The latest edition of Heineken Rivalry Week will wrap up on Sunday with three big matches: Montreal Impact vs. Toronto FC, LA Galaxy vs. San Jose Earthquakes, and the Seattle Sounders vs. Portland Timbers.
As some of the most bitter rivalries come to a head once again, we asked a fan from each side to weigh in on what the contest means to them. (Go here to read previous editions on the Texas Derby, the New York Derby, and the Rocky Mountain Cup). Here's what they had to say:
From a Montreal Impact fan...
The 401 Derby is one of the League’s most compelling rivalries. How could it not be, when it embodies a country’s entire history?
As one of only three Canadian teams in the league, the Impact represents Canada -- but as a team based in Montreal, Quebec’s largest city and cultural capital, they also represent la belle province and its people. It appears this fact wasn’t lost on the Impact’s brass, who ensured the fleur-de-lys appears everywhere throughout the Impact’s crest and colors.
The rivalry between the Impact and TFC, an extension of the everlasting mutual disdain between the cities of Montreal and Toronto, approximates the politically charged animosities more often found among Europe’s clubs, more than it does the geographical rivalries that have formed in MLS.
Even the name of the 401 Derby irks Impact fans as another example of Toronto’s center-of-the-universe complex. The derby is named for a highway that does not exist in Quebec, where the King’s Highway 401 becomes the Autoroute de Souvenir, named for Canada's veterans, at its border with Ontario.
While the competition on the field is fierce – last year’s conference final was truly a battle for the ages – this rivalry is but another manifestation of a much deeper cultural cleavage in Canadian society. It is the most recent conduit for the historical enmity that has existed between English and French Canadians since Canada’s formation, an acrimony poetically romanticized in Canadian literature as the “Two Solitudes."
Identity politics be damned, animosity towards Toronto, and in particular, its sports teams, is perhaps the one thing that unifies Quebecers of all stripes. Nietzsche once counseled that “the best weapon against an enemy is another enemy”, and this ridiculously-named derby allows us to express a unified identity that transcends our other internal divisions in a communal expression of belonging. The Stade Saputo is a place where all belong, regardless of what language you speak at home -- and while we may not agree on other things, the fact that we hate Toronto is something we will always have in common.
-- Elizabeth Cotignola
...And from a Toronto FC fan
The 401 Derby's recent history can probably be traced most neatly back to Oct. 30, 2015. I remember sitting in a bar near BMO Field the day Toronto FC lost their first playoff game ever. Devastation settled over the tables, a heavy, pointed silence; a dark cloud swallowing up our hope. For eight years many of us had waited for this chance, and in 90-plus minutes it was all over. The Impact had quashed our dream of our first home playoff game.
Barely more than a year later, in a slipstream state of excitement, BMO Field rocked with the victorious elation of our first Eastern Conference win, and with an epic comeback against our biggest rival, no less. In glory we shed the weight of the crushing defeat of our last playoff run, a near perfect antithesis to the previous season. Our glory is their detriment; the rivalry festers.
When we travel to support Toronto FC at Stade Saputo, we don't just play for three points, or to widen the gap at the top of the Eastern Conference standings. We play to relive the glory of dozens of victories before this -- between all Toronto and Montreal sports teams -- and for pride and bragging rights in defeating our greatest foe. And we play for our city. That's what this rivalry means to us.
-- Crissy Payne
The Montreal Impact host Toronto FC at 4:30 pm ET (ESPN and ESPN Deportes in US, TSN and TVAS in Canada).
From an LA Galaxy fan...
My first road trip as a Galaxy fan was in 2005 to San Jose for the first round of that years’ MLS Cup playoffs. I was hesitant to make the trip because of the infamous 5-4 San Jose comeback win over LA in the playoffs a couple years prior, but after some mild convincing, I was sold on the idea for the trip.
It was Landon Donovan’s first season with the Galaxy, and the animosity over the stolen player from San Jose fans was palpable in the stadium, along with the anxiety of the home squad coming into the match being down 3-1 on aggregate. Traveling LA fans chanted “Houston Earthquakes” as rumors were circulating of the San Jose franchise being moved to Houston the next season. The teams drew 1-1 that night, the Galaxy advanced to the Western Conference Final, and the Earthquakes franchise was moved to Houston the following year. [They later became the Houston Dynamo.]
When the Earthquakes franchise returned to the Bay Area in 2008, coincidentally their first game back was against the Galaxy. At that point, the appeal of the California Clasico had waned for me. The Galaxy had won the rivalry in my eyes; since that last game in 2005, the Galaxy had won MLS Cup and signed David Beckham.
