CARSON, Calif. – There will be no shortage of motivation for the New England Revolution and LA Galaxy in Sunday’s MLS Cup at StubHub Center (noon, ESPN, UniMas).
The Revolution, one of this season’s biggest success stories, are hoping to break a dubious streak in the final. They lost their previous four tries, including three consecutive between 2005 and 2007. The Galaxy are looking to become the first MLS team to win five titles as they make their ninth appearance in the final. They have won four times, including back-to-back championships in 2011 and 2012.
Sunday’s game will be an historic one anyway for the Galaxy, who will be bidding farewell to Landon Donovan. The 32-year-old announced his retirement earlier this season, and the Galaxy would like nothing better than to send him out a winner.
“It would be the perfect ending for him, to go out with a championship,” Galaxy midfielder Stefan Ishizaki said. “Obviously we want to win for him, but I think we’ve all been working together for 10, 11 months now, working every day in practice and battling our asses off.
“We’ve got one more game left and everyone wants to do everything they can to win it.”
Donovan, who became MLS’ all-time leader in assists and goals scored this season, said the reality of Sunday’s game started to hit him this week.
“It’s been a little different than the past few,” he admitted. “I didn’t know what was coming next; now I know. I’ve been very excited every day to wake up and go to training.
“Candidly I don’t want it to end. I personally want it to be as enjoyable as possible, and that would be winning. These guys deserve it and I want to help do that.”
New England head coach Jay Heaps said it was important for his players to ignore the implications of Sunday’s game on arguably this country’s greatest-ever soccer player and concentrate on their preparation.
“Our job is to focus on what we need to do,” he said. “Landon is an excellent player, a legend, and his legacy certainly will stand on its own. But for us we’re going into this game preparing ourselves and continuing to stick to our process and prepare for the game on Sunday.
“All of that other stuff is just noise. We have to focus on what we need to do.”
What the Revolution have been doing is winning. A lot. They finished the regular season as one of the league’s hottest teams and went 8-1-1 since the arrival of midfielder Jermaine Jones, fresh from an impressive stint with the U.S. national team at the World Cup, in August. They also defeated the Columbus Crew and New York Red Bulls in the playoffs after winning both opening legs of those two-game series on the road.
Sunday’s finalists met during the regular season on July 16 at StubHub Center, where the Galaxy earned a commanding 5-1 victory, but Galaxy players said that has no effect whatsoever on Sunday’s showdown.
“I don’t remember a thing about that game except for the score,” Galaxy defender A.J. DeLaGarza said with a grin. “They were on a five-game losing streak at that point. When they got Jermaine jones their season turned around.
“They’re a young, dangerous team. We know what they’re capable of and we have to be ready for that.”
The Galaxy’s Robbie Keane, named the league’s most valuable player earlier this week, said a title would be particularly gratifying.
“Of course, obviously it would be a great week personally and for the team,” he said of potentially winning his third MLS Cup in four seasons in Southern California. “It’s always nice to win awards, especially one given by fellow professionals and the media. But it wouldn’t mean as much to me if we didn’t win the championship on Sunday.
“Hopefully that will be the case.”
