You’re so vain you think this trophy is about you

Saturday is big. It’s probably the second biggest match of the year. At 1:30 PM PT the klieg lights of FOX shine on Lumen Field for an immense crowd celebrating the biggest trophy an American soccer club has ever won.

FOX booked the match ages ago. It’s against Portland, so of course it’s on broadcast TV. Big crowds show up for the Cascadia rivalry.

Then Seattle won the CCL. Due to weather, vacation days (three three-day weekends since winning The Trophy), and petty-ness the Seattle Sounders decided to raise the banner in the nationally televised match against Portland Timbers.

Sure, a bit of that is petty, but...

“And the fact that they’re honoring us by celebrating it in a game against us, where it’s been a fierce rivalry, I think only benefits the game in this country, and continues to grow the rivalry,” Portland GM Gavin Wilkinson said to MLS Soccer.

[record scratch]

And the fact that they’re honoring us

Wait, what!?

Honoring who?

The Timbers?

They don’t show up in the best records 2009 to present, nor 2011 to present. They don’t show up in trophy charts. They don’t show up in Best XIs or All Star Games or playoff wins or Concacaf Champions League performances (Portland never left the Group Stages when those were a thing and only has a single win in the knockouts).

This trophy, this banner?

It’s about us.

Seattle. Puget Sound. Washington.

A city and region that fills a stadium with 69,000 people for the biggest trophy in the land. The CCL title is about a team that grows and develops talent towards national teams and leagues better than MLS.

That trophy is about a man returning home and fulfilling his destiny. That trophy is about a man coming down from Alaska to be featured, not an afterthought. It’s about a kid with diabetes overcoming two ACL tears. It’s about Bheem and Xander.

The title is about thousands raising their voices and their lights as Nico silenced us into a roar of victory.

Our banner? It hangs for us, the club with a bond between player and fan. Our banner, to be featured on national television for two sports for eternity is about the Seattle Sounders Football Club, an organization that doesn’t miss the playoffs.

This is our Sound.
You will hear us.

This banner raising is about you, the Sounder at Heart.