But the years that followed were fun for the rivalry, including the “Bash Brothers” era and LA’s repeat runs to MLS Cup. The California Clasico had returned to something I could look forward to.
This year, winning is a lot harder to come by for the Galaxy, which is unfamiliar territory for me as a Galaxy fan. This year’s Clasico may be enough of a motivation for the Galaxy to be that push the team needs to regroup for a postseason push. It could also help the team regain the attention of fans who may have leaned toward apathy in the unfamiliar rough patches this season. If nothing else, a chance to see the team beat their northern rivals might be the lone bright spot in a difficult season for Galaxy fans.
-- Britt Jo
...And from a San Jose Earthquakes fan
When the Galaxy came to Avaya Stadium earlier this season, I quickly realized one undeniable bond I had with the Quakes fans I’ve disagreed with more often than not: We really hate LA. As someone originally from Oregon, hating LA runs through my blood.
It transcends across sports. Their fandom is obnoxious. No team from LA has ever lost a game; if they end up with fewer points on the night, it’s the ref’s fault and the league is out to get them. Off the field, they move to Portland in droves, can’t drive, are always whining about the rain, and telling everyone who will listen how much better LA is (while rejecting our polite offer to help them obtain a one-way ticket back to LA).
Would I feel the same way about NorCal if life had taken me to SoCal instead? Trick question! There’s no crazy scenario that would have dragged me that far south. Fog is better than smog and burritos are to be wrapped in foil, not yellow paper.
-- Brian Taylor
The LA Galaxy host the San Jose Earthquakes at 7 pm ET (FS1 and Fox Deportes in US, MLS LIVE in Canada).
From a Seattle Sounders fan...
When the Seattle Sounders play the Portscum Timbers, it’s not a battle for points. It is a battle for everything the team represents against the wicked fools who would claim false supremacy. It is running proof that my beloved Emerald City has the best coffee, the best mountain, and most certainly the best soccer team.
This win, more than any other, affirms the reasons why I scream at this particular band of boys until I’m hoarse, and rearrange my whole spring and summer around their schedule.
To me, the Sounders mean family. My dad took the Booster Bus from Seattle to Portland on May 2, 1975 to attend their infamous first match, and was squirted with mustard by a Timbers fan, cementing the bad blood in my ancestral history. My mom also let me “borrow” her 2009 season ticket seat until I eventually pushed her out.
The Sounders mean that you can start somewhere small and grow into something extraordinary. When I was 12 I tagged along to mid-1990s matches at Memorial Stadium, alongside a crowd that could comfortably fit in my middle school gym. And now, to witness an entire great American metropolis comes out to sing and cheer a team that started as a small idea and endured four decades of restarts and setbacks -- you don’t have to be in cleats to feel that victory.
-- Tabitha Blankenbiller
...And from a Portland Timbers fan
The away version of any Seattle/Portland game always both excites and terrifies me. It's exciting because, of course, Seattle is Portland's local rival, so it's a game that confers neighborhood bragging rights. And with the Sounders being both the reigning MLS Cup holders and playing very well right now, it's always fun to land a punch on the big kid on the block.
It's terrifying, though, because every time Portland goes to Seattle, that punch to the big kid on the block always ends up rebounding and punching us right square in the face. The Timbers don't win in Seattle, at least not in MLS regular season games. This will be the 10th regular-season matchup between the two at CenturyLink, and so far the Timbers have a grand total of two points from the nine previous matches there.
So the trepidation, or the fatalism, about the Timbers heading north is real. We do well when these two meet in Portland, for sure, so overall the rivalry evens out, at least from a result perspective. But this game isn't being played overall, it's being played in Seattle; as they say, we live in hope, right?
Anything is possible, and sports are all about optimism. So every time the Timbers go to Seattle, I think, “This might be the day!" Frustratingly, it almost never is, but every time the team goes there, there I am, like Charlie Brown running up at the football, thinking this will be the day it gets kicked, and gets kicked good. And someday, soon, it will, and that day will be a glorious day.
I grew up in Seattle, and I've lived in Portland for 15 years now and consider it home, so I've seen both sides of this rivalry up close. I'm confident I chose the proper shade of green, even with Portland's struggles up north, and I'm also confident that, to repurpose a Timbers Army chant a bit:
"We're gonna win up there
We're gonna win up there
I don't know how, I don't know when
we're gonna win up there."
-- Paul DeBruler
The Seattle Sounders host the Portland Timbers at 9:30 pm ET (FS1 and Fox Deportes in US, MLS LIVE in Canada).
