a penalty.
Former Cruz Azul coach Vicente Sánchez utilized his best lineup for the 4-1 win.
Nicolás Larcamón took over the team in June and is off to a 1-0-2 start in the Apertura table. He’s expected to have stars in defender Willer Ditta and striker Ángel Sepúlveda against the Sounders. The latter won the CCC Golden Boot with nine goals.
Here’s a look at the match:
Sounders vs Cruz Azul
Time/place: 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Lumen Field in Seattle
TV: Apple TV+, FS1, UniMás and TUDN
Radio: El Rey 1360 AM (Spanish)
Series history: Cruz Azul leads the series 2-0-1 since 1996.
Home sweet home
True, the Sounders lost their three Club World Cup matches at Lumen last month, but the comforts of home have worked in MLS and CCC matches. Seattle has only lost once in league play (7-1-4) at Lumen this season and has scored nine goals in the stadium since the CWC tournament.
Penalties and infractions
Schmetzer ended Wednesday’s training session with a penalty shootout, splitting the squad in half. Center back Jackson Ragen ended up winning for his side and all the players broke into a penguin walk to celebrate.
The site gave Schmetzer confidence in his team’s chances if a match needs to be decided from the spot. Even when considering he’ll blend inexperienced players into the rotation to get the veterans some rest.
Tiebreakers within the standings could come down to yellow card accumulations and red cards. The Sounders have had a rash of those. Left back Nouhou leads the team with two red cards while Ragen leads with six yellow cards in MLS play.
Quotable
“The fact that it wasn’t that long ago, we’re going to face the same team, and they ended up winning the Champions Cup, that gives us a little bit more motivation,” Rusnák said of playing Cruz Azul. “A little bit more drive that we want to beat them even more, but I wouldn’t call it revenge. It wasn’t a reckless or dirty game, the two games that we played them. It was very competitive at a high level.”